The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, June, 1880 — John Shaqi
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, June, 1880Various
Religion
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, June, 1880
Various
Religion and science -- Periodicals
There is a great deal of love in this world that lacks the elements of
_perfectness_. It is not the “love of God,” or loving as God loves. It is
not the attribute of a divine life. There is no charity in influencing a
person, willfully, to stop short or go beyond the truth in Christian faith
or obedience. There is no charity in giving a man money knowingly to
purchase whisky to get drunk upon. Charity never conflicts with truth or
right. On the contrary, it endeavors to bring all men to the standard of
truth and rectitude.
The phrase “Broad-gauge” seems to have been gotten up to express the idea
of an intelligent relaxation from “human creeds” as bonds of union and
fellowship. In this sense we all ought to be the advocates of “Broad-gauge
religion.” We should cultivate the spirit of gospel liberality until we
utterly disregard and put away all human creeds.
It is a trite saying, that one extreme begets another; against this error
we should guard with great caution. To succeed in religion, we must
remember, always, that we have in the word of God a standard of truth and
right that will always govern us according to heaven’s will. Many persons,
forgetting this truth, have been led to conclude that departures from the
word of truth, as a matter of “liberality,” or “broad-gauge religion,” are
justifiable. And, as “liberalists,” or “broad-gauge Christians,” they are
disposed to recognize all the existing divisions in faith and practice
that are known in Christendom. They even go further and allow that somehow
all are right, and will stand upon an equality in the righteous judgement
of God. This is not perfect love. Charity, over and above a kindly feeling
towards those who are in error, is unfaithfulness to the truth, to God,
and to the very best interests of our humanity. It is, in all such cases,
_love run mad_! A man should never get so broad in his religion as to be
unfaithful to truth.
The phraseology has also been appropriated by skeptics and semi-infidels
to popularize their own semi-infidel philosophy, which they love to
denominate “free thought.” Deists, Pantheists and Atheists have seized
upon the phrase and appropriated it to their ungodly speculations. It is
true that others, in getting away from their old creeds, have run past the
standard of truth and right. All this wildness in the _standardless_ field
of thought, where Hobbes and other infidels reveled, without any guide
save the civil law, has been denominated “Broad-gauge religion,” and
“Liberalism.”
We should always remember that going beyond the truth and the eternal laws
of right is _libertinism_ or _lawlessness_.
“Charity,” extending, or reaching out thus, is no longer “charity,” or
“perfect love.” Such expressions of love are misdirected, and, if
knowingly done, are blameworthy. Charity is governed by the perfect law of
truth; when it is not destitute of its own divine nature it conducts us in
the “_straight and narrow way_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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