PERSONAL RELIGION by Methodist

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1880

PERSONAL RELIGION.

By Methodist

THERE is a tendency to substitute the religion of the church for personal piety. Multitudes have no other religion than that of loyalty to the creed, and punctilious attendance upon the public services of some church. It would be a mistake to assume that they attend and support their church merely because it is fashionable, and respectable to do so. To them, it is serious business, often a cross, to attend public worship twice a day, and give what they are required to give, for its support. They consider it a duty incumbent on every man, to go to church, and support the gospel. And they are right in this. Their error is in regarding the performance of this duty as payment in full of all religious obligations, and in supposing that it will somehow be placed to their credit as a substitute for the religion of the heart and life. They look upon the church as a sort of reservoir of salvation, in which they have a paid-up share that will accrue to them in the day of final account.

Unquestionably, the work of the gospel requires the existence of the church. Nor do the Scriptures recognize as a Christian any one who refuses to identify himself publicly with some branch of the church of Christ. The church is needful and valuable, as the means of inspiring men with a sense of their need of personal religion, and helping them to work out their own salvation. But it is not an insurance company to guarantee salvation, and supersede personal responsibility, by relieving men from the necessity of finding out God for themselves, and opening their hearts to the direct influences of the Holy Spirit.

Religion, to be of any value, must be a personal matter. The gospel of Christ makes its appeal to the individual. All its commands are addressed to each soul as personally accountable for the manner in which he treats them. "So then," says Paul, "every one of us must give account of himself to God." If we do not repent, believe, and be converted, each one of us for himself, the church can do nothing for us, either here, or hereafter. We shall be judged at last according to our character, and not by our church relations.

Each human soul is created for personal union, and communion with God. It is his privilege to have direct access to God, to have intercourse with him, and receive the law from his mouth, without the intervention of church, or priest. This intercourse is as necessary to the life and normal growth of the soul, as food is to the sustenance of the body. No loyalty to creeds, zeal for church, or punctilious observance of its services, can take the place of this life of faith and piety. The very effort to find a substitute for it is an affront to God, an impious attempt to evade a sacred and solemn responsibility. It is a sort of imposture and self-deception, which seeks to get rid of religion by something that seems to be religious; which, instead of seeking to awaken and nourish the spirit of faith and penitence by the use of prayers, hymns, sermons, and other services of the church, invests these performances with a superstitious virtue, satisfies the conscience with something short of holiness, and fixes the heart on some sanctimonious machinery, instead of Christ.