The Object of Faith
W. B. Jones, M. A. 1 John 4:1-3 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God… Three dangers, arising from as many different quarters, seem at this moment to assail the faith of the Church. 1. The first of these springs from the aversion which is very widely felt towards anything approaching to an exact and definite theological system. I speak of that large mass of half-educated minds, the aggregate or average of whose sentiments forms very largely what is commonly called public opinion; I speak of those, too, who aspire to be leaders of that public opinion. Such persons profess the utmost respect for what they believe to be Christianity, but repudiate whatever religion comes before them in a definite and tangible shape. Now, if these minor sceptics would carry out their own views with anything like consistency, they would at least wrong nobody but themselves. Content with denying the possibility of arriving at the truth, they would leave others to enjoy undisturbed their real or fancied possession of it; remembering that if it be impossible to prove that any religious system is true, it must be equally impossible to prove that any religious system is false. They would think it enough to regard creeds and orthodoxy with contemptuous pity, without expressing opinions on a subject upon which they are proud to be ignorant, or raising a clamour against those whose adoption of a fixed standard of belief. rebukes their own indifference. 2. The next peril comes from men of a totally different stamp, a nobler sort than the others, persons of strong religious convictions, and professing a rigid orthodoxy of a certain kind. They accept the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and other doctrines which, whether true or false, are not fundamental. But their creed is out of all keeping and perspective, for they lay but little stress upon the weightier matters of revealed religion; while the objects of present or recent controversy assume an exaggerated importance in their eyes. The end of it is that they become Protestants, or Churchmen, or Arminians, or Supralapsarians, or anything rather than Christians. And if, as is often the case, they have been led to dwell almost exclusively upon what may be called the subjective doctrines of the gospel — those which regard the work of redemption as it reveals itself in the inner man — the danger comes to them in a more subtle shape. For the internal and spiritual character of those doctrines seduces men readily into the belief that the profession of them is a guarantee for spirituality. 3. The third proceeds from persons who profess a perfectly correct belief, while they are not at all spiritual, nor always particularly practical. The true object of the confession is not so properly the Incarnation, as the Saviour regarded as Incarnate. Yet creeds and dogmas have their proper function, so far forth as they give our faith a definite object to fasten on. A Christ who is not come in the flesh would be no Christ at all. (W. B. Jones, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. WEB: Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.