Religious delirium
Spiritual chloroform
Religious inebriation(Horatius Bonar, "Human Remedies") LISTEN to audio! Download Audio
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"And whenever the tormenting spirit from God troubled Saul, David would play the harp.
Then Saul would feel better, and the tormenting spirit would go away." 1 Samuel 16:23
Here is music, religious music--the music of the harp, the harp of David.
This is soothing, but it does not reach the seat of the disease.
It is . . .
something human,
something external,
something materialistic,
something earthly,
something that man can originate and apply.
It is effectual to a certain extent. It drives away the tormenting spirit, and restores temporary tranquility; thus possibly deceiving its victim.
In like manner we find the human spirit afflicted in every age, sometimes more and sometimes less.
And in all such cases man steps in with his human and external contrivances. I do not refer to the grosser forms of dispelling gloom--drunkenness and profligacy, in which men seek to drown their sense of need, and make up for the absence of God.
I refer to the refined remedies; those of art, science, music, gaiety--by which men try to minister to a diseased mind.
What is Romanism and Ritualism, but a repetition of Saul's minstrelsy?
The soul needs soothing.
It is vexed and fretted with the world.
Its conscience is not at ease.
It is troubled and weary.
It betakes itself to religious forms, something for the eye and ear; to chants, and vestments, and postures, and performances, sweet sounds and fair sights, sentimental and pictorial religion--all of which is but a refined form of worldliness.
By these the natural man is soothed, and the spirit is tranquilized. The man is brought to believe that a cure has been wrought, because his gloom has been alleviated by these religious spectacles, these exhibitions which suit the unregenerate soul so well.
They but drug the soul, filling it with a sort of religious delirium.
They are human sedatives, not divine medicines!
They result in a partial and temporary cure.
It is said that the evil spirit departed, but not that the Holy Spirit returned.
Saul's trouble was alleviated, but not removed.
The disease was still there!
The results of David's harp were only superficial.
So is it with the sinner still.
There are many external remedies, which act like spiritual chloroform upon the soul.
They soothe, and calm, and please--but that is all.
They do not reach below the surface, nor touch the deep seated malady within.
Men try rites, sacraments, pictures, music, dresses, and the varied attractions of ecclesiastical ornament; but these leave the spirit unfilled, and its wounds unhealed. They cannot regenerate, or quicken, or heal, or fill with the Holy Spirit.
They may keep up the self-satisfaction and self-delusion of the soul, but that is all.
They do not fill, they merely hide our emptiness.
Our age is full of such contrivances, literary and religious-- all got up for the purpose of soothing the troubled spirits of man . . .
excitement,
gaiety,
balls,
theaters,
operas,
concerts,
ecclesiastical music,
dresses,
performances.
What are all these, but man's remedies for casting out the evil spirit and healing the soul's hurt without having recourse to God's one remedy!
These pleasant sights and sounds may soothe the imprisoned soul, but what of that?
They do not bring it nearer to God.
They do not work repentance, or produce faith, or fix the eye on the true Cross.
They leave the soul still without God, and without salvation.
The religion thus produced is . . .
hollow,
fitful,
superficial,
sentimental.
It will neither save nor sanctify.
It may produce a sort of religious inebriation--but not that which God calls godliness; not that which apostles pointed out as a holy life, a walk with God.
"And whenever the tormenting spirit from God troubled Saul, David would play the harp.
Then Saul would feel better, and the tormenting spirit would go away." 1 Samuel 16:23