The State of the Churches

WHAT HAS COME?

Dr. Cumming says: SOC 5.10

“I believe that one-half of the professors of the gospel are nothing better than practical infidels.”—Time of the End, p. 183. SOC 5.11

Henry Ward Beecher says: SOC 5.12

“Thousands of men in good and regular standing in evangelical churches are giving no evidence of piety, are living in open sin, or in practices in business and in public affairs irreconcilably. I cannot ask such persons to the Lord’s table just because they are regular members of a church.” SOC 5.13

Again he says: SOC 6.1

“Gentility has nearly killed our churches.” SOC 6.2

Prof. Finney, of Oberlin College, says: SOC 6.3

“Spiritual apathy is almost all-pervading, and is fearfully deep; so the religious press of the whole land testifies. It comes to our ears and to our eyes, also through the religious prints, that very extensively church members are becoming devotees of fashion—join hands with the ungodly in parties of pleasure, in dancing, in festivities, etc. But we need not expand this painful subject. Suffice it that the evidence thickens and rolls heavily upon us, to show that the churches are becoming sadly degenerate. They have gone very far from the Lord and he has withdrawn himself from them.” SOC 6.4

The Christian Palladium says: SOC 6.5

“In every direction we hear the dolorous sound, wafting upon every breeze of Heaven, chilling as the blasts from the icebergs of the north—settling like an incubus on the breasts of the timid, and drinking up the energies of the weak; that lukewarmness, division, anarchy, and desolation are distressing the borders of Zion.” SOC 6.6

A Methodist journal says: SOC 6.7

“Home religion among the Methodists is no longer what it once was. Family praise is almost wholly abandoned. Twenty-five years ago, a Methodist family might be known in any neighborhood by the morning and evening song of praise, in which father, mother and children took part. Whoever hears such a thing now?” SOC 6.8

Dr. A. Barnes remarks that, SOC 6.9

“With the increase of business, and the brightening prospects of commerce and manufactures, there is an increase of worldly-mindedness. Thus it is with all denominations.” SOC 6.10

The Religions Telescope, of Cireleville, Ohio, in 1844, contained the following: SOC 6.11

“Great spiritual, dearth.—It is a lamentable fact, from which we cannot shut our eyes, that the churches of this country are now suffering severely on account of the great dearth, almost universally complained of. We have never witnessed such a general declension of religion as at the present.” SOC 7.1

Robert Atkins, in a sermon preached in London, says: SOC 7.2

“The truly righteous are diminished from the earth, and no man layeth it to heart. The professors of religion of the present day in every church are lovers of the world, conformers to the world, lovers of creature-comfort, and aspirers after respectability. They are called to suffer with Christ, but they shrink from even reproach. SOC 7.3

“Apostasy, apostasy, apostasy, is engraven on the very front of every church; and did they know it, and did they feel it, there might be hope; but, alas! they cry, ‘We are rich, and increased in goods, and stand in need of nothing.’” SOC 7.4

Mr. O. Scott (Wesleyan Methodist), says: SOC 7.5

“The church is as deeply infected with a desire for worldly gain as the world. SOC 7.6

“The churches are making a god of this world. SOC 7.7

“Most of the denominations of the present day might be called churches of the world with more propriety than churches of Christ.” SOC 7.8

The Genese Evangelist says: SOC 7.9

“Our Zion is in a state of mourning. The Holy Spirit has not visited us as in former years, and we have great cause for deep humiliation, in view of the sins and worldliness and spiritual indifference of most of our churches.” SOC 7.10

Mr. Spurgeon says: SOC 7.11

“Reflecting the other day upon the sad state of the churches at the present moment, I was led to look back to apostolic times, and to consider wherein the preaching of the present day differed from the apostles.” SOC 7.12

The report of the Michigan Yearly Conference, published in the True Wesleyan of Nov. 15, 1851, says: SOC 7.13

“The world, commercial, political, and ecclesiastical, are alike and are together going in the broad way that leads to death. Politics, commerce, and nominal religion, all connive at sin, reciprocally aid each other, and unite to crush the poor. Falsehood is unblushingly uttered in the forum and in the pulpit, and sins that would shock the moral sensibilities of the heathen go unrebuked in all the great denominations of our land.” These churches are like the Jewish church when the Saviour exclaimed, ‘Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” SOC 7.14

The following extract is from an address before the Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.: SOC 8.1

“I think no man can go with his thoughts about him into one of our churches without feeling that what hold the public worship had on men is gone or going. It has lost its grasp on the affections of the good, and the fear of the bad. It is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from religious meetings. I have heard a devout person, who prized the Sabbath, say in bitterness of heart, ‘On Sundays it seems wicked to go to church.’ And the motive that holds the best there is now only a hope, and a waiting.” SOC 8.2

Prof. S. C. Bartlett, of Chicago, in the N. Y. Independent, says: SOC 8.3

“Religion now is in a different position from Methodism then. To a certain extent it is a very reputable thing. Christianity is, in our day, something of a success. Men “speak well of it.” Ex-presidents and statesmen have been willing to round off their career with a recognition of its claims. And the popularity of religion tends vastly to increase increase the number of those who would secure its benefits without squarely meeting its duties. The church courts the world, and the world caresses the church. The line of separation between the godly and the irreligious fades out into a kind of penumbra, and zealous men on both sides are toiling to obliterate all difference between their modes of action and enjoyment.” SOC 8.4

If the church is the “light of the world,” and the “salt of the earth,” and their light is gone out, or put under a bushel, and the salt has lost its savor, a fearful result will follow, and the fruit will be seen in the world. It is therefore in order to inquire after SOC 8.5