In the following lesson, J.C. Ryle teaches about the fruits created by
Christianty.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
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Tried By Its Fruits
by J.C. Ryle
"Every tree is known by his own fruit."-(Luke 6:44)
[First published by Drummond's Tract Depot, Stirling, Scotland]
Our lot is cast in times when there is a tendency to try all ancient
institutions by their results. Schools, colleges, universities,
corporations, old endowed charities, all are successively put into the
crucible, and placed in the furnace. "Will an institution stand the fire?
Is
the result of the operation dross or good metal?" These are the only
questions which men require to be answered.
Now, I wish to apply this great principle to the religion which our Lord
Jesus Christ brought into the world nineteen hundred years ago. Some men
tell us that it is an effete and worn-out thing, utterly unsuited to the
twentieth century. Christianity, in short, is regarded with contempt by
many
who call themselves leaders of thought in modern times. Like an old
almanac,
its work is done, and it may be thrown aside! Its Bible and its Sundays,
its
ministers and its worship, its prayers and its sacraments, all are
unworthy
of the notice of intellectual men, and may be safely neglected, smiled at,
and handed over to the ignorant and the poor! Such is the line of
thinking,
writing, and talking in too many quarters.
Now, my simple object in this paper is to point out the unreasonableness,
not to say dishonesty, of ignoring the enormous results and effects which
Christianity has produced in the world. I ask the sceptic and the agnostic
to try Christianity by its fruits. I defy them to deny the existence of
those fruits. I say that mankind owes a huge debt to Christianity, whether
mankind knows it or not, of which the amount can never be calculated. In
short, the fruits of Christianity are an unanswerable proof to my own mind
of its Divine origin, and a stupendous difficulty in the way of
infidelity,
which has never been fairly grappled with or explained away. They demand
attention. They court investigation.
There are only two points to which I shall invite the attention of my
readers.
I. For one thing, let us consider briefly some of the fruits which
Christianity has produced in the world.
II. For another, let us consider the leading doctrines by whose agency
these
fruits have been produced.
I do not for a moment pretend to bring forward anything new or deep. I am
going to speak of ancient, familiar things, which anyone of average
intelligence can understand. But it is precisely the simplicity of my
argument which makes many overlook it. We have so many great swelling
words
in this day from the enemies of Christianity, about "laws of nature,
development, matter, germs, force," and the like, that we are apt to
forget
the immense mass of evidence in favour of revealed religion which is lying
close by our side.
I. In the first place, what fruits has Christianity produced in the world?
We are not fit to consider this question, unless we realize the actual
condition of the world when Christianity was introduced. We must remember
that the Augustan age, when the Lord Jesus Christ was born and His Church
founded, was the era when heathenism had carried art and literature to the
highest pitch of excellence. Even at this day the temples of Luxor and
Carnac, the Parthenon at Athens, and the Coliseum at Rome, are among the
most remarkable buildings in the world. The works of Homer, and Herodotus,
and Thucydides, and Eschylus, and Sophocles, and Euripides, and Plato,
among
the Greeks,-of Cicero, and Tacitus, and Virgil, and Horace, among the
Romans,-are admired and read by almost all educated men, and in their way
are unsurpassed after nineteen centuries have passed away. In short, if
the
education of mind, and reason, and intellect, and the cultivation of art
and
literature, could make men holy and happy in this life, and give them a
good
hope for the life to come, the world, before Christ, did not need the
introduction of Christianity.
But what was the world before Christ, even the most polished and refined
portion of it, in the matter of religion and morality? That is the
question.
The answer may be given in the words of St. Paul, "The world by wisdom
knew
not God" (1 Coy. i. 21). Darkness, thick darkness, covered the earth.
Athens
and Rome were full of magnificent temples, in which men worshipped images
of
gold, and silver, and wood, and stone, the work of their own hands. The
greatest philosophers, such as Socrates, groped, as in the night. The
doctrine of the Being of the true God seems to have been completely lost,
and in its place the most debasing idolatry and grovelling superstition
universally prevailed.
The following passage from Bishop Wilson admirable Lectures on Christian
Evidences (vol. 1, p. 47, 2nd edition), contains a picture which I believe
is not one bit over-coloured:-"Whether you consider the barbarian nations,
or those which were most polished,-whether you look back to the earliest
times of which we have any authentic history, or those nearer the birth of
our Lord,-all was one thick, impenetrable mass of moral disorder and ruin.
The most abject and disgusting idolatry, the worship of the beasts and
birds, of stocks and stones, the deification of kings and warriors, of
human
virtues and vices, of insects and creeping things, and even of that most
disgusting of all reptiles, the serpent, prevailed. Practices the most
flagitious were interwoven with the histories and ceremonies of these
wretched deities. From this source, aided by the corrupt heart of man,
flowed out a torrent of vices and abominations in public and private life.
Fraud, theft, rapine, revenge, suicide, fornication, adultery, murder of
infants, unnatural crimes, the atrocious cruelties of war, the slavery and
oppression of captives, gladiatorial shows, not only abounded, but were
patronized, countenanced by the great body of men, connived at, if not
practised, by statesmen and philosophers-publicly reprobated by none."
Hear what the worthy Bishop says in another passage,-"The heathen were
impure and abominable even in their religion. Their gods and goddesses
were
profligate, impure, revengeful, odious. 'The very light that was in them
was
darkness.' For what could the histories of Jupiter, Juno, and Bacchus, and
Mercury, and Venus teach, but vice and drunkenness, and lewdness, and
theft,
and fraud? What were the Floralia, and Bacchanalia, and Saturnalia? 'It is
a
shame,' observes the great Apostle, 'even to speak of those things which
are
done of them in secret' (Ephes. v. 12). Christians, as individuals, may be
wicked and unjust, and, alas! often are so. But this is notwithstanding
their religion, and in spite of it, as Bishop Warburton has fairly
remarked,
and therefore cases of the grossest iniquity are rare. The heathen, on the
contrary, were impure and abominable in consequence of their religion, and
because of it; and therefore a depravity of which we have scarcely a
conception prevailed, and cases of virtue and comparative purity were rare
and uncommon."
Now I believe this terrible picture of the world before Christ is not one
bit overdrawn. I believe it would be easy to confirm its accuracy by
reference to Greek and Latin authors. But it would be impossible to do so
without bringing forward things of which "it is a shame even to speak." I
only ask Christians to remember that the first chapter of the Epistle to
the
Romans, which is often not read through in public, contains a plain,
unvarnished description of heathenism as it really was in the days of St.
Paul.
But what was the agency by which this awful state of things in the heathen
world was altered, amended, and gradually swept away throughout all the
Roman empire? That it has been swept away is a simple historical fact. But
what wrought the change? What was it that emptied the heathen temples,
destroyed the vocation of the idolatrous priesthood, raised the whole
standard of morality, and, to use the words of Scripture, "turned the
world
upside down?" (Acts xvii. 6). I answer, unhesitatingly, the introduction
and
progress of Christianity. How vast, and wide, and deep the change was we
can
hardly realize at this present day. What is before our eyes in Europe we
know. What was, when heathenism reigned supreme, we cannot grasp and take
in.
I ask your attention to the following eloquent passage from the pen of a
writer.
"The argument which meets us first in surveying the history of
Christianity,
and in estimating the outstanding and singular features of its success, is
its early, wide, and within certain limits absolutely irresistible
diffusion. Other facts attest this: but I select one as to which there can
be no controversy, the extirpation by it of idolatry such as existed in
the
old Roman world. That system, from the Euphrates to the furthest shore of
Britain, from the Nile to the forest of Germany, has utterly passed away.
The whole regions around the Mediterranean, to the limits of civilization,
and beyond them, 'have changed their gods;' and, though something, as time
advanced, may be claimed for Mohammedanism, the great decisive,
all-prevailing impulses have come from Christianity. The classic Paganism,
Greek and Roman, the Assyrian, the Egyptian and North African, the
Druidic,
and ultimately the Teutonic, have all fallen to rise no more; and at this
moment there is not on the face of the earth a single worshipper of the
'great goddess Diana,' or, 'the image that fell down from Jupiter,' of
Baal
or Dagon, of Isis or Serapis, of Thor or Odin. They are preserved in
imperishable literature, and in equally imperishable art. Homer and the
great tragedians have enshrined them. Virgil and Ovid record them, and
even
Milton in his Paradise Lost; to say nothing of that wonderful Book, which,
in revealing their abominations, will be found to have carried furthest
and
widest their memory. But not a single shrine remains to them in the proper
sense of the word, not even where the Apollo, or Venus, the Minerva, or
Hercules, enchain universal admiration. They are abolished as idols, while
immortalized as relics; and not even the exquisite beauty lavished upon
them
can hide the moral deformity to which they owe their downfall. It is long
centuries since one simple soul regarded them with anything of the feeling
with which the African trembles before the rudest fetish, or the Hindoo
before the most unsightly of his divinities. Another conquest so complete
and absolute does not mark the history of the world. All ranks and classes
passed through the revolution. The husbandman had to give up his offerings
to Liber and Ceres, the sailor his votive tablets to Neptune, the soldier
his chaplets to Mars. The youth had to forget his place in the procession,
the virgin her part in the dance, or secular games. The senator had to
forego his libation on entering the senate, the general his search after
the
omens before battle, the very emperor the honour of his own coins and
titles
of divinity. What but an immense and boundless power could have wrought
this
change, and wrought it, not by constraint, but willingly, through the
force
of persuasion?" (The Success of Christianity, by Principal Cairns, pp. 5,
6).
Will any of those who profess to deny the truth of Christianity deny the
facts which this passage contains? It is impossible. He will find all
history against him. But if he cannot deny the facts, he ought to tell us
how they can on his principles be accounted for. We say they are
irrefragable and unanswerable proofs that Christianity came down from God.
Great, however, as the fruits of Christianity have been in the overthrow
and
destruction of idolatry, they are fully equalled, if not surpassed, by the
enormous practical results which Christianity has produced on the moral
standard and social conduct of mankind. About human life and
property,-about
women, children, servants, and the poor,-about justice and equity between
man and man,-about decency, purity, and charity,-about all these subjects
the standard of public opinion has been entirely changed since the Gospel
leavened the Roman world.
Once more I ask attention to a passage in which another writer has ably
summed up the practical results of Christianity.
"We fear no challenge when we affirm that in its purest form Christianity
has fostered the ideas, and encouraged the habits out of which all true
civilization springs. It has fostered regard for man as essentially a
noble
being, having an immortal soul made in God's image, with boundless
capacities of expansion and improvement; regard for woman as the helpmeet
and companion of man-not his drudge, or slave, or concubine; regard for
marriage as a holy contract entered into before God, not to be lightly set
aside; regard for children as the heritage of the Lord-not burdens or
encumbrances, but lent by the Lord to be brought up for Him; regard for
the
family as a divine institution, intended to be a fountain of holy joys,
and
a nursery of all estimable habits, and all kindly affections: regard for
the
sick, the infirm, and the aged, whose sorrows we are ever to pity, and
whose
privations we are to make up in some measure from our more ample stores.
The
very word Christian, in its true spirit, has been identified with all
these
ideas and habits; in that sense it has a glory all its own, and no more
damaging criticism can be passed on persons outraging truth and rectitude,
than that they are a disgrace to the Christian name." (Christianity and
Secularism, by Dr. Blaikie, p. 5).
It would be perfectly easy to add to the statements contained in this
passage if time and space permitted. The difficulty in the matter is not
so
much the discovery of evidence as the selection of it. The mass of facts
which might be adduced to show the rich and blessed fruits of Christianity
is simply enormous, and I pity the sceptic who refuses to look at it. To
those who care to investigate the subject more fully I strongly recommend
two volumes which have recently been published. One is called "Gesta
Christi," by an American writer named Brace. The other is called Modern
Missions and Culture, by Dr. Werneck, a German. Each of these volumes
contains a vast quantity of valuable information which is accessible to
few
English readers, and will richly repay perusal.
I admit, most fully, that there have been periods during the last nineteen
centuries, when the fruits of Christianity have been miserably scanty and
poor, and the tree which bore them has seemed rotten and only fit to be
cut
down. I do not forget the corruption of faith and practice in the dark
ages,-the hideous immorality of many bishops of Rome,-the vile doings of
many monasteries and nunneries,-the ignorance and superstition of
priests,-the grovelling superstition of laymen. These are things I do not
pretend to deny. I grant that the tide of truth sometimes ebbed so low
that
it was almost out of sight, and the light was so dim that it was well-nigh
extinguished. But it must be remembered that in the worst times there were
always some men who protested loudly against the wickedness around them,
such as Bradwardine, and Grostête, and Wycliffe, and John Huss, and Jerome
of Prague, and Savonarola. And there were always some scattered bodies of
Christians who, by life and doctrine, witnessed faithfully against
corruption, such as the Valenses and Albigenses, the Waldensian Churches,
and the Lollards. And, after all, if the state of the Roman world in the
days of the Apostle, and the state of the world at this day could be
fairly
compared, there is not the slightest doubt what the verdict would be. The
change for the better would be found so vast that no words could describe
it. The fruits of Christianity are such, in spite of all failures and
defects, that the moral difference between the world before Christ and the
world after Christ is the difference between gold and dross, sweet and
bitter, white and black, darkness and light.
The plain truth is, that we are all so familiar with the public blessings
Christianity has insensibly conferred on the world, that we cannot realize
the condition of things from which it has delivered us. Few men take the
trouble to read or think about anything except eating, drinking, dressing,
business, politics, recreation, money, and temporalities. The many never
reflect on the enormous debt which they daily owe to the effects of Bible
religion, and the very Christianity which so many pretend to despise. Does
the infidel, who lies in some hospital for weeks, tenderly nursed and
cared
for, reflect that without Christianity there would have been no hospital
at
all? I doubt it. Does the British workman, who never goes to a place of
worship, and never reads his Bible, and often sneers at parsons, reflect
that without Christianity he would never have been sure of his wages, and
would have often been treated as a bond-slave and a serf? I doubt it. Does
the high-born woman of fashion, who makes a god of dress and amusement,
and
regards "religious people" with ill-disguised contempt, ever reflect that
without Christianity she would have enjoyed little liberty of action,
little
independence of thought or choice, and her very honour would have been
little respected. I doubt it. Does the scientific agnostic, who sits at
home
at ease, or travels about on Sundays, and despises churches, clergymen,
and
Bibles, and ignores his soul,-does he ever fairly and honestly reflect
that
without Christianity he would have had little safety for property, home,
or
person, little liberty of thought, and little chance of justice if he came
in collision with the ruling power? Does he, I say, think of all this?
Once
more, I say, I doubt it. In short, I am firmly convinced that of all the
debts which have been repudiated since creation, there never was one so
shamefully ignored and repudiated as the debt which the world owes to
Christianity. If revealed religion could only be fairly tried by its
fruits,
there is no doubt what the verdict would be. Secularism, agnosticism,
scepticism, and infidelity would be confounded and silenced for ever.
II. I will now turn to the other point which I undertook to consider. Let
us
inquire what were the leading doctrines of Christianity by the agency of
which its fruits have been produced.
I regard this point as one of great importance. It is certain that not
everything called Christianity is the Christianity which was taught by
Christ and His Apostles. It is equally certain that nothing but "the tree"
that they planted will ever bear good fruit. To expect good fruit from the
grossly unscriptural religion of pre-Reformation days, or from the vague,
hazy, broad, boneless, jelly-fish teaching, which many call religion in
the
twentieth century, is unreasonable and absurd. Such religions never yet
bore
good fruit: they never can and they never will.
Fruit-bearing Christianity has never been a mere vicarious religion. By
that
I mean a religion which teaches men to put their souls in the hands of a
priest, and to leave him to settle matters between them and God. Nor yet
has
it been a mere formal and ceremonial religion. By that I mean a religion
which teaches men to rest in the observation of times and seasons, and
gestures and postures, and bodily acts, in which the heart and soul have
nothing to do.-Nor yet has it been a religion of mere asceticism. By that
I
mean a religion which teaches men and women that the way to please God is
to
shut ourselves up in monasteries and nunneries, and leave the world to
itself. Nor yet has it been a mind-cramping religion. By that I mean a
religion which teaches men that they must not think and read for
themselves,
but must shut their eyes, and hear the Church, and believe whatever they
are
told. Christianity of these kinds, I repeat emphatically, has never borne
good fruit. Whenever and wherever it has prevailed, in any country or at
any
era, such religion has done little or no good to the world. It has made no
mark on lives or characters. It has been no better than a refined and
polished heathenism, a stuffed carcase, a whitened sepulchre, a body
without
life. It has certainly supplied no evidence to silence the sceptic, or to
prove the truth of Divine revelation.
The Christianity which I call fruit-bearing,-which shows its Divine origin
by its blessed effects on mankind,-the Christianity which you may safely
defy infidels to explain away,-that Christianity is a very different
thing.
Let me show you some of its leading marks and features.
(a) For one thing, fruit-bearing Christianity has always taught the
inspiration, sufficiency, and supremacy of Holy Scripture. It has told men
that "God's Word written" is the only trustworthy rule of faith and
practice
in religion, that God requires nothing to be believed that is not in this
Word, and that nothing is right which contradicts it. It has never allowed
reason, the verifying faculty, or the voice of the Church, to be placed
above, or on a level with Scripture. It has steadily maintained that,
however imperfectly we may understand it, the Old Book is meant to be the
only standard of life and doctrine.
(b) For another thing, fruit-bearing Christianity has always taught fully
the sinfulness, guilt and corruption of human nature. It has told men that
they are born in sin, deserve God's wrath and condemnation, and are
naturally inclined to do evil. It has never allowed that men and women are
only weak and pitiable creatures, who can become good when they please,
and
make their own peace with God. On the contrary, it has steadily declared
man's
danger and vileness, and his pressing need of a Divine forgiveness and
satisfaction for his sins, a new birth or conversion, and an entire change
of heart.
(c) For another thing, fruit-bearing Christianity has always set before
men
the Lord Jesus Christ as the chief object of faith and hope in religion,
as
the Divine Mediator between God and men, the only source of peace of
conscience, and the root of all spiritual life. It has never been content
to
teach that He is merely our Prophet, our Example, and our Judge. The main
things it has ever insisted on about Christ are the atonement for sin He
made by His death, His sacrifice on the cross, the complete redemption
from
guilt and condemnation by His blood, His victory over the grave by His
resurrection, His active life of intercession at God's right hand, and the
absolute necessity of simple faith in Him. In short, it has made Christ
the
Alpha and the Omega in Christian theology.
(d) Last, but not least, fruit-bearing Christianity has always honoured
the
Person of God the Holy Ghost, and magnified His work. It has never taught
that all professing Christians have the grace of the Spirit in their
hearts,
as a matter of course, because they are baptized, or because they belong
to
the Church, or because they are communicants. It has steadily maintained
that the fruits of the Spirit are the only evidence of having the Spirit,
and that those fruits must be seen,-that we must be born of the Spirit,
led
by the Spirit, sanctified by the Spirit, and feel the operations of the
Spirit,-and that a close walk with God in the path of His commandments, a
life of holiness, charity, self-denial, purity, and zeal to do good, are
the
only satisfactory marks of the Holy Ghost.
Such is true fruit-bearing Christianity. Well would it have been for the
world if there had been more of it during the last nineteen centuries! Too
often, and in too many parts of Christendom, there has been so little of
it,
that Christ's religion has seemed extinct, and has fallen into utter
contempt. But just in proportion as such Christianity as I have described
has prevailed, the world has benefited, the infidel been silenced, and the
truth of Divine revelation been acknowledged. The tree has been known by
its
fruit.
This is the Christianity which, in the days of the Primitive Church,
"turned
the world upside down." It was this that emptied the idol temples of their
worshippers, routed the Greek and Roman philosophers, and obliged even
heathen writers to confess that the followers of the "new superstition,"
as
they called it, were people who loved one another, and lived very pure and
holy lives.
This is the Christianity which, after dreary centuries of ignorance,
priestcraft, and superstition, produced the Protestant Reformation, and
changed the history of Europe. The leading doctrines which were preached
by
Luther and Zwingli on the Continent, and by Latimer and his companions in
England, were precisely those which I have briefly described. That they
bore
rich fruit, in an immense increase of general morality and holiness, is a
simple fact which no historian has ever denied.
This is the Christianity which, in the middle of last century, delivered
our
own Church from the state of deadness and darkness into which she had
fallen. The main truths on which Whitfield, and Wesley, and Romaine, and
Venn, and their companions, continually insisted, were the truth about
sin,
Christ, the Holy Ghost, and holiness. And the results were the same as
they
were in the primitive days, and at the era the Reformation. Men persecuted
and hated all who taught these truths. But no one could say that they did
not make men live and die well.
This is the Christianity which is doing good at this day, wherever good is
done. Search the missionary stations in Africa, India, or China. Visit the
great over-grown, semi-heathen parishes in colliery districts or
manufacturing towns in our own land. In every case you will find the same
report must be made. The only religious teaching which can show solid,
positive results, is that which gives prominence to the doctrines which I
have endeavoured to describe. Wherever they are rightly taught,
Christianity
can point to fruits which are an unanswerable proof of its Divine origin.
So much for fruit-bearing Christianity. I leave the subject with one
remark
about it. Let it never be forgotten that its leading principles are those
which are least likely to please the natural man. On the contrary, they
are
precisely those which are calculated to be unpopular and to give offence.
Proud man does not like to be told that he is a weak, guilty sinner,-that
he
cannot save his own soul, and must trust in the work of another,-that he
must be converted and have a new heart,-that he must live a holy,
self-denying life, and come out from the world. Surely the mere fact that
this kind of unpopular teaching characterizes successful Christianity, and
bears fruit in the world, is a strong evidence that Christianity is a
Divine
revelation, and really comes from God.
And now I will conclude this paper with four words of practical
application,
which I shall address to four different classes of people.
1. In the first place, I have a word for those who are tempted to give way
to scepticism and unbelief, and are half disposed to throw overboard
Christianity altogether. What shall I say to you? Listen, and I will tell
you.
I entreat you, before you go any further, to deal honestly with the
religion
of faith and those who profess it, and try it by its fruits. That there is
such a religion in the midst of us, and that there are thousands who
profess
it, are simple facts which nobody can deny. These thousands believe
without
doubting certain great truths of Christianity, and live and die in their
belief. Let it be admitted that, in some points, these men of faith do not
agree,-such as the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments. But after
every
deduction, there remains an immense amount of common theology, about which
their faith is one. On such points as sin, and God, and Christ, and the
atonement, and the authority of the Bible, and the importance of holiness,
and the necessity of prayer, and self-denial, and the value of the soul,
and
the reality of heaven and hell, and judgment, and eternity,-on such points
as these, I say, these men of faith are very much of one mind.
Now, I ask all sceptics and agnostics, is it honest to turn away from
these
men of faith and their religion with contempt, because they have many
weaknesses and infirmities? Is it fair to despise their religion, and wrap
yourself up in unbelief, because of their controversies and strifes, their
feeble literature and their party spirit? Is it fair to ignore the fruits
of
peace, and hope and comfort, which they enjoy? Mark the solid work which,
with all their faults, they do in the world, in lessening sorrow and sin,
and increasing happiness, and improving their fellow-men. What fruits and
work can unbelief show which will bear comparison with the fruits of
faith?
What good has secularism, or agnosticism, or deism, done to mankind? What
missions have they sent forth to the world? What cities or countries on
earth have they civilized, purified, and made more holy and happy? What
have
the gods which some despisers of revelation seem to worship,-evolution,
development, matter, force, destiny,-what have they done to enable men to
meet the many ills to which all flesh is heir? What aching consciences
have
they relieved? What broken hearts have they bound up? What sick-beds have
they cheered? What bereaved parents and widows have they comforted? We ask
in vain. We shall get no answer. Look these facts in the face and deal
honestly with them. Systems ought to be judged by their "fruits" and
results. When the so-called systems of modern unbelief and scepticism, and
free thought, can point to as much good done in the world by their
adherents
as simple faith has done by the hand of its friends, we may give them some
attention. But till they do that, I boldly say that the simple,
old-fashioned religion of faith has a just claim on our respect, esteem,
and
obedience, and ought not to be lightly esteemed, ridiculed, or despised.
2. In the second place, I have a word for those professing Christians who
have no life or reality about their religion, and are only nominal members
of Christ's Church. I need hardly say there are myriads of people in this
condition. They are not sceptics, and would be justly offended if you
called
them infidels or agnostics. Yet, if truth must be spoken, except going to
church or chapel on Sundays, they give no sign of Christianity. If you
mark
their daily life, they seem neither to think, nor feel, nor care for their
souls, or God, or eternity.
Now, I warn any readers of this paper who are in this state, and I say it
with pain, that you are the true cause of a vast proportion of infidelity.
I
remember a careless sceptic saying,-"Do you think I am going to believe
your
Christianity when I see so many of your church-goers behaving as they do?
Do
you mean to tell me that they think their creed is true, and that they
really believe in a resurrection and a judgment to come? It will be time
enough for me to believe when I see your people really believing. At
present
your Christianity seems a great sham and a mere form." Alas! such talk as
this is only too much justified by facts. Nothing, nothing, I am
convinced,
does so much to help the progress of modern infidelity as the utter
absence
of reality and earnestness among professing Christians. Men and women who
crowd churches on Sundays, and then live worldly selfish lives all the
week,
are the best and most efficient allies of scepticism. "If you believed
what
you repeat under the pulpit," the sceptic says, "you would never live as
you
live at home." Oh! that people would think of the mischief done by
inconsistency. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." It is
bad enough to ruin your own soul. But do not add to your sin by ruining
others.
3. In the third place, I have a word for those sincere but weak-minded
Christians who are surprised and frightened at the unbelief of these
latter
days, and live in a constant state of panic and alarm. What shall I say to
you? Listen, and I will tell you.
I ask you, then, to look to your Bibles, and lay aside your fears. There
is
nothing in unbelief which ought to surprise you. Search the Scriptures,
and
you will find that the unbelief of the twentieth century is only an old
enemy in a new dress, an old disease in a new form. Since the day when
Adam
and Eve fell, the devil has never ceased to tempt men not to believe God,
and has said, directly or indirectly, "Ye shall not die even if you do not
believe." In the latter days especially we have warrant of Scripture for
expecting an abundant crop of unbelief:-"When the Son of Man cometh, shall
he find faith on the earth?"-"Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse."-"There shall come in the last days scoffers." (Luke xviii. 5; 2
Tim.
iii. 13; 2 Peter iii. 3). Here in England scepticism is that natural
rebound
from semi-popery and superstition, which many wise men have long predicted
and expected. It is precisely that swing of the pendulum which far-sighted
students of human nature looked for; and it has come.
But as I tell you not to be surprised at the widespread scepticism of the
times, so also I must urge you not to be shaken in mind by it, or moved
from
your steadfastness. There is no real cause for alarm. The ark of God is
not
in danger, though the oxen seem to shake it. Christianity has survived the
attacks of Hume and Hobbes and Tindal,-of Collins and Woolston and
Bolingbroke and Chubb,-of Voltaire and Payne and Holyoake. These men made
a
great noise in their day, and frightened weak people: but they produced no
more effect than idle travellers produce by scratching their names on the
pyramid of Egypt. Depend on it, Christianity in like manner will survive
the
attacks of the clever writers of these times. The startling novelty of
many
modern objections to Revelation, no doubt, makes them seem more weighty
than
they really are. It does not follow, however, that hard knots cannot be
untied because our fingers cannot untie them, or that formidable
difficulties cannot be explained because our eyes cannot see through or
explain them. When you cannot answer a sceptic, be content to wait for
more
light; but never forsake a great principle. In religion, as in many
scientific questions, said Faraday, "the highest philosophy is often a
judicious suspense." We can afford to wait.
4. In the last place, I have a word for all true believers who lament the
spread of unbelief, though their own faith is unshaken. What shall I say
to
them? What advice shall I offer? Listen, and I will tell you.
I must plainly say, and I say it with sorrow, that we who profess faith,
and
are never troubled with unbelief, are not altogether free from blame. Too
often our faith is little better than a mere "otiose assent" to certain
theological propositions, but not a living, burning, active principle,
which
works by love, purifies the heart, overcomes the world, and brings forth
much fruit of holiness and good works. It is not the faith which made
primitive Christians rejoice under Roman persecution, and made Luther
stand
up boldly before the Diet of Worms, and made Ridley and Latimer "love not
their lives to the death," and made Wesley give up his position at Oxford
to
become an evangelist of England. We are verily guilty in this matter. If
there was more real living faith on earth, I suspect there would be less
unbelief. Scepticism, in many a case, would shrink, and dwindle, and melt
away, if it saw faith more awake, and alive, and active, and stirring. Let
us, for Christ's sake, and the sake of souls, amend our ways in this
matter.
Let us pray daily, "Lord, increase our faith." Let us live, and move, and
have our being, and deal with men, as if we really believed every jot and
tittle of our creeds, and as if a dying, risen, interceding, and coming
Christ were continually before our eyes. We may depend on it the old
saying
is true,-"the inconsistency of believers is the infidel's best argument."
This, I am firmly convinced, is the surest way to oppose and diminish
unbelief. Let the time past suffice us to have lived content with a cold,
tame assent to creeds. Let the time to come find us living, active
believers. It was a solemn saying which fell from the lips of an eminent
minister of Christ on his death-bed," We are none of us more than half
awake." If believers were more thorough, and real, and whole-hearted in
their belief, there would be far less unbelief in the world.
The words at the head of this paper contain a mine of truth,-"Every tree
is
known by his own fruit." If the tree of Christianity bore more fruit, the
axe of infidelity would never harm it, and would be laid to its root in
vain.
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