"Sji-n3^GK

Mw/v25 l&76b

The Future of Faith.

A SERMON

EEV. E. H. BYINGTON,

PREACHED IN BRUNSWICK, ME.,

July 7, 1878.

.4 PRINTED BY REQUEST.

PORTLAND, ME.:
PRtNTED BY B. THURSTON & COMPANY.
1878.

SERMON.

20 The kingdom of God cometh not with observation :
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom
of God is within you. St. Luke xvn. 20,21.

OST of the words of Christ referred directly
to events which belonged to his own time.
He spoke, as he had occasion to do, with
reference to the sins which were then common,
and to the tendencies which were then strong. But the
divine wisdom of his words appears in this, that the things
which were spoken to the men of his own age are found to
be suited to the necessities of men of all ages ; so that this
Teacher of the common people of Galilee is also the
Teacher of the wise men of Europe and America. His
words, indeed, have profounder meanings for us than they
could have had for the Scribes and Pharisees.

4 The Future of Faith.
Take these words concerning the kingdom of God. The
Jews had much to say about that kingdom, but they did
not by any means comprehend it. They always spoke
of it as something outward, something which came with
observation. They fancied that the kingdom of God was
essentially connected with Jerusalem and Judea ; and they
looked for a Redeemer who should restore the kingdom to
Israel. 1 It was a political kingdom, and they were looking
in this direction, and in that, for some means of breaking
the Roman yoke. In their religious observances they laid
an undue stress upon things that were only symbolical ;
upon outward rites and ceremonies. And the Saviour
was always directing their thoughts from these outward
things to the things that were spiritual ; to the spiritual
meaning of religious rites, and the spiritual nature of the
true kingdom. " God is a Spirit, and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth." " The king
dom of God cometh not with observation," for it is set up
within you, and the "pure in heart " are the ones that " shall
see God."
I have selected these words concerning the kingdom of
God as the starting point for some suggestions on certain
speculations which are undermining the faith of so many in
the spiritual kingdom of God. And my purpose will be to
set forth the real nature of that kingdom, and its relation
to some of the current discussions of our time.
I am inclined to think that the intellectual struggle
which is now going on concerning the very basis of Faith,
is the greatest the world has ever seen, and that it is des
tined, at no distant time, to become more serious, and to
1 Philochristus, p. 29.

The Future of Faith. 5
deal with questions in a more profound way. Already,
1 " men are calmly questioning and preparing to cast aside
beliefs " which were once accepted as the very basis of re
ligion. Doctrines are swinging before us in the balance
that seemed but yesterday to be fixed as mountains.
Young men are watching the progress of scientific discov
ery, saying, Lo here ! or, lo there ! as though the kingdom
of God came by observations, or depended at all upon them,
whether through the microscope, or through the finest
chemical analyses, or combinations, or the most careful
examinations of life. Strauss, in his old age, published the
Old and the New Faith, assuming that the world had out
grown the old, and that it was already seeking for the new,
and he succeeded at least in showing, that for himself, with
his active yet darkened mind, there was no such thing as
faith. Indeed, the question of the New Testament, " When
the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth ? "
is a question which is almost as pertinent now as it was
eighteen centuries ago.
How important it is that we come to such questions with
open minds, with minds undisturbed by prejudice. How
.important to guard ourselves against the fallacies that lurk
in so much of human reasoning. How important that we
seek to gain broad and comprehensive views of truth. One
cannot expect to see all the stars of heaven so long as he
dwells in a cave. And the truth has more to fear from a
narrow and superficial scholarship, than from anything else.
No one can hope to reach firm standing ground until he
has studied these questions widely, and studied them long.
1 Questions of Belief, Current Discussion, 281.

6 The Future of Faith.
I. My first suggestion is a general one, concerning the
history of religious thought. Any one who is versed in
the history of opinions must be aware that the law of
action and reaction has always been illustrated in religious
speculation. It is no new thing for the current to set
strongly toward unbelief. There have been a number of
periods in history, when it has seemed as though
the world was drifting away from a belief in the super
natural. Every such period has been followed by a re
action which has given religious truth a stronger hold
upon the world. The tide ebbs and flows. The pendulum
swings backward and forward. It would not follow that
the Christian religion was really losing its hold, even if the
great mass of educated men were unbelievers. One of the
benefits of the historic spirit is the power it gives one
to trace these great currents and counter currents of
thought. i. You recollect that all through the historical books of
the Old Testament the people of Israel were vacillating be
tween the worship of the true God, and that of the gods of
the heathen. And the reason was that the religion of their
fathers was really above their spiritual level. It required
an effort to raise them at any time high enough so that
they could enter with any heartiness into its spiritual
cultus. So that there was always a tendency to drop to
wards a lower plane. There was no such alternation
among the people who dwelt around them, because their
religious systems did not require any such elevation of the
moral and spiritual tone.
2. Among Christian nations there has been a similar

The Future of Faith. 7
alternation between faith and unbelief, and for the same
reason. Take for example the religious history of England since
the Reformation. Never was there a greater change in
the moral and religious state of a nation than that in Eng
land between the time of Elizabeth and Oliver Crom
well. The Bible became the book of the people, and its
truths the most common objects of thought. The best liter
ature of the period was represented by such names as Hook
er, Bacon, Bunyan, and Milton, and it was saturated with
religious ideas. The Puritan spirit gave a serious and re
ligious tone to society as well as to literature. Even the
government of the state was regarded as subsidiary to the
progress of the kingdom of God. The old forms of wor
ship were discarded, and men were taught to pay their
devotions in ways that were simple and sincere. The
Christian Sabbath was rescued from desecration, and was
kept all over England as an holy day. The Puritan move
ment was a whole century in gathering strength, and one
would have supposed that its strong currents would always
continue to flow. But the religious tone of Puritanism
was too high to be maintained, and it was followed by a
great reaction on the restoration of the Stuarts. Says Mr.
Greene, * "When Charles came to Whitehall the whole face
of England was changed." "All that was noblest and best
in Puritanism was whirled away." " Godliness became a
bye-word of scorn." " The young men drank in the spirit
of skepticism and free inquiry." a " From the spiritual
problems which engrossed attention in the times of the
Puritans, England turned to the study of nature, so that

iShort History, 587-600. 2Ibid, 590.

8 The Future of Faith.
the pursuit of physical science, according to the Baconian
method, became a passion. The first national observatory
arose at Greenwich. Sir Isaac Newton gave a fresh im
pulse to the pursuit of natural science by his great dis
coveries. The young scholars of the nation were devoted
to these studies. Useful inventions, and the conveniences
of life were greatly multiplied.
With this devotion to mere nature came in the philoso
phy of rfuniL. (which has ever been the method of unbe
lief), and the skeptical system of Hobbs. Later still the
historian says that religion sunk to a lower point.
1 " In the higher circles every one laughs if one talks of
religion." " Of the prominent statesmen of the time the
greater part were unbelievers in any form of Christianity,
and distinguished for the grossness and immorality of
their lives." " We saw but one Bible in the parish of
Cheddar," said Hannah Moore, " and that was used to prop
a flower pot."
Vice and crime existed everywhere, in high circles and
in low. The church, if we may credit the representations
of Mr. Macaulay, had lost its power for good. Nine-tenths
of the clergy had sunk into the station of menial servants
in the aristocratic houses where they officiated as chap
lains. " Sometimes," says a recent writer, " the reverend
man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the
coach horses, and sometimes he was even compelled to
resort to the feeding of swine that he might obtain his
daily bread."
The masses of the people had turned away from the
churches, — the Puritan Sabbath was exchanged for the
1 Greene, Short History, 707.

The Future of Faith. 9
Sabbath of the continent. Romanism was secretly foster
ed at the court, and it seemed as though England was
destined to become again an appendage of the Romish
church. But in due time there came a reaction which has carried
the influence of Christianity much higher than in the best
periods before. This reaction seemed to begin with the
labors of the Wesleys, and of Whitfield, not quite a hun
dred and fifty years ago. It extended to all branches of
the church, and to all departments of religious activity.
It effectually limited the influence of unbelief, and brought
back the great mass of Englishmen to Christianity. This
movement developed into the great revivals of religion
which have swept over England and America so many
times. Out of it has grown the system of Sabbath
Schools, the extension of popular education, the great
philanthropic enterprises of the time, especially the anti-
slavery movement, the temperance reform, the Bible and
tract societies, the home and foreign missionary societies,
and the spirit of Christian union. Among the indirect
results of this reaction have been the rise of a spiritual
philosophy, the philosophy of intuitions in the place of the
sensational philosophy of Locke, and the rise of a moral
science founded upon immutable right in the place of the
selfish system ; x the cultivation of a higher style of poetry,
under the influence of Wordsworth and Coleridge ; and in
politics, the extension of free institutions, the protection of
the rights of the masses of the people, and the enfran
chisement of woman. 1 Shairp, Poetry and Philosophy, 2.

id The Future1 of Faith.
It i3 not surprising that this great reaction ha's? heeif SUC'
seeded by another in the opposite direction. The ex
tension of commerce,- and the great increase of wealth J
the arfiazirig' progress of the natuiral sciences J the im
provements in the practical arts ;• the progress- of freedom ',
all these have a tendency to tufn the attention of men
from that which is spiritual to that which is rrlatefial,-»"from
the inward to the outward ; from metaphysics to physics } '
from theology to chemistry and biology ; frorrJ the Word
of God to the philosophies of men ; from the kingdom o$
God to the kingdom of man.-
It is inevitable that in such an age there should be some
weakening, of the power of the supernatural/ The pendu
lum is now swinging back again. But the point I insist
on is thisy that they are all temporary and self-limited '.•
that there are abundant reasons why they cannot per
manently weaken the hold of religion upon mankind.
I have not time to trace the history of religion in France
and in Germany, and show how violent the reactions have
been, and how decidedly the result of them is in favor of
supernatural religion ,
II, -This leads to the Second suggestion, te5 Which I ask
attention, which is, that religion does not depend upon sci
ence, or upon reasonings, for its real basis. " Neither shall
they say, Lo here ! or, la there ! for behold, the kingdom of
God is within you." The basis of religion is in the consti
tution of the human soul. God made man " in his image
and after his likeness," made him for communion and fel
lowship with himself ; and this communion and fellowship
of man with God is the one great object of Christianity*
It is to know God" ; to "acquaint ourselves with him and be

The Future vf Faith. 1 1
at peace ; " to " feel after him, if haply we may find him ; "
"to abide in him." i "This is life eternal " (if I may quote the
passage once more), " that they might know thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
I insist that religion is possible for man because he has
religious faculties, just as knowledge is possible for man
because he has intellectual faculties ; just as the cultivation
of taste is possible because he has the sense of the beau
tiful. Religion in man grows out of a sense of dependence, and
a sense of obligation. Its final object is to bring us to
God. When man is in connection with God he will be like
him ; that is, he will be pure and holy.
Now God has provided for this in the constitution of our
moral nature. He has not left himself without a witness*
He has written his law upon our hearts. We know that
We are free beings ; that we are responsible. We do not
learn of God from others. As we know ourselves, as per
sonal and responsible, so we know God as the First Cause,
as the Being to whom we are responsible.
With such a moral nature, man has a foundation for
religion. This is the reason why men of different tribes>
and different stages of culture, have been religious. This
is the reason why we have no instance in history of a nation
that has given up religion. Sometimes a nation has
changed its gods (though not often), just" as sometimes a
nation has changed its style of dress, and its food, and its
government and laws, its music and its language. But a
nation does not give Up all food, or music, or language, or
government, or law ; because men are so made that they
^ohn xvii. 3.

12 The Future of Faith.
need these things. For the same reason a nation does not
give up religion.
Let me suggest further, that as each one of the natural
senses has its own specific object, so each part of our intel
lectual and spiritual being has its own specific object. We do
not judge of a painting by the sense of smell. We do not
judge of music by sight. A man who has always been blind
cannot form a conception of color. And so it is that each
part of our complex being takes cognizance of its own spe
cific objects. Now, the religious faculty has its own specific
objects, just as the other faculties have theirs. I do not
think a man can judge of a religion by the sense of touch,
or of smell. I do not think he can judge of a religion by
his aesthetic nature. For religion is not a matter of taste.
I do not think a man can judge of religion by any of the
processes or results of natural science, for religion does not
belong to the natural world, but to the supernatural. The
kingdom of God is not in protoplasm. The kingdom of
God is not in that deep sea ooze to which Huxley gave
the name of Bathybius. The kingdom of God is not in
the crucible of the chemist. Nobody need expect to find
God among the ashes ; or to distill his essence from the
gases. The claims of religion cannot be affected by the
decision of the questions concerning the origin of species.
The doctrine of development has nothing to do with the
doctrine of human responsibility or of immortality ; with
the doctrine of prayer, or of the forgiveness of sin.
III. Let me also suggest in the third place, that the
progress of natural science cannot possibly affect the founda
tions of spiritual religion, because natural science does not
have anything to do with those foundations.

The Future of Faith. 13
How is it possible, for example, that the science of
nature should prove that there is no God. For, first, that
would be proving a negative, which is always difficult.
Then, the purpose of science is to puint uuL nature, not the
Author of nature. Supposing it should be proved that all
natural processes are governed by stable and definite laws.
Very well ; is not God the author of those laws ; are not
those laws simply the ways in which the Almighty exerts
his power ? Supposing it should be proved that all the
various kinds of life — vegetable and animal — have been de
rived from a very few original types ; or, that all these types
should be reduced to one, would not the question still re
main, how came that one life to exist. Whence had it that
mysterious power wrapped up within itself, which could
develop into all those myriad forms of life ? And that is
a question which science cannot answer. Science, at the
utmost, could only remove the question of a Creator a little
further back. And I really think it is a more wonderful
thing to create that germ which had within itself " the
promise and potency of all life," that first life from which,
in the progress of ages, may have come beasts and birds,
and creeping things, and man himself, than to have made
.these, " each after his kind." Suppose that all the stars of
heaven have been evolved from the star dust, — who made
the star dust ; who gave to it its wonderful properties ;
whose power set it in motion, and secured its evolution ?
Can science tell ?
Take the question which some one has stated recently,
" whether we are our bodies," whether that, which we mean
when we say ourselves, is anything more than the body of
flesh and blood ; the question indeed, whether man has an im
mortal part. Science can show that the mind is affected by

14 The Future of Faith.
the body. An English writer states the facts in this strik
ing way : x " Body and mind have visible relations to each
other. There is organic unity in the whole man. Touch
the smallest fibre of the corporeal man and in some in-
finitismal way we may trace this effect up into the higher
pinacles of spiritual life. Man is one, however compound.
Fire his conscience and he blushes. Check his circulation .
and he thinks wildly, or thinks not at all. Impair his
secretions and moral sense is dulled, his aspirations flag,
his hope, love, faith reel. Impair them still more and he
becomes a brute. A cup of drink degrades his moral
nature below that of a swine. A lancet will restore him
from delirium to clear thought. Excess of thought will
waste his muscles. An emotion will double the strength
of his muscles. And at last the prick of a needle, or a
grain of mineral will, in an instant, lay to rest forever his
body and his unity, and all the spontaneous activities of
intelligence, feeling and action with which that compound
organism was charged."
So far science can go. But it cannot go beyond this and
tell us that man is simply an organization, — that it is the
body that thinks and feels and wills, — that " imagination is
simply the vibration of a particular fibre," — that love, that -
joy, that hope, are simply the results of physiological
changes. Nor can science show us that our longings for
immortality are delusive, — that the sense of responsibil
ity is idle, — that our longings after God, even the living
God, that the earnestness of prayer, the raptures of devo
tion, the faith of the Christian, are all vain.
Science can never, by searching, find out God. It has
1 The Nineteenth Century, June, 1877 ; The Soul and Future Life.

The Future of Faith. 1 5
no instrument by which to take the dimensions of a soul.
It cannot weigh a thought, or analyze an affection. It can
not tell us why music pleases us, why falsehood excites our
reprobation, why virtue wins our approval, or why we turn
toward the power above when flesh and heart fail us.
IV. This leads to the last suggestion, which is that the
evidence which supports our belief in the supernatural is such
as ought to carry us over all the difficulties which can possi
bly arise in natural science.
For that evidence comes, as I have said, from our moral
nature, and no evidence from the science of nature can
touch that. We know of colors by sight ; we know of
sounds by hearing; we judge of the beautiful by our
aesthetic nature. So we judge that which is spiritual by
our moral nature.
God has not left us to find out the spiritual by reasoning,
any more than he has left us to find out our food by chem
ical analysis. Our natural instincts teach us to eat, and a
deeper spiritual instinct teaches us to turn toward the
Power above us. The reality of religion never can depend
upon long and intricate argument. For then, nobody could
gain a knowledge of that which is religious until he was
able to argue. But the kingdom of God is for little chil
dren, — for the wayfaring man. It is not a philosophy.
The little child sees the beauty of a flower, and is delighted
with it. .So that same little child sees that it ought to do
what is right ; and feels that it ought not to do wrong, and
that it ought to be blamed when it does wrong. And when
you tell the child about God, and that God is good, and
would have all of us do right, its mind is already prepared
for the truth. The idea of God only waits to be developed.

1 6 The Future of Faith.
And as the mind enlarges, these ideas of God, and. of duty,-
and of responsibility develop more and more. It is these
ideas which have to do with the kingdom of God. And
little children are nearer to God than the rest of us, be
cause these moral ideas are with them so just and so con
trolling. These ideas have had more to do with human history
than all other ideas. Are not the oldest monuments con
nected with religion ? Is not the oldest poetry full of re
ligious ideas ? Are not the three greatest epic poems the
world possesses pervaded by a sense of the supernatural ?
Take the great dramas of Sophocles, of Shakespeare, or of
Goethe ; — are they not full of the deepest moral elements ?
In Macbeth, as one has recently said, 1 " the main thing is
not that Duncan the murdered king is dead, but that Mac
beth the murderer lives ; not that Duncan sleeps, but that
Macbeth can sleep no more." So "it is conscience that
doth make cowards of us all." So it is, that " the dread
of something after death puzzles the will," and holds us
back from the evil we desire to do. So remorse poisons
all the sources of pleasure. So also the desire for the
favor of God leads men everywhere to send up their prayers
to heaven, and offer their gifts and sacrifices upon the
altars. So the very deepest experiences of human life grow
out of the sense of spiritual relations, and the longings
for spiritual perfection.
Can we suppose that all this is a delusion ? . Can we
think that these deepest thoughts, — these highest aspira
tions, — these purest affections are vain ?
Say, rather, that the things you see and handle are il-
1 Questions of Belief, 341.

The Future of Faith. 1 7
lusions ; that the voices you hear come from nowhere ; that
the things you taste are non-existent ; that there are no such
things as beautiful forms, and sweet sounds ; that all knowl
edge is delusive and vain. Say this, — say anything, in
fact, rather than that these deep thoughts, and feelings,
and experiences, — these longings for immortality, — these
prayers returning with blessings to our souls, — these hours
of communion with God are delusions. Be it that we are
mocked and befooled by the sight of our eyes, and the
hearing of our ears,' and by all the action of our intellects ;
but let it not be that these highest, holiest, divinest move
ments of spiritual life are only mocking and deceiving us.
It is very true there are perplexities concerning these
spiritual truths. It is easy for ingenious reasoners to ex
aggerate these difficulties. It is not necessary for us
to be able to clear them all away. A child can raise
questions which a philosopher cannot solve. A skillful
rhetorician can easily place these difficulties in very strik
ing forms. "Words,"' says old Homer, "make this way
and that way, — great is the power of words ;" but these
moral instincts, which are born with us, these religious
ideas which are always making themselves felt, whether
we will or not, are the most permanent of facts. Many a
humble Christian who cannot begin to reply to the ob
jections of unbelief, furnishes in his own life an evidence
of the reality of spiritual religion which those objectors
cannot gainsay.
The kingdom of God is within you. Religion is of the
heart. It is the communion of a devout mind with God.
It is thus its own evidence. " We speak that we know,
and testify that we have seen." It is an experience.
Even if the Bible could be discredited and destroyed, the

1 8 The Future of Faith.
grounds of religion would remain, as indeed they existed
before there was any Bible. As long as men could come
into communication with God, in a direct and personal
way, religion would exist.
The strength and permanence of the Christian religion
depends upon this : that the Bible interprets these deepest
moral feelings of ours, and interprets them correctly. The
Bible commends itself to the ethical nature of man. If it
did not, he could not receive it as divine. I do not hesi
tate to say (though the statement is often denied), that it
is impossible for a man to receive any doctrine of religion
which he perceives to be contrary to reason or to morality.
But it is the strength of the Christian religion that it
commends itself " to every man's conscience in the sight
of God."
This is the reason why the attacks of unbelief upon
Christianity have been so unsuccessful. If men have been
disposed to yield to them for a time, their own spiritual
wants have brought them back to Christianity again. This
is the reason why we expect so confidently that the re
ligion of Christ will extend over the world. If it were a
speculation, — a dogma, — a science, it might come to naught.
But as it appeals to the best and most spiritual part of
us, it must live. It must win its way to the hearts of men.
Those " who labor and are heavy laden " will seek this rest
for their souls. Those who carry the burdens of sin will
behold him "who taketh away the sin of the world."
And all those who seek for the First Perfect and the First
Fair, — who seek communion with infinite purity and love,
will come unto the All-Father for peace and pardon and
eternal life. In their lighter moods men will still say,

The Future of Faith. 19
Lo here ! or lo there ! but in their seasons of profoundest
feeling they will come unto Him who "is able to save
unto the uttermost all who come unto God by Him." And
to His name be praise in the Church, world without end.
Amen.