The unbelief which brings enfeeblement and decay to the church of Christ is not, however, the kind of unbelief which the church is most apt to reprove.

There is, doubtless, in the church of to-day some weakening of faith in the historical facts of the Christian religion, and in the central doctrines of the Christian creed.  Science and criticism have rendered incredible some statements which once were universally accepted.  Considerable revision of theological belief has been found necessary, and it is probable that in this process the hold of some upon the central verities has been relaxed.

It may even be that the theories of some Christian confessors respecting the person of Christ have been modified, so that his humanity is more strongly affirmed than once it was.  To some persons this change of emphasis may seem to be a serious form of unbelief.

Admitting all this, however, these intellectual changes are not the principal cause of the enfeeblement of the church.  These changes, however we may regard them, have affected but a small minority of the members of our churches; the great majority of them continue to hold substantially the same theological opinions that they have always held.  The trouble with the church is not chiefly a lack of faith in the creeds, it is a lack of faith in Christ.  And it is not a lack of faith in the metaphysical theories of Christ’s person, but a lack of faith in the truth of his teaching.  It is an unbelief in which the most orthodox people are quite as much involved as those who are considered heretics.

The central question is not, after all, what we think about the nature of Christ.  There is good reason to believe that none of the twelve apostles held, during the life of our Lord, opinions which would be regarded as orthodox concerning his person.  They believed that he was a great Prophet, a revealer of God; nay, they believed that he was the Messiah, the long promised King, who was to set up his kingdom in this world.  Of this they had no doubt.  This was the belief that Jesus himself sought to fasten in their minds; and when he had drawn from Simon Peter a confession of this faith he cried out, “Blessed art thou, Simon son of John; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”  It was this faith in him as Lord and Ruler of men, as the Founder in this world of a kingdom of righteousness and peace, on which, as he declared, his church should be builded.  Such faith as this these twelve men had.  They would have found it difficult, probably, to assent to the Nicene Creed or the Athanasian Creed; but they believed in Jesus as Lord and King, and they believed every word of his Magna Charta found in the Sermon on the Mount; and they were ready to do what they could to establish that kingdom in this world.  It is just here that the faith of the church is lacking.  It believes the Nicene Creed, but it does not believe the Sermon on the Mount.  It believes what men