Tillotson: wickedness v. heterodoxy

Friday, October 22, 2010
Meditation:
    If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
    —1 Corinthians 13:2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men stand much upon the title of orthodox, by which is usually understood, not believing the doctrine of Christ or His apostles, but such opinions as are in vogue among such a party, such systems of divinity as have been compiled in haste by those whom we have in admiration; and whatever is not consonant to these little bodies of divinity, though possibly it agree well enough with the Word of God, is error and heresy; and whoever maintains it can hardly pass for a Christian among some angry and perverse people. I do not intend to plead for any error, but I would not have Christianity chiefly measured by matters of opinion. I know no such error and heresy as a wicked life... Of the two, I have more hopes of him that denies the divinity of Christ and lives otherwise soberly, and righteously, and godly in the world, than of the man who owns Christ to be the Son of God, and lives like a child of the devil.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. IX, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CCXXVII, p. 343 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, take my sins from my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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