This book was written by Albert Sims and published in 1866. Today, the modern evangelical church is in a sad state. Sin, repentance, holiness and righteousness are rarely mentioned, except with a wink.
THE STATE OF THE CHURCH
If talking about religion, putting on a good appearance, crying, "Lord, Lord," and belonging to a church is religion, then Christ would not have condemned the Scribes and the Pharisees as hypocrites and whited sepulchres. Who has ever made a louder profession of religion than they? Or who -- of our modern professors -- has exceeded them in rigidly conforming to the externals of religion? If fair words and a specious profession, mean religion, then Christ would have had no need to declare, that those, who think of fitting themselves for heaven by so doing, are awfully deceived. Yet, how great the number who vainly mistake plausible appearances and a sanctimonious show for the religion of the Bible I do not think it is impossible to deceive yourself in this matter. Christ most solemnly affirms that, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Morality is good; but morality of itself is not religion. A profession of religion -- when it is the natural outcome of the grace of God in the soul -- is also good; but to put on the garment of profession, and to believe that we thus constitute ourselves Christians, is to build our hopes for eternity upon a foundation of sand -- a foundation that will, at death, totter and crumble beneath us, and sink us into everlasting ruin. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
"Until we put away from the minds of men the common error, that the current Christianity of the Church is true Christianity, we can make but little progress in converting the world." -- Pres. C. G. Finney.
"But the extent of the sad fact is not seen, that the cold, worldly, or indifferent in our midst, are really a large majority." -- Bishop Peck.
"Just now four out of five on our church rolls are doing nothing, almost absolutely nothing; and God's blessed cause is not made one whit stronger in numbers or influence by their living." -- Bishop Foster.
"The evidence before me is, that nine-tenths of our young people now entering into the Church practically ignore what has proceeded from the mouth of the Lord, as the rule of His people, namely, loyal obedience." -- Dr. Pierce.
"Many think themselves Christians who are not. For Christians are holy; these are unholy. Christians love God; these love the world. Christians are humble; these are proud. Christians are gentle; these are passionate. Consequently they are no more Christians than they are archangels." -- J. Wesley.
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 sacred 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 a Methodist church in any of our chief cities distinguish the attire of the communicants from that of the theatre and 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 performances spirituality is frozen to death.
Formerly every Methodist attended class, and gave testimony of experimental religion. Now the class-meeting is attended by very few, and in many churches abandoned. Seldom the stewards, trustees, and leaders of the church attend class. Formerly nearly every Methodist prayed, testified, or exhorted in prayer-meeting. Now but very few are heard. Formerly shouts and praises were heard, now such demonstrations of holy enthusiasm and joy are regarded as fanaticism.
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 spiritual death it carries in its train will only be known when the millions it has swept into hell stand before the Judgment.
The early Methodist ministers went forth to sacrifice and suffer for Christ. They sought not places of ease and affluence, 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, a timid, a truckling, a 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 to in the pulpits. -- Bishop Foster, of the M. E. Church.
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