The Sacred Import of the Christian Name # 3

The Sacred Import of the Christian Name # 3

And yet how common is this unloving spirit among all denominations! and what mischief has it done in the world! Hence proceed contentions and animosities, uncharitable suspicions and censures, slander and detraction, partiality and unreasonable prejudices, and a hideous group of evils, which I cannot not describe!

This spirit also hinders the progress of serious practical religion, by turning the attention of men from the great concerns of eternity, and the essentials of Christianity - to vain jangling and disputes about non-essentials and trifles. Thus the Christian is swallowed up in the partisan, and the fundamentals lost in non-essentials. My brethren, I would now warn you against this wretched, mischievous spirit of denominationalism.

I would not have you entirely undetermined even about the smaller points of religion, the modes and forms, which are the matters of contention between different churches; nor would I have you quite indifferent what particular church to join with in stated communion. Endeavor to find out the truth even in these non-essentials, at least so far as is necessary for the direction of your own conduct. But do not make these non-essentials, the whole or the principal part of your religion. Do not be excessively zealous about them, nor break the peace of the church by magisterially imposing them upon others. Have you definite beliefs in these little disputables? It is well; "but have it to yourself before God," and do not disturb others with it!

You may, if you please, call yourselves Presbyterians and Dissenters, etc.; but a Christian! a Christian! let that be your highest distinction; let that be the name which you labor to deserve! God forbid that my attention should be the occasion of diverting your attention to anything else! But I am so happy that I can appeal to yourselves, whether I have during several years of my ministry among you, labored to instill into you the principles of bigotry, and make you zealous proselytes to a denomination; or whether it has not been the great object of my zeal - to inculcate upon you the grand essentials of our holy religion, and make you sincere, practical Christians. Alas! my dear people unless I succeed in this, I labor to very little purpose, though I should presbyterianize the whole colony of Virginia!

But some of you may hear strange surmises, wild conjectures, and most dismal insinuations about me. And if you would know the truth at once, if you would be fully informed by one that best knows what religion I hold to - then I myself will plainly tell you: "I am a Christian, a mere Christian! I have no other religion! My church is the Christian church. The Bible! the Bible is my religion! And if I am a dissenter, I dissent only from modes and forms of religion which I cannot find in my Bible; and which therefore have nothing to do with religion, much less should they be made terms of Christian communion, since Christ, the only lawgiver of His church, has He not made them such! Let this congregation be that of a Christian assembly, and I little care what other name it wears. Let it be a little Antioch, where the followers of Christ shall be distinguished by their old common name, "Christians!" To bear and deserve this character, let this be our ambition, and this our labor. Let popes pronounce, and councils decree what they please; let statesmen and ecclesiastics prescribe what to believe; as for us, let us study our Bibles - let us learn of Christ; and if we are not dignified with the smiles, or enriched with the emoluments of a denomination - we shall have His approbation, who is the only Lord and Sovereign of the realm of conscience, and by whose judgment we must stand or fall forever!"

But it is time for me to proceed to consider the other view of the Christian name, on which I intend principally to insist; and that is, 

II. As a name of OBLIGATION upon all who bear it - to be Christians indeed, and to form their temper and practice upon the sacred model of Biblical Christianity. The prosecution of this subject will lead me to answer this important inquiry, "What is it to be a Christian?"

~Samuel Davies~

(continued with # 4)