+I. Consider the case of deceivers or seducers such as by their
sleight and cunning craftiness lie in wait to deceive.+--The
particular motives by which men may be led to beguile others are
reducible to three--pride, avarice, and voluptuousness: love of
honour, or profit, or pleasure. 1. There is often a great deal of
pride and vanity in starting old notions and broaching new doctrines.
It is pretending to be wiser than the rest of the world, and is
thought to be an argument of uncommon sagacity. Upon this footing
some are perpetually in quest of new discoveries. Nothing pleases
them, if they have not the honour of inventing it or of receiving it
in their times. When once a man has thus far given loose to his
vanity and thinks himself significant enough to be head of a sect,
then he begins first to whisper out his choice discoveries to a few
admirers and confidants, who will be sure to flatter him in it; and
next to tell aloud to all the world how great a secret he had found
out, with the inestimable value of it. And now at length comes in the
use of sleight and cunning craftiness and all imaginable artifices;
first to find out proper agents to commend and cry up the conceit,
next to spread it in the most artful manner among the simple and
least suspecting, and after that to form interests and make parties;
and so, if possible, to have a public sanction set to it or a
majority at least contending for it. Love of fame and glory is a very
strong passion, and operates marvellously in persons of a warm
complexion. 2. Observe how avarice or love of profit may sometimes do
the same thing. There is a gain to be made in some junctures by
perverting the truth and deceiving the populace. Men who are not
worthy to teach in the Church, or who have been set aside for their
insufficiency or immorality, may bring up new doctrines and draw
disciples after them, for the sake of protection and maintenance or
for filthy lucre. With such the vending of false doctrines is a trade
and preaching a merchandise. Thus has avarice been the mother of
heresies and has brought many deceivers into the Church of Christ;
but they have contrived generally to give some plausible turn and
colour to their inventions through their "sleight" and "cunning
craftiness," in order to deceive the hearts of the simple and to
beguile unwary and unstable souls. 3. One motive
more--voluptuousness, or love of pleasure. As religious restraints
set not easy upon flesh and blood, but bear hard upon corrupt nature,
so men of corrupt minds will be ever labouring to invent and publish
smooth and softening doctrines, such as may either qualify the
strictness of the Gospel rule or sap the belief of a future
reckoning. Many ancient heretics had such views as these in the first
broaching of their heresies. Their design was to take off the awe and
dread of a future judgment, and thereby to open a door to all
licentiousness of life and dissoluteness of manners.
+II. Consider the case of the deceived who suffer themselves to be
"tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine."+--They are supposed
to be ignorantly, and in a manner blindly, led on by others,
otherwise they would be rather confederates and confidants in
managing the deceit, and so would be more deceivers than deceived.
1. Now as to those who are so ignorantly imposed upon. They are more
or less to blame, according as their ignorance is more or less
blamable; and that, again, will be more or less blamable, according
as it is more or less affected or wilful. There are, I think, three
cases which will take in all sorts of men who suffer themselves to be
deceived in things of this kind. The first is of those who have no
opportunity, no moral possibility of informing themselves better; the
second is of those who might inform themselves better, but do not;
the third of those who might also be better informed, but will not.
If they be "like children tossed to and fro with every wind of
doctrine," yet if they are really children in understanding and are
overborne by others in such a way as is morally irresistible
considering their circumstances, then it seems to be their misfortune
to be so imposed upon rather than their fault, and so is not
imputable. 2. A second case is of those who may inform themselves
better but neglect to do it. I suppose it to be merely neglect in
them, not design. Perhaps they have little or no leisure for
inquiries; they are taken up with worldly cares and business. They
have a very great esteem and value for the man who so misleads them,
and they know no better, but swallow everything he says without
considering; or they are not aware of any ill consequences of the
doctrine, see or suspect no harm in it. They are much to blame in
this affair, because God has given them the faculty of reason, which
ought not to be thus left to lie dormant and useless. Men who can be
sharp enough in secular affairs to prevent being imposed upon may and
ought to have some guard upon themselves with respect also to their
spiritual concernments. 3. There is yet a third sort of men, worse
than the former, who suffer themselves to be deceived and might know
better, but will not; that is to say, their ignorance is affected and
wilful, they "love darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil." These are such as readily run in with "every wind of doctrine"
which hits their taste and chimes in with their favourite
inclinations. They admit the doctrine because they like it, and they
easily believe it true because they would have it so. It is with this
kind of men that deceivers prevail most and make their harvest.
+III. Some advices proper to prevent our falling in with
either.+--The best preservative in this case is an honest and good
heart, well disposed towards truth and godliness, having no by-ends
to serve, no favourite lust or passion to indulge. If any man is but
willing to know and to do God's commandments, he will easily discern
in most cases whether a doctrine be of God or whether it be of men.
The evidences of the true religion and of its main doctrines are so
bright and strong when carefully attended to, that common sense and
reason are sufficient to lead us, when there is no bias to mislead
us. For several years last past rude and bold attacks have been made
against the important doctrines of Christianity and against all
revealed religion, and this is what they are still carrying on with
exquisite subtlety and craftiness many ways and with a great deal of
fruitless pains and labour. For I may have leave to suppose that no
man can in this case be deceived who has not first a desire to be so,
and is not the dupe and bubble to his own lust and vices.--_Dr.
Waterland._
Ver. 15. _Speaking the Truth in Love._--1. A different thing from the
irritating candour of the professed friend. 2. Implies an
experimental knowledge of the truth and its spiritual mission. 3. Is
the most effectual way of winning a hearing and gaining adherents.
4. A method conspicuously exemplified in the teaching of Christ.
_Growth into Christ in Love and Truth._
+I. The standard of Christian excellence--Christ's headship.+--1. The
prominent notion suggested is His rank in the universe. He rules as
God in creation. But evidently the apostle does not mean this in the
text. We are to grow into Him as Head. Growth into Christ's Godhead
is impossible. God-like we may, God we cannot even by truth and love,
become. 2. He is the Head as being the Source of spiritual life. This
is implied in metaphor. The highest life-powers--sensation, feeling,
thought--come from the brain. To one who has read the history of
those times, there is an emphatic truth in Christ's being the life of
the world. The world was like a raft becalmed in the tropics--some of
its freight dead and baking in the sun, some sucking as if for
moisture from dried casks, and some sadly, faintly looking for a
sail. Christ's coming to the world was as life to the dead, imparting
new impulse to human heart and human nature. It was like rain and
wind coming to that bark--once more it cuts the sea, guided by a
living hand. So also with each man who drinks Christ's Spirit. He
becomes a living character. Not sustained on dogmas or taken-up
opinions, but alive with Christ. 3. He is Head as chief of the human
race. Never had the world seen, never again will it see, such a
character. Humanity found in Him a genial soil, and realised God's
idea of what man was meant to be. He is chief. Nothing comes near Him.
+II. Progress towards the standard of Christian excellence.+--"We
grow up into Him in all things."
1. _Growth in likeness to Him._--The human soul was formed for
growth, and that growth is infinite. The acorn grows into the oak,
the child into the philosopher. And at death the soul is not
declining; it is as vigorous as ever. Hence nothing but an infinite
standard will measure the growth of the soul of man.
2. _Growth in comprehension of Him._--Christ is not comprehensible at
first. Words cannot express the awe with which a man contemplates
that character when it is understood. This is the true heroic, this
the only God-like, this the real Divine. From all types of human
excellence I have made my choice for life and death--Christ.
+III. The approved means of growth the mode of progress.+--"Speaking
the truth in love." Truth and love--and these joined. To "grow into
Christ" we must have both traits of character. Would you be like
Christ? Cultivate love of beauty and tenderness. His soul was alive
to beauty. He noted the rising and setting sun, the waving corn, the
lily of the field. His was love which insult could not ruffle nor
ribaldry embitter, and which only grew sweeter and sweeter. Would you
be like Christ? Be true! He never swerved. He was a martyr to truth.
Would He soften down truth for the young man whom He loved, or make
it palatable? No; not for friendship, not for love, not for all the
lovely things this world has to show. "One thing thou lackest: sell
all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me" (Mark x. 17-22; Luke
xviii. 17-23). That was "speaking the truth in love." There is no
good to be got out from Christ, except by being made like him. There
is no pardon, no blessing, separate from inward improvement. Sanctity
of character alone blesses. Each man is his own hell and his own
heaven. God Himself cannot bless you unless He gives you His own
character.--_F. W. Robertson._