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SermonIndex.net : Christian Books : Address 63: |For the good of religion is like the good of food and drink to theà

An Humble Affectionate And Earnest Address To The Clergy by William Law

Address 63: |For the good of religion is like the good of food and drink to theà

|For the good of religion is like the good of food and drink to the creature that wants it. And if instead of giving such an one bread and wine, you should teach him to seek for relief by attending to clear ideas of the nature of bread, of different ways of making it, he would be left to die in the want of sustenance, just as the religion of reasoning leaves the soul to perish in the want of that good which it was to have from religion. And yet as a man may have the benefit of food much assisted by the right use of his reason, though reason has not the good of food in it, so a man may have the good of religion much assisted and secured to him, by the right use of his reason, though reason has not the good of religion in it. And as it would be great folly and perverseness, to accuse a man as an enemy to the true use of reasoning about food, because he declares that reason is not food, nor can supply the place of it, so is it equally such, to accuse a man as an enemy to the use of reasoning in religion, because he declares that reasoning is not religion, nor can supply the place of it. We have no want of religion, but because we want to have more of the divine nature in us than we have in our fallen nature. But if this be the truth of the matter (and who can deny it?) then we are sure that nothing can be our good in religion, but that which communicates to us something of God, or which alters our state of existence in God, and makes us partakers of the divine nature, in such a manner and degree as we wanted. What a folly is it then to put any trust in a religion of rational notions and opinions logically deduced from scripture words? Do we not see sinners of all sorts, and men under the power of every corrupt passion, equally zealous for such a religion? Proof enough, that it has not the good of religion in it, nor any contrariety to the vices of the heart; it neither kills them, nor is killed by them. For as pride, hypocrisy, envy or malice, do not take away from the mind its geometrical or critical abilities; so a man may be most logical in his religion of reason, words, doctrines, and opinions, when he has nothing of the true good of religion in him.

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