by Rev. John Angell James
(Continued from page 274)
Consequences of Self-Deception
Thirdly, we now contemplate the consequences of this self-deception. It corrupts the purity of the church. Members in this state, are the wood, hay and stubble in the walls of the spiritual temple, which disfigures its beauty and impairs its strength. They are Achans that trouble the camp of Israel, and bring down the displeasure of the Lord upon its hosts. They are the disease of the spiritual body, which swells its bulk, but destroys its health. Do they by their prayers bring down the blessing of God upon the pastor or the members? Alas! they pray not for themselves. Do they by their piety diffuse vitality and energy through the community? They are cold, lifeless, dead. Do they by their consistency attract others to the Church? On the contrary, they disgust and repel. Instead of aiding the force of that concentrated light, by which the Church shines upon the dark world around, they envelope it with a smoke. Instead of acting as the salt of the earth, they bring corruption into the kingdom of Christ. They are not only negatively an injury, but positively: they do harm at all times, but especially on occasions of strife, they are the fuel that feeds the flames of discord.
As it respects religion, they disparage and injure it, not so much by raising against it the cry of hypocrisy on the ground of their immortality, as by lowering its standard, depreciating its value, diminishing its power, carnalising and secularising it, and reducing it to a greater conformity to the spirit of the world; so that many persons seeing no difference between such professing Christians and themselves, except the mere circumstance of profession, think such a religion not worth their notice.
But, as to the nominal professing Christian himself, how truly awful is the consequence of his delusion. He is perhaps the most hopeless character on earth. Before he assumed the name of Christ, there was hope of him that he would be impressed, convinced, and converted by some of those discriminating discourses which point out the difference between a regenerated and an unregenerated man; those pungent appeals to the conscience which are so often blessed in awakening them that are without — but now he is proof against all these. He is a professing Christian, a Church member; and with this as his shield he wards off every arrow of conviction from his heart. These things he says are for the unprofessing, not for him. Quietly his conscience sleeps amidst all the thunders that roll from the pulpit, while the lightnings, carried off by the conductor of his profession, touch not his false hopes, and leave him, amidst all, secure. He puts away from himself all the threatenings of the Word, though they are pointed at him, and takes to himself all the privileges and consolations of the righteous, though he enjoys none of them. If at any time the power of the deception begins to be shaken by the efforts of a half-awakened conscience, and there rises up a suspicion that he is not a truly religious man, Satan aids him to regain his delusive quietude by the usual suggestion, “that he is a professing Christian, a Church member, and that though he is not perfect, he is not further from it, than many others; he only partakes of the general infirmity of the times, and if he be wrong, who is right? Besides, what is he to do? He is a Church member, and would he begin again? Would he repent, believe, and be converted now?” Such logic is generally successful, and the poor creature lies down again to sleep on, the sleep of death. Notwithstanding the great number of professing Christians which exist, and the great numbers of unconverted ones too, how rarely do we meet with any who were converted after they became professing Christians? How seldom do any such come to their pastor, and express a fear, and follow it up, that they have never been truly changed.
Hence it is, that some ministers feel it to be the greatest perplexity of all their pastoral avocations, to give answers to persons, who come to advise with them on the subject of making a profession. If from suspicion that the hearts of these individuals are not yet right with God, they dissuade them, they may be discouraging those whom they ought to receive and encourage; sending away a babe that ought to be laid in the bosom of the Church; breaking the bruised reed, and quenching the smoking flax: while on the other hand, if they encourage the enquirer to come forward, they may be strengthening the delusion of a self-deceived soul, and become accessory to the ruin of an immortal spirit. Some conscientious men have found and felt this to be the very burden of their lives, and from which there is no way of gaining relief or ease, but by laying down the marks of true conversion, begging the querist to bring his heart to this test, stating what is implied in a Christian profession, and making him, as has been already said, responsible for the judgment of his own case, and all its consequences too.
But extend your views to another world, and anticipate if you can the consequences of self-deception as they exist, and are perpetuated through eternity. Bunyan, in his inimitable allegory, the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” after representing the rejection of a false professor of religion, called Ignorance, who had knocked at the portals of heaven, and asked admission, concludes his book with these awfully impressive words, “Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the city of destruction.”
A professor of religion in hell!! Tremendous idea! Horrifying thought! After spending his time on earth in the nominal communion of saints, to spend his eternity in the real fellowship of devils in hell! After belonging to the society of God’s people; joining in all their services and their privileges, transacting with them the business of His kingdom; uniting with them in the expulsion as well as reception of members — then to be sent away, into the prison of lost souls. O how dreadful would it be to be separated from the Church of God now, to pass under the sentence of excommunication, to be excised as a corrupt member of the body, and given over to Satan — but what is this to the sentence of excommunication from the Church triumphant, pronounced by Jesus Christ Himself at the last day? O to hear Him say depart! — Who does not feel the force of those impressive verses?
Thou lovely Chief of all my joys,
Thou Sovereign of my heart.
How could I bear to hear Thy voice,
Pronounce the sound depart.
The thunder of that dismal word
Would so torment my ear,
‘T would tear my soul asunder Lord,
With most tormenting fear.
O wretched state of deep despair,
To see my God remove,
And fix my doleful station where
I could not taste His love.
(To be continued)