MISTAKES IN RELIGION

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 11, 1860

MISTAKES IN RELIGION.

To point out with precision all the mistakes which exist at the present day on the awful subject of religion, would far exceed our limits. No mention therefore is intended to be made of the opinions or the practice of any particular body of people; nor will any notice be taken of any of the peculiarities of the numerous sects and parties which have risen up among us. It will be sufficient for the present purpose to hazard some slight remarks on a few of those common classes of characters which belong more or less to most general bodies.

There are, among many others, three different sorts of religious professors. The religion of one consists in a sturdy defense of what they themselves call orthodoxy, an attendance on public worship, and a general decency of behaviour. In their views of religion, they are not a little apprehensive of excess, not perceiving that their lies on the other side. They are far from rejecting faith or morals, but are somewhat afraid of believing too much, and a little scrupulous about doing too much, lest the former be suspected of fanaticism and the latter of singularity. These Christians consider religion as a point which they, by their regular observances, having attained, there is nothing further required but to maintain the point they have reached, by a repetition of the same observances. They are therefore satisfied to remain stationary, considering that whoever has obtained his end is of course saved the labor of pursuit; he is to keep his ground without troubling himself in searching after an imaginary perfection.

These frugal Christians are afraid of nothing so much as superfluity in their love, and supererogation in their obedience. This kind of fear however is always superfluous, but most especially in those who are troubled with the apprehension. They are apt to weigh in the nicely poised scales of scrupulous exactness, the duties which must of hard necessity be done, and those which without much risk may be left undone; compounding for a larger indulgence by the relinquishment of a smaller; giving up, through fear, a trivial gratification to which they are less inclined, and snatching doubtingly, as an equivalent, at one they like better. The gratification in both cases being perhaps such as a manly mind would hardly think worth contending for, even were religion out of the question. Nothing but love to God can conquer love of the world. One grain of that divine principle would make the scale of self-indulgence kick the beam.

These persons dread nothing so much as enthusiasm. Yet if to look for effects without their predisposing causes; to depend for heaven on that to which heaven was never promised, be features of enthusiasm, then are they themselves enthusiastic.

The religion of a second class we have already described. It consists in a heart devoted to its Maker; inwardly changed in its temper and disposition, yet deeply sensible of its remaining infirmities; continually aspiring, however to higher improvements in faith, hope and charity, and thinking that "the greatest of these is charity." These, by the former class, are reckoned enthusiasts, but they are in fact, if Christianity be true, acting on the only rational principles. If the doctrines of the gospel have any solidity, if its promises have any meaning, these Christians are building on no false ground. They hope that submission to the power of God, obedience to his laws, compliance with his will, trust in his word, are through the efficacy of the eternal Spirit, real evidences, because they are vital acts of genuine faith in Jesus Christ. If they profess not to place their reliance on works, they are however more zealous in performing them than the others, who professing to depend on their good deeds for salvation are not always diligent in securing it by the very means which they themselves establish to be alone effectual.

There is a third class—the high flown professor, who looks down from the giddy height of antinomian delusion on the other two, abhors the one and despises the other, concludes that the one is lost, and the other in a fair way to be so. Though perhaps not living himself in any course of immorality which requires the sanction of such doctrines, he does not hesitate to imply in his discourse that virtue is heathenish, and good works superfluous if not dangerous. He does not consider that though the gospel is an act of oblivion to penitent sinners, yet it nowhere promises pardon to those who continue to live in a state of rebellion against God, and of disobedience to his laws. He forgets to insist to others that it is of little importance even to believe that sin is an evil (which however they do not always believe), while they persist to live in it; that to know everything of duty except the doing it, is to offend God with an aggravation, from which ignorance itself is exempt. It is not giving ourselves up to Christ in a nameless, inexplicable way, which will avail us. God loves an humble, not an audacious faith. To suppose that the blood of Christ redeems us from sin while sin continues to pollute the soul, is to suppose an impossibility. To maintain that it is effectual for the salvation, and not for the sanctification of the sinner, is to suppose that it acts like an amulet, an incantation, a talisman, which is to produce its effect by operating on the imagination, and not on the disease.

The religion which mixes with human passions and is set on fire by them, will make a stronger blaze than that light which is from above, which sheds a steady and lasting brightness on the path, communicates a sober but durable warmth to the heart. It is equable and constant; while the other, like culinary fire, fed by gross materials, is extinguished the sooner from the fierceness of the flame.

That religion which is merely seated in the passions, is not only liable to wear itself out by its own impetuosity, but to be driven out by some other passion. The dominion of violent passions is short. They dispossess each other. When religion has had its day, it gives way to the next usurper. Its empire is no more solid than it is lasting, when principle and reason do not fix it on the throne.

The first of the above classes consider prudence as the paramount virtue in religion. Their antipodes, the flaming professors, believe a burning zeal to be the exclusive grace. They reverse St. Paul's collocation of the three Christian graces, and think that the greatest of these is faith. Though even in respect of this grace their conduct and conversation too often give us reason to lament that they do not bear in mind its genuine and distinctive properties. Their faith, instead of working by love, seems to be adopted from a notion that it leaves the Christian nothing to do, rather than because it is its nature to lead him to do more and better than other men.

In this case, as in many others, that which is directly contrary to what is wrong, is wrong also. If each opponent would only barter half his favorite quality with the favorite quality of the other, both parties would approach nearer to the truth. They might furnish a complete Christian between them, i. e., provided the zeal of the one was sincere and the prudence of the other honest. But the misfortune is, each is as proud of not possessing the quality he wants, because his adversary has it, as he is proud of possessing that of which the other is destitute, and because he is destitute of it.

Among the many mistakes in religion, it is commonly thought that there is something so unintelligible, absurd, and fanatical in the term conversion that those who employ it run no small hazard of being involved in the ridicule it excites. It is seldom used but ludicrously, or in contempt. This arises partly from the levity and ignorance of the censurer, but perhaps as much from the imprudence and enthusiasm of those who have absurdly confined it to real or supposed instances of sudden or miraculous changes from profligacy to piety.

But surely, with reasonable people we run no risk in asserting that he who being awakened by any of those various methods which the Almighty uses to bring his creatures to a knowledge of himself, who, seeing the corruptions that are in the world, and feeling those with which his own heart abounds, is brought, whether gradually or more rapidly, from an evil heart of unbelief, to a lively faith in the Redeemer; from a life, not only of gross vices, but of worldliness and vanity, to a life of progressive piety; whose humility keeps pace with his progress; who, though his attainments are advancing, is so far from counting himself to have attained, that he presses onward with unabated zeal, and evidences by the change in his conduct, the change that has taken place in his heart—Such a one is surely as sincerely converted and the effect is as much produced by the same divine energy as if some instantaneous revolution in his character had given it a miraculous appearance. The doctrines of Scripture are the same now as when David called them “a law converting the soul and giving light to the eyes.” This is perhaps the most accurate and comprehensive definition of the change for which we are contending, for it includes both the illumination of the understanding, and the alteration in the disposition.

If then this obnoxious expression signify nothing more nor less than that change of character which consists in turning from the world to God, however the term may offend, there is nothing ridiculous in the thing. Now as it is not for the term for which we contend, but for the principle conveyed by it, so it is the principle and not the term which is the real ground of objection; though it is a little inconsistent that many who would sneer at the idea of conversion, would yet take it extremely ill if it were suspected that their hearts were not turned to God.

Reformation, a term against which no objection is ever made, would if words continued to retain their primitive signification, convey the same idea. For it is plain that to reform means to make anew. In the present use, however, it does not convey the same meaning in the same extent, nor indeed does it imply the operation of the same principle. Many are reformed on human motives, many are partially reformed; but only those who, as our great poet says, are “reformed altogether,” are converted. There is no complete reformation in the conduct affected without a revolution in the heart. Ceasing from some sins, retaining others in a less degree, or adopting such as are merely creditable, or flying from one sin to another, or ceasing from the external act without any internal change of disposition, is not Christian reformation. The new principle must abolish the old habit, the rooted inclination must be subdued by the substitution of an opposite one. The natural bias must be changed. The actual offense will no more be pardoned than cured, if the inward corruption be not eradicated. To be “alive unto God through Jesus Christ” must follow “the death unto sin.” There cannot be new aims and ends where there is not a new principle to produce them. We shall not choose a new path until a light from heaven direct our choice and “guide our feet.” We shall not “run the way of God’s commandments” till God himself enlarge our heart.

We do not, however, insist that the change required is such as precludes the possibility of falling into sin; but it is a change which fixes in the soul such a disposition as shall make sin a burden, as shall make the desire of pleasing God the governing desire of a man’s heart; as shall make him hate the evil which he does; as shall make the lowness of his attainments the subject of his deepest sorrow. A Christian has hopes and fears, cares and temptations, inclinations and desires, as well as other men. God in changing the heart does not extinguish the passions. Were that the case, the Christian life would cease to be a warfare.

We are often deceived by that partial improvement which appears in the victory over some one bad quality. But we must not mistake the removal of a symptom for a radical cure of the disease. An occasional remedy might remove an accidental sickness, but it requires a general regimen to renovate the diseased constitution.

It is the natural but melancholy history of the unchanged heart that from youth to advanced years, there is no other revolution in the character but such as increases both the number and quality of its defects; that the levity, vanity, and self-sufficiency of the young man is carried into advanced life, and only meet and mix with the defects of a mature period, that, instead of crying out with the royal prophet, “O remember not my old sins,” he is inflaming his reckoning by new ones; that age, protecting all the faults of youth furnishes its own contingent of vices; that sloth, suspicion, and covetousness swell the account which religion has not been called in to cancel; that the world though it has lost the power to delight, has yet lost nothing of its power to enslave. Instead of improving in candor by the inward sense of its own defects, that very consciousness makes him less tolerant of the defects of others, and more suspicious of their apparent virtues. His charity in a warmer season having failed to bring him in that return of gratitude for which it was partly performed, and having never flowed from the genuine spring, is dried up. His friendships, having been formed on worldly principles, or interest, or ambition, or convivial hilarity, fail him. One must make some sacrifices to the world, is the prevailing language of the nominal Christian. “What will the world pay you for your sacrifices? replies the real Christian. Though he finds that the world is insolvent, that it pays nothing of what it promised, for it cannot bestow what it does not possess—happiness, yet he continues to cling to it almost as confidently as if it had never disappointed him. Were we called upon to name the object under the sun which excites the deepest commiseration in the heart of Christian sensibility, which includes in itself the most affecting incongruities, which contains the sum and substance of real human misery, we should not hesitate to say, an irreligious old age. The mere debility of declining years, even the hopelessness of decrepitude, in the pious, though they excite sympathy, yet it is the sympathy of tenderness unmixed with distress. We take and give comfort from the cheering persuasion that the dim and failing eyes will soon open on a world of glory. Dare we paint the reverse of the picture? Dare we suffer the imagination to dwell on the opening prospects of hoary impiety? Dare we figure to ourselves that the weakness, the miseries, the terrors we are now commiserating, are ease, are peace, are happiness, compared with the unutterable perspective?

There is a fatal way of lulling the conscience by entertaining diminishing thoughts of sins long since committed. We persuade ourselves to forget them, and we therefore persuade ourselves that they are not remembered by God. But though distance diminishes objects to the eye of the beholder, it does not actually lessen them. Their real magnitude remains the same. Deliver us merciful God, from the delusion of believing that secret sins, of which the world has no cognizance, early sins, which the world has forgotten, but which are known to “him with whom we have to do,” become by secrecy and distance as if they had never been. “Are not those things noted in this book?” Perhaps if we remember them, God may forget them, especially if our remembrance be such as to induce a sound repentance. If we remember them not he assuredly will. The holy contrition which should accompany this remembrance, while it will not abate our humble trust in our compassionate Redeemer, will keep our conscience tender and our heart watchful.

We do not deny that there is frequently much kindness and urbanity, much benevolence and generosity in men who do not even pretend to be religious. These qualities often flow from constitutional feeling, natural softness of temper, and warm affections; often from an elegant education, that best human sweetener and polisher of social life. We feel a tender regret as we exclaim, “What a fine soil would such dispositions afford to plant religion in?” Well bred persons are accustomed to respect all the decorums of society, to connect inseparably the ideas of personal comfort with public esteem, of generosity with credit, of order with respectability. They have a keen sense of dishonor, and are careful to avoid everything that may bring the shadow of discredit on their name. Public opinion is the breath by which they live, the standard by which they act; of course they would not lower by gross misconduct that standard on which their happiness depends. They have been taught to respect themselves; this they can do with more security, while they can retain on this half-way principle the respect of others.

(To be continued.)