There are thousands who say in the present day, “We have nothing to do with the opinions of others.  They may perhaps be mistaken, though it is possible they are right and we wrong: but if they are sincere, we hope they will be saved, even as we.” And all this sounds liberal and charitable, and people like to fancy their own views are so.

    Now I believe such notions are entirely contradictory to the Bible, whatever else they may be.  I cannot find in Scripture that any one ever got to heaven merely by sincerity, or was accepted with God if he was only earnest in maintaining his own views.  The priests of Baal were sincere when they cut themselves with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out; but still that did not prevent Elijah from commanding them to be treated as wicked idolaters. Manasseh, King of Judah, was doubtless sincere when he burned his children in the fire to Molock; but who does not know that he brought on himself great guilt by so doing.  The apostle Paul when, a Pharisee was sincere while he made havoc of the Church, but when his eyes were opened he mourned over this as a special wickedness.  Let us beware of allowing for a moment that sincerity is everything, and that we have no right to speak ill of a man’s spiritual state because of the opinions he holds, if he is only earnest in holding them.  On such principles, the Druidical sacrifices, the car of Juggernaut, the Indian suttees, the systematic murders of the Thugs, the fires of Smithfield, might each and all be defended.  It will not stand: it will not bear the test of Scripture.  Once allow such notions to be true, and you may as well throw your Bible aside altogether.  Sincerity is not Christ, and therefore sincerity cannot put away sin.

    I dare be sure these consequences sound very unpleasant to the minds of some who may read them.  But I tell you of them advisedly and deliberately.  I say calmly that a religion without Christ, a religion that takes away from Christ, a religion that adds anything to Christ, a religion that puts sincerity in the place of Christ,—all are dangerous: all are to be avoided, and all are alike contrary to the doctrine of our text.

    You may not like this: I am sorry for it.  You think me uncharitable, illiberal, narrow-minded, bigoted, and so forth: be it so.  But you will not tell me my doctrine is not that of the Word of God, and of the Church of England whose minister I am. That doctrine is, salvation in Christ to the very uttermost,—but out of Christ no salvation at all.

    I feel it a duty to bear my solemn testimony against the spirit of the day you live in; to warn you against its infection.  It is not Atheism I fear so much, in the present times, as Pantheism.  It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true; it is not the system which says there is no Saviour, so much as the system which says there are many saviours and many ways to peace.  It is the system which is so liberal that it dares not say anything is false; it is the system which is so charitable that it will allow everything to be true; it is the system which seems ready to honour others as well as our Lord Jesus Christ, class them all together, and hope well of all.  Confucius and Zoroaster, Socrates and Mahomet, the Indian Brahmins and the African devil-worshippers, Arius and Pelagius, Ignatius Loyola and Socinus,—all are to be treated respectfully: none are to be condemned.  It is the system which bids us smile complacently on all creeds and systems of religion: the Bible and the Koran, the Hindu Vedus and the Persian Zendavesta, the old wives’ fables of Rabbinical writers and the rubbish of Patristic traditions, the Racovian catechism and the thirty-nine Articles, the revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg and the book of Mormon of Joseph Smith,—all are to be listened to: none are to be denounced as lies.  It is the system which is so scrupulous about the feelings of others, that we are never to say they wrong; it is the system which is so liberal that it calls a man a bigot if he dares to say, “I know my views are right.”  This is the system, this is the tone of feeling which I fear in this day.  This is the system which I desire emphatically to testify against and denounce.

    What is it but a bowing down before a great idol specially called liberality?  What is it all but a sacrificing of truth upon the altar of a caricature of charity?  Beware of it, reader, beware that the rushing stream of public opinion does not carry you away.  Beware of it, if you believe the Bible: beware of it, if you are a consistent member of the Church of England.  Has the Lord God spoken to us in the Bible, or has He not?  Has He shown us the way of salvation plainly in that Bible, or has He not?  Has He declared to us the dangerous state of all out of that way, or has He not?  Gird up the loins of your mind, and look these questions fairly in the face, and give them an honest answer.  Tell us that there is some other inspired book beside the Bible, and then we shall know what you mean; tell us that the whole Bible is not inspired, and then we shall know where to meet you: but grant for a moment that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is God’s truth., and then I know not in what way you can escape the doctrine of the text.  From the liberality which says everybody is right, from the charity which forbids you to say anybody is wrong, from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth,—may the good Lord deliver you!

   I speak for myself: I find no resting-place between downright Evangelical Christianity and downright infidelity, whatever others may find.  I see no half-way house between them, or houses that are roofless and cannot shelter my weary soul.  I can see consistency in an infidel, however much I may pity him; I can see consistency in the full maintenance of Evangelical truth: but as to a middle course between the two,—I cannot see it; and I say so plainly.  Let it be called illiberal and uncharitable.  I can hear God's voice nowhere except in the Bible, and I can see no salvation for sinners in the Bible excepting through Jesus Christ.   In Him I see abundance: out of Him I see none.   And as for those who hold religions in which Christ is not all, whoever they may be, I have a most uncomfortable feeling about their safety.  I do not for a moment say that none of them are saved, but I say that those who are saved are saved by their disagreement with their own principles, and in spite of their own system.  The man who wrote the famous line,

“He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right,”

was a great poet undoubtedly, but he was a wretched divine.