Religious doctrine

“ The grand principle of men considered as having relation to the Deity, and under an obligation to be religious, is, that they ought to consult their reason, and seek every where for the best instruction; and of Christians and Protestants the duty, and professed principle is, to consult reason and the Scripture, as the rule of their faith and practice. ”

“ Therefore, separate the doctrine, sacraments and life of Christ, from the doctrine, sacraments and life of the priests and preachers; separate faith and unbelief, spirit and flesh, righteousness and unrighteousness. Seek after the truth, strive zealously for your salvation, believe that God is true, that he will reward the good and punish the evil, that his word is, and will for ever remain truth. ”

“ We have thrown overboard all that is human, and simply maintain what is divine. If the Bible can be maintained over all human books; if the religion of Christ can be maintained over all human religions; if the doctrine of the Lord, and the commandments of God, can be maintained over the doctrines and commandments of men ”

“ They were men of sterling character, of deep religious convictions, of willingness to make painful sacrifices for the sake of principle, of great reverence for the Bible and the institutions of religion, of purity of life in the home and in their social relations. They believed that religion was the supreme thing and that the commandments of God were of binding obligation upon all intelligent moral beings. ”

“ In an age which settled back upon the Scriptures as the only basis of authority in religious faith and practice, they boldly challenged that course as a dangerous return to a lower form of religion than that to which Christ had called men and as only legalism and scribism in a new dress. ”

“ The doctrines contained in our religious creed, and which we firmly believe to be recorded in the scriptures of truth, comprise the being, perfections, and unity of God; the union of the divine and human natures in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; the personality, deity, and influences of the Holy Spirit; the fall of man, and its awful consequences in the universal depravity of human nature; the atonement made for sinners by the obedience and death of Jesus Christ ”

“ I allude to the entire law of God, to all that the Lord our God has revealed, whether it pertains to the building of tabernacles or to the building of temples, or to faith, repentance, baptism, or the laying on of hands, or to the matrimonial relations, or to any doctrine or principle which relates to the salvation and glory of man.
I say as one, that I have no fellowship for that man who will permit any person, over whom he has any rightful control, to ridicule the law, or any portion of the law, of God. ”

“ Who can be a Christian and deny the essence and existence of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the atonement, the doctrines of repentance and faith in Christ, the necessity of justification before God and of sanctification of the heart, or the moral law as the rule of life, the doctrine of immortality and our future destination? ”

“ What is here meant by a religious ground, is, a regard to God and an obedience to his laws, as the duty of a creature made by his hands and sustained by him every moment. These laws teach us to regard the good of others; and when we seek the good of others, because to do so is to live in obedience to the laws of God, we act from a religious principle. ”

“ The Absolute Religion, which he affirms to be universally known, he defines as "Voluntary Obedience to the Law of God,—inward and outward Obedience to that law he has written on our nature, revealed in various ways through Instinct, Reason, Conscience, and the Religious Sentiment." ”

“ Though we come before the public to defend the doctrines of Christ, yet, my friends, you will bear in mind that it is also our duty to enforce his precepts, and exhort to the obedience of the gospel. That we should point out the road of sin, error and misery, and also endeavor to throw the light of heavenly truth on the pathway of human life. ”

“ Such special, characteristic Revelations, Doctrines and Institutions, as we find them in all the great Historical Religions, and in their full normative substance and form in Christianity and Catholicism, can indeed alone completely develop, preserve and spread Religion in its depth and truth; yet they ever presuppose a general, usually dim but most real, religious sense and experience, indeed a real presence and operation of the Infinite and of God in all men. ”

“ Christ as the fulfilment of prophecy, the means of social adjustment and regeneration; the Finisher of our Faith, and the Source of eternal joy. We must be, not less spiritual Christians, but increasingly intellectual ones, as time rolls on.
Who are the men who have built up doctrine? Men speak as if doctrine were an ecclesiastical toy—to be shaken by priest or prelate, as one shakes a rattle, for noise, for play! A doctrine is not a toy; it is the crystallized belief of earnest, thoughtful, and godly men—belief which has passed into a church tradition, and is now received as an act of faith. ”

“ Does the Bible teach you freedom of religion? To-day we say that every man has a right to worship God or not, to worship him as he pleases. Is it the doctrine of the Bible? Read Deut. xii. 6. If a brother, or son, or daughter, or wife proposes to serve any god but your own, or that of your fathers, thou shalt not pity, nor spare, nor conceal. "Thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death, and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die." ”

“ In this state of things, when Infinite Wisdom saw proper, the general doctrine of religion was authoritatively republished in its purity; and the particular dispensation of Providence, which this world is under, manifested to all men, even "the dispensation of the grace of God towards us," Eph. ”

“ These are such doctrines as have a tendency to advance the glory of God, and do good to the souls of men, that are relished and savoured by sincere Christians, who know the truth, as it is in Jesus; and are nourished up, as the apostle says, in the words of faith and of good doctrine, 1 Tim. ”

“ The ethical side of religion corresponds to the general ethical standard of the people—in savages it is low, but it exists. (5) The conception of salvation as the goal of religious faith and service; the salvation looked for is at first physical, is gradually moralized, and ultimately takes the form of spiritual union with the deity. These are the essential elements of religion; they all exist in crude form in the lowest strata of society, and are purified in the course of social growth. ”

“ Admitting that faith were possible, what connection can exist between such occult speculations and the manifest duties of mankind, duties which are palpable to every one who, in the least, consults his reason, his interest, or the welfare of the society to which he belongs? Before I can be satisfied of the advantages of justice, temperance, and benevolence, must I first believe in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and all the fables of the Old Testament? ”

“ It is inseparably connected, one part with the other, in all the doctrines that have been revealed to man, which are now called the various doctrines of Christianity, of which all the professors of religion believe a portion; but severally reject, or desire to reject, other portions of the truth: each sect or individual taking to themselves portions of the Bible, portions of the doctrine of salvation, that are the most pleasing to them, rejecting all the rest, and mingling these doctrines with the tenets of men. ”

“ As to the practical observations, I have not obliged myself to raise doctrines out of every verse or paragraph, but only have endeavoured to mix with the exposition such hints or remarks as I thought improvable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, aiming in all to promote practical godliness, and carefully avoiding matters of doubtful disputation and strifes of words. It is only the prevalency of the power of religion in the hearts and lives of christians, that will redress our grievances, and turn our wilderness into a fruitful field. ”

“ Worship and sacrifice, procedures for working on the dispositions o the deity, theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization, are the essentials of religion in the institutional branch. Were we to limit our view to it, we should have to define religion as an external art, the art of winning the favor of the gods. In the more personal branch of religion it is on the contrary the inner dispositions of man himself which form the centre of interest, his conscience, his deserts, his helplessness, his incompleteness. ”

“ As God's redemptive action advanced historically, unfolding religious truth and grace gradually and educationally, so the moral ideal, which Christianity in its fulness of provision and power should exhibit, is found more and more clearly revealed till the view is completed. ”

“ Even with a view to the ascendancy which a more simple and purified religion may ultimately obtain under an improved and free constitution, it is better that a religious feeling of some sort should exist. ”

“ The course which the divine dispensations suggest is the course to which divine revelation has afiixed its most solemn and sacred sanction. We are too much accustomed to consider the men of other countries as if they came not within the scope of the sympathies and dispositions of the religion of Christ. ”

“ And his religion—the holy doctrine of an indivisible Unity of God, of man's creation in the image of God, of our destination, to become by virtue, justice, and charity contented in this, and happy in after life—is daily gaining more ground as the only religion complying with the demands of reason and our destination on earth. ”

“ The church, as the great moral teacher, bears the stamp of a divine origin and authority. Its function is to teach divine truth, and to put man into right moral relations to the deep order of the universe. ”

“ Christian belief, Christian morality, the Christian view of the world, of which the church as a religious society and institution is the focus, as fluid spiritual elements permeate humanity as it becomes Christian, far beyond the sphere of the church proper ”

“ To reveal the universal and perpetual law of grace, which God's common beneficence to the children of men, such as puts them into a better state than that of devils, gives us some ground to expect. The divine authority likewise, which in this book commands our belief and obedience, is universal and perpetual, and knows no limits, either of time or place ”

“ Now, the ethical Church has come for this great purpose, to make us see the repulsiveness of a religion of that kind, to assure every man that no religious services, any more than the eager subscription of antiquated formularies, constitute the essence of religion. ”

“ Ecclesiastical influence thus familiarises us with the distinctions of secular and sacred, and we hear frequent mention made of our duties to God and our duties to man, of our religious duties and our worldly duties, and we frequently hear religion spoken of as something readily distinguishable from business. ”

“ And although the favor of the God, as forfeited or gained, is still an essential feature of the story, and theology plays a vital part therein, yet the acts to which this sort of religion prompts are personal not ritual acts, the individual transacts the business by himself alone, and the ecclesiastical organization, with its priests and sacraments and other go-betweens, sinks to an altogether secondary place. ”

“ This ultimate ground of right, thus found, makes plain why ethics, in its full meaning and issue, is so closely allied to religion. Religion, in its spirit and aim, means fellowship with God, accordance of desire, will, and life with him. ”

“ Pray aright and demonstrate your prayer; sing in faith. Know that religion should be distinct in our consciousness and life, but not clamorous for worldly distinction. Church laws which are obeyed without mutiny are God's laws. ”

“ The building-up of doctrine is superb. Into doctrine are woven the intellectual beliefs, the emotional experiences, and the spiritual struggles of mankind. Doctrine is an attempt to classify the spiritual problems of the race and to present a theory of redemption which shall be adequate, spiritually progressive, and the exact expression, so far as yet revealed, of the will of God for man. All Christian doctrine is centred about one point: the redemption of the race from sin. Dealing with such great and fundamental themes, each system of doctrine is an intellectual triumph. ”

“ But if, as the source and inspiration of practice, doctrine has been the foundation of a new state of the world, and of that change which distinguishes the world under Christianity from the world before it, miracles, as the proof of that doctrine, stand before us in a very remarkable and peculiar light. Far from being mere idle feats of power to gratify the love of the marvellous ”

“ If, therefore, you will carry to completion what with a mind so disposed you have conceived, study to form that people to good morals, and, as well by yourself as by those whom you shall find qualified for the purpose by faith, word, and conduct, so act that the Church may be adorned, that the religion of the Christian faith may be planted and may increase ”

“ We shall soon see the proof that our system of faith, embracing these beautiful, philosophical, and elevating doctrines, is much better calculated to moralize and reform the world than the morally weak and unjust doctrines of repentance, atonement, and pardon now daily preached from the Christian pulpits. ”

“ We should require a doctrine of God, lofty, spiritual, moral: a doctrine of man which should affirm and secure his spiritual being and his immortality: and a doctrine of the relations between God and man, which should give reality to prayer and to the belief in providence, and root man's sense of responsibility in the fact of his obligation to a righteousness outside and above himself, a doctrine in short of judgment. ”