A PLEA FOR UNDERSTANDING
It is not talking about religion, or ministers, or churches, nor an outward zeal for their prosperity, that either constitutes or indicates a truly spiritual man. And yet how much of this in our day passes current for the life of God in the soul? Oh, that among God’s dear saints there was less talking of ministers, and more of Jesus; less of sermons, and more of the power of truth in their souls; less of “I am of Paul” and “I of Apollos,” and more of “I am of Christ.”
An uncharitable walk towards other Christians, marks a low state of grace in the soul. The more entirely the heart is occupied with the love of Christ, the less room will there be for uncharitableness towards his saints. It is because there is so little love to Jesus, that there is so little towards his followers. In proportion as the mind becomes spiritual, it rises above party distinctions and names — it resigns its narrow and exclusive views, casts away its prejudices against other sections of the one church, and embraces in the yearnings of its Christian sympathy all who “love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.”
In advocating a wider platform of Christian love, we would by no means “sell the truth,” or compromise principles, or sacrifice conscience upon the altar of an infidel liberalism. But that for which we plead, is, more of that Christian love, tender heartedness, kindness, charity which allows the right of private judgment, respects a conscientious maintenance of truth, and concedes to others the same privilege it claims for itself.
Differing as many of the saints of God necessarily do in judgment, does the same necessity exist wherefore they shall be alienated in affection? We think, far from it. There is common ground on which all Christians who hold the Head can stand. There are truths which can assimilate all our minds, and blend all our hearts. Why then should we stand aloof from the one body and exclaim, “The Temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we?” Why should we refuse to recognize the Father’s image in the children’s face, and treat them as aliens in persons, in spirit, and in language, because they do not see eye to eye with us, in all our interpretations of God’s word? Why should not “all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away, with all malice?” and why should we not be “kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us,” seeing that the church is but one, the family but one, that true believers are all “one in Christ Jesus”? This will be so where there is a deepening spiritually. And its absence marks a decay of grace, a waning of the life of God in the soul.
From Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the soul by Octavius Winslow, D.D.
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Bekijk de hele uitgave van donderdag 1 juli 1965
The Banner of Truth | 22 Pagina's
Bekijk de hele uitgave van donderdag 1 juli 1965
The Banner of Truth | 22 Pagina's