The Danger of Exaggerations in Religion
Dean Goulburn. Romans 12:6-8 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy… 1. Lord Bacon compares religion to the sun, which invigorates and cheers live animal substances, but turns the dead to corruption. Similarly religion invigorates a sound mind, and cheers a sound heart, while in a morbid mind it breeds superstitions, scruples, and monstrous fancies. We have only to survey the history of Christianity to see how just their comparison is. What follies, superstitions, licentious doctrines, have been founded on the Bible! This has arisen from a certain morbid tendency in the human mind to caricature truths presented to it. I. EVERY HERESY HAS BEEN A CARICATURE OF SOME ONE POINT OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH — an exaggeration by which the fair proportion of the faith has been distorted. 1. The truth upon which the Quaker founds his system, is that the New Dispensation is spiritual. No truth can well be more vital, and through the subtle encroachments of formalism it is necessary for all of us every now and then to ask ourselves whether we are properly awake to the fact that the law, under which Christians live, is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," written on the fleshy table of the heart, and that God is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The Quakers would have deserved the warmest thanks if they had done nothing more than bring these truths forward. But, unhappily, they caricatured them, and robbed the Church of her sacraments. 2. The fundamental truth of our religion is that "God is love," and that He has shown His love by the sacrifice of His dear Son. Now certain divines have perceived this truth clearly, and it is impossible to perceive it too clearly, or proclaim it too loudly. But to say that anger is inconsistent with love, or that justice is inconsistent with compassion, and to acknowledge no relations with God as a Judge, because He stands to us in the relation of a Father, is to caricature the faith and mar its fair proportions. God loves me deeply, but He hates my sin, and will never consent to save me from its guilt without saving me from its power. 3. And where there is no actual heresy, this tendency may lead to a vast amount of unsuspected mischief. In many spiritual books a strain is put upon certain precepts which caricatures them, sets them at issue with other precepts, and cramps the mind which should strive after obedience to them. Take an example. When St. was dying, he said to one of his attached disciples, "Bishop, God has taught me a great secret, and I will tell it you, if you will put your head closer." The bishop did so, anxious to know what Francis considered as the crowning lesson of a life of holiness. "He has taught me," said the dying man, who was acutely suffering, "to ask nothing, and to refuse nothing." Now at this a sentimental pietism might perhaps whisper, "What beautiful resignation!" But is it in conformity to the Word of God, and the mind of Christ? We admit that we should refuse nothing which comes from our Father's hand. But where has God taught His people to ask nothing? Did not our Lord pray, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me"? Good St. Francis erred by exaggeration, and caricatured the grace of resignation. Resignation is a heavenly and Christ-like grace; but if you will push it to every length, it becomes absolutely mischievous. Thus one might conceive a beggar doing nothing to improve his condition, on the plea that such was the will of God, and that mendicancy was the state of life to which tie had been called; forgetting that there is a maxim which says that "if any man would not work, neither should he eat." In the lives of the Scriptural saints nothing is so remarkable as their perfect naturalness, and freedom from all overstrained spirituality. The great Apostle of the Gentiles, after a miraculous escape from shipwreck, gathers a bundle of sticks, and puts them on the fire (for St. Paul was not above feeling cold and wet); and when writing under the affiatus of the Holy Ghost, he bids Timothy bring the cloak which be left at Troas with Carpus, in anticipation of an approaching winter, "and the books, but especially the parchments"; for what studious man can bear to be without his books and papers? Among the early disciples you would have seen nothing overcharged in character or manner; nay, you would have seen little foibles, of temper, of superstition, of prejudice — you might have heard sharp words passing between great apostles, and you might have seen a damsel, recently engaged with others in prayer, in such a joyful trepidation of nerves when the answer arrived, that she opened not the gate for gladness. II. HOW, THEN, SHALL THE DEVOUT MAN KEEP HIS MIND FREE FROM EXAGGERATIONS BOTH IN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE? By an impartial study of the whole of Scripture. Pray for the Bereans' nobleness of mind who brought even the doctrine of apostles to the test of inspiration, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. How much more, when men are not apostles, must their doctrine be thus searched and sifted! (Dean Goulburn.) Parallel Verses KJV: Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; WEB: Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith;