Mar. 15, 2007
Sound Bite 11: Hypocrisy Versus Real Faith
Posted in Lecture 1: Love, the Sum of all Virtue
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Thus love would dispose to all duties both toward God, and toward man. And if it will thus dispose to all duties, then it follows, that it is the root, and spring, and, as it were, a comprehension of all virtues. It is a principle, which if it be implanted in the heart, is alone sufficient to produce all good practice; and every right disposition toward God and man is summed up in it, and comes from it, as the fruit from the tree, or the stream from the fountain. Second, Reason teaches that whatever performances or seeming virtues there are without love, are unsound and hypocritical. If there be no love in what men do, then there is no true respect to God ormen in their conduct; and if so, then certainly there is no sincerity. Religion is nothing without proper respect to God. The very notion of religion among mankind, is that it is the creature's exercise and expression of such respect toward the creator. But if there be no true respect or love, then all that is called religion is but a seeming show, and there is no real religion in it, but it is unreal and vain. Thus if a man's faith be of such a sort that there is no true respect to God in it, reason teaches that it must be in vain; for if there be no love to God in it, there can be no true respect to him. From this it appears that love is always contained in a true and living faith, and that it is its true and proper life and soul, without which, faith is as dead as the body is without its soul; and that it is that which especially distinguishes a living faith from every other: but of this more particularly hereafter. ----------------------------- Cat's Q & A: 1. How much are you doing in your spiritual life right now? Church, writing, outreach, homeschooling, lots of things. 2. How much of it is out of love for God? Zero. I realized today that I'm plain mad at God. I want a different life than I've got, and I've been blaming Him for the mess I myself have made. |
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