Our Present State

By Darrell Brooker

This week’s spiritual medicine from Dr. Bonar is taken from his book Truth & Error written in 1846. The book is a series of “letters to a friend” speaking to some of the controversies of the day. This edited excerpt is from the final chapter and is a diagnosis of the state of Christianity at that time. While written 160 years ago when the problems and issues were somewhat different than today, there is still a sense in which much of what Bonar writes resonates with us when we look out over the deteriorating “evangelical” landscape.

MY DEAR FRIEND, You ask me what I think of the religion of the present day—its character as well as its progress. I answer, I can hardly tell.

Our present state is not a healthy or a natural one. It is doubtful and unsatisfactory. There is much to rejoice in, but much to grieve over. There is bustle, activity, zeal, and liberality; yet all these may exist, and still spiritual life may be low. There may be much blossom and little fruit; and even that little not of the rich, mellow kind that, in other days, drew our Beloved into his garden “to eat his pleasant fruits.”

Religion among us lacks the intense vitality of other days. It intermits, fluctuates, and then, not seldom, evaporates. It lacks depth and strength. It lacks natural warmth, and too often seems to make up for the want of it by friction and excitement. Hence it is often wan and pale, relieved by hectic glows which soon depart. It has not the healthy complexion of more primitive times. And in evidence of this, we find it continually turning in upon itself, feeling its own pulse, watching its various symptoms, a sure sign of disease, for health is unconscious of itself.

It bears about it many marks of man’s handiwork. The finger of Jehovah is not visibly impressed upon it, so that one looking at it would be constrained to say, This is the doing of the Lord. There is much that is hollow and superficial. It is too hasty, too easy, too light and frivolous. It is wanting in the freshness, the calmness, the simplicity of primitive times. We desire something more solid and more solemn; peaceful but not stagnant; earnest but not feverish; energetic but not unstable. On the one hand, we have some zealous for orthodoxy—tenacious of old forms and phrases, and making an idol of their ancestral creed. On the other, we have men reckless and head-strong in their innovations; rushing from doctrine to doctrine, in the feverish love of change; rash in judgment, and shallow in intellect, despising creeds, confessions, catechisms, and old divinity of every kind; setting themselves up as those who alone preach or know the gospel, —the people with whom alone wisdom can be supposed to exist, and with whom it is almost certain to die.

Those to whom it may apply may take offence at what I have written. They may deem me uncharitable and harsh. But I have written strongly because I felt that the evil was great, and that smooth words would have but concealed its magnitude. The words may seem sharp and severe, but no hostile feelings towards any individuals whatever mingle with my exposition of their doctrines.

Perhaps we may be accused of an ignorant attachment to antiquated creeds, and of blind veneration for the straitened theology of other days. Now, though wishing to draw direct from the fountain-head, and to call no man master, yet we do confess a liking to those doctrines which, in life and in death, were grasped so strongly by our fathers,—those much-praying, much-believing, deep-thinking, hard-toiling, sore-suffering men, whose eyes grew early dim, and whose hair grew early gray. We are not ashamed to confess a satisfaction in sitting at the feet of such men, and listening to their solemn teaching, in preference to seeking instruction from men whose shallowness and self-confidence make us feel, that instead of teaching others, they have need that one teach them again what be the first principles of the oracles of God.

Yours, &c.

THUS SAITH THE LORD:

“They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace, where there is no peace.”—Jeremiah 6:14.

“They are prophets of the deceit of their own hearts.”—Jeremiah 23:26.

“I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal
my words, every man from his neighbor.”—Jeremiah 23:30.

“A voice of a multitude being at ease was with her.”—Ezekiel 23:42.

“Ever learning, and never able to come to
the knowledge of the truth.”—2 Timothy 3:7.

“Beguiling unstable souls.”—2 Peter 2:14.