Decline of Religion, and its Causes. By Evan M. Johnson [pp. 588-596]

Decline of Religion.
since the New Testament church was set up, its periods of
darkness and corruption, both in principle and practice, had
been frequent, long and mournful. And yet we never thought
of inferring, from all this, that the church of Christ, as a divine institution, was a failure; that it had ever ceased to exist;
or that it was not the product of infinite wisdom and benignity. We had thought that the corruption of the church,
from time to time, was to he set down to the same melancholy account, as the perversion of the Bible, and the ungrateful
abuse of all the means of grace, of which, alas! the church is
full.
Are there not thousands of members of the purest and best
church in the world, who are ignorant, erroneous in doctrine,
or chargeable with moral aberrations by no means creditable
to the Christian character? We think we could point out
some such among the multitudes who call themselves Presbyterians. And we are greatly deceived if we could not
point out an equal number, of the same character, in regular
connexion with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Yet we
never imagined that this fact would justify the inference that
Christianity was a faulty "scheme;" or that the church, as
a moral machine, was ill-adapted to answer the great purpose
for which it was designed. We have rather ascribed it to
the depravity and infatuation of man, who is capable of perverting the best gifts of heaven, and who never profits as he
ought by the choicest blessings of a merciful God. The gospel ought to win to its affectionate reception all who hear its
joyful sound: but was this desirable object ever realized?
All those who unite themselves with the professing people of
God, ought to "let their light shine before men," and to
"adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things."
But was this ever seen to be really the case with all professing Christians? Were there not heretical, immoral, worldlyminded church members, even under the eyes of the apostles
themselves, who gave great trouble, and divided and agitated
the body of Christ?
Mr. Johnson, however, it would appear, can admit nothing
of this. The true cause of the "decline of religion,' he
thinks to be in no wise, and in no degree, in the church itself
-that is, in the Episcopal Church —for he thinks no protestant denomination but his own sect is entitled to the name
of a Church. He sneeringly speaks of the body of Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians as "calling themselves
churches," but utterly disallows the name as applicable to
1837.]
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