1. From the weakness of our understandings, and the limited operation of the human faculties.
2. From the awfully mysterious subjects to which our attention is directed.
3. From the impositions and cheats practised upon us.
II. IT IS NOT NECESSARY. If error were involuntary, it would be unnecessary to guard us against it. We need not err--
1. Because we have a comprehensive and an all-sufficient directory.
2. Because we have a perfect Pattern and Exemplar.
3. Because we have an infallible Guide to conduct us into all truth.
III. WE SHOULD RE ON OUR GUARD AGAINST ERROR.
1. Because error is discreditable.
2. Because error is uncomfortable.
3. Because error is unsafe. (Sketches of Sermons.)
Error
1. It is not good to brand things with the name of error till we have proved them to be so. After he had disputed the matter with them, he saith, “Err not.” General invectives make but superficial impressions; show what is an error, and then call it so. Truly that was the way in ancient times. Loose discourses lose their profit. Blunt iron, that toucheth many points at once, doth not enter, but make a bruise; but a needle, that toucheth but one point, entereth to the quick.
2. We should as carefully avoid errors as vices; a blind eye is worse than a lame foot, yea, a blind eye will cause it; he that hath not light is apt to stumble (Rom_1:26); first they were given up “to a vain mind,” and then “to vile affections.” Many, I am persuaded, dally with opinions, because they do not know the dangerous result of them: all false principles have a secret but pestilent influence on the life and conversation.
3. “Do not err”; that is, do not mistake in this matter, because it is a hard thing to conceive how God concurreth to the act, and not to the evil of the act; bow He should be the author of all things, and not the author of sin; therefore he saith, however it be difficult to conceive, yet “Do not err.”
(1) You see, then, what need you have to pray for gifts of interpretation, and a “door of utterance” for your ministers, and a knowing heart for yourselves, that you may not be discouraged by the difficulties that fence up the way of truth. Chrysostom observeth that the saints do not pray, Lord, make a plainer law, but, Lord, open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of Thy law; as David doth.
(2) It showeth how much they are to blame that darken truth, and make the things of God the more obscure.
4. Again, from that “Do not err.” Take in the weightiness of the matter. Ah! would you err in a business that doth so deeply intrench upon the honour of God? The mistake being so dangerous, he is the more earnest. Oh! do not err. There is nothing more natural to us than to have ill thoughts of God, and nothing more dangerous; all practice dependeth upon it, to keep the glory of God unstained in your apprehensions.
5. From that “my beloved brethren.” Gentle dealing will best become dissuasives from error. Certainly we bad need to use much tenderness to persons that differ from us, speak to them in silken words. Where the matter is like to displease, the matter should not be bitter: pills must be sugared, that they may go down the better: many a man hath been lost through violence: you engage them to the other party. (T. Manton.)
On self-deception
I. MEN ERR BY ATTACHING GREATER IMPORTANCE TO THE AFFAIRS OF THIS LIFE, THAN TO THOSE OF ETERNITY. HOW many and great privations and dangers will the warrior pass through to gain the honour of a victory I Yet to conquer himself, to win a kingdom that cannot be moved--this never engaged his serious thoughts, never excited his desire,
II. MEN DECEIVE THEMSELVES BY THE HOPE OF A DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. IS it not highly presuming on the patience of God when we expect that God will grant us “repentance unto life” eternal, in the day of sickness, after we have spent our best days in the service of sin?
III. MEN ERR IN THEIR VIEW OF THE NATURE, THE EVIL, AND THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. Every sin, how small or insignificant soever it may seem to us, is an act of black ingratitude for multiplied mercies. It is a provoking of the wrath of God. Again, every sin, however secretly committed, will be brought to light in the day of judgment. The sins of omission as well as the sins of commission; the sins of the heart as well as the sins of the life; all will then be brought forward against every impenitent sinner, and exhibited to an assembled world. The pleasures of sin for a season are purchased at too dear a rate. What are the luxuries of life which” drown the soul in perdition,” when contrasted with their reward--an eternity of anguish!
IV. MEN ERR IN THEIR VIEW OF “THE DIVINE LAW” THAT IS, THE MORAL LAW. They are not aware that the law of God “is spiritual’; that it extends to the secret chambers of the heart; that it condemns everything that the sinner does, says, or thinks, because it is not done, said, or thought, as the law requires. Multitudes erroneously imagine that the law is of no force, or, at least, that its exactions are greatly relaxed, since the death of Christ. This is a fundamental. The law of God, being a transcript of His own unchangeable holiness, is itself unchangeable. It will be the standard by which the righteous Judge will at the last day critically try all actions, words, and affections of men.
V. MEN ERR AND DECEIVE THEMSELVES IN THE VIEW OF THEIR OWN CHARACTER. They imagine that though they are not what they ought to be, yet they are not so bad as others, and have a good heart, and mean well. If they are wrong, what must become of thousands? Some conclude that their state is good, because they are born of Christian parents, educated in a Christian land, admitted to Christian ordinances (Rev_3:17).
VI. MEN ERR IN THEIR APPREHENSION OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD. They think Him to be altogether such an one as themselves. They venture upon sin, and presumptuously flatter themselves that God is not so rigid as to notice everything they do amiss. They foolishly conclude that because the Lord delayeth the execution of His threatenings, He will not pour out His fury on the ungodly. Application:
1. To those who may be under the influence of self-deception. If you are deceived, you neither will seek safety nor apprehend any danger: and if you are not undeceived before you die, you will be awfully convinced, but too late, of your fatal error.
2. To those who feel the vast importance of their souls’ concerns, and are anxious to be preserved from error. Do you abandon the vain refuge of lies in which you once sought shelter? If it be so, we may pronounce your case a hopeful one. Yet rest not in present attainments; but press forward to the mark. Examine yourselves. Adopt the prayer of the Psalmist (Psa_139:23-24). (E. Edwards.)
Errors concerning God to be avoided
This verse emphasises the importance of having correct views of God. In regard to other things, wander into the forests of falsehood so far as one may, the man who holds the truth as to God can never be finally lost. And yet how few seem to appreciate that. Any philosophy of physical science is unsound and untrustworthy in proportion to its holding unsound relations to the truth as to God. The same is true in civil life: heresies in doctrine, errors in morals, and wrongs in life are to be traced almost invariably to some mistake of the truth as to God. Let a man be right here, and he has formed a hasp on which he may bang the first link of any chain of thought or action or life which he may be able to forge in time and in eternity. Do not wander from the great central truth as to God. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
