BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT.

HER CONFUSION—ECCLESIASTICAL

The True Church, Known unto the Lord, has no Share in the Judgments   of Babylon—The Religious Situation of Christendom Presents no   Hopeful Contrast to the Political Situation—The Great Confusion—The Responsibility of Conducting the Defense Devolves upon the   Clergy—The Spirit of the Great Reformation Dead—Priests and   People in the Same Situation—The Charges Preferred—The Defense—A Confederacy Proposed—The End Sought—The Means Adopted—The   General Spirit of Compromise—The Judgment Going Against the Religious   Institutions of Christendom.

             “And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.” Luke 19:22

               While we here consider the present judgment of the great nominal Christian church, let us not forget that there is also a real Church of Christ, elect, precious; consecrated to God and to his truth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. They are not known to the world as a compact body; but as individuals they are known unto the Lord who judges not merely by the sight of the eye and the hearing of the ear, but who discerns and judges the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And, however widely they may be scattered, whether standing alone as “wheat,” in the midst of “tares,” or in company with others, God’s eye is always upon them.  They, dwelling in the secret place of the Most High (sanctified, wholly set apart unto God), shall abide D_page 158 under the shadow of the Almighty, while the judgments of the Lord are experienced by the great religious systems that bear his name in unfaithfulness. (Psa. 91:1,14-16)  These have no share in the judgment of great Babylon, but are previously enlightened and called out of her. (Rev. 18:4) This class is described and blessedly comforted in Psalms 91 and 46. In the midst of much merely formal and sham profession of godliness, the Lord’s watchful eye discerns the true, and he leads them into the green pastures and beside the still waters, and makes their hearts rejoice in his truth and in his love.  “The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim. 2:19); they constitute the true Church in his estimation, the Zion which the Lord hath chosen (Psa. 132:13-16), and of whom it is written, “Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, because of thy judgments, O Lord.” (Psa. 97:8)  The Lord will safely lead them as a shepherd leads his sheep.  But while we bear in mind that there is such a class—a true Church, every member of which is known and dear to the Lord, whether known or unknown to us, these must be ignored here in considering what professes to be, and what the world recognizes as, the church, and what the prophets refer to under many significant names which designate the great nominal church fallen from grace, and in noting the judgment of God upon her in this harvest time of the Gospel age. 

            If the civil powers of Christendom are in perplexity, and distress of nations is everywhere manifest, the religious situation surely presents no hopeful contrast of peace and security; for modern ecclesiasticism, like the nations, is ensnared in the net of its own weaving.  If the nations, having sown to the wind the seeds of unrighteousness, are about to reap an abundant harvest in a whirlwind of affliction, the great nominal church, ecclesiastical Christendom, which has shared in the sowing, shall also share in the reaping.

D_page 159

            The great nominal church has long taught for doctrines the precepts of men; and, ignoring in great measure the Word of God as the only rule of faith and godly living, it has boldly announced many conflicting and God-dishonoring doctrines, and has been unfaithful to the measure of truth retained.  It has failed to cultivate and manifest the spirit of Christ, and has freely imbibed the spirit of the world.  It has let down the bars of the sheepfold and called in the goats, and has even encouraged the wolves to enter and do their wicked work.  It has been pleased to let the devil sow tares amongst the wheat, and now rejoices in the fruit of his sowing—in the flourishing field of tares.  Of the comparatively few heads of “wheat” that still remain there is little appreciation, and there is almost no effort to prevent their being choked by the “tares.”  The “wheat” has lost its value in the markets of Christendom, and the humble, faithful child of God finds himself, like his Lord, despised and rejected of men, and wounded in the house of his supposed friends.  Forms of godliness take the place of its power, and showy rituals largely supplant heart-worship. 

            Long ago conflicting doctrines divided the church nominal into numerous antagonistic sects, each claiming to be the one true church which the Lord and the apostles planted, and together they have succeeded in giving to the world such a distorted misrepresentation of our Heavenly Father’s character and plan, that many intelligent men turn away with disgust, and despise their Creator, and even try to disbelieve his existence. 

—————

*Vol. II, Chapter 9 and Vol. III, Chapter 3. 

            To build up and perpetuate these erroneous doctrinal systems of what they are pleased to call “Systematic Theology,” time and talent have been freely given.  Their learned men have written massive volumes for other men to study instead of the Word of God; for this purpose theological seminaries have been established and generously endowed; and from these, young men, instructed in their errors, have gone out to teach and to confirm the people in them.  And the people, taught to regard these men as God’s appointed ministers, successors of the apostles, have accepted their dictum without searching the Scriptures as did the noble Bereans in Paul’s day (Acts 17:11), to see if the things taught them were so. 

            But now the harvest of all this sowing has come, the day of reckoning is here, and great is the confusion and perplexity of the whole nominal church of every denomination, and particularly of the clergy, upon whom devolves the responsibility of conducting the defense in this day of judgment in the presence of many accusers and witnesses, and, if possible, of devising some remedy to save from complete destruction what they regard as the true church.  Yet in their present confusion, and in the desire of all the sects from reasons of policy to fellowship one another, they have each almost ceased to regard their own particular sect as the only true church, and now speak of each other as various “branches” of the one church, notwithstanding their contradictory creeds, which of necessity cannot all be true. 

            What an endorsement, not only of the spirit of extravagant display, but also of the image worship of the church of Rome!  Note, too, the arrangements in connection with some churches of billiard rooms; and some ministers have even gone so far as to recommend the introduction of light wines; and private theatricals and plays are freely indulged in in some localities. 

The Charges Preferred Against Ecclesiasticism

             The charges preferred against the nominal Christian church are the sentiments of the waking world and of waking Christians, both in the midst of Babylon and beyond her territorial limits.  Suddenly, within the last five years particularly, the professed Christian church has come into great prominence for criticism, and the scrutinizing gaze of the whole world is turned upon her.  This criticism is so prevalent that none can fail to hear it; it is in the very air; it is heard in private conversation, on the streets, the railways, in the workshops and stores; it floats through the daily press and is a live topic in all the leading journals, secular and religious.  It is recognized by all the leaders in the church as a matter that portends no good to her institutions; and the necessity is felt of meeting it promptly and wisely (according to their own ideas), if they would preserve their institutions from the danger which threatens them. 

                “I would that this unfortunate controversy about the confession of faith had not been forced upon the church; but now, since it is on, I say, Away with it, and let us have a new creed.”

             On another occasion the same gentleman said:

                “I declare, once for all, that all this controversy throughout Christendom is diabolic and satanical.  A most diabolical attempt is going on to split the church; and if it is not stopped it will gain for the Bible a contempt equal to that for an 1828 almanac that tells what the weather was six months before and in what quarter of the moon it is best to plant turnips.

               “What position shall we take in regard to these controversies? Stay out of them.  While these religious riots are abroad, stay at home and attend to business.  Why, how do you expect a man only five or six feet high to wade through an ocean a thousand feet deep?...The young men now entering the ministry are being launched into the thickest fog that ever beset a coast.  The questions the doctors are trying to settle won’t be settled until the day after judgment day.”

             Very true; the day after this judgment day will see all these perplexing questions settled, and truth and righteousness established in the earth. 

                “Resolved, That we regard with sorrow the controversies now distracting our beloved church as injurious to her reputation, her influence and her usefulness, and as fraught, if pursued, with disaster, not only to the work of our own church, but to our common Christianity.  We therefore earnestly counsel our brethren that on the one side they avoid applying new tests of orthodoxy, the harsh use of power and the repression of honest and devout search for truth; and on the other side we urgently advise our brethren against the repetition upon the church of unverified theories, the questions of doubtful disputation, and especially where they have, or under any circumstances might have, a tendency to unsettle the faith of the unlearned in the Holy Scriptures.  For the sake of our church and all her precious interests and activities we earnestly request a truce and the cessation of ecclesiastical litigation.”

             The Presbyterian Banner also published the following doleful reference to it, which contains some remarkable admissions of the unhealthy spiritual condition of the Presbyterian church.  It reads:

                “A disturbance or alarm in a hospital or asylum might prove fatal to some of its inmates.  An elderly gentleman in a benevolent institution amused himself awhile by beating a drum before sunrise.  The authorities finally requested this ‘lovely brother’ to remove his instrument to a respectful distance. This illustrates why earnest pastors grow serious when a disturbance arises in the church.  The church is like a hospital where are gathered sin-sick persons who, in a spiritual sense, are fevered, leprous, paralytic, wounded and half dead.  A disturbance, like the present cruel distraction which emanates from some Theological Seminaries, may destroy some souls who are now passing through a crisis.  Will Prof. Briggs please walk softly and remove his drum?”

             The church nominal is charged (2) with a marked lack of D_page 167 that piety and godliness which she professes, though the fact is admitted that a few truly pious souls are found here and there among the obscure ones.  Sham and hypocrisy are indeed obtrusive, and wealth and arrogance make very manifest that the poor are not welcome in the earthly temples erected in the name of Christ.  The masses of the people have found this out, and have been looking into their Bibles to see if such was the spirit of the great Founder of the church; and there they have learned that one of the proofs which he gave of his Messiahship was that “the poor had the gospel preached unto them”; that he said to his followers, “The poor ye have always with you”; and that they were to show no preferences for the man with the gold ring or the goodly apparel, etc.  They have found the golden rule, too, and have been applying it to the conduct of the church, collectively and individually.  Thus, in the light of the Bible, they are fast arriving at the conclusion that the church is fallen from grace.  And so manifest is the conclusion, that her defenders find themselves covered with confusion. 

            The church nominal is charged (3) with failure to accomplish what she has claimed to be her mission; viz., to convert the world to Christianity.  How the world has discovered that the time has come when the work of the church should show some signs of completion seems unaccountable; but nevertheless, just as in the end of the Jewish age all men were in expectation of some great change about to take place (Luke 3:15), so now, in the end of the Gospel age, all men are in similar expectation.  They realize that we are in a transition period, and the horoscope of the 20th Century is full of terrors and premonitions of great revolutionary changes.  The present unrest was forcefully expressed by Hon. Henry Grady, in an eloquent address before the University Societies, Charlottesville, Va. D_page 168

            His words were: “We are standing in the daybreak... The fixed stars are fading from the sky and we are groping in uncertain light.  Strange shapes have come with the night.  Established ways are lost, new roads perplex, and widening fields stretch beyond the sight.  The unrest of dawn impels us to and fro; but Doubt stalks amid the confusion, and even on the beaten paths the shifting crowds are halted, and from the shadows the sentries cry, ‘Who comes there?’ in the obscurity of the morning tremendous forces are at work.  Nothing is steadfast or approved.  The miracles of the present belie the simple truths of the past.  The church is besieged from without and betrayed from within.  Behind the courts smoulders the rioter’s torch and looms the gibbet of the anarchists.  Government is the contention of partisans and the prey of spoilsmen.  Trade is restless in the grasp of monopoly, and commerce shackled with limitation.  The cities are swollen, and the fields are stripped.  Splendor streams from the castle, and squalor crouches in the home. The universal brotherhood is dissolving, and the people are huddling into classes.  The hiss of the Nihilist disturbs the covert, and the roar of the mob murmurs along the highway.”

            For the church to deny that the end of the age, the day of reckoning, has come, is impossible; for whether she discerns the time in the light of prophecy or not, the facts of judgment are forced upon her, and the issue will be realized before the close of this harvest period.

 Ecclestiasticism Takes the Stand and Indirectly

Renders Up Her Account

             The church knows that the eyes of all the world are turned upon her; that somehow it has been discovered that, while she has claimed her commission to be to convert the world, the time has arrived when, if that be her mission, that work should be almost, if not fully, accomplished, and that really she differs little from the world, except in profession. D_page 169

             Having assumed this to be her present mission, she has lost sight of the real purpose of this Gospel age; viz., to “preach this gospel of the Kingdom in all the world for a witness to all nations,” and to aid in the calling and preparing of a “little flock” to constitute (with the Lord) that Millennial Kingdom which shall then bless all the families of the earth. (Matt. 24:14; Acts 15:14-17)  She is confronted with the fact that after eighteen centuries she is further from the results which her claims would demand than she was at the close of the first century.  Consequently apologies, excuses, a figuring over and re-examining of accounts, the re-dressing of facts, and extravagant prognostications of great achievements in the very near future, are now the order of the day, as, forced by the spirit of inquiry and cross-questioning of these times, she endeavors to speak in self-defense before her numerous accusers. 

            To meet the charge of inconsistency of doctrine with her recognized standard, the Bible, we see her in great perplexity; for she cannot deny the conflict of her creeds.  So, various methods are resorted to, which thinking people are not slow to mark as evidences of her great confusion.  There is much anxiety on the part of each denomination to hold on to the old creeds because they are the cords by which they have been bound together in distinct organizations; and to destroy these suddenly would be to dissolve the organizations; yet the clergy specially are quite content to say as little about them as possible, for they are heartily ashamed of them in the searching light of this day of judgment. 

            The charge of lack of piety and godly living is also met with boastings—boasting of “many wonderful works,” which often suggest the reproving words of the Lord recorded in Matt. 7:22,23.  But these boastings avail very little to the interests of Babylon, because the lack of the spirit of God’s law of love is, alas! too painfully manifest to be concealed.  The defense, on the whole, only makes the more manifest the deplorable condition of the fallen church.  If this great ecclesiasticism were really the true Church of God, how manifest would be the failure of the divine plan to choose out a people for his name! 

            Consequently all the sects favor union; but how to accomplish it in view of their conflicting creeds, is the perplexing problem.  Various methods are suggested.  One is to endeavor first to unite those sects which are most alike in doctrine, as, for instance, the various branches of the same families—Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc.—preparatory to the proposed larger union.  Another is to cultivate in the people a desire for union, and a disposition to ignore doctrine, and to extend a generous fellowship to all morally disposed people and seek their cooperation in what they call Christian work.  This sentiment finds its most earnest supporters among the young and middle-aged. 

            True to their erroneous, unscriptural views, these plan a “social uplift of the world,” to take place at once.  It is commendable that their efforts are not for evil, but for good. Their great mistake is in pursuing their own plans, which however benevolent or wise in human estimation, must of necessity fall short of the divine wisdom and the divine plan, which alone will be crowned with success.  All others are doomed to failure.  It would be greatly to the blessing of the true ones among them if they could see the divine plan; viz., the selection (“election”) of a sanctified “little flock” now, and by and by the world’s uplift by that little flock when complete and highly exalted and reigning with Christ as his Millennial Kingdom joint-heirs.  Could they see this, it would or should have the effect of sanctifying all the true ones among them—though of course this would be a small minority; for the majority who join such societies evidently do so for various reasons other than entire consecration and devotion to God and his service—“even unto death.” 

            Hence the union or confederacy proposed and sought, being one which ignores Bible doctrine, but holds firmly to human doctrines respecting eternal torment, natural immortality, etc., and which is dominated merely by human judgment as to object and methods, is the most dangerous thing that could happen.  It is sure to run into extreme error, because it rejects the “doctrines of Christ” and “the wisdom from above,” and instead relies upon the wisdom of its own wise men; which is foolishness when opposed to the divine counsel and methods.  “The wisdom of their wise men shall perish.” Isa. 29:14 

            Then, too, there are many ideas set afloat by progressive (?) clergymen and others as to what should be the character and mission of the church in the near future, their proposition being to bring it down, even closer than at present, to the ideas of the world.  Its work, it appears, is to be to draw the unregenerate world into it and to secure a liberal financial patronage; and to do this entertainment and pleasure must be provided.  What true Christian has not been shocked by the tendencies in this direction, both as he observes them at home and reads of them elsewhere.

D_page 174

             What stronger evidence could we have of the decline of real godliness than the following, from the pen of a Methodist clergyman, and published in a Methodist journal—The Northwestern Christian Advocate—and called by the Editor a “friendly satire on existing Methodist conditions,” thus admitting the conditions.  Whether meant as an endorsement, or as a satire, it matters not; facts are facts by whomsoever told, though doubly forcible when in the nature of a confession by an interested minister in his own church journal.  We give the article entire as follows, the italics being ours:

 “Some Features of American Methodism"

                “The revival of religion in the eighteenth century under the leadership of the Wesleys and Whitefield purified the moral tone of the Anglo-Saxon race and put in operation new forces for the elevation of the unevangelized.  Secular historians, both English and American, have united in crediting the movement originated by these remarkable men with much in modern church machinery and statement of doctrine which tends to spread and plant our civilization. The doctrine of ‘free will’ preached by them and their successors has, with the evolution of modern experiments in secular government, been one of the most popular dogmas engaging the thoughts of men.  Among our American fore-fathers this doctrine was peculiarly contagious. Throwing off the yoke of kings, and disgusted with a nationalized and priest-ridden church, what could be more enchanting and more in harmony with their political aspirations than the doctrine that every man is free to make or mar his own destiny here and hereafter?

               “Another reason for the phenomenal success of Methodism in this country is to be found in the fact that to its simple, popular service the common people were gladly welcomed.  Only those who have been untrained in ritual can appreciate this apparently insignificant but really very important fact.  To know that you may enter a church where you can take part in the service without the risk of displaying your ignorance of form and ceremonies is of greatest concern if you have no desire to make yourself conspicuous. Thus the plain, unstudied service of the early American Methodist church was exactly suited to the people who had but lately abandoned the pomp of Old World religions.  Lawn sleeves, holy hats, diadems, crowns and robes were repugnant to their rough and simple tastes. The religion that taught them that they could make their appeals to the Almighty without an intermediator of any kind emphasized the dignity and greatness of their manhood and appealed to their love of independence.

               “The marked triumphs of this church may also be attributed in part to the fact that she had not then laid down the Master’s whip of small cords.  There was in those early days, from time to time, a cleansing of the church from pretenders and the unworthy which had a most wholesome effect, not only on the church itself, but also upon the surrounding community.  For after the storms which often accompanied the ‘turning out’ of the faithless, the moral atmosphere of the whole neighborhood would be purified, and even the scoffer would see that church-membership meant something.

               “No mean part in achieving her commanding position in this country was played by the singing of the old-time Methodists.  Serious, sensible words, full of doctrine, joined to tunes that still live and rule, there was in such singing not only a musical attraction, but a theological training whereby the people, uncouth though they might have been, were indoctrinated in the cardinal tenets of the church.  The singing of a truth into the soul of child or man puts it there with a much more abiding power than can be found in any Kindergarten or Quincy method of instruction.  Thus, without debate, doctrines were fixed in the minds of children or of converts so that no subsequent controversy could shake them.  It remains now to show that

“These Elements of Success Have Become Antiquated,   

and That a New Standard of Success Has Been Set Up in

the Methodist Episcopal Church

               “Let me not assume the role of boaster, but rather be the annalist of open facts, a reciter of recent history.  So far as the standard of doctrine is concerned, there is no change in the position held by the church, but the tone and spirit which obtain in almost all her affairs show at once the presence of modern progress and light-giving innovations.  The temper and complexion of this mighty church have so far changed that all who are interested in the religious welfare of America must study that change with no common concern.

               “The doctrine of the new birth—‘Ye must be born again’—remains intact, but modern progress has moved the church away from the old-time strictness that prevented many good people from entering her fold, because they could not subscribe to that doctrine, and because they never had what once was called ‘experimental religion.’ Now Universalists and Unitarians are often found in full fellowship bravely doing their duty.

               “The old-time, simple service still lingers among the rural populations, but in those cultured circles, where correct tastes in music, art and literature obtain—among the city churches—in many instances an elaborate and elegant ritual takes the place of the voluntary and impetuous praying and shouting which once characterized the fathers.  To challenge the desirability of this change is to question the superiority of culture to the uncouth and ill-bred.

               “When the church was in an experimental stage, it possibly might have been wise to be as strict as her leaders then were.  There was little to be lost then.  But now wise, discreet and prudent men refuse to hazard the welfare of a wealthy and influential church by a bigoted administration of the law, such as will offend the rich and intellectual.  If the people are not flexible, the gospel surely is.  The church was made to save men, not to turn them out and discourage them.  So our broader and modern ideas have crowded out and overgrown the contracted and egotistical notion that we are better than other people, who should be excluded from our fellowship.

               “The love-feast, with its dogmatic prejudices, and the class-meeting, which was to many minds almost as bad as the confessional, have been largely abandoned for Epworth Leagues and Endeavor Societies.

               “The present cultured ministry, more than ever in the history of the church, conforms to the Master’s injunction to be ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves.’  Who among them would have the folly of the old-time preachers to tell his richest official member who is rolling in luxury to sell all for God and humanity and take up his cross and follow Christ?  He might go away sorrowing—the minister, I mean.

               “The ‘time limit,’ whereby a minister may remain in one charge five years, will be abandoned at the next General Conference in 1896.  In the beginning he could serve one charge but six months; the time was afterward extended to one year, then to two years, then to three, and lately to five. But the ruling, cultured circles of the church see that if her social success and standing are to compare favorably with other churches, her pastorate must be fixed so that her strong preachers may become the centers of social and literary circles.  For it must be remembered that the preacher’s business is not now as it often was—to hold protracted meetings and be an evangelist. No one sees this more clearly than the preachers themselves. Great revivalists used to be the desirable preachers sought after by the churches, and at the annual conferences the preachers were wont to report the number of conversions during the year.  Now, however, a less enthusiastic and eccentric idea rules people and priest alike.  The greater churches desire those ministers that can feed the aesthetic nature, that can parry the blows of modern skepticism and attract the intellectual and polished, while at the annual conference the emphasized thing in the report of the preacher is his missionary collection.  The modern Methodist preacher is an excellent collector of money, thereby entering the very heart of his people as he could not by any old-fashioned exhortation or appeal.

               “How great the lesson that has been so well learned by these leaders of Christian thought; viz., that the gospel should never offend the cultured and polite taste.  To a church that can so flexibly conform to the times the gates of the future open wide with a cheery greeting.  What more fitting motto can be found for her than the herald angels sang: ‘Peace on earth, good will to men.’  Rev. Chas. A. Crane.”

             The following, by Bishop R. S. Foster, of the M. E. Church, we clip from the Gospel Trumpet.  It bears the same testimony, though in different language; a little too plainly perhaps for some, as the bishop has since been retired against his wish and despite his tears. D_page 179

 Bishop Foster Said:

               “The church of God is today courting the world.  Its members are trying to bring it down to the level of the ungodly. The ball, the theater, nude and lewd art, social luxuries, with all their loose moralities, are making inroads into the secret enclosure of the church; and as a satisfaction for all this worldliness, Christians are making a great deal of Lent and Easter and Good Friday and church ornamentations. It is the old trick of Satan.  The Jewish church struck on that rock; the Romish church was wrecked on the same, and the Protestant church is fast reaching the same doom.

               “Our great dangers, as we see them, are assimilation to the world, neglect of the poor, substitution of the form for the fact of godliness, abandonment of discipline, a hireling ministry, an impure gospel—which, summed up, is a fashionable church.  That Methodists should be liable to such an outcome and that there should be signs of it in a hundred years from the ‘sail loft’ seems almost the miracle of history; but who that looks about him today can fail to see the fact?

               “Do not Methodists, in violation of God’s Word and their own discipline, dress as extravagantly and as fashionably as any other class?  Do not the ladies, and often the wives and daughters of the ministry, put on ‘gold and pearls and costly array?’  Would not the plain dress insisted upon by John Wesley, Bishop Asbury, and worn by Hester Ann Rogers, Lady Huntington, and many others equally distinguished, be now regarded in Methodist circles as fanaticism? Can any one going into the Methodist church in any of our chief cities distinguish the attire of the communicants from that of the theater or ball goers?  Is not worldliness seen in the music?  Elaborately dressed and ornamented choirs, who in many cases make no profession of religion and are often sneering skeptics, go through a cold artistic or operatic performance, which is as much in harmony with spiritual worship as an opera or theater.  Under such worldly performance spirituality is frozen to death.

               “Worldly socials, fairs, festivals, concerts and such like have taken the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class and prayer meetings of earlier days.

               “How true that the Methodist discipline is a dead letter. Its rules forbid the wearing of gold or pearls or costly array; yet no one ever thinks of disciplining its members for violating them.  They forbid the reading of such books and the taking of such diversions as do not minister to godliness, yet the church itself goes to shows and frolics and festivals and fairs, which destroy the spiritual life of the young as well as the old.  The extent to which this is now carried on is appalling.

               “The early Methodist ministers went forth to sacrifice and suffer for Christ.  They sought not places of affluence and ease, but of privation and suffering.  They gloried not in their big salaries, fine parsonages and refined congregations, but in the souls that had been won for Jesus.  Oh, how changed!  A hireling ministry will be a feeble, timid, truckling, time-serving ministry, without faith, endurance and holy power.  Methodism formerly dealt in the great central truth.  Now the pulpits deal largely in generalities and in popular lectures.  The glorious doctrine of entire sanctification is rarely heard and seldom witnessed in the pulpits.”

            Rev. J. H. Barrows, D. D., the leading spirit of the (Chicago) World’s Parliament of Religions, while engaged in promoting its extension, was reported by a San Francisco journal as having expressed himself to its representative with reference to his special work of bringing about religious unity, as follows:

                “The union of the religions,” he said in brief, “will come about in one of two ways.  First, those churches which are most nearly on common ground of faith and doctrine must unite—the various branches of Methodism and Presbyterianism, for instance.  Then when the sects are united among themselves Protestantism in general will draw together. In the progress of education Catholics and Protestants will discover that the differences between them are not really cardinal, and will broach reunion.  This accomplished, the union with other different religions [that is, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Brahminism, Confucianism, etc.—heathen religions] is only a question of time.

The Great Parliament of Religions

            The Chicago Herald, commenting favorably upon the proceedings of the Parliament (italics are ours), said:

                “Never since the confusion at Babel have so many religions, so many creeds, stood side by side, hand in hand, and almost heart to heart, as in that great amphitheater last night.  Never since written history began has varied mankind been so bound about with Love’s golden chain.  The nations of the earth, the creeds of Christendom, Buddhist and Baptist, Mohammedan and Methodist, Catholic and Confucian, Brahmin and Unitarian, Shinto and Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Pantheist, Monotheist and Polytheist, representing all shades of thought and conditions of men, have at last met together in the common bonds of sympathy, humanity and respect.”

             How significant is the fact that the mind of even this enthusiastic approver of the great Parliament should be carried away back to the memorable confusion of tongues at Babel!  Was it not, indeed, that instinctively he recognized in the Parliament a remarkable antitype? 

            The Rev. Barrows, above quoted, spoke enthusiastically of the friendly relations manifested among Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis and, in fact, the leaders of all religions extant, by their correspondence in reference to the great Chicago Parliament.  He said:

             Rev. T. Chalmers, of the Disciples church, said:

                “This first Parliament of Religions seems to be the harbinger of a still larger fraternity—a fraternity that will combine into one world-religion what is best, not in one alone, but in all of the great historic faiths.  It may be that, under the guidance of this larger hope, we shall need to revise our phraseology and speak more of Religious unity, than of Christian unity.  I rejoice that all the great cults are to be brought into touch with each other, and that Jesus will take his place in the companionship of Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster.”

             The New York Sun, in an editorial on this subject, said:

                “We cannot make out exactly what the Parliament proposes to accomplish...It is possible, however, that the Chicago scheme is to get up some sort of a new and compound religion, which shall include and satisfy every variety of religious and irreligious opinion.  It is a big job to get up a new and eclectic religion satisfactory all around; but Chicago is confident.”

             It would indeed be strange if the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world would suddenly prove to be in harmony, that those filled with the opposite spirits should see eye to eye.  But such is not the case.  It is still true that the spirit of the world is enmity to God (James 4:4); that its theories and philosophies are vain and foolish; and that the one divine revelation contained in the inspired Scriptures of the apostles and prophets is the only divinely inspired truth.

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             One of the stated objects of the Parliament, according to its president, Mr. Bonney, was to bring together the world’s religions in an assembly “in which their common aims and common grounds of union may be set forth, and the marvelous religious progress of the nineteenth century be reviewed.” 

            Rev. Barrows had for two years previous been in correspondence with the representative heathen of other lands, sending the Macedonian cry around the world to all its heathen priests and apostles, to “Come over and help us!” That the call should thus issue representatively from the Presbyterian church, which for several years past had been undergoing a fiery ordeal of judgment, was also a fact significant of the confusion and unrest which prevail in that denomination, and in all Christendom.  And all Christendom was ready for the great convocation. 

            For seventeen days representative Christians of all denominations, sat together in counsel with the representatives of all the various heathen religions, who were repeatedly referred to in a complimentary way by the Christian orators as “wise men from the east”—borrowing the expression from the Scriptures, where it was applied to a very different class—to a few devout believers in the God of Israel and in the prophets of Israel who foretold the advent of Jehovah’s Anointed, and who were patiently waiting and watching for his coming, and giving no heed to the seducing spirits of worldly wisdom which knew not God.  To such truly wise ones, humble though they were, God revealed his blessed message of peace and hope. 

            The theme announced for the last day of the Parliament was “The Religious Union of the Whole Human Family”; when would be considered “The elements of perfect religion as recognized and set forth in the different faiths,” with a view to determining “the characteristics of the ultimate religion” and “the center of the coming religious unity of mankind.” 

            Is it possible that thus, by their own confession, Christian (?) ministers are unable, at this late day, to determine what D_page 186  should be the center of religious unity, or the characteristics of perfect religion?  Are they indeed so anxious for a “world-religion” that they are willing to sacrifice any or all of the principles of true Christianity, and even the name “Christian,” if necessary, to obtain it?  Even so, they confess.  “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked and slothful servant,” saith the Lord.  The preceding days of the conference were devoted to the setting forth of the various religions by their respective representatives. 

            The scheme was a bold and hazardous one, but it should have opened the eyes of every true child of God to several facts that were very manifest; namely: (1) that the nominal Christian church has reached its last extremity of hope in its ability to stand, under the searching judgments of this day when “the Lord hath a controversy with his people,” nominal spiritual Israel (Micah 6:1,2); (2) that instead of repenting of their backslidings and lack of faith and zeal and godliness, and thus seeking a return of divine favor, they are endeavoring, by a certain kind of union and cooperation, to support one another, and to call in the aid of the heathen world to help them to withstand the judgments of the Lord in exposing the errors of their human creeds and their misrepresentations of his worthy character; (3) that they are willing to compromise Christ and his gospel, for the sake of gaining the friendship of the world and its emoluments of power and influence; (4) that their blindness is such that they are unable to distinguish truth from error, or the spirit of the truth from the spirit of the world; and (5) that they have already lost sight of the doctrines of Christ. 

            In viewing the proceedings of the great Parliament our attention is forcibly drawn to several remarkable features: (1) To the doubting and compromising spirit and attitude of nominal Christianity, with the exceptions of the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches.  (2) To the confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and of all other religions. (3) To the clean-cut distinctions, observed by the heathen sages, between the Christianity taught in the Bible, and that taught by the Christian missionaries of the various sects of Christendom, who, along with the Bible, carried their unreasonable and conflicting creeds to foreign lands. (4) To the heathen estimate of missionary effort, and its future prospects in their lands.  (5) To the influence of the Bible upon many in foreign lands, notwithstanding its misinterpretations by those who carried it abroad.  (6) To the present influence and probable results of the great Parliament. (7) To its general aspect as viewed from the prophetic standpoint.

 Compromising the Truth

            And not only so, but there were those there, professing Christianity, who earnestly busied themselves in tearing down its fundamental doctrines—who told the representative heathen of their doubts as to the inerrancy of the Christian Scriptures; that the Bible accounts must be received with a large degree of allowance for fallibility; and that their teachings must be supplemented with human reason and philosophy, and only accepted to the extent that they accord with these.  There were those there, professing to be Orthodox Christians, who repudiated the doctrine of the ransom, which is the only foundation of true Christian faith, others, denying the fall of man, proclaimed the opposite theory of evolution—that man never was created perfect, that he never fell, and that consequently he needed no redeemer; that since his creation in some very low condition, far removed from the “Image of God,” he has been gradually coming up, and is still in the process of an evolution whose law is the survival of the fittest.  And this, the very opposite of the Bible doctrine of ransom and restitution, was the most popular view. 

            Below we give a few brief extracts indicating the compromising spirit of Protestant Christianity, both in its attitude toward that great antichristian system, the Church of D_page 189 Rome, and also toward the non-Christian faiths. 

            Hear Dr. Chas. A. Briggs, Professor in a Presbyterian Theological Seminary, declaim against the sacred Scriptures. The gentleman was introduced by the President, Dr. Barrows, as “one whose learning, courage and faithfulness to his convictions have given him a high place in the church universal,” and was received with loud applause.  He said:

                “All that we can claim for the Bible is inspiration and accuracy for that which suggests the religious lessons to be imparted. God is true, he cannot lie; he cannot mislead or deceive his creatures.  But when the infinite God speaks to finite man, must he speak words which are not error?  [How absurd the question!  If God does not speak the truth, then of course he is not true.]  This depends not only upon God’s speaking, but on man’s hearing, and also on the means of communication between God and man.  It is necessary to show the capacity of man to receive the word, before we can be sure that he transmitted it correctly.  [This “learned and reverend” (?) theological professor should bear in mind that God was able to choose proper instruments for conveying his truth, as well as to express it to them; and that he did so is very manifest to every sincere student of his Word.  Such an argument to undermine the validity of the Sacred Scriptures is a mere subterfuge, and was an insult to the intelligence of an enlightened audience.]  The inspiration of the holy Scriptures does not carry with it inerrancy in every particular.”

             Hear Rev. Theodore Munger, of New Haven, dethrone Christ and exalt poor fallen humanity to his place.  He said:

                “Christ is more than a Judean slain on Calvary.  Christ is humanity as it is evolving under the power and grace of God, and any book touched by the inspiration of this fact [not that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, but that the evolved humanity as a whole constitute the Christ, the Anointed] belongs to Christian literature.”

             He instanced Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Emerson and others, and then added:

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                “Literature with few exceptions—all inspired literature—stands squarely upon humanity and insists upon it on ethical grounds and for ethical ends, and this is essential Christianity ...A theology that insists on a transcendent God, who sits above the world and spins the thread of its affairs, does not command the assent of those minds which express themselves in literature; the poet, the man of genius, the broad and universal thinker pass it by; they stand too near God to be deceived by such renderings of his truth.”

             Said the Rev. Dr. Rexford of Boston (Universalist):

                “I would that we might all confess that a sincere worship, anywhere and everywhere in the world, is a true worship... The unwritten but dominant creed of this hour I assume to be that, whatever worshiper in all the world bends before The Best he knows, and walks true to the purest light that shines for him, has access to the highest blessings of heaven.”

             He surely did strike the keynote of the present dominant religious sentiment; but did the Apostle Paul so address the worshipers of “The Unknown God” on Mars’ Hill? or did Elijah thus defend the priests of Baal?  Paul declares that the only access to God is through faith in Christ’s sacrifice for our sins; and Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12; 17:23-31; 1 Kings 18:21,22 

            Hear the Rev. Lyman Abbot, Editor of the Outlook, and formerly Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., claim for all the church that divine inspiration which, through Christ and the twelve apostles, gave us the New Testament, that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished. (2 Tim. 3:17) He said:

                “We do not think that God has spoken only in Palestine, and to the few in that narrow province.  We do not think he has been vocal in Christendom and dumb everywhere else. No! we believe that he is a speaking God in all times and in all ages.”

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             But how did he speak to the Prophets of Baal?  He has not revealed himself except to his chosen people—to fleshly Israel in the Jewish age, and to spiritual Israel in the Gospel age.  “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” Amos 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:6-10 

            A letter from Lady Somerset (England), read with complimentary introduction by President Barrows, made the following concessions to the Church of Rome:

                “I am in sympathy with every effort by which men may be induced to think together along the lines of their agreement, rather than of their antagonism...The only way to unite is never to mention subjects on which we are irrevocably opposed.  Perhaps the chief of these is the historic episcopate, but the fact that he believes in this while I do not, would not hinder that great and good prelate, Archbishop Ireland, from giving his hearty help to me, not as a Protestant woman, but as a temperance worker.  The same was true in England of that lamented leader, Cardinal Manning, and is true today of Mgr. Nugent, of Liverpool, a priest of the people, universally revered and loved.  A consensus of opinion on the practical outline of the golden rule, declared negatively by Confucius and positively by Christ, will bring us all into one camp.”

             The doctrine of a vicarious atonement was seldom referred to, and by many was freely set aside as a relic of the past and unworthy of the enlightened nineteenth century. Only a few voices were raised in its defense, and these were not only a very small minority in the Parliament, but their views were evidently at a discount.  Rev. Joseph Cook was one of this small minority, and his remarks were afterward criticised and roundly denounced from a Chicago pulpit. In his address Mr. Cook said that the Christian religion was the only true religion, and the acceptance of it the only means of securing happiness after death.  Referring for illustration of the efficacy of the atonement to purge even the foulest sins, to one of Shakespeare’s characters, he said:

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                “Here is Lady Macbeth.  What religion can wash Lady Macbeth’s red right hand?  That is the question I propose to the four continents and the isles of the sea.  Unless you can answer that you have not come with a serious purpose to the Parliament of religions.  I turn to Mohammedanism. Can you wash her red right hand?  I turn to Confucianism and Buddhism.  Can you wash her red right hand?”

             In replying to this after the Parliament Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Pastor of All Soul’s church, Chicago, and one enthusiastically interested in the Parliament, said:

                “In order that we may discover the immorality of the vicarious atonement—this ‘look-to-Jesus-and-be-saved’ kind of a scheme with which the great Boston orator undertook to browbeat out of countenance the representatives of other faiths and forms of thought at the Parliament—let us study closely the character of the deed, the temper of the woman to whom he promised such swift immunity if she would only ‘look on the cross.’  This champion of orthodoxy indignantly flung into the faces of the representatives of all religions of the world the assertion that it is ‘impossible in the very nature of things for one to enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again’ through this Christ atonement, this supernatural vicariousness that washes her red hand white and makes the murderess a saint.  All I have to say to such Christianity is this: I am glad I do not believe in it; and I call upon all lovers of morality, all friends of justice, all believers in an infinite God whose will is rectitude, whose providence makes for righteousness, to deny it.  Such a ‘scheme of salvation’ is not only unreasonable but it is immoral. It is demoralizing, it is a delusion and a snare in this world, however it may be in the next...I turn from Calvary if my vision there leaves me selfish enough to ask for a salvation that leaves Prince Sidartha outside of a heaven in which Lady Macbeth or any other red-handed soul is eternally included.”

                “Mr. Jones said that he had had the temerity to ask Bishop Keane, of the Catholic University of Washington, if he would attend this meeting and stand on such a radical platform.  The Bishop had replied with a smile that he would be in Dubuque or he might be tempted to come.  ‘I then asked him,’ said Mr. Jones, ‘if he could suggest any one.’  The Bishop replied, ‘You must not be in too much of a hurry.  We are getting along very fast.  It may not be a long time before I shall be able to do so.’*