The relative political and commercial condition of nations at the present moment, affords several special grounds of reasoning, on which the extention of Christianity may be anticipated as a probable event. Among topics of this class may be named that of the diffusion of the English language—the language which beyond comparison with any other is spreading and running through all the earth, and which, by the commerce and enterprise of two independent and powerful states, is colonizing the shores of every sea; this language, now pouring itself over all the waste places of the earth, is the principal medium of Christian truth and feeling, and is rich in every means of Christian instruction, and is fraught with religious sentiment, in all kinds, adapted to the taste of the philosopher, the cottager, and the infant. Almost apart, therefore, from missionary labor, the spread of this language insures the spread of the religion of the Bible. The doctrine is entwined with the language, and can hardly be disjoined. If the two expansive principles of colonization and commercial enterprise, once diffused the language and religion of Greece completely around every sea known to ancient navigation, it is now much more probable that the same principles of diffusion will carry English institutions, and English opinions, into every climate.
But in calculations or speculations of this sort, merely secular as they are, much less is included than truly belongs to the question at issue. Not to assume the truth of Christianity, and not to argue on the ground of its divine excellence, and not to confide in those prospective declarations, the certainty of which has been attested beyond possibility of doubt, is not only to grope in the dark when we might walk in the light of noon, but to exclude from the working of our problem the very facts of most significance in its determination. To estimate fairly the probability of the universal triumph of true religion, a second method must be pursued, in which the existing condition of the Christian church is to be contemplated with a Christian feeling. When thus viewed it will appear that a promise of a new kind is now bursting from the bud; and the inference may confidently be drawn that "summer is nigh."
For the purpose of measuring the progress of religion, attempts have sometimes been made to effect a sort of Christian statistics, or calculation of the actual number of true believers throughout the world. But the propriety of such an application of arithmetic is far from being conspicuous; and seeing that the subject of computation lies confessedly beneath the reach of the human eye, its accuracy may be absolutely denied. Endeavors, again, have been made to judge of the advance or decline of religion by comparing the state of devotional feeling and of morals in the present and in other times. But all such comparisons must be deemed, at the best, extremely vague, and open to immense errors, arising either from the prepossessions of the individual who makes the comparison, or from the want of data sufficiently ample and exact; and probably from both.
No attempts of this delusive kind will here be offered to the reader; but instead of them, certain unquestionable and obvious facts will be assumed as affording reasonable ground of very exhilarating hopes.
If any one were required, without premeditation, to give a reply to the question—What is the most prominent circumstance in the present state of the Christian Church? he would, if sufficiently informed on the subject, almost certainly answer—The honor done to the Scriptures. Such an answer may be supposed as suggested by the conspicuousness of the fact. Now in order to gather our inference safely from this fact, it is necessary to look back for a moment to past times.
In the first and best age of the church, the deference paid to the inspired writings, whether of prophets or apostles, was as great as can be imagined to exist: and whatever of beneficial influence belongs to the Sacred Volume, was then actually in operation; or it was so with a single drawback, namely—that arising from the scarcity of the book, and its non-existence in the hands of the Christian commonalty. To estimate duly the greatness of this disadvantage, let it be imagined what would be the effect, among ourselves, of a sudden withdrawment of almost all but the church copies of the Scriptures. This supposition need not be enlarged upon, for every devotional Christian, and every master of a family feels that, in whatever way the loss might be attempted to be supplied, it would still be afflicting and injurious in the extremest degree.
In the next, and the declining period of church history, if the above-named disadvantage was in some small degree remedied by the multiplication of copies, the benefit was much more than overbalanced by the promulgation and general prevalence of a false and very pernicious system of exposition; a system which sheathed the "sword of the Spirit," and scarcely left it its power or penetrating the conscience. The immediate consequence of this abuse of the rule of faith and practice was the rapid growth of a thousand corruptions. Thus, while in lip and in ceremonial the Scriptures held their seat of authority, they were dislodged from the throne of power. A night of a thousand years succeeded, during which the witnesses of God lay in their tomb, literally and virtually hidden, and silenced, and degraded.
The Reformation was, in all senses, a resurrection of the Bible: it was its recovery and restoration as an ancient document; and the recognition of its authority as the word of God; and the discovery of its meaning as a rule of faith, and worship, and life; and its new diffusion through the Christian body. The restoration of the Scriptures to their place of power and honor brought with it a revival of true piety, scarcely, if at all, inferior in extent and fervency to that which attended the preaching of the apostles. There were, however, deductions from the full influence and permanent benefit that might have resulted from this recovery of the sacred canon. Of these deductions, the first was the limited and imperfect diffusion of copies; for though the publication of the Bible by means of the press was actually great, it fell very far short of being complete. The next deduction arose from the infant state of the science of biblical criticism; the next, from the still unbroken influence of scholastic systems and modes of expression, which spread a dense coloring medium over the lucidness of the apostolic style; the next, and the most considerable and pernicious of these drawbacks, arose from the acrimony of controversy, and from that spirit of contumacious scrupulosity which is the parent of schism. These imperfections were great enough to bar the progress of Christianity, and to sully its glory at the time, and to procure the speedy decline of piety in all the Protestant countries.
But when the present aspect of the church is compared with its condition at the era of the Reformation, several circumstances connected with the state of the Scriptures offer themselves to observation, that are decidedly in favor of our times; and such as seem pregnant with hope for the future. Of these, the first is the unexampled multiplication and diffusion of the sacred volume: the second, is the progress that has been made towards bringing the original text to a state of undisputed purity; as well as the advancement of the science of biblical criticism, by which means the verbal meaning of the inspired writers is now ascertained more satisfactorily than at any time since the apostolic age: and the third, is the incipient adoption of an improved method of exposition; attended by an increasing disposition to bow to the Bible, as the only arbiter in matters of religion. It remains, then, briefly to point out in what manner these auspicious circumstances support the hope of an approaching revival of genuine religion.
For the first of them, namely, the multiplication and diffusion of the sacred volume: