The Kingdom of God Among Men, Tract 1 · Chapter 12
CHAP. XII.
The corrupt state of Religion; and first Externalness and Formality.
EVery kind of excellency in the present World hath its counterfit or false resemblance, which in things of a moral nature is the depravation or degeneration thereof. And so the true Religion hath its degeneration which is destructive to it; yet in this corruption of Mankind is easily mistaken, and exalted in the room of it. It is a dead image of Christianity without the inward life of Christ, and the works thereof are dead works being not wrought in God. It is the dominion of the spirit of the World, and of unmortified lust under pretence of the rule of the Spirit of God. It is a zeal of some unnecessary Opinions and unprofitable Observances, received sometimes from a more peculiar and private fancy, sometimes from the general custom and tradition; or at the best, a zeal of Orthodoxality, when that form of sound Doctrine is not obeyed from the heart. It is a self-chosen godliness, and not of Gods making, taken up to delude the Conscience, and lift up the Soul with high but illgrounded hopes, and in the mean while to excuse it from that which is the root of the matter, the renouncing of the carnal life and all worldly lusts, and the obtaining of the spirit of Power, Love, and of a sound mind. and a life of Purity, Goodness, and impartial Righteousness. The best of it is but a gloss or varnish of superficial Religiousness, accompanied with a dead kind of Morality, which hath its rise from education, or from complexion (otherwise called good Nature) but springs not from the root of love towards God, and of a living faith in Jesus Christ.
The several impostures, disguises and false pretences, by which Men delude themselves, and abuse the World in this matter, are almost numberless: yet they generally fall into one of these two main currents of religious Aberrations, either the Political, popular and broad way of Externalness and Customariness, or the devious path of Sectarian dissetledness and extravagancy.
The more ample degeneration of Christianity is the meerly formal, external and political State thereof, that hath prevailed far and near over the Christian World. This externalness is very plausible and specious, but very consistent, and for the most part accompanied with a large indulgence to the Flesh, and with much licentiousness of Principles and Practice, and it casts the mind into a deep forgetfulness of that which is spiritual, and substantial in Religion. It is the common rode and broad way, because most obvious and easie to the carnal spirit of all sorts of Men, who having some conscience of Religion, gladly take up with a form, that with more security and peace they may deny the power thereof; as also because it seems most servicable to Superiors for shaping and swaying the consciences of Inferiors to their wills, and to the ends by them designed. Accordingly as it gets ground, it erects a frame of things which hath a shew of Piety, Unity and Order, but is really an engine devised to destroy whatsoever may be truly called by those lovely names.
When Mens false and vain inventions rule instead of Gods Oracles; when the truth of the Gospel is mingled with such Doctrines, Institutions, and Observances, as corrupt the Purity, enervate the Power, and frustrate the ends of the Gospel; when the misapprehension or misapplication of true Doctrine depraves the mind, and begets a false notion of Godliness or Christianity; when Regeneration or true Conversion is prevented, by being made in effect no more than Civility, joyned with a dead conformity to the exterior part of the Christian Institution; when Religion is placed in an outside Pharisaical Holiness, in some bodily severity, and it may be in meer forms and empty shews, without internal and real Mortification and Devotion; when the exterior Ordinances of the Gospel are retained, but used after another manner, than what becomes the Gospel-Church, or sutes the ends of Gospel-Worship; when a sapless and fruitless Generation of Men are nourished in holy Orders, who cherish the People in ignorance, profaness or lukewarmness, who shew them a way to Heaven, that is smooth, broad and easie to the Flesh, who serve, or at least spare the lusts of Men, who humour the vulgar Sort in rude follies, who give absolution upon formal and loose terms, and therewith a false repose to poor deluded Souls; when the great interest of Churchmen is to promote Superstition, blind Devotion, and implicit Faith, and to hold People in the chains of spiritual darkness, and in the pleasing bondage of carnal liberty, their Consciences being in the mean time secured by the belief of certain Tenents and Articles of Religion, and the devout Observance of certain external Ordinances; When the Policy of the Church is contrived to maintain fleshly ease and pleasure, worldly pomp and power, and the chiefest glory of the Ecclesiastical State lies in outward order, without inward life and spirit in sacred Administration; When the weapons of its warfare are not spiritual but carnal, sutable to an earthly and sensual State; When submission to the wills of Masters upon Earth is called obedience, and their peaceable possession of Wealth and Honor is taken for the Churches Peace; When concord in the unprofitable or hurtfull dictates of Men is made to pass for the unity of the Spirit; When the Constitution it self (the general corruption of Mankind being considered) is found defective for the true end of Government, and lets loose the rains of depraved Appetite, and by carnal Allurements alienates the mind from the things of the Spirit of God, and turns it after the pomps and vanities of the World, and serves the voluptuosness, covetousness and pride of its adherents, for which cause its yoke is easie to the sensual part of men, but it is scandalous to them that know the truth, and becomes a Stepmother to the most serious and conscientious; when these and the like things prevail, the Christian Religion is turned into another thing than what it is indeed, by men of corrupt minds, who serve their own lusts, and by the wisdom that descends not from above, but is Earthly, Sensual, Devilish, square out to themselves, and those that live under their influence, a loose Form of Christianity not after Christ, but after the course of this world.
But this corruption is more or less enormous in different Ages and Countries, according to its greater or nearer distance from the times and means of purer knowledge.
And a less corrupt state may be severed from that which is more grosly vicious and impure, and yet remain a degeneration in the same kind though in a lower degree.
And let this be noted that in a degenerate state, the doctrines and institutions of Christ may be so far retained, as to contain things absolutely necessary to Christian faith and life, which may beget and preserve the vitals of Christianity in them, that do not mingle with the other poisonous ingredients, or at least not in their full extent.
Yea, the Degeneration may happen to be in a lower degree, and less pernicious, and perhaps only as a Scab upon some part, and not overspreading the whole Body of the Church, and great multitudes therein may profess and practice the truth as it is in Jesus. Thus the Judaical Church in its corrupt state retained the vitals of true Religion, which were a sufficient means of grace to them that escaped the pollutions of those times, and were not seasoned with the leaven of false Teachers.