Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again Part 7

Either he had no ideas on the subject, or he failed to convey them to me.

--I see no mystery in John's doctrine that G.o.d dwells in those in whom love dwells, for G.o.d is love. And I see no mystery in what Peter says about Christians being partakers of the divine nature; for the Divine nature is purity, wisdom and love. We share the common human nature and the common animal nature; that is, we have certain qualities or properties in common with men generally, and with the inferior orders of living things. So we share the divine nature, when we have the same dispositions, affections, qualities as the divine Being. And the properties of the divine being are purity, knowledge, love.

--I have just been listening to another antinomian sermon. The preacher contended that we are justified and saved solely on account of what Christ has done and suffered for us, and that the only thing we have to do, is to believe this, or trust in the merits of Christ, and be at rest as to our eternal destiny. But if we are saved _solely_ on account of what Christ has done and suffered, why talk as if our _believing_ this, or _trusting in Christ's_ merits, was necessary to salvation? Why not go a step further and say, that neither believing nor trusting has anything to do with our salvation? But the whole theory is as anti-scriptural and false as it is foolish and mischievous. The preacher said, "We are not under the law,--Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law." Very true; but we are under the Gospel; and the Gospel requires a more perfect life than the law required. The law of Christ is much stricter than the law of Moses. He said, "By the works of the law no flesh living can be justified." But we may still be justified by the works of the Gospel. "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." "By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned." "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." "We have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He was so are we in this world."

He said circ.u.mcision availeth nothing; and it is true that "the circ.u.mcision which is outward in the flesh" avails nothing under the Christian dispensation: but that which is inward, namely, the putting away of all filthiness, and living a holy life, availeth much.

Then followed a lot of unscriptural and unwise talk about our own righteousness and Christ's righteousness. But the truth is, when we love G.o.d and keep His commandments,--when we love Christ and do as He bids us, and believe, in consequence, that we are approved of G.o.d, and in a fair way for heaven, we trust in _G.o.d's_ righteousness, or _Christ's_ righteousness, and not in a righteousness of our own. The righteousness of G.o.d means the righteousness which G.o.d _requires_; the righteousness of _Christ_ means obedience to His precepts, and conformity to His mind and character. True, if I obey the Gospel, my obedience is my own, but the _law_, or the righteousness _prescribed_, is Christ's. It is when men make a law of their own,--when they set aside G.o.d's law, and put some other law in its place, and expect G.o.d's blessing in consequence of obeying that, that they trust in their _own_ righteousness. And in all such cases men's own righteousness, in G.o.d's sight, is "as filthy rags."

But hearty, loving obedience to G.o.d's _own_ law is never regarded by Him "as filthy rags," but as a rich adorning. Real Christian goodness is, in the sight of G.o.d, "of great price."

"Than gold or pearls more precious far, And brighter than the morning star."

Christian obedience is a sacrifice with which G.o.d is well pleased: "To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices G.o.d is well pleased." He alone trusts in the righteousness of Christ who hears Christ's words and does them,--who cultivates Christ's mind, and lives as Christ lived, and who, in doing so, expects, according to Christ's promise, G.o.d's blessing and eternal life. The idea that G.o.d looks on any persons as having lived like Christ when they have not done so; or that He supposes any persons to be righteous, or treats them as righteous, when they are not so, is foolish and anti-scriptural in the extreme. And it is unmethodistical too. Yet here is a Methodist preacher so-called, dealing out this mischievous and miserable folly. And alas he is not alone. And these are the men who abuse others as heretics.

--The good done where preachers preach theology is not done by the preaching, I fancy, but by stray truth from the Gospels, and by the Christian lives and Christian labors of simple-minded, Bible-loving, non-theological members of the church. G.o.d bless them!

--Wesley has thirty definitions of religion, and they all mean, in substance, loving G.o.d and loving man, and living to do good. Wesley was always sensible in proportion as he got away from under the influence of the prevailing Theology.

--Some talk as if a religious education can never be the means of a child's conversion,--that, do for your children what you will, they will still, like others, require a distinct and full conversion when they come of age. I cannot see why a good Christian mother talking to her child from her old arm-chair, and praying with it as it kneels by her side, or the good example and G.o.dly training of a pious father, may not be made as effectual to the gradual conversion of a child as the preaching of a pastor from the pulpit. Nor can I see why a gradual elevation of a child to the higher spiritual life should not be as possible and as probable as the sudden elevation of a hardened and inveterate sinner. 'You cannot give your children grace,' it is said: but it is easy to answer, 'G.o.d can give children grace through the medium of Christian parents, as well as through public preachers and teachers.' I encourage people to bring up their children in Christian knowledge and goodness, by telling them that G.o.d may be expected to bless their labors to the sanctification and salvation of their children from their early days. Baxter used to thank G.o.d that he was led by his good parents to love G.o.d so early that he could not recollect a time when he did not love Him.

--Churches exist in this world to remind us of the eternal laws which we are bound to obey. So far as they do this, they answer their end, and are honored in doing so. It would have been better for all of us--it would be better for us now, could churches keep this their peculiar function steadily and singly before them. Unfortunately, they have preferred in later times the speculative side of things to the practical.

--There is a tendency in men to corrupt religion; to change it from an aid and incentive to a holy life, into a contrivance to enable men to sin without fear of punishment. Obedience to G.o.d's law is dispensed with, if men will diligently profess certain opinions, or practically take part in certain rites. However scandalous the moral life, the profession of a particular belief, or attention to certain forms, at the moment of death, is held to clear the soul.

--It would be easy to give a hundred instances of doctrines to be heard in sermons and found in religious books, which are nowhere taught in Scripture. And some of them exert a mighty influence for evil on the church and the world. They check the spread of Christianity. They strengthen the cause of infidelity. They keep people away from Christ.

They make an all but impa.s.sable gulf between the church and the ma.s.s of humanity.

--Some think they would not have enough to talk about if they were to give up all the doctrines or notions for which I say there is no scriptural authority. One preacher told me I had already spoiled some of his best sermons. He said he had never been able to preach them with comfort since he began to listen to my conversation. The truth is, preachers will never know what great, good things there are to be talked about, till they get rid of their foolish fancies. Nor will they know the true pleasure of talking till they come to feel that their utterances are the words of eternal truth. And so far will they be from not having enough to talk about, that if they give themselves in a Christian spirit, to study the truth as it is in Jesus, they will never have time to utter a tenth of the blessed things that will present themselves to their minds.

A hundred years would not afford me time enough to say all that I get glimpses of on religious subjects as presented in nature and in the Scriptures. Every subject I take in hand requires ten times more time to do it justice than is generally allowed for a sermon. And the subjects are numberless. We live in an infinite universe of truth.

"I rejoice," says one, "that I have been led, in the course of G.o.d's providence, to do so much as I have done, towards purging revelation from those doctrines and practices which were discordant with its teachings, and prevented its reception with many."

Shall I ever be able to do anything in this way? G.o.d help me. If I could make the Church and the ministry more Christ-like, and more powerful for good, what a blessing it would be. What a world of work wants doing, both in the church and in the world. Save me from an impatient, pugnacious, disagreeable spirit. Perhaps I see the needs of others more than I feel my own. Perhaps I am in danger of being more eager for reform in others, than for a thoroughly Christian spirit and behavior in myself.

How many words and phrases one hears in sermons and in prayers, and what heaps of expressions one meets with in religious works, that are not warranted by Scripture or common sense!

--Some of the words and phrases that are more frequently used by Christians than any other, are unscriptural ones. Some of them express unscriptural ideas. Some of them are names of things that have no existence. Both the words and the ideas for which they stand are anti-christian. Many of the things said from the pulpit are unintelligible. The people strain their minds to get at a meaning, but to no purpose. It is Latin or Greek to them. They listen, but do not learn. They hear sounds, but catch no sense. They reverence, they wors.h.i.+p, but they do not understand. They believe, they feel, that there are great spiritual realities, but they are not made clear to their minds. The devouter portion of the people still pray, and on the whole, live sober, righteous and G.o.dly lives; but mult.i.tudes are discouraged, and take themselves away.

"The hungry sheep look up and are not fed."

They hear words, but get no ideas. Religion does not come to them from the pulpit as a reality. It does not make itself felt as truth. Books and lecturers on science treat of realities, and treat of them in words that can be understood; but many books on religion, and many preachers, seem to deal only in words. And the consequence is, many fancy religion is a delusion, a fanaticism, a dream. Others believe there is something in it, but they cannot conceive what it is. Yet teachers and preachers appear not properly to understand why so many get weary of sermons and religious books. Let them talk in plain good English, and say nothing but what has some great Christian reality under it, and sermons and religious books will be the most popular things on earth.

--I would never sacrifice Christian truth to conciliate the world; but I would sacrifice everything at variance with Christian truth; and I would present Christian truth itself in as intelligible and taking a form as possible.

--The antinomian theology has had a terribly corrupting effect on many members of churches. I meet proofs of it every day. G.o.d help me to do my duty. Some of my hearers say to me, 'We come to church to be comforted, and not to be continually told to do, do, do.' I do not wish people to be comforted unless they will do their duty; and they will never _lack_ comfort if they _do_ do it. Comfort is for those who labor to comfort and benefit others, and not for those who care only for themselves. I try to make the easy-going, indolent and selfish professors miserable: and in some cases I succeed. But I make others happy, thank G.o.d, by inducing them to give themselves heartily to Christian work.

--Here are a few more good words from Baxter: 'Many proclaim the praise of truth in general, but reject and persecute its various portions. The _name_ of truth they honor, but the truth itself they despise.'

'Pa.s.sion is a great seducer of the understanding, and strangely blindeth and perverteth the judgment.'

'When pa.s.sion hath done boiling and the heart is cooled, and leaveth the judgment to do its work without clamor and disturbance, it is strange to see how things will appear to you to be quite of another tendency than in your frenzy you esteemed them.'

'Be more studious to hold and improve those common truths which all profess, than to oppose the particular opinions of any, except so far as those common truths require you to do so.'

'Be not borne down by the censoriousness of any, to outrun your own understanding and the truth, and to comply with them in their errors and extremes; but hold to the truth and keep your station. 'Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.' Jer. xv. 19.'

'Believe nothing that contradicteth the end of all religion. If its tendency be against a holy life, it cannot be truth.'

'Plead not the darker texts of Scripture against those that are more plain and clear, nor a few texts against many that are as plain. That pa.s.sage that is interpreted against the most plain and frequent expressions of the Scriptures is certainly misinterpreted.'

I will carry out these principles to the best of my ability.

--I notice that Christ never tells people that they cannot repent and do G.o.d's will without divine help. He did not think it necessary to supply people with excuses for their neglect of duty. And He knew that divine help is never withheld from any man. All _have_ the help needed to do what G.o.d requires. There is no danger of any man trying to do anything good before he receives power from G.o.d. G.o.d is always beforehand with men.

--I have had a troubled night. I have not slept soundly for a week. I have had odd hours of sleep, but never a quarter of a night's unbroken rest. Parties will talk with me about religion, and I am foolish enough to talk with them, yet we never quite agree. They insist on the sacredness of every old notion and of every old word they have received from their teachers, and I believe in the sacredness of nothing but Scripture truth and common sense. They cannot understand me, and I cannot accept their nonsense. And they have no idea of liberty or toleration. They allow no excuse for not being sound in the faith, and no one is sound in the faith according to their notions but those who agree with them. They know nothing of the foundation on which the Connexion was built. They know nothing of Wesley: nothing, at least, of his liberal views. The fundamental principles of the Connexion justify me in my freedom of investigation, and in the sentiments which I hold and teach; but they do not know this. They know nothing but that every one is to think as they think, and talk as they talk. Hence they keep me on the rack.

I am tired. I feel sad. I could weep. I feel as if I could like to run away, like Elijah, and hide myself in the wilds of some great mountain.

But no; I must stand my ground, and do my duty. Shall truth be timid, and error bold? Shall folly rage and be confident, and wisdom be afraid to whisper? Help me, O G.o.d, to do my duty as Thy servant, and as the minister of Thy Gospel.

--There are some verses of hymns that are sung in almost all religious a.s.semblies that have nothing answering to them in Scripture. John Wesley once said, that the hymns which were the greatest favorites among the Methodists were the worst in the whole Hymn Book. It is the same still I fear, to some extent. Let those who would like to know to what words and hymns we refer, take themselves to task for a time, and demand Scriptural authority for every word and expression they utter. We would save them the trouble, were it not that we have learned that instruction from others is of no use to people who do not endeavor to teach themselves.

But take a sample or two. I cannot sing the following:

"Forbid it Lord that I should boast Save in the death of Christ my G.o.d."

"The immortal G.o.d hath died for me," &c.

Jesus died, and G.o.d dwelt in Jesus, but G.o.d did not die. Great allowances are made to poets; but they should not be encouraged to write impossibilities.

"A heart that always feels Thy blood," &c.

I feel thankful for the love which led Jesus to die for me; but I cannot say I feel the blood. I feel the happy effects of the death or blood-shedding of Jesus; and perhaps that is what the poet means.

"When from the dust of death I rise, To claim my mansion in the skies, Even then this shall be all my plea, Jesus hath lived and died for me."

This is not scriptural. The good servant in the parable of the talents says: "Lord, Thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained besides them five talents more." And so far was his Lord from finding fault with his plea, that he answered, "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." And why may not other faithful servants use the same plea?

John makes perfect love, or likeness to Jesus, the ground of confidence or boldness in the day of judgment. How strange that Christian writers should be so ignorant of the Bible, or so regardless of its teachings.

Some of them seem to think they are saying very fine things when they are talking their anti-Christian nonsense. Help me, O G.o.d, to speak and act in accordance with Thy word.

Fine writing may be a fine thing, but true writing is a finer.

I suppose it is as hard for theologians to give up their anti-Christian words and notions as it is for drunkards to give up their drink. But it would be well for them to consider, that self-denial may be as necessary to _their_ salvation, as it is to the salvation of infidels and profligates.

I would sacrifice a little poetry to truth. I would not be very particular, but do let us have substantial truth. Do not let us enc.u.mber and disfigure religion by absurdities, impossibilities, and antinomian abominations.

Some one has said, "The world is very jealous of those who a.s.sail its religious ignorance. Its old mistakes are great idols. No man has ever carried a people one march nearer the promised land without being in danger of being stoned. No man has ever purified the life of an age, without substantially laying down his own."