The Down-Grade (of Churches)
Charles H. Spurgeon
Sword and Trowel,
August 1887
No lover of the gospel can
conceal from himself the fact that the days are evil. We
are willing to make a large discount from our
apprehensions on the score of natural timidity, the
caution of age, and the weakness produced by pain; but
yet our solemn conviction is that things are much
worse in many churches than they seem to be, and are
rapidly tending downward....
How much farther could they go? What doctrine remains to
be abandoned? What other truth to be the object of
contempt? A new religion has been initiated,
which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese; and
this religion, being destitute of moral honesty,
palms itself off as the old faith with slight
improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were
erected for gospel preaching.
-
The Atonement is scouted,
-
the inspiration of
Scripture is derided,
-
the Holy Spirit is
degraded into an influence,
-
the punishment of sin is
turned into fiction, and
-
the resurrection into a
myth
- and yet these enemies of our
faith expect us to call them brethren, and maintain a
confederacy with them!
At
the back of doctrinal falsehood comes a natural
decline
of spiritual life, evidenced by a taste for questionable
amusements, and a weariness of devotional meetings. At a
certain meeting of ministers and church-officers, one
after another doubted the value of prayer-meetings; all
confessed that they had a very small attendance, and
several acknowledged without the slightest compunction
that they had quite given them up.
What means this? Are
churches in a right condition when they have only one
meeting for prayer in a week, and that a mere skeleton?
Churches which have prayer-meetings several times on the
Lord's-day, and very frequently during the week, yet
feel their need of more prayer; but what can be said of
those who very seldom practice united supplication? Are
there few conversions? Do the congregations dwindle? Who
wonders that this is the case when the spirit of prayer
has departed?
As
for questionable amusements—time was when a
Nonconformist minister who was known to attend the
play-house would soon have found himself without a
church.... We doubt not
that, for writing these lines we shall incur the charge
of prudery and bigotry, and this will but prove how low
are the tone and spirit of the churches in many places.
The fact is, that many would like to unite church and
stage, cards and prayer, dancing and sacraments. If we
are powerless to stem this torrent, we can at least warn
men of its existence, and entreat them to keep out of
it. When the old faith is gone, and enthusiasm for the
gospel is extinct, it is no wonder that people seek
something else in the way of delight. Lacking bread,
they feed on ashes; rejecting the way of the Lord, they
run greedily in the path of folly
An
eminent minister, who is well versed in the records of
Nonconformity, remarked to us the other day that he
feared history was about to repeat itself among
Dissenters. In days gone by, they aimed at being thought
respectable, judicious, moderate, and learned, and, in
consequence, they abandoned the Puritanic teaching with
which they started, and toned down their doctrines. The
spiritual life which had been the impelling cause of
their dissent declined almost to death's door, and the
very existence of evangelical Nonconformity was
threatened. Then came the outburst of living godliness
under Whitefield and Wesley, and with it new life for
Dissent, and increased influence in every direction.
Alas!
many are returning to the poisoned cups which drugged
that declining generation, when it surrendered itself to
Unitarian lethargy. Too many ministers are toying with
the deadly cobra of "another gospel," in the
form of "modern thought."...
Where the gospel is fully and
powerfully preached, with the Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven, our churches not only hold their own, but win
converts; but when that which constitutes their strength
is gone—we mean when the gospel is concealed, and the
life of prayer is slighted—the whole thing becomes a
mere form and fiction. For this thing our heart is sore
grieved.
Dissent for mere dissent's sake would be the
bitter fruit of a willful mind. Dissent as mere political
partisanship is a degradation and travesty of religion.
Dissent for truth's sake, carried out by force of the
life within, is noble, praiseworthy.... Are we to have the
genuine living thing, or are we to have that corruption
of the best from which the worst is produced?
Conformity,
or nonconformity per se is nothing; but a
new creature is everything, and the truth upon
which alone that new creature can live is worth dying
a thousand deaths to conserve. It is not the shell
that is so precious, but the kernel which it contains;
when the kernel is gone, what is there left that is
worth a thought? Our nonconformity is beyond measure precious as
a vital spiritual force, but only while it remains such
will it justify its own existence.
The
case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels.
Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those
preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith. A plain
man told us the other day that two ministers had derided
him because he thought we should pray for rain. A
gracious woman bemoaned in my presence that a precious
promise in Isaiah which had comforted her had been
declared by her minister to be uninspired. It is a
common thing to hear working-men excuse their wickedness
by the statement that there is no hell, "the parson says
so."
But we need not prolong our mention of painful
facts. Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers,
and England is following in her track. Attendance at
places of worship is declining, and reverence for holy
things is vanishing; and we solemnly believe this to be
largely attributable to the skepticism which has flashed
from the pulpit and spread among the people. Possibly
the men who uttered the doubt never intended it to go so
far; but none the less they have done the ill, and
cannot undo it.
Their own
observation ought to teach them better. Have these
advanced thinkers filled their own chapels? Have they, after all, prospered through
discarding the old methods?
[Now they do, since entertainment
and
dialectical small groups
have replaced solid preaching]
...Truly, unless the Lord had kept his own we should
long before this have seen our Zion ploughed as a field.
The
other day we were asked to mention the name of some
person who might be a suitable pastor for a vacant
church, and the deacon who wrote said, "Let him be a
converted man, and let him be one who believes what he
preaches; for there are those around us who give us the
idea that they have neither part nor lot in the matter."
This remark is more commonly made than we like to
remember, and there is, alas! too much need for it.
A
student from a certain college preached to a
congregation we sometimes visit such a sermon that the
deacon said to him in the vestry, "Sir, do you believe
in the Holy Ghost?" The youth replied, "I suppose I do."
To which the deacon answered, "I suppose you do not, or
you would not have insulted us with such false
doctrine."
It
now becomes a serious question how far those who abide
by "the faith once delivered to the saints" should
fraternize with those who have turned aside to another
gospel. Christian love has its claims, and divisions are
to be shunned as grievous evils; but how far are we
justified in being in confederacy with those who are
departing from the truth? It is a difficult question to
answer so as to keep the balance of the duties.
For the
present it behoves believers to be cautious, lest they
lend their support and countenance to the betrayers of
the Lord. It is one thing to overleap all boundaries of
denominational restriction for the truth's sake: this we
hope all godly men will do more and more. It is quite
another policy which would urge us to subordinate the
maintenance of truth to denominational prosperity and
unity. Numbers of easy-minded people wink at error so
long as it is committed by a clever man and a
good-natured brother, who has so many fine points about
him....
...it might be possible to make an
informal alliance among all who hold the Christianity of
their fathers. Little as they might be able to do, they
could at least protest, and as far as possible free
themselves of that complicity which will be involved in
a conspiracy of silence....
"Therefore we also,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay
aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let
us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the cross..." Hebrews 12:1-2
See also
Feeding
Sheep or Amusing Goats |
Index to Spurgeon's
messages
Spurgeon
and the Down-Grade Controversy