|
All the heresies....
from Spurgeon's sermon, "Self-Sufficiency Slain"
It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies
which have
arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency
to 'dishonor God and to flatter man'.
They have always had for their covert, if not for their open aim,
the exaltation of human nature, and the casting down of
the sovereignty of divine grace.
Robbing God of the glory which is due unto his name,
these false prophets would shed a counterfeit lustre
upon the head of the rebellious and depraved creature.
On the other hand, the doctrines of the gospel, commonly known
as the doctrines of grace, are distinguished for this peculiarity
above every other, namely, that they sink the creature very low,
and present the Lord Jehovah before us as sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up.
So true is this, that the most uneducated Christian may,
even if he is incapable of refuting an erroneous discourse,
always be able to discover its untruthfulness,
if it glorifies man at the expense of God.
The merest babe in grace may carry this test with him:
in the midst of the diversities of opinion with which he is surrounded,
he may always judge, and judge infallibly too, of the truth or
falsehood of a doctrine by testing it thus--
"Does it glorify God?" If it is so, it is true.
"Does it exalt man?" Then it must be false.
Does it lay man very low, and speak of him in terms which tend to
make him feel his degradation? Then doubtless it is full of truth.
And does it put the crown upon the head of God, and not upon
the head of man's free-will, or free-agency, or good works?
Then assuredly it is a doctrine according to godliness,
for it is the very truth of the Lord our God.
|