Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 492
“If I say the truth, why do you not believe Me?” John 8:46.
As we meet this evening to commune at the Table of the Lord, it will then be necessary for me to seek the edification of God’s people. I therefore think it best to occupy our time this morning with an exhortation to those that are out of the way. May the Holy Spirit make our words like arrows from the bow of a mighty man. May He graciously direct them to the chosen hearts which He has ordained to bless, and may this hallowed hour be a time of salvation to many among you. Whatever may be lacking in the human instrument, I trust there will be no absence of true affection and solemn earnestness. And O, may the Holy Spirit use those infirmities under which I labor this morning to magnify His own strength! You know, dear Friends, there has been a great deal of talk lately about the Infidelity, which like a whirlwind, shakes the Establishment. We felt a very stiff breeze caused by certain, “Essays and Reviews,” and before that could blow over, a perfect hurricane from the African shore astonished many, and alarmed a few. Everybody agrees to censure the inconsistency of a man who wears a miter and quarrels with Moses, professes to be a minister of the Church and undermines her foundations. Too much importance has been attached to the poor attempts of the Arithmetical Unbeliever and what was in reality nothing more than a storm in a teacup has been exaggerated until all the sea of Christendom is tossed with tempest. To my mind, there is a terrible enemy abroad far more worthy of our steel than the recreant prelate and his Zulu teachers. Spare your voices, O Watchmen of Zion, for a mightier enemy—and reserve your swords for a sterner adversary of our Israel. Secret unbelief, as the mother and foster parent of all open infidelity, requires to be watched and wept over. Let us mourn over the professed unbelief of the age. But there is an unbelief more gross than this, more dishonest, more inconsistent, more widely spread, and more deceptive in its character! It is an infidelity so impalpable that we cannot readily arrest it, and drag it into the court of conscience! It is so unreasonable that argument is out of place in contending with it. This “pestilence which walks in darkness,” broods frightfully over our congregations, and smothers beneath its death-bearing wings not a few of you, whose souls I would win for Christ. Into the battle with this destroyer of souls I enter this day. Oh, may my Lord and Master give me power to strike home. Solemnly I protest against that dishonest, inconsistent infidelity of which some of you are the victims. You tell me that you believe the Bible to be inspired of God. No suspicions as to its Divine authority linger in your mind. You have faith in the Gospel which we preach, that it is genuine, true, and sound. But here lies your inconsistency or dishonesty—you say it is true—but you do not believe it! You admit that it came from God, but practically you reject it! You will not deny that it is worthy of all acceptation—it must be so if it came from God. You admit it deals with all-important matters—and yet you practically say it is not worthy of your attention, since many of you are still in disobedience to the voice of love, neglecting the great salvation. Before charging home upon your consciences, my Hearers, I feel impelled to remark that many professors of religion deserve the rebuke of the text, for they say they believe the Bible, but they do not act in accordance with it. We have been boasting, in the language of Chillingworth, that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants—but the boast requires a little examination. Do we not tolerate many things among Protestants which can never be vindicated from Scripture? You tell me that the Bible is your religion, and yet bring your infants for Baptism! You sprinkle their brows, or sign their foreheads with a cross. And where do you find your warrant for thus profaning an ordinance which sets forth the burial of Believers with their Lord? Tradition may lend a forced and lame support to baby sprinkling, but to the Bible it is a novelty unknown. Moreover I ask you where comes confirmation? Will anyone be bold enough to assert that there is anything in God’s Word like it? Yes, and more—where do you find a State Establishment? Verily, not in the New Testament, since our Lord has said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” and this unworldly Gospel is a standing protest against the spiritual fornication which State religion involves. Everywhere, in all sects, I see inventions of men arrogating the place of the Commandments of God. Let us sweep our temples, and return unto the Word of the Lord. Say not that you believe the Book, when you act as though it were not true—when you advocate practices, and set up rites and ceremonies unknown to Apostolic times, and Scriptural records. Brethren, again I say it, our Churches require to be brought face to face with the infallible Word. By this test try them all—they say the thing is true—will they believe it? Will they practice it? Will they abide by the standard? High professors, the love of this world is enmity against God! You profess to love God, but you are as worldly, as fond of fashion and its frivolities, as pleased with pomp and its fooleries, as hungry for honor and its pretensions, as you can be. And yet you say this Book is true! Verily, by your acts you prove that you believe it not. I might draw up today a dreadful bill of indictment against the visible Church of this age. I might prove to a demonstration that it is not delivered from this present evil world, according to the will of God, even the Father. And that it teaches for doctrines the commandments of men—so that it deserves to be met with the unanswerable question and faithful rebuke of our Lord Jesus—“If I say the truth, why do you not believe Me?”