The whole apparatus of religion<\/p>\n
(J. C. Philpot, \u201cReviews\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cI see that you are very religious in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acts 17:22<\/p>\n
Religion, in some shape or other, is indispensable<\/p>\n
to the very existence of civilized society. There is<\/p>\n
a natural religion\u2013as well as a spiritual religion.<\/p>\n
Natural conscience is the seat of the former;<\/p>\n
a spiritual conscience the seat of the latter.<\/p>\n
One is of the flesh\u2013the other of the Spirit.<\/p>\n
One for time\u2013the other for eternity.<\/p>\n
One for the world\u2013the other for the elect.<\/p>\n
One to animate and bind men together as<\/p>\n
component members of society\u2013the other to<\/p>\n
animate and bind the children of God together<\/p>\n
as component members of the mystical body<\/p>\n
of Christ.<\/p>\n
True religion is what the world does not want<\/p>\n
\u2013nor does true religion want the world.<\/p>\n
The two are as separate as Christ and Belial.<\/p>\n
But some religion the world must have!<\/p>\n
And as it will not have, and cannot have<\/p>\n
the true\u2013it will and must have the false.<\/p>\n
True religion is . . .<\/p>\n
spiritual and experimental,<\/p>\n
heavenly and divine,<\/p>\n
the gift and work of God,<\/p>\n
the birthright and privilege of the elect,<\/p>\n
the peculiar possession of the heirs of God.<\/p>\n
This the world has not, for it is God\u2019s enemy\u2013not<\/p>\n
His friend\u2013walking in the broad way which leads<\/p>\n
to perdition\u2013not in the narrow way which leads<\/p>\n
to eternal life.<\/p>\n
Worldly religion cannot exist without an order of<\/p>\n
men to teach it and practice its ceremonies. Hence<\/p>\n
come clergy, forming a recognized priestly caste.<\/p>\n
And as these must, to avoid confusion, be governed,<\/p>\n
all large corporate bodies requiring a controlling power,<\/p>\n
thence come bishops and archbishops, ecclesiastical<\/p>\n
courts, archdeacons\u2013and the whole apparatus of<\/p>\n
clerical government.<\/p>\n
The ceremonies and ordinances cannot be carried on<\/p>\n
without buildings set apart for the purpose\u2013thence<\/p>\n
churches and cathedrals.<\/p>\n
As prayer is a part of all religious worship, and carnal<\/p>\n
men cannot, for lack of the Spirit, pray spiritually\u2013they<\/p>\n
must have forms of devotion made ready to their hand,<\/p>\n
thence come prayer-books and liturgies.<\/p>\n
As there must be mutual points of agreement to hold<\/p>\n
men together, there must be written formulas of doctrine<\/p>\n
\u2013thence come articles, creeds, and confessions of faith.<\/p>\n
And finally, as there are children to be instructed, and<\/p>\n
this cannot be safely left to oral teaching, for fear of<\/p>\n
ignorance in some and error in others, the very form<\/p>\n
of instruction must be drawn up in so many words\u2013<\/p>\n
thence come catechisms.<\/p>\n
People are puzzled sometimes to know why there is<\/p>\n
this and that thing in an established religion\u2013why we<\/p>\n
have churches and clergy, tithes and prayer-books,<\/p>\n
universities and catechisms\u2013and the whole apparatus<\/p>\n
of religion. They do not see that all these things have<\/p>\n
sprung, as it were, out of a moral necessity, and are<\/p>\n
based upon the very constitution of man\u2013that this<\/p>\n
great and widespread tree of a human religion has<\/p>\n
its deep roots in the natural conscience; and that all<\/p>\n
these branches necessarily and naturally grow out of<\/p>\n
the broad and lofty stem.<\/p>\n
The attachment, then, of worldly people to a worldly<\/p>\n
religion is no great mystery. It is no riddle for a Samson<\/p>\n
to put forth\u2013or requiring a Solomon to solve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The whole apparatus of religion (J. C. Philpot, \u201cReviews\u201d) \u201cI see that you are very religious in every way.\u201d Acts 17:22 Religion, in some shape or other, is indispensable to the very existence of civilized society. There is a natural religion\u2013as well as a spiritual religion. Natural conscience is the seat of the former; a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot","category-false-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2440,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}