Christian truth

“ Hence it is indispensably necessary for the Christian, in every period of his life, but especially when entering on his religious course, to implore the gracious influence of the Divine Spirit, to guard him against every species of error—to lead him into all truth—and to invest the truth with that holy unction, which will render it no less a source of the highest intellectual improvement, than of the most exquisite mental enjoyment. ”

“ Let me, then, exhort you, kind reader, by the value of truth, by the worth of your own soul, and the love of life everlasting, to examine your Bible on the coming of Christ, the redemption of the body, the salvation of your soul, and the everlasting inheritance. Lay by all prejudice, all opinions not founded on the plain and clear declarations of God’s word; keep close to that rule which will thoroughly furnish you, and make you perfect in every good work; examine for yourselves; let no man deceive you in these days of deception, when the devil has come, deceiving, if possible, the very elect. ”

“ Discussions on such topics of practical utility, are alike pleasing to God and beneficial to the church, if conducted in a Christian spirit, and if the parties have truth and not victory for their aim. Truth is the will of God, exhibited in the diversified creations of his hand, either physical, intellectual, or moral, and the revelations of his word, correctly apprehended by the human mind. ”

“ If any one, through error or evil disposition, should do me wrong, help me to bear the trial with Christian meekness and patience. And may the time at length come, when the religion of Christ, so full of truth and love, shall be understood and embraced by all mankind, and when by its blessed and transforming power the earth shall become the abode of purity, and love, and bliss. ”

“ What did the religion of that individual consist of? I told you yesterday—ignorance and impudence—that is about, the amount of it. Such men would be Christians if they knew how, they would like to be. But will they receive the truth? Our doctrine and practice is, and I have made it mine through life—to receive truth no matter where it comes from. Is there truth in heaven? Yes, it dwells there, it is the foundation of the heavens. Is there truth on earth and beneath the earth? There is. Is there truth in the words of a good man? ”

“ In a work that professes to deal with the Christian faith—The Truth of Religion—and which indeed presents a powerful vindication of historical Christianity, we miss any philosophical interpretation of the nature and power of prayer, adoration, or worship, or any account, indeed, of the intimacies of the soul which belong to the very essence of the Christian faith. ”

“ They confound a plenary conviction of the truth of the Christian scheme of salvation, with an assurance of a personal interest in its invaluable blessings. This is the error into which they have fallen, and on the eve of which you are now standing; but it does not require much force of reasoning to show its fallacy. Faith is an assent of the mind to some truth, or some system of truth, which is established by satisfactory evidence. ”

“ Men drink in iniquity like water, and are pleased to live in error. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the people love to have it so. 2. The spreading of error will bring up an evil report on the way of truth; that is, the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. The Christian religion is from the God of truth as the author, leads to true happiness in the enjoyment of the true God as the end, and works truth in the inward part as the means of acceptably serving God. ”

“ Now the Christian religion taught that revealed truth was to be attained by the individual through receiving, upon the ground of the divine veracity, those mysterious doctrines superior but not contrary to reason which it unfolded ”

“ But how comes it that we see many good men and men of learning among all sects of Christians, some of which must undoubtedly be false, as they contradict and condemn one another? A. To understand this we must observe that the Word of God declares that God wills, "all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." ”

“ So when the Christian quietly goes on his circle of duties, ever seeking, by the help of God's grace, to do the will of his Lord,—he shows to the world a living example of the power and truth of religion; he does good not for the look of the thing, but because the love of Christ constraineth him to act as conscience directs. ”

“ Those who are intrusted with a brighter and a more pure light of spiritual truth, are, first of all, bound to prove by their lives that religion is not in them a dead and inoperative letter; but a vivifying principle, productive of practical holiness and virtue. Enlightened Christians are bound to show forth their principles by the exercise of every Christian excellence, and so to prove to the world that God is with them of a truth. ”

“ But the union of the Truth and of the Life with the Person of One appearing visibly in the world as man, was as new to the Hebrews as to the heathen, was an absolute novelty to human nature. And so the Christian Faith also, as a system of belief and action, that is, as embracing the mind and the will of man, as giving both Truth and Life, is entirely new in this respect ”

“ In Christian Science we find the 'sword of Truth' with which we begin to cut away, one by one, the bonds of mortal falsities, habits, appetites and belief in evil until, eventually, we shall find our freedom and true manhood. ”

“ One speaks in one way of the truth, in another way the truth interprets itself. The guessing at truth is one thing, and truth itself is another. Resemblance is one thing, the thing itself is another. And the one results from learning and practice, the other from power and faith. For the teaching of piety is a gift, but faith is grace. "For by doing the will of God we know the will of God." ”

“ But to all these extends that giving of the Holy Ghost in His fourfold character of the Spirit of Unity, Verity, Charity, and Sanctity, which is the result of the Incarnation, and which makes the Church. What we have said here has a special relation to Truth, and to Christian morals as resting upon Christian dogma. But it is impossible to separate Truth from Grace, in their actual operation as powers: faith and charity in the Christian are linked together, [pg 171] as the intellect and the will are one soul. ”

“ And O that all men may be awakened into a lively and thankful sense of all thy benefits. Stir up especially the minds of all Christian people, to follow the truth as it is in Jesus, and exercise themselves to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man. ”

“ The ethicised Christian consciousness reveals the principles and laws that have come into it. It is a maxim in theology that only the regenerated and sanctified mind has a clear interpretative insight into spiritual truth, and can form the205 true theologian. ”

“ And hence all men everywhere, whether bond or free, who believe in Christ, and recognise the truth in His own words and those of His prophets, know that they shall be with Him in that land, and inherit everlasting and incorruptible good. ”

“ Can we no longer indulge in the beautiful and consoling thought that God’s justice, and love, and truth are unchanging and reliable for ever? Let Christians—for Sceptics and Atheists may be left out of the question—to whatever division of the Church they belong, look at this matter calmly and earnestly. ”

“ And shall be with us - For God will preserve not only the Christian religion but its truth, all its essential doctrines for ever. And they that abide in the truth shall go whither that truth leads, i.e. ”

“ They abjectly look to men of the world, to scholars, to statesmen, for testimonies to the everlasting and self-evidencing verities of heaven! And if they can gather up, from the writings or speeches of these men, some patronising notices of religion, some incidental compliment to the civilising influence of the Bible, or to the aesthetic proprieties of worship, or to the moral sublimity of the character or gospel of Christ, they forthwith proclaim these tributes as lending some great confirmation to the Truth of GOD! ”

“ We have placed before us light and darkness, the bitter and the sweet, exaltation and degradation, life and death, and we have reason and intelligence given us, by which to judge and choose for ourselves. By choosing the good and obeying the principles of truth, we are entitled to the spirit of revelation, and by that spirit only can we know God the eternal Father, and his Son Jesus Christ. ”

“ We shall learn that there is hardly one religion which does not contain some truth, some important truth; truth sufficient to enable those who seek the Lord and feel after Him, to find Him in their hour of need. ”

“ Naturally I am full of falshood and guile, oh thou that art the God of truth, who at the first didst create me after thine Image, make me every day more and more like unto thy self in true holinesse and righteousnesse. Then shall I be true indeed, when Christ the giver of truth dwelleth in my heart: Lord strengthen my faith, that being knit unto Christ the way, the truth, and the life more and more, I may partake of his fulnesse, grace for grace. ”

“ Religion has, before all things, to guard the heritage of truth, the moral revelation of God in Christ, to 'contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,' and to trust to the promised guidance of the Spirit of Truth. ”

“ Those who acknowledge the hand of God in all things, and abide in his commandments, are the only ones who will sustain the principles of truth and purity. If their influence upon the character is not good and pure, how will they produce that pure feeling, pure faith, and pure godliness which prepare a person to dwell in eternal burnings? ”

“ Hath this spirit of truth been hitherto a spirit of truth for us?... Whatever profession we may make of being, as Christians, the disciples of the spirit of truth, are we really persuaded of the truths of Christianity? ”

“ We answer by the establishment of the principles of truth, by exhibiting the glorious Gospel of salvation, and until the hearers themselves shall appreciate its truth and beauty and turn in disgust from the deformity of those systems with which they have been connected. ”

“ Let us beware of identifying religion in the minds of the young with a rigid conformity in outward things, and not with an inward spirit of love and goodness. Are you striving to gain some? Then let these words of the Apostle warn you not to seek for the wrong thing, not to begin at the wrong end, not to measure the hold which truth has over those you seek to win, by the exactness with which all your ideas are carried out and all your customs observed. ”

“ First must come the historical evidence indicating the words, and deeds, and character, and results, of the life of Christ, the truth of which must be judged by the Reason; and then there must come the witness of the conscience exclaiming "This life is divine; this man is one with God." ”

“ Once get that truth wrought into men's minds, that the true test of Christianity is the visible presence of a grace in character which is evidently God's, and whole mountains of prejudice and error melt away. ”

“ There are moral causes now at work—causes emanating from ourselves—sufficient, in the lapse of a few centuries, to effect this. The voice of prophecy in the oracles of truth, the mission of Christ into the world, and the nature and tendency of Christianity, intimate, we think, very clearly the truth of the idea we have advanced ”

“ Thus, many persons are well acquainted with the history, doctrines, and commands of the holy scriptures, who do not live according to what they require, and aggravate their guilt, because they sin wilfully, after knowing the truth. And thus many believe all that is in the scriptures, as they believe what is written in other books; but that belief or faith, only, is of any value to a man, which causes him to receive the truth in his heart, as well as in his memory; to live according to its requirements, and to obey the commandment, “repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;” ”

“ Grant that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is God's truth, and I know not in what way you can escape the doctrine that there is salvation only in Christ. From the liberality which says every body is right—from the charity which forbids you to say any body is wrong—from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth, may the good Lord deliver you. ”

“ Such conduct clearly demonstrates that such persons are in nature’s thickest gloom, nor can those characters give the church or the world any scriptural account of the holy Spirit’s work upon their hearts. We, therefore, can never allow such unconverted persons to be proper judges of any one truth in divine revelation. ”

“ We recognize nothing but the priestly spirit in all those systems whose cry is, “unless you believe this and unless you believe that, you cannot be saved;” and acknowledging no salvation but that of a spirit morally one with God and with his Christ, salvation from superstition, and salvation from sin, and salvation from unconfiding fears; and believing that all truth is one and from God, we confidently appeal, in confirmation of our scriptural soundness, to that great and independent test of Truth which is furnished by the moral tendencies of doctrines. ”

“ Suppress no truth—keep back no part of the price, through the fear of men, or to procure the favor of men. Be bold for truth—the blood of souls stains deep! Remember the Apostle’s language, “Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel—yea, woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel.” ”