Danger of Christian
Complacency
by J. C.
Ryle
The
times require distinct and decided views of Christian
doctrine. I cannot withhold my conviction that the
professing Church is as much damaged by laxity and
indistinctness about matters of doctrine within, as it
is by skeptics and unbelievers without. Myriads of
professing Christians nowadays seem utterly unable to
distinguish things that differ. Like people afflicted
with color–blindness, they are incapable of discerning
what is true and what is false, what is sound and what
is unsound. If a preacher of religion is only clever and
eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all
right, however strange and heterogeneous his sermons may
be. They are destitute of spiritual sense, apparently,
and cannot detect error. The only positive thing about
them is that they dislike distinctiveness and think all
extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty
and very wrong!
These
people live in a kind of mist or fog. They see things
unclearly, and do not know what they believe. They have
not made up their minds about any great point in the
Gospel, and seem content to be honorary members of all
schools of thought. For their lives they could not tell
you what they think is truth about justification, or
regeneration, or sanctification, or the Lord's Supper,
or baptism, or faith or conversion, or inspiration, or
the future state. They are eaten up with a morbid dread
of controversy and an ignorant dislike of party spirit;
and yet they really cannot define what they mean by
these phrases. And so they live on undecided; and too
often undecided; they drift down to the grave, without
comfort in their religion, and, I am afraid, often
without hope.
The explanation of this
boneless, nerveless, jelly–fish condition of soul is not
difficult to find. To begin with, the heart of man is
naturally in the dark about religion—has no intuitive
sense of truth—and really needs instruction and
illumination. Besides this, the natural heart in most
men hates exertion in religion, and cordially dislikes
patient, painstaking inquiry. Above all, the natural
heart generally likes the praise of others, shrinks from
collision, and loves to be thought charitable and
liberal. The whole result is that a kind of broad
religious "agnosticism" just suits an immense number of
people, and specially suits young persons. They are
content to shovel aside all disputed points as rubbish,
and if you charge them with indecision, they will tell
you: "I do not pretend to understand controversy; I
decline to examine controverted points. I dare say it is
all the same in the long run"—Who does not know that
such people swarm and abound
everywhere?
Now I do
beseech all to beware of this undecided state of mind in
religion. It is a pestilence which walketh in darkness,
and a destruction that wasteth at noonday. It is a lazy,
idle frame of soul which, doubtless, saves man the
trouble of thought and investigation but it is a frame
of soul for which there is no warrant in the Bible. For
your own soul's sake, dare to make up your mind what you
believe, and dare to have positive, distinct views of
truth and error. Never, never be afraid to hold decided
doctrinal opinions; and let no fear of man and no morbid
dread of being thought party–spirited, narrow, or
controversial, make you rest contented with a bloodless,
boneless, tasteless, colorless, lukewarm, undogmatic
Christianity.
Mark what I say. If you
want to do good in these times, you must throw aside
indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply–cut,
doctrinal religion. If you believe little, those to whom
you try to do good will believe nothing. The victories
of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been
won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men
roundly of Christ's vicarious death and sacrifice; by
showing them Christ's substitution on the cross, and His
precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith,
and bidding them believe on a crucified Savior; by
preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ,
regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen
serpent; by telling them to look and live—to believe,
repent, and be converted. This—this is the only teaching
which for centuries God had honored with success, and is
honoring at the present day both at home and
abroad.
It is
doctrine—doctrine, clear, ringing doctrine which, like
the ram's horn at Jericho casts down the opposition of
the devil and sin. Let us cling to decided doctrinal
views, whatever some may please to say in these times,
and we shall do well for ourselves, well for others, and
well for Christ's cause in the
world.
