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Try Yourself By This.
Not one syllable did Christ say for the tradition . 1 ism which in his day passed for tho only orthodoxy ; not oue word did He say in favour of all the elaborate ablutious , vestmentsfringes , phylacteries , feasts and fasts , and long
, prayers , whioh then passed for the indispousablo ceremonial ; but whilo ho was the friend of sinners , and forgave the penitent harlot , and approved of tho prayer ot the publican ; Ho blighted tho more professing religionist with flash after flash of his terrible denunciation .
And the teaching of every one of His apostles was the very antithesis of the spirit of externalism . They seemed to treat that wifch sovereign disdain , as though it belonged to the infinitely little . Their language is identical with that of the great prophets . " Circumcision "—then
regarded as the very first of necessary ordinances— " Circumcision , " said Saint Paul , " is nothing , and uncircumcision is nothing , but the keeping of the commandments of God . " What was the summary of Saint Paul ' s teaching ? Two words : " In Christ , " and two words more : " -Faith , "
" works . " What was tho sum of Saint James ' teaching ? Two words : " Compassion , " " uuworldliness . " What was the teaching of Saini John ? Oao word : "Love . " He
explains his apparent truism , " He that doeth righteousness ia righteous , " by that deep account of what true righteousness moans : "He that doeth righteousness is born of God . "
When Christ was asked what was the one test by which you could know true teachers from false , was it : " By their doctrine ye shall know them , " as men have most fatally taught ? Nothiug of the sort . It was : "By their fruits yo shall know them . " To preach these principles is to preach tho very essential heart of the
scriptural morality ; but yot it is a preaching that invariably makes religionists angry . For its importance lies in this : that it ia the very touchstone which
discriminates between true and false religion , and which sweeps away , at any rate , tho exaggerated importance attached to the adjuncts , the scaffoldings , the traditions and ordinances of men , which to so many make up the
whole of their religion . Now , you , my friends , are religions people . Your presence here shows thafc you profess religion . Nothing is more important than that you should know whether your religion is a sincerity or a sham . The Bible teaches you
—as I have shown , aud can show over and over againthat righteousness aud holiness aro the inmost essence , aud tho only outcome of true religion , that they are the very end and object of life : that if you have attained to them , you may stand free iu the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made you free—freo from all morbid scrnpulosities , iroui all carnal ordinances , freo from all wtak oi \ d beggarly elements , from all priestly domination , freo from all petty rules about things which polish iu tho using . If you do
not possess this purity ot heart aud righteousness or lite , tho orthodox •opinions and fche most elaborate -ritual in the world are nofc oue whit mure pleading to God than sounding brass or a tinkling cynibtd , and will weigh no moro in favour than the small dust _ f the balance .
Are you , as 1 have asked before , in God ' s sight , not deceiving yourself , but going up into tho tribunal , of your own conscience aud then seating yourself before yourself ? Are you in truth , each of yon , a good man ? If you are , then , though every Pharisee who ever lived should hate
you , and though every church in the world should excommunicate you , and though every priest that ever lived should hurl at you his separate anathema , as they
once did afc tho King of Saints , yefc to you the golden gates of heaven shall open harmonious on their golden hinges , and you shall be folded forever under the wings of eternal love .
But if you aro nofc simply in God's sight a good mat-, then , like a Saint of old , you ruay torture yourself lor lon ,. ; years , together with fasts and miseries ; or , like another , you may make your boasfc thafc you -daily offer seven hundred prayers , aud after ali this you may say to Christ
Have we nofc prophesied in Thy name , and iu Thy name wrought miracles , aud in Thy name done many wonderful works ? Bat * f , in spite of this externalibra and profession , you have not truly loved God , and have not been true to your neighbour , true by God ' s standard , and not by the
conventional standard of the world on one hand , or of churches and party on the other—ii , I Bay , you hsive not been thus essentially true to God and man , then shall He say unto you : " I never knew you . " I know veiy well thafc this ia un old lesson . You have
Try Yourself By This.
heard it before , for I have tried to insist on it bafora , and may have to do so again , for ifc is the one ltsson whioh popular religionism tries to escape , and the one lessou to which it must bo bound down by the sword point of the Word of God .
What God wants is not so-called orthodoxy , but " truth in the inward parts . " What will avail you is not any amount of religiosity , but righteousness . There are thousands of religions persons who would attach immense importance to such small mutters as to
whether a clergyman does this or that trumpery little thing , which is supposed to be tho badge of party , or whether we define Christ ' s presence in the elements materially or spiritually , or whether we hold the Bible to ba verbally dictated , or to contain the revelation of God .
Well—I tell you plainly , my brother , that all this may or may nofc bo important as opinion , and may or may nofc be important as ritual ; but your opinion and your ritual , ono way or tho other , is of quite infinitcsimd value as regards the saving of your soul .
Almighty God does not care for your opinions at all , if only they be honest ; Ho does not caro about your ritual ; but He does require your goodness . Without thafc goodness , without that kindness , without purity and honesty ,
without truthfulness and that rarest of all virtues , the love of truth , unselfish humility—without these , all your opinions and rituals may only mean thafc your leprosy is white as snow .
The reason why it ia necessary to insist on this is that eternity pharisaism of the human heart , which prefers formalism to spirituality , aud which causes a constant recrudescence of Judaism iu the heart of Christianity . Very early , from entire ignorance of the real relation of
the Old Testament to the New , there arose , in spite of the whole Epistle to the Hebrews , a disastrous confusion between the Christian ministry and the Jewish priesthood . And there followed a rapid glorification of shibboleths and ordinances .
The sacraments were soon regarded as magic amulets , and Christ ' s presence was thought to be nearer if it was localised ia the sacred bread . Tho grace of the Spirit was confined to mechanical transmission ; none were called religious unless they went to deserts or monasteries , or
tortured themselves with fasting and scourging ; but if all this teaching in Scripture which I havo read be true , all this is not what God requires , f ir all this , for whatever ifc may be valuable , is , at auy rate , valueless for salvation . Aud things grow worse .
The conceit of infallible opinion became a horrible curse to mankind ; the blood of hundreds of martyrs is ou its head , and the bitterness of broken hearts lies at its door . VViiafc was called orthodoxy , whafc was called catholicity ,
wu _ oftou hideous error , despicable for its ignorance , and oxecrabie for its cruelties . Men were massacred by wholesale for supposed mistaken tenets , while vice and villainy flaunted in high places unrebuked .
A . pope steeped to the lips in infamy founded the Inquisition ; murderers and adulteresses died in the odour of sauctity if they professed zeal for orthodoxy and subservience to the priests . Charles V . and Philip II ., men grossly immoral in personal character , doomed eighteen
hundred innocent victims to the scaffold and the stake , in tho Netherlands aloue , for such crimes as eating meat in Lent , or reading the Psalms in their native tongue . When Greece arose from the dead , with a Now Testament in her hand , when the bright and blissful Reformation , by
Divine power , struck through tho black and settled nighfc of ignorance and anti-Christian tyranny , and the sweet odour of tho returning Gospel invaded men ' s souls with the brilliancy of heaven , there was a brief bursting of this iron network of false traditions . But the yoke was soon
reimposed in other forms , because mon who love moral licence love also spiritual serfdom , and at this very d _ y there are many—whom I do nofc wrong in saying it , for tuey make ifc thoir open boast—there are manySwho are
frying to undo , as far as thoy dare , the work of the Reformation . But the Reformation was nothing but the sweeping away of accumulated falsities and mountainous corruptions . ( To be continued . )
Ar00502
r £ JHES-A _ S properly carried out and personally attended in f . ondon and Country , by Bro . G * . A . HUT TOM " , 17 Mewcastle 3 troet , Strand , W . C . Monuments erected . Valuations made .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Try Yourself By This.
Not one syllable did Christ say for the tradition . 1 ism which in his day passed for tho only orthodoxy ; not oue word did He say in favour of all the elaborate ablutious , vestmentsfringes , phylacteries , feasts and fasts , and long
, prayers , whioh then passed for the indispousablo ceremonial ; but whilo ho was the friend of sinners , and forgave the penitent harlot , and approved of tho prayer ot the publican ; Ho blighted tho more professing religionist with flash after flash of his terrible denunciation .
And the teaching of every one of His apostles was the very antithesis of the spirit of externalism . They seemed to treat that wifch sovereign disdain , as though it belonged to the infinitely little . Their language is identical with that of the great prophets . " Circumcision "—then
regarded as the very first of necessary ordinances— " Circumcision , " said Saint Paul , " is nothing , and uncircumcision is nothing , but the keeping of the commandments of God . " What was the summary of Saint Paul ' s teaching ? Two words : " In Christ , " and two words more : " -Faith , "
" works . " What was tho sum of Saint James ' teaching ? Two words : " Compassion , " " uuworldliness . " What was the teaching of Saini John ? Oao word : "Love . " He
explains his apparent truism , " He that doeth righteousness ia righteous , " by that deep account of what true righteousness moans : "He that doeth righteousness is born of God . "
When Christ was asked what was the one test by which you could know true teachers from false , was it : " By their doctrine ye shall know them , " as men have most fatally taught ? Nothiug of the sort . It was : "By their fruits yo shall know them . " To preach these principles is to preach tho very essential heart of the
scriptural morality ; but yot it is a preaching that invariably makes religionists angry . For its importance lies in this : that it ia the very touchstone which
discriminates between true and false religion , and which sweeps away , at any rate , tho exaggerated importance attached to the adjuncts , the scaffoldings , the traditions and ordinances of men , which to so many make up the
whole of their religion . Now , you , my friends , are religions people . Your presence here shows thafc you profess religion . Nothing is more important than that you should know whether your religion is a sincerity or a sham . The Bible teaches you
—as I have shown , aud can show over and over againthat righteousness aud holiness aro the inmost essence , aud tho only outcome of true religion , that they are the very end and object of life : that if you have attained to them , you may stand free iu the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made you free—freo from all morbid scrnpulosities , iroui all carnal ordinances , freo from all wtak oi \ d beggarly elements , from all priestly domination , freo from all petty rules about things which polish iu tho using . If you do
not possess this purity ot heart aud righteousness or lite , tho orthodox •opinions and fche most elaborate -ritual in the world are nofc oue whit mure pleading to God than sounding brass or a tinkling cynibtd , and will weigh no moro in favour than the small dust _ f the balance .
Are you , as 1 have asked before , in God ' s sight , not deceiving yourself , but going up into tho tribunal , of your own conscience aud then seating yourself before yourself ? Are you in truth , each of yon , a good man ? If you are , then , though every Pharisee who ever lived should hate
you , and though every church in the world should excommunicate you , and though every priest that ever lived should hurl at you his separate anathema , as they
once did afc tho King of Saints , yefc to you the golden gates of heaven shall open harmonious on their golden hinges , and you shall be folded forever under the wings of eternal love .
But if you aro nofc simply in God's sight a good mat-, then , like a Saint of old , you ruay torture yourself lor lon ,. ; years , together with fasts and miseries ; or , like another , you may make your boasfc thafc you -daily offer seven hundred prayers , aud after ali this you may say to Christ
Have we nofc prophesied in Thy name , and iu Thy name wrought miracles , aud in Thy name done many wonderful works ? Bat * f , in spite of this externalibra and profession , you have not truly loved God , and have not been true to your neighbour , true by God ' s standard , and not by the
conventional standard of the world on one hand , or of churches and party on the other—ii , I Bay , you hsive not been thus essentially true to God and man , then shall He say unto you : " I never knew you . " I know veiy well thafc this ia un old lesson . You have
Try Yourself By This.
heard it before , for I have tried to insist on it bafora , and may have to do so again , for ifc is the one ltsson whioh popular religionism tries to escape , and the one lessou to which it must bo bound down by the sword point of the Word of God .
What God wants is not so-called orthodoxy , but " truth in the inward parts . " What will avail you is not any amount of religiosity , but righteousness . There are thousands of religions persons who would attach immense importance to such small mutters as to
whether a clergyman does this or that trumpery little thing , which is supposed to be tho badge of party , or whether we define Christ ' s presence in the elements materially or spiritually , or whether we hold the Bible to ba verbally dictated , or to contain the revelation of God .
Well—I tell you plainly , my brother , that all this may or may nofc bo important as opinion , and may or may nofc be important as ritual ; but your opinion and your ritual , ono way or tho other , is of quite infinitcsimd value as regards the saving of your soul .
Almighty God does not care for your opinions at all , if only they be honest ; Ho does not caro about your ritual ; but He does require your goodness . Without thafc goodness , without that kindness , without purity and honesty ,
without truthfulness and that rarest of all virtues , the love of truth , unselfish humility—without these , all your opinions and rituals may only mean thafc your leprosy is white as snow .
The reason why it ia necessary to insist on this is that eternity pharisaism of the human heart , which prefers formalism to spirituality , aud which causes a constant recrudescence of Judaism iu the heart of Christianity . Very early , from entire ignorance of the real relation of
the Old Testament to the New , there arose , in spite of the whole Epistle to the Hebrews , a disastrous confusion between the Christian ministry and the Jewish priesthood . And there followed a rapid glorification of shibboleths and ordinances .
The sacraments were soon regarded as magic amulets , and Christ ' s presence was thought to be nearer if it was localised ia the sacred bread . Tho grace of the Spirit was confined to mechanical transmission ; none were called religious unless they went to deserts or monasteries , or
tortured themselves with fasting and scourging ; but if all this teaching in Scripture which I havo read be true , all this is not what God requires , f ir all this , for whatever ifc may be valuable , is , at auy rate , valueless for salvation . Aud things grow worse .
The conceit of infallible opinion became a horrible curse to mankind ; the blood of hundreds of martyrs is ou its head , and the bitterness of broken hearts lies at its door . VViiafc was called orthodoxy , whafc was called catholicity ,
wu _ oftou hideous error , despicable for its ignorance , and oxecrabie for its cruelties . Men were massacred by wholesale for supposed mistaken tenets , while vice and villainy flaunted in high places unrebuked .
A . pope steeped to the lips in infamy founded the Inquisition ; murderers and adulteresses died in the odour of sauctity if they professed zeal for orthodoxy and subservience to the priests . Charles V . and Philip II ., men grossly immoral in personal character , doomed eighteen
hundred innocent victims to the scaffold and the stake , in tho Netherlands aloue , for such crimes as eating meat in Lent , or reading the Psalms in their native tongue . When Greece arose from the dead , with a Now Testament in her hand , when the bright and blissful Reformation , by
Divine power , struck through tho black and settled nighfc of ignorance and anti-Christian tyranny , and the sweet odour of tho returning Gospel invaded men ' s souls with the brilliancy of heaven , there was a brief bursting of this iron network of false traditions . But the yoke was soon
reimposed in other forms , because mon who love moral licence love also spiritual serfdom , and at this very d _ y there are many—whom I do nofc wrong in saying it , for tuey make ifc thoir open boast—there are manySwho are
frying to undo , as far as thoy dare , the work of the Reformation . But the Reformation was nothing but the sweeping away of accumulated falsities and mountainous corruptions . ( To be continued . )
Ar00502
r £ JHES-A _ S properly carried out and personally attended in f . ondon and Country , by Bro . G * . A . HUT TOM " , 17 Mewcastle 3 troet , Strand , W . C . Monuments erected . Valuations made .