Saturday, November 12, 2011

Dazzling Confusion

"The repulsion between Revelation and much of modern thought is expressing itself in many ways and through many channels. Man is now thinking out a Bible for himself; framing a religion in harmony with the development of liberal thought; constructing a worship on the principles of taste and culture; shaping a god to suit the expanding aspirations of the age. The process of evolution on all these points is so satisfactory and so well advanced that disguise is no longer needful. Faith and certainty in things outside our senses are, in the meantime at least, not to be taken into account. Whether the human mind was really made for such uncertainty is a question that each one must settle for himself; and whether there may not be a way of escape from uncertainties into a region of absolute truth, in things of religion as well as in those of science, is certainly worth the consideration of the age.

Amid all this dazzling confusion, it is well to keep in mind that the way leading to life is narrow; the way leading to death is broad. The danger arising from want of spiritual discrimination between light and darkness is more serious than many think. For one authentic light, there are a thousand spurious60 ones. The false Christs are many, the true Christ is but one; and whilst glorying in the vitality of truth we must stand in awe of the marvelous fecundity61 of error. Discrimination is not censoriousness." —Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)