Satan has now
transformed himself into an angel of light, and under this fair disguise he is
working with marvelous success. He is
teaching us to build the tombs of our fathers, that we may rest content with
the mere approbation of their principles without any imitation of their
practice. He leads some astray into
fatal error under the pretext of candor and love of truth; others he saturates
with the orthodoxy of the head, that they may become Indifferent to the state
of their heart before God. Some he
persuades to deny the Bible; to others he lauds it, that he may make it a
substitute for the God of the Bible. He
cries up faith, that he may set it as a substitute for the object of
faith. With some he denies the
possibility of assurance, that he may keep them from peace with God; with
others he maintains the necessity of it, only in order that he may lead them to
make a god of it, and substitute their being sure of salvation for believing in
the Savior. He cries down the
Arminianism of making works our Savior, that he may lead us into the more
subtle delusion of making a Savior of our faith. He allows us a wide range of religious
feeling and sentiment, if he can only succeed in making them a substitute for
God. He hinders not our being serious,
earnest, solemn, if he can thereby feed the cravings of a restless, empty soul
with something which may prevent us from seeking the bread of life. He permits us to denounce the world's vanity
and hollow pleasures - to be weary of its unsatisfying round of folly, that he
may delude us into the idea that this dissatisfaction with the world is a proof
that we are religious, and thereby cause us to sit down contented when yet a
great way off from our Father's house.
He tolerates the circulation of useful, nay, of religious knowledge,
that we may rest satisfied with something short of the fullness of God
himself. He may countenance, too, the
routine of religious societies or Church courts, and the false excitement of
crowded assemblies, eloquent speeches, glowing reports, that he may administer
thereby that opiate to the soul by which it may be kept in a delusive
day-dream, which seems so like the "sober certainty of waking bliss,"
that we cannot think of breaking the luxury of the pleasant spell. He inculcates the necessity of providing for
our children what is called a liberal education, that he may make that a
substitute for a father's blessing and a mother's prayers. He urges the obligation of Christian
liberality, the necessity of large funds, that he may bring men to rest
religious enterprise upon funds, not upon faith, - upon prudence, not on
prayer.
These outward things
may be in themselves right and good, but what are they without the indwelling
Spirit? What is truth without the True
One? What is the perfection of Church order
without the vital power from above? -
The body is there, but the living spirit has fled; the alter and the sacrifice
are there, but the fire from heaven descends not; the temple is perfect and the
worshippers are thronging its courts, but the glory is departed, Jehovah has
left his shrine!
- Horatius Bonar
From his book: Prophetical Landmarks
