Lecture VII.

THE MISCHIEFS OF RELIGIOUS FORMALITY.

REV. R. VAUGHAN, D.D.

CROWN STREET CHAPEL, SH;

WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 3, 1841.

"Ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."-Luke xi. 42.

Ir is, as you are aware, one of the advantages attaching to the mode of instruction so prominent in Holy Scripture, that it conveys to us its lessons in so great a degree through the medium of example. Disquisitions, learned discourses concerning truth and duty, may have power to arrest the attention of persons, who have been accustomed to attend to such things; but in reference to men in general, it must be something different that is to strike them and to produce any wholesome impression upon their minds. It is important, that you should be able to appeal, for the purpose of illustrating what you mean, to something before you-something living and moving before you. It may be true, that men ought not to have needed this; it is an adaptation of instruction (in the manner of it) to what may be considered as a kind of volatility or childishness of mind. Still men do need it; and because they need it, God has directed His inspired servants to convey instruction to them in this amongst almost every variety of form, and Christ Himself especially presents to us almost everything that He teaches more or less in connection with the advantage of living example. We find in the Scriptures, accordingly, that we have Abraham as a pattern of faith, Job as a pattern of patience, Moses as an example of generosity and meekness, David of ardent devotion, Solomon of wisdom. And so of the evil, equally as of the good. The Pharoahs, the Ahabs, and the Herods of Holy Scripture-how do they teach to those who are willing to learn!

It is to be observed, then, that the Pible is not only to us the record of our religion, but in an eminent degree the record of our religion teaching by example. And among the examples, that we find to have the greatest prominence in Holy Scripture, is that which is presented to us in the character and conduct of the ancient sect of the Pharisees, to whom the words of the text have reference. It is true, that the Pharisees occur to us as examples of warning for the most partinstances of things which we should be concerned to avoid and not to imitate; but they are not the less valuable as examples on that account.

We have their great besetting sin pointed out. It was their practice, it seems, to "tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs," and then so far to suppose that in these doings of theirs they had accomplished every thing incumbent upon them, that "judgment" or the great principles by which man should be bound to his fellowman, and "the love of God" or that study to have the mind brought into acquaintance with the nature of God and the heart brought into a state of right affection towards God-these things, in which religion properly consists, were "passed over,” on the ground of their attending to other things, in which religion did not properly consist, nor necessarily consist at all.

Now I propose, first, to offer a few remarks from this Scripture, relating to the origin and nature of the particular form of religious error, which the passage is designed to expose; and then I would remark some of the mischiefs or evils, that result from this error, in regard, first, to the great principles of "judgment," of justice, of propriety or obligation, by which man is bound to man, and then as to the intelligence and affection, by which the renewed soul is to be bound to God.

J. First, then, I have to make a few remarks as to the origin and nature of the particular form of religious error, which the text is intended to expose; that of men, who because they tithed their mint and rue and herbs of their garden-carried their ceremonial observances, that is, to the most scrupulous extent-supposed that in that all the great purposes of religion were realised. They were men, who thought that this kind of occupation constituted the great business and service of religion. They looked to these outward things, not in the light of means, which derive the whole of their value from the blessing which God may connect with them in order to produce the end, namely, religion in the soul; but they looked at these outward forms as being religion itself, and the "bodily exercise" which they involved (without looking beyond that) as a service acceptable to God. So that it was an error, you perceive, embracing the persuasion of religious attainment and of religious safety, upon a ground which included no religion at all, but simply and

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because of the man's having been occupied much in relation to things, that were connected with religion in a certain degree. It was an error, you will mark therefore, which disposed them to look at the seen and to forget the unseen; disposed them to think of what a man did in these outward things, and not to inquire what a man is, in reference to his principles and his affections, in the sight of God and towards men. It was in fact just that religion, which we find in the case of Paul before his conversion; which he speaks of as being a righteousness according to the law, and in the review of which, during his state of ignorance, he supposed himself blameless; but "when the law came" (he says), that is, when the spirituality of the Divine command came, and spiritual religion came too, then he tells us his hope perished-the confidence of the formalist being destroyed by a disclosure of the ruined condition of man, and of the great things which God has done for him in that ruined state.

Now of formalism, according to the account that I have just given of it, I have two things to say, with a view to show its origin and nature: that it is to be traced to tendencies that are common to human nature; and then, that it is to be traced especially to the deep repugnance of human nature to personal religion rightly understood, in connection with another feeling, namely, the impression, which it is hardly possible to eradicate from the soul of man, that he ought to have a religion of some kind.

First, then, this formalism is to be traced to tendencies, that are common to human nature.

Glance for a moment at ancient heathenism, and you will find that this formalism constituted it. The objects of worship in the ancient heathen world were either incomprehensible and abstract, or else they were so depraved and inconsistent and imbecile as objects of worship, that really nothing was left to constitute religion in the ideas and impressions of the people, but these outward things in the shape of ceremonies and religious observances, to which their attention was called from time to time. And accordingly, as these things were left to constitute the great substance of religion, they were multiplied and made to spread themselves over the whole of life. There was nothing left but these. As for what was involved in their system, as to teaching the people duty just for the accomplishment of the purposes of the statesmen and of the priests, who had the controul of them, it of course amounted to just so much of political expediency; but religion itself was left to consist in those forms of worship, on a minute attention to which depended every thing important in relation to the safety and prospects of the worshipper.

Look next to the Jews and it will be seen, that they had institutions appointed of God-institutions, that were various, multiplied, complex, and in regard to which he gave the most minute instructions. At the same time they were warned against supposing that their religion was to consist in the observance of these things; these things they were to do, but there was something beyond them all, which they were not to leave undone; they were to connect with all the outward forms that God had enjoined upon them a spirituality of conception and feeling, like that of which we have such examples in David and Isaiah and minds of that description. They were to have a form of godliness, but they were to have the spirit and the power of it too; and every thing that took place as a something visible, was to be a kind of shadow or type of that which was passing in the invisible state of the spirit-in the habits of thought and feeling belonging to an enlightened and devout mind, existing and in action there. But who does not know, that the Jews were constantly turning aside "like a broken bow," and descending from the spirit of their institutes into the letter, and supposing that they were to be safe in proportion as they were found punctual in their attention to that which was outward, whatever might be the state of that which was inward. This error, which we have pointed out as attaching to them continually in their history more or less, we see brought forth in its fullest form of exaggeration in the character of the Pharisees, as they are presented to us in connection with the times of the New Testament; when, if men tithed their mint and rue and all the small herbs of their garden, they were supposed to be so extremely religious, that they never thought of "judgment or" of "the love of God" as obligations of religion at all.

And if we come to the times of the Gospel, though we should have supposed that there had been enough of guard against all this in the pages of the New Testament, where everything merely formal is put in subordination to that which is intellec tual and that which is spiritual and holy, yet not a long interval had to pass, and the forms that became connected with the profession of Christianity, were made to

take much the same complexion with those that had been connected with false religions; and men were allowed by degrees to fall into the old idea, that their religious character and their religious prospects were what is was most desirable they should be, in proportion as they were to be found connecting themselves with a particular order of ministers and with a particular order of worship, and in proportion as they were admitted to partake of certain sacraments administered by these, as of cleansing and saving efficacy; until it came to that pass, that Baptism regenerated the soul, Confirmation gave to it stability in the faith, the Lord's Supper ministered to its nourishment and growth in the Divine life, and Extreme Unction formed the last office needed by the spirit in its passing out of time into eternity. So that thus institutes and forms were made, in the general idea of them and impression concerning them, to accomplish everything for the professed Christian. In this manner, Christianity itself was made to become like the false religions, and even the Gospel to be, as to its appearance, as though it also were an imposture and

a lie.

At the Reformation a change was wrought. But since that time the one half of Europe has remained subject to this besotted superstition about forms; and even the other half, including such countries as our own, is by no means free from this superstitious dependence upon outward observances. We must not suppose, that even Protestants are free from it. No, nor that it is to be confined to any one particular sect of Protestantism. It is a something, that has its place more or less with us all. There is a tendency to it in human nature. And the difference in the present world is, I believe, simply a difference of mode and of degree-not the difference that one man is affected by it and another not. If we have any of us been accustomed to attend to a particular course of ordinances, let these be never so simple, never so scriptural and proper, there is something almost imperceptibly working in the mind towards the conclusion, that to have had a visible recognized connection with these outward means for a long time, is to have got a real religious character. Into a conclusion of this sort I fear persons fall, without asking themselves whether their solicitude has been, in connection with these means, to see that they accomplish the purpose intended by them-leading the soul to a knowledge of itself and of God through Jesus Christ, and bringing into a state of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I fear that we do sufficiently bear in mind, that even where the form consists (as I have said) in the most simple sermons-hearing services, going to Meeting or Chapel (as well as Church), getting a kind of recognised place among professed Christians-we are liable to adopt a conclusion from these things, that will be found to be, in the case of many, as certainly a delusion, as certainly a resting upon forms and outward religious things, as in the case of others, whose forms are different, and in whom the delusion is different at to its mode, but not as to its nature and essence. But if this be at all true, you will at once see, that ancient times and modern, heathen lands and countries professing Christianity, Jew and Gentile- all concur to show that there is in formality a certain distinctive feature, which is every where to be found. And if so, then it must have its origin in causes, that are as prevalent as itself: that is, it must have its origin in some disposition, that has its place in common-in human nature.

And I say that it has this origin in two principles of our nature. First, that there is an impression in the human mind-looking not simply at little knots of men here or there, but looking at human nature over the wide surface of the world's history and at its condition at any period-there is in human nature an impression that there is a Power above, and that man ought to have religion. Human nature demonstrates by its history that it abhors an absolute atheism; it cannot think of an entire void, as to the place that should be occupied by Deity of some kind; and hence the choice, all over the world, is not found to be between religion and no religion, but between the true religion and a false one. And while, on the one hand, there is this abhorence of no religion, there is, upon the other, as fixed an abhorrence of the pure and holy religion of the Gospel. The degree in which any man is attached to the lusts and passions of his nature that are evil, is of course the degree in which he will be averse to the claims of a religion, which is designed to crucify those lusts and passions. And while therefore he is subject to this double influence-has something in him that tells he must have a ground upon which to hope well hereafter, and has something in him that prevents his liking the true religion-the conclusion to which he will come is easily foreseen; he will devise a corrupt religion for himself. He must have a religion: he will not

have the religion; and he therefore constructs a religion, that shall be adapted to the ways of his own heart and the sight of his own eyes. And by these means formalism is generated. It is an outward range of things, a visible course of employment, which is supposed to answer the end; and he contrives to persuade himself, (with the Bible in his hand, as we see in multitudes of instances,) that he may have his mind much as it is, his heart much as it is, his life much as it is, and so he is only careful to avoid gross vices, and to attend to these decent forms of religion, and thus to put the weight of his example (as he thinks) upon the side of religion, the great account will be adjusted.

In this way he has a religion, it is true; but it is a shadow without a substance a body without a soul-a mere show of making payment to God of what he demands, put on for the purpose of defrauding him the more effectually as to that payment. It is not merely a robbing God of that service of the inner man, which He requires as being alone religion; but it is adding insult to that robbery, inasmuch as it involves the grimace of hypocrisy in the presence of the Searcher of hearts and in connection with religion itself. We do not wonder, that Christ should have spoken of a religion of this nature as He has done; telling us that it is like a whited sepulchre, while all within is "rottenness and dead men's bones”— the "whited sepulchre" being the picture of the apparent assumption, the outward indication of the just and the proper, kept up by the mere form, at the same time that the mind is left under the dominion of all the evil lusts and passions that constitute its defilement.

I might just add, as tending to account for the prevalence of this formality, that it is a much easier thing for a man to be in a certain sense righteous, after the manner of a Pharisee, than to be so after the manner of a Christian: a very much more easy thing, to go through a certain routine of forms and bodily exercises, than to be occupied in relation to the mind, to see that that becomes enlightened—and in relation to the heart, to see that that becomes subdued in its selfishness and depravity, and the seat of the kindly and the holy affectionsthat pertain to the renewed soul.

Then again, an outward righteousness of this sort is seen more than the inward; and it is possible for men to acquire by such means, more easily, a sort of religious reputation, that can be made to subserve the purposes of a worldly ambition. And thus there is a sort of bounty presented on the side of formalism, that commends itself to our love of ease and to our vanity.

Let these hints suffice, then, for the purpose of directing your attention to the sources of this particular form of religious error.

II. And now for the mischiefs that result from it. These are pointed out in the text, as they have respect to the two great divisions of our obligation—our obligation as to man, and our obligation as to God.

1. How, then, does this formality operate, so as to cause men to "pass over judgment"- or a right state of things in reference to their fellow-men?

It does so, I would say, in the first place, as it generates a proud and censorious temper. All hollow pretension is in its very nature irritable and vain. It is not the man who is really rich, but the man who has a secret consciousness that he is on the verge of bankruptcy, that is offended on being thought poor. The coldness and barrenness of mere formalism are manifest enough; and when they are brought into comparison with the warmth and the good fruit attendant on a career of true religion, the comparison cannot be to the formalist agreeable. But he contrives to gratify the asperity and the pride of his nature, at the cost of those who seem to have more religion than himself, and at the cost of those who seem to have less. With respect to those who seem to have more religion than himself-those, I mean, who besides the form which he has, possess the power of religion which he has not-if these do not happen to be persons worshipping in the same outward form with himself and accustomed to the same visible institutes with himself, he will possibly contrive to dispose of them in a very summary manner by the application of the terms "schismatic," "enthusiast," and the like. He feels little difficulty in the application of terms of this description to such classes. And if you look to the past, I think you will find, that persons who are partakers of true religion have had principally to suffer, in the way of persecution, whether direct or indirect, from this class of persons. Who are they, that have cursed good men from the deepest places of their hearts among ourselves? Have they been the profligate the openly irreligious? Commonly they have been men of high religious preten

sions-great formalists in their way. You find instances of this occurring not unfrequently. Who are they, at this very moment, that are consigning all sects but their own to the uncovenanted mercies of God; and who are telling us, that they are so many engines of Satan, and that their ministers are so many ministers of the devil? Are they the profane-the openly irreligious? No, they are men, again, of high ecclesiastical pretensions, who are doing this. And my impression is, that if Satan wishes to make a man intense in his hatred of religion, his course of accomplishing that object is not so much to take that man to some temple of fashion and scene of worldly dissipation, as to some temple of formality, and to see that he becomes thoroughly initiated in the intolerance and the bitterness of spirit belonging to the formalist. It should be remembered, that it was not Barabbas who crucified Christ, but Caiphas; it was not Pilate-(he would have saved Him if he could) -but it was the Pharisee and the priest. It is not too much (I am satisfied) to say, that such is the influence of proud and censorious feeling on the heart of the thorough formalist, that the more the persons of other religious communions deserve to be loved, the more will they be hated. It is notorious in the view of all persons who have attended to the history of persecution, that the supposed virtues or sanctity of the persecuted have constituted their greatest crime; that is, those who have been persecuting them have felt, that the character they have for being good people has served to enlist the sympathies of men in their favour, and against themselves as their persecutors; and hence the best of men will be found to be those, who have been persecuted with the greatest amount of bitterness by the formalists of every age.

It is in this manner, then, that they contrive to gratify their passions, as it respects those, who seem to have more religion than themselves. And then as to those who seem to have less, you have a sufficient illustration of what occurs there, from the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee there compares himself, you perceive, not with the Gospel or with the law or with the standard to which he ought to be conformed, but with the average condition of men about him. The consequence of this is of course gross ignorance as to his real condition -pride in the place of humility—and then in the train of pride, mischief and every evil work.

And while there is this disposition to say, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou," and a proud censorious temper is generated by the spirit of formality; I would say, in the second place, that another branch of its mischief is the tendency which it has to give the mind an imaginary release from its moral obligation generally. What I mean here I shall explain by two or three passages of Scripture, that will sufficiently show to you its correctness. I will just say, however, that bigotry, which is the natural effect of formalism, the proper offspring of it, is the most demoralising of all passions. I never trust a bigot, I never take his word, I never confide in his principles, on any matter where his religion may come in the way. The proportion of his bigotry is the proportion in which all the moral principle of his nature is loosened and insecure. The cause is not very difficult to apprehend. Not only is the passion itself one of the strongest, of which the mind becomes the seat; but in the view of the bigot, every object he has before him is a sacred one, and though we say that to trust to the end to sanctify the means is a Jesuit's doctrine and belongs to the Church of Rome, it is melancholy to be obliged to see and feel that it is human nature's doctrine, and that it belongs to us all if we are not upon our guard against it. When once the mind is fixed upon an object as being in itself sacred, it is in danger of listening to many a suggestion that ought not to be listened to, as to means of accomplishing that object which are not at all of the description they ought to be. Indeed when once the mind becomes thoroughly imbued with the bigotry of formalism, the maxim then seems to be- Accomplish your object; accomplish it by fair means if you can, but at all events accomplish it.'

Look now, in illustration of what I have stated, to the account that is given us of the conduct of Judas, after betraying his Master. He returned the money to the priests, saying that he had betrayed innocent blood; they immediately answered, that it was nothing to them-that he was to see to that; they had benefited by the treason-they cared not one straw for the traitor. But then there came a difficulty; they said that this money was the price of blood, and could not be put into the treasury. Here came the spirit of "tithing the mint and rue and all manner of herbs;" the treasury was to be kept ceremonially pure, no money was to be there that had any ceremonial taint upon it. But the very men, that could not think of putting the money into the treasury after it had been in the