"Thou, O Gentile, standest by faith. If thou continuest not in the goodness of God thou shalt be cut off as was Israel."--Paul.
"Now, in that which I am about to say, I be very singular, nevertheless, such is my conviction of its truth that I will declare it, that never since the Reformation of the 16th Century, was there a period of weaker faith in the Church than at this present time, and I say so in the face of all the exertions which are making at home and abroad for the spreading of 'the gospel.'
In proof of which it is well known, that among the Protestants of the continent of Europe, there has, for the last century, been such a decrease of faith, that every mystery of the gospel hath been entirely exploded, and the Christian revelation hath died away into a system of morals, its miracles explained away into juggling tricks, or deceptions of unlettered men, its prophecies set at nought, and its doctrines disputed and generally rejected; its discipline obsolete and foregone, and a thin, cold, meagre, nakedness hath come, instead of the warm and glorious apparel of Christ's doctrine and righteousness, with which the church was arrayed by the Apostles. The question might certainly be at this present time well asked of Christendom--When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth? "And," saith the Presbyterian Divine, whose writing this is, "with respect to ourselves, the best way of ascertaining the present condition of our churches compared with what they have been, is to take up the standards which were composed by the Reformers as the forms of their faith; and by these measure the knowledge, the discourse, and faith of modern times. The larger catechism of our church, upon which the ministers were wont to catechise the people of Scotland, is become like a great oak casting its leafless branches athwart the half of heaven; but, alas! stripped and bare, or happily with few shoots or sprigs of tender green, in certain nooks and crevices of his mighty growth, and these rather aftergrowths, or chance grafts, rooted by the weather in his clefts, than any portion of his original vigor.
"And again, in the sister church (the Anglo-Hibernian Daughter of the Babylonian Mother) the forms of her service book, so devout, so deeply theological, are become a continual rebuke to the blank voice, blank ears, and blank understanding which they now entertain. Baptismal and communion services, comminations, fastings, and festivals, ordinations, and all the other revered forms of the Latin Church (to which she hath modelled herself rather than to the primitive church) being but hollow spectres of their former selves; like the ancient armor of our fathers, they mock their puny children, and leave us breathless, even to conceive the manly strength which once endured them, and with giant might did wield them to and fro. And time would fail me to show how faith, which heretofore was the strong trunk round which every muse did wreath her garland, hath become despised of them all; so that poetry, history, science, moral philosophy, law, and policy, and everything else, whereby a people doth express the spirit it is of, have refused to be sustained any longer by religion--'They have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and hewn out to themselves broken cisterns, which can hold no water.'
"And even among such as are Spiritual, there is a thinness, meagreness, and insufficiency of faith, a constant appeal to the useful, to the visible fruits, to the good that is done; and, above all signs of weakness, there is a glorying in one another, and a praise of the age, which go further than almost I dare express, to show men into what a misery and poverty we are come in respect of primitive faith. The intellect hath be come all-sufficient. And such an intellect! We must preach from the intellect to the intellect, instead of preaching from the Word of God to the faith of his children. No one will believe, in fact, more than he can understand; and that is generally as much as he can see the good of. As an instance whereof, this doctrine of Christ's second appearing, which was wont to shine so bright in the eyes of the church, that they were always plunging forward to reach it before the time, hath become, through the decay of faith, almost forgotten; was, I really think, altogether forgotten, till, within these few years, some of God's faithful ones have made a strong effort to revive it again. And in general, the prophecies, which are the great test of faith, as being unseen, are given up by this clear-headed, sound-minded generation of believers! And the doctrines by which our fathers articles the church, are become unapproachable high. And the whole organ of the world they have turned to the same flat key. So that, taken all for all, this last sign of Messiah's coming, drawn from the state of the Protestants, is always as strong to my mind as the three former, drawn form the aspect of the Catholic and Mohammedan powers."
The above is a true testimony against Babylon and her Daughters from the pen of a talented and popular "divine," whose discourses a few years ago, moved the heart of Britain from the Court of St. James' to the tappery of John O'Groat's.
(Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, 1856)