p. 159 | Faith and Fanaticism by Dr. James Hamilton

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 10.

Faith and Fanaticism.

By Dr. James Hamilton

FAITH listens to God’s voice, and follows where Scripture leads it by the hand. Fanaticism has inward lights and mystic voices and revelations, and scorns the sober ways, the good old paths, of the written record. Faith compares scripture with scripture, and with docile patience gathers from its sundry places the entire mind of the Spirit. Fanaticism, when it deigns to consult the word at all, is proud and precipitate, and, pouncing on the text which serves its turn, has no tolerance for any other which would restrict or expand its meaning.

Faith has a creed of many articles, and its decalogue of ten commands. Fanaticism resolves morality into a solitary virtue, and its orthodoxy is summed up in a single tenet. Such a fanatic, had he heard on the temple roof a whisper in his ear, “Cast thyself down hence,” would scarcely have waited to ascertain whether the voice came from a good spirit or a demon; or had he paused for a moment, and then been reminded of the promise, “For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee,” he would find it a crime to hesitate. But he that believeth will not make such haste; and after hearing both the suggestion and the Scripture proof, that great Believer to whom it was addressed held up to the proposal the torch of truth, and declared it presumptuous and Heaven-provoking.

Reader, try the spirits. Error is often plausible, and the most ensnaring errors are those which have an obvious resemblance to truth.

Even though the outside coating is not brass, but real gold, the leaden coin is none the less counterfeit; and, like the devil’s temptation, wrapped up in a Scripture saying, many false doctrines come nowadays with a sacred or spiritual glamour round them, quoting texts and uttering Bible phrases. But the question is not, Who has got a text on his side? but, Who has got the Bible?—not, Who can produce certain sentences, torn from their connection and reft of the purport which that connection gives them? but looking at Scripture in its integrity, having regard to its general drift, as well as to the bearing of these special passages, Who is it that makes the fairest appeal to the statute-book of Heaven?—Dr. James Hamilton.