Dissent (Christianity)

“ For all the ends of the gospel may be pursued, and men may arise out of the corruption of their nature, notwithstanding these two mistakes: but to condemn it as an error inconsistent with grace and sense, a reproach to Christianity, for young divines to renounce worldly views, and devote themselves wholly to God, is striking at the whole root of all holiness, and a denial of the whole spirit of the gospel. ”

“ For there is no possibility of taking one step in Christianity, but as a sinner, for it has no errand but to the sinner, has no relief but for sin, and nothing can receive it, but the heart wounded, and wearied with the burden of its own sin. All the gospel is but a foreign tale, a dead letter to the most logically learned man in the world, who does not feel in the depth of his soul, that all the reasonableness, and excellency of gospel truth, lies in that fund of sin, impurity, and corrupt tempers, which are inseparable from him, till he is born again. ”

“ Such a description of a man's rejection of religious faith is utterly inadequate—the real object of his denial is inward. One may, indeed, discredit forms of doctrine and either be unsure about or altogether disbelieve many things that Christians hold, but when one makes a clean sweep of religion and banishes the central faiths of Christianity he is denying the testimony of his own finest days. ”

“ This catechism for little children teaches that "Dissent is a great sin", and that Dissenters "worship God according to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, and not according to his revealed will, and therefore their worship is idolatrous". ”

“ The Error of Christ.—The founder of Christianity thought there was nothing from which men suffered so much as from their sins:—it was his error, the error of him who felt himself without sin, to whom experience was lacking in this respect! ”

“ DEISTS, a class of men whose distinguishing character is, not to profess any particular form or system of religion; but who merely acknowledge the existence of a God and profess to follow the law and light of nature, rejecting all divine revelation, and consequently Christianity. ”

“ For however much men may doubt, deny, or dispute about religion, they can never impugn the fact that they are individually sinners. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;" ”

“ I have already called “faith” the specially Christian form of shrewdness—people always talk of their “faith” and act according to their instincts.... In the world of ideas of the Christian there is nothing that so much as touches reality: on the contrary, one recognizes an instinctive hatred of reality as the motive power, the only motive power at the bottom of Christianity. ”

“ If, indeed, we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Alas for the dulness of our heart, that we do not examine our ways, to try if our heart even do not reprehend us; but after having seared our conseiences, we dissemble our sins, as a nation that had done justice, and care so little for progress in the way of the Lord !
Christ. If you would judge yourselves, you certainly should not be judged. But because you excuse yourselves from self-examination, do you not receive the greater judgment? ”

“ One false step, one self-confident rejection of a thing which is merely too high for you to grasp, and you are darkening the Sun, casting God out of the world. And that was just what the Christians deliberately did. In many of the early Christian writings denial is a much greater element than assertion. ”

“ To be a soldier, to be a judge, to be a patriot; to defend one’s self; to be careful of one’s honour; to desire one’s own advantage; to be proud ... every act of everyday, every instinct, every valuation that shows itself in a deed, is now anti-Christian: what a monster of falsehood the modern man must be to call himself nevertheless, and without shame, a Christian!—
39.
—I shall go back a bit, and tell you the authentic history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. The “Gospels” died on the cross. ”

“ Many and many a sceptical lecturer is denouncing that which Christian men would, with all their hearts, denounce; is declaring that to be untrue which no true Christian thinker really believes, that which is no real part of the great Christian faith, which is our glory. Do not think when I speak thus, when I say that there are things attached to Christianity which men do not believe, that they do not believe in the great truth of Jesus, without them, which men denouncing think that they are denouncing the religion which is saving the world. ”

“ The wicked will persecute the good; this, false Christians have done to the true, for non-compliance with their superstitions; the strange carnal measures false Christians have taken of Christianity; the danger of that self-seduction.—8. The sense of that has obliged me to make this discourse for a dissuasive against the world's lusts, and an invitation to take up the daily cross of Christ as the way left us by him to blessedness.—9. Of the self-condemnation of the wicked; that religion and worship are comprised in doing the will of God. ”

“ How shall the distrust that sin creates, the hardness that sin forms, the despair and helplessness that sin induces, the dreadful indifference which is its expression,—how shall they be removed? How shall the unfaith which the mystery, the suffering, the evil of the world induce be overcome? Being a sinner I do not dare, and being ignorant I do not believe, to come. ”

“ And it is further often confessed, in a most significant way, by the mode in which the enemies of Christianity taunt its disciples. When they speak of the vices and corruptions of the heathen, they blame, and justly blame, the principles of their vicious systems; and ask how it could be otherwise? When they blame the Christian, the first and the last thing they usually do, is to point in triumph to the contrast between his principles and practice. ”

“ But when the question is asked, "If somebody must, why must not you?" a good many of them are not able to give a very clear answer. Very often the excuse that is set up is some form of theological dissent. ”

“ It ranks the world, with the flesh and the devil, as an equal enemy to those glorious ends which it proposes.
Accordingly the gospel lays its foundation, in utterly renouncing those false goods and enjoyments, which feed the vanity and corruption of our nature, fill our hearts with foolish and wicked passions, and keep us separate from God, the only happiness of all spirits.
II. For not only the vices, the wickedness, and vanity of this world, but even its most lawful concerns, if unduly pursued, make men unable to enter into the true state of Christianity. ”

“ To deny the Word, or to adulterate the real goods and falsify the real truths of the Word, is sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; and to interpret the natural sense of the Word, which is the sense of the letter, according to appearances is a word against the Son of Man. The reason why to deny the Word is a sin which cannot be remitted, in this age nor in that which is to come, or to eternity, and why he who does it is liable to eternal judgment, is that they who deny the Word deny God, deny the Lord, deny heaven and hell, and deny the church and all things that belong to it ”

“ I have said sin, because sin, only, is offense in the eyes of the gods. But sin and error are one in the unpardoning eye of nature. Thus, if thou dost err, though in all innocence, though the gods absolve thee, thou wilt reap the bitter harvest of thy misguided sowing, one day—thou or thy children after thee. The doom is spoken, and however tardy, must fall—and the offense is never expiated. There is nothing more relentless than consequence. ”

“ But only as a third person, as a mediator, he voluntarily bore what else the sinner should have borne. To assert the contrary (especially as to particular persons considered in actual sin) is to overthrow all Scripture theology, and to introduce all Antinomianism; to overthrow all possibility of pardon, and assert justification before we sinned or were born, and to make ourselves to have satisfied God. ”

“ Accordingly, as we pass away from the speculations which mark the early period of deism to those which belong to its maturity, we find that the attack on Christianity is less suggested by political considerations, and more entirely depends on an appeal to reason, intellectual or moral. ”

“ Concluding remarks by which it is clearly shown that those men who can evade the force of arguments so probable for the truth of Christianity undoubtedly possess dispositions to evil which would cause them to reject it, were it based on the most absolute demonstration. ”

“ For he who denies anything either denies it because he condemns the thing itself, or he shrinks from confession because he is conscious of his own unworthiness or alienation from it, neither of which cases is that of the true Christian. ”

“ Let the devil and his children say all manner of evil of us. And let them go on deceiving each other, and being deceived. But ye need not be deceived also.――Or if you are, if you will believe all they say: be it so, that we are weak, silly, wicked men; without sense, without learning, without even a desire or design of doing good: yet I insist upon the fact. Christ is preached and sinners are converted to God. ”

“ Man is not struck by the inquiry, “How shall I, unclean as I am, approach the holy God, and stand before him, when he judges me according to the holy law which he has himself engraven on my conscience? What shall I do to become free from the guilt which oppresses me, and again to attain to communion with him?” To make inquiries such as these, this spirit of deism considers as fanaticism; and it casts away from itself all notions of God’s anger, judgments, or punishments, as representations arising only from the limited nature of the human understanding. ”

“ Note, When we are under the tokens of God's displeasure for sin, it becomes us to take shame to ourselves, and to lie down in that shame, owning that to us belongs confusion of face. If by our own fault and folly we expose ourselves to the reproach and contempt of men, the just censures of the church, or the rebukes of the divine Providence, we must confess that our Father justly spits in our face, and be ashamed. ”

“ Can you deny one of them, without denying the bible?—It is hard for you to kick against the pricks!
“They persuade (you say) multitudes of people, that they cannot be true Christians, but by adhering to their doctrines.” Why, who says they can? Whosoever he be, I will prove him to be an infidel. Do you say, that any man can be a true Christian, without loving God and his neighbour? Surely you have not so learned Christ! It is your doctrine, as well as mine, and St. Paul’s, Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, though I have all knowledge, and all faith ”

“ Would to God our modern deists, who live in the midst of gospel light, would seriously consider this, and cautiously, diligently, and impartially examine what it is that hinders their receiving the gospel, while they profess themselves fully persuaded of all the principles and duties of natural religion! ”

“ And if, at any Time, they are tempted to take up the Pen in Defence of some favourite Doctrine, the Controversy is handled with so little Charity or Decency, that an honest, well-meaning, Christian, throws aside the Book, disgusted at a Spirit so unbecoming the Followers of Christ Jesus. ”

“ It is, therefore, foolish to be angry with those whom God makes the instruments of our correction. “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.” ”

“ Can we comprehend the full malice of an offence against God?
We cannot, because we do not comprehend the infinite greatness and goodness of the Lord our God, who is offended by sin.
13. What most of all shows us the malice of an offence against God? ”

“ Every action or way of speaking which either includes, or seems to include, a contempt and disapprobation of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, or an approbation of what is contrary thereto, and which scandalises weak brethren, or tends to lead them into error or sin, is still more detestable in the eyes of God ”

“ We must therefore conclude that many of the opinions which have so long sown discord, and still continue to produce dissensions among Christians, are by no means founded on points essential to Christianity ”

“ It was then a sin, it is now an accomplishment: it was then a flattery, it is now respect: it was then fit to be severely reproved; and now, alas! it is to deserve severe reproof not to use it. O monstrous vanity! How much, how deeply, have those who are called Christians revolted from the plainness of the primitive days, and practice of holy men and women in former ages! How are they become degenerated into the loose, proud, and wanton customs of the world, which knows not God; to whom use hath made these things, condemned by scripture, reason, and example, almost natural! ”

“ What can appear worse than hating him who is the centre of all beauty and fountain of all goodness, love itself? 2. Their punishment will be very just, for they wilfully bring it upon themselves. (1.) Those that offend Christ do the greatest wrong to themselves; they wrong their own souls; they wound their own consciences, bring a blot and stain upon their souls, which renders them odious in the eyes of God, and unfit for communion with him; they deceive themselves, disturb themselves, destroy themselves. Sin is a wrong to the soul. ”

“ This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found—I have letters that even the blind will be able to see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,—I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race.... ”

“ All other motives to restrain men from sin, and to induce them to follow holiness, when compared with an enlightened view of this one, sink into insignificance. God's hatred of sin, and his holy abhorrence of it in every form, when contemplated in the abstract, may have a response from the head of him who compares it with his own detestation of meanness, and fraud, and profligacy ”