The London Missionary Society 6

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It is an obvious fact, which may be gathered from the very nature of things, as well as from every part of the word of God and every page of ecclesiastical history—that eminent piety is essential to eminent usefulness, and that it is only to an age or to a church which has made high attainments in piety, that the honor of distinguished success will be granted. It is eminent piety alone, which will enable us to take a clear and impressive view of the object to be sought, and supply the energies necessary for obtaining it. It is eminent piety alone, which will purify our motives, and produce that spirit of profound humility, self-denial, dependence, and entire consecration--which are necessary to qualify us for the work. It is eminent piety alone, which will keep up the spirit of faith and prayer to which the divine promises are made.

It is perfectly evident that the church is not yet in a condition for this great work of 'reducing a revolted world into submission to Christ'. It may not be possible for us to determine, with any precision, its exact state in this respect, as compared with past ages. There are many who are of opinion that, under a great show of outward profession, there is a lamentable deficiency of vital godliness. Much of the prevailing benevolence and activity of the church are more an emotion, than a vital principle--a substitute for spiritual religion, rather than the working and expression of it. It must be confessed that the tone, spirit, and appearance of our public meetings give too much reason for suspecting this. It is impossible not to perceive how much the 'love of eloquence' predominates over the love of instruction; how much less welcome the serious is than the humorous, how much more anxious the audience is to be entertained than to be edified, and how much greater homage is paid to genius and talent of the preacher than to piety, until, in fact, our public meetings sometimes assume rather the character of religious amusements than pious worship.

No doubt a greater latitude is allowed to such engagements than to the service of the sanctuary, and a strain of remark may be lawful on the platform which would be out of place in the pulpit. We want, it is true, speeches, not sermons, for the platform; and sermons rather than speeches for the pulpit; but it would be an improvement in both, if the sermon partook more of the oration, and the oration more of the sermon. Seriousness without gloom, cheerfulness without merriment; the bliss, the sanctity, and the solemnity of religion; and all this combined with the pleasures of friendship and the chastened delights of Christian fellowship, such are the characteristics we should seek for our public meetings. It ought never to be forgotten that a missionary meeting, if rightly understood, is a company of people brought together to carry out the design for which the Son of God expired upon the cross—to pity the miseries of a perishing world, and to save millions of immortal souls from eternal perdition! And surely the frame of our minds, and the tone of the speeches, and the spirit and tendency of the whole proceedings, ought to be in strict harmony with such a purpose.

It has been a question with some whether, (indispensable as they are in the working of our missionary schemes as now constituted,) our missionary meetings have not rather lowered than elevated the tone of our piety, and thus enfeebled our real strength for carrying on this great work. Instead of sending in the spirit of earnest wrestling with God, they have made us satisfied with these associated expressions of our zeal. We have been contented to hear speeches, instead of presenting prayers; we have loved the excitement produced by congregated thousands, instead of the deep musings and earnest breathings of the solitary suppliant alone with God—and yet the one prayer of that retired petitioner, though it were a poor bedridden widow, may have done more to forward the cause than the speech of an eloquent orator, which at the time captivated the imagination and entranced the feelings of thousands.

It is too much forgotten that it is the spirit of faith and prayer, gathering to itself all things necessary in the way of means and instruments—that is to convert the world from the error of its ways. Let us then make ourselves ready, which we yet are not, for the great work which is committed to us. Let us become more devout, more prayerful, more holy, more heavenly, more spiritual. Let us mortify our members which are upon the earth, and crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. Let us all consider, each for himself, that we of this age are called to the greatest work ever entrusted to any generation since the days of the apostles; and that for such a commission there requires a far higher degree of personal religion than the church at present possesses, and that to attain to this should be her immediate business, labor, and prayer. I repeat the declaration, "We cannot convert the world as we are, for this kind goes not forth but by fasting and prayer."

It is indeed a fearful truth, that our public meetings are somewhat perilous—unless their influence is purified and watched, to our personal piety. If the audience, composed chiefly of ministers and professors of religion, cannot either enjoy or endure devotional speeches—but can endure only eloquence, humor, and wit, is there not a danger of losing our seriousness, and having our devotional feeling extinguished by the anniversary meetings of our societies, which are now become almost as frequent as our Sabbaths? In these remarks, I know I condemn myself; and now in the review of my platform services (and they have been frequent through a course of nearly half a century,) I lament that, though I have never, I believe, descended to broad farce or unrestrained humor, I have sometimes indulged in a strain of facetiousness, which I would avoid were I now beginning life.

If then we would keep alive the missionary spirit, if we would perpetuate our enterprise, especially if we would well occupy the sphere which we have marked out for ourselves, (being five times the diameter of that of the apostles,) we must fill the land with calls for a revival of our own religion. Ministers of the gospel, let us go home from this anniversary, first to trim the lamps of the pulpit, and then those of the sanctuary. A revived church is the best hope of a lost world, a revived ministry the best hope of a dormant church; and "You, Eternal Spirit, are the only hope of all. Oh, baptize us afresh with your celestial influence, that, strong in your sevenfold energy, we may consecrate ourselves afresh to the work to which you have called us, of converting the nations to the faith of Christ!"

3. But, if the lamp of zeal must be fed by the oil of piety; and if its flame in brightness and intensity will be in proportion to the purity and the adequate supply of this; the purity of the sacred oil itself depends upon the maintenance in our colleges, pulpits, churches, and our literature, of a sound and scriptural theology. And, if I may be permitted to carry on the figure I would say, this precious material, which is to replenish the lamps of the seven golden candlesticks, and give light to a world sitting in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death, cannot be imported by literature from Athens, nor by formalism from Rome, no, nor by philosophy from Germany—but by a sincere, intelligent, and simple faith from Jerusalem of old. Not only our own society—but all other missionary institutions in existence, rose out of the theology of the evangelical system of doctrinal truth, in its simplicity, purity, and unphilosophised form, as promulgated by apostles, inscribed on the page of revelation, held by the universal church, wielded by reformers, and forming the substance and establishing the harmony of all Protestant confessions. No other doctrines could ever have called this society into existence—and none others will keep it in being.

Besides the men of weak nerve and strong fears, there are not lacking others who, from their observatory, tell us that a skeptical philosophy is rolling onward to interpose between the orb of pure evangelism and the church. It may be so, I am afraid it is so; but of one thing I am certain, and in that assurance I am as calm and confident as I am who, looking upon the obscuration of the sun, that it will prove only an eclipse—but not an extinction; and an eclipse partial, and not total. The great luminary of evangelic truth, sustained, irradiated, and guided by the hand of its divine Author, will emerge from the shadow, and hold on its resplendent course, when the cause of its temporary obscuration shall have passed away.

Still, even this partial and temporary eclipse, should it occur, may be attended with disastrous consequences to the orthodoxy and efficiency of our ministry, the piety of our churches, and the support of our societies. The warmest friends of missions are not usually found among the men of innovation, speculation and philosophy. Such generally look coldly and carelessly from afar, and either stand wholly aloof or lend but a tardy and reluctant hand to the cause. Not that there is anything in the word "philosophy," or the thing itself, to fright us from our propriety. It is a good and beautiful word, and when based on sound principles, a better and still more beautiful thing. A true philosophy must ever be coincident with a sound theology. The gospel is full of philosophy; and is itself, in morals and religion, to control all philosophies, and to be controlled by none.

We hear much in our day about the adaptation of preaching to the taste and state of the times; and provided nothing more be meant by that word than a change in the mode of teaching, leaving the matter of teaching unaltered, and the same in all its parts as it came from the pens of apostles—it is very true there must be adaptation if we would succeed. The gospel is intended for a universal and perpetual religion, and in its truths is adapted alike to all ages, all nations, and all states of society. Here is a proof of its divinity. Provided the form and substance of truth be preserved in its beauty, life, and freedom, we are not for retaining the uncouth dress of the theological phraseology of the seventeenth century. We say, as we have said elsewhere, with the noble Chalmers, in one of the last productions of his mighty pen, "We do not need to take down the framework of our existing orthodoxy either in theology or in science. All that we require is, that it shall become an animated framework by the breath of a new life infused into it. What we want is, that the very system of doctrine which we now have shall come to us not in word only—but also in power. What we want is, Puritanism in its earnestness, without its extravagance; its faith without its contempt of philosophy; its high and heavenly-mindedness, without the baser admixture of its worldly politics and passions."

We need not imagine, dear brethren, that the Bible is an exhausted mine, and that we have nothing to do but circulate the precious metals which our forefathers dug up; but then, while digging for ourselves, and adding to the stock of spiritual bullion in the coffers of the church, let us not foolishly consider, and throw away, as counterfeit and base, all the fruit of their labors. If we are not implicitly to follow the great lights of past ages, which no wise man would contend for, none but a proud man would disdainfully turn from them, and none but a foolish one would extinguish them.

There is one extreme of considering everything settled in theology and philosophy, and another of considering nothing settled. Observation and the records of experience may be of some service to us here; and we boldly appeal to the records of ecclesiastical history, from the time of the apostles to the present, whether it is not the doctrine of the cross, not shaped by philosophy, and carved and gilded by human learning—but in its own beautiful simplicity, preached by men who, like Paul, gloried in it as the instrument of their conversion, as well as the theme of their teaching, that piety has been preserved in the church, and the church made the instrument of God for the conversion of the world. What corrupt church was ever reformed, or what pagan people was ever converted in any other way?

If then the spirit of missions be maintained in the ministry of our pastors and in the heart of our churches, if we would keep up that robust and healthful piety out of which the whole cause springs, it must be by the theology of Luther, Calvin, and Knox; of Leighton, Baxter, and Howe; of Scott, Simeon, and Newton; of Fuller and Robert Hall; of Jonathan Edwards and Dwight; of Williams and Payne; of Chalmers and Dick; of Wardlaw and Russell—men of different ages and various churches—but all one in fundamental truth. Let this go down, no matter what comes in its place—and the cause of Christian missions will expire, and your Mission House will become a mausoleum, where your Society will lie entombed; or a museum, where its relics shall be exhibited to the curious; or anything in short but what it is now, the place of conference and of action for men who, with hearts constrained by the pure evangelism of the gospel, are intent upon the conversion of the world to Christ, and by that very evangelism are seeking to accomplish it.

Let our ministers, and especially our young ministers, once imagine that their mission is not to the people in mass—but to the select few, to the intellectual, to the thinking young men, and that, in order to fulfill this, they must substitute philosophy in their discourses for Christianity, or at any rate that they must present Christianity re-cast in the mold of philosophy, to be exhibited as an elaboration of human intellect rather than a divine testimony—and they will from that moment place themselves in opposition to the declaration of our Lord, "that the poor have the gospel preached unto them," and equally so to the resolution of the apostle who, in a philosophic age and country, determined to know nothing among men, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

The consequence will be that they, or others who come after them, will find, when it is too late to correct or to stop the mischief, that they are but imitating the experiment made at Alexandria, in the third century of the Christian era, and repeated in our days with such disastrous consequences on the continent of Europe; an experiment under the influence of which, sound orthodoxy, vital Christianity, and all missionary zeal, will form the same funeral procession and descend into the same grave, while our evangelizing societies will follow in sackcloth as chief mourners in the melancholy funeral rites.

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