While today’s heretics insist that they are, like, so totally not whatever anyone says they are, and definitely not anything like the liberals (or anyone else) of the past, I keep seeing them pop up whenever I read the objections of dead theologians to the errors of their day. Consider these words from Horatius Bonar (1808–1889):

Some well-meaning theological literateurs, or rather amateur theologians, who patronize religion in their own way, are fain to warn us of the danger of not “keeping abreast of the age,” as if we were imperiling Christianity by not by not being quite so learned in modern speculations as they are. We should like, certainly, to keep abreast of all that is true and good, either in this age or any other; but as to doing more than that, or singling out this age as being pre-eminently worthy of being kept abreast of, we hesitate. To be “up to” all the errors, fallacies, speculations, fancies, mis-criticisms of the age, would be an achievement of no mean kind; to require us to be “up to” all this under threat of endangering Christianity, or betraying the Bible, is an exaction which could only be made by men who think that religion is much beholden to them for their condescending patronage; and will only be accepted by men who are timid about the stability of the cross of Christ if left unpropped by human wisdom; and who, besides, have three or four lifetimes to spare. We may be in a condition for believing, and even for defending the Bible, without having mastered the whole deistical literature of the last century, or the present. We may be qualified to accept the doctrine of sacrificial substitution even though we are not “up to” everything that has been spoken against it . . .
   In attempting to “keep abreast of the age,” there is some danger of falling short of other ages; and we are not sure but that the object of those who shake this phrase so complacently in our faces, both as a taunt and a threat, is to draw us off from the past altogether, as if the greater bulk of all its literature were rude lumber, a mere drag upon progress. . . . Old theological terms and Scripture phraseology are set aside . . . Sharp adhesion to old doctrines is imbecility; and yet defined expression of the new is avoided, the mind of the age being in a transition state, unable to bear the whole of what the exact and honest exhibition of “advanced” Christianity would require to utter. . . . They shrink from bold and definite statements of Reformation doctrine, lest they should be pronounced “not abreast of the age”—stereotyped, if not imbecile. Indefinite language, mystical utterances, negative or defective statements, which will save the speaker’s or writer’s orthodoxy without compromising his reputation for “intellect” and “liberality”—these are becoming common. . . .

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 31–32.

Sound familiar?

. . . it is evident that in proportion to our holiness will be the abundance of our peace. Not that we are to draw our peace from our holiness. That cannot be. Personal holiness can never be the foundation of our peace. But still in may be perfectly true that as our holiness increases our peace will deepen and grow more intense. The light of the body does not come from the eye, though it comes through the eye. It comes from the sun. The eye merely admits it. But if the eye be dim there will be less light admitted; and just as the eye becomes clearer more light will be let in. Yet still it is true that the light does not come from the eye but from the sun. So with holiness. In proportion as the soul becomes holy, in that proportion does it admit new peace, and in that proportion is it in a fitter condition for enjoying peace. A healthy body enjoys the beauties of the bright scenes of earth, more than a pained or sickly one, and just as it is healthy, so has it a capacity for the enjoyment of these things. Even so with the soul and holiness. While we utterly disclaim the Christ-dishonouring thought, that our holiness is the foundation of our peace, or forms any qualification on account of which peace is conferred upon us, it is yet true that just as we become holier men, we shall be the more abundantly filled with the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, ), 55–56..

   Be much alone with God. Do not put Him off with a quarter of an hour morning and evening. Take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unbosom yourself wholly—every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt—to Him. He wants to converse with His creatures; shall His creatures not want to converse with Him? He wants, not merely to be on “good terms” with you, if one may use man’s phrase, but to be intimate; shall you decline the intimacy, and be satisfied with mere acquaintance? What! Intimate with the world, with friends, with neighbors, with politicians, with philosophers, with naturalists, or with poets, but not with God! That would look ill indeed. Folly, to prefer the clay to the potter, the marble to the sculptor, this little earth and its lesser creatures to the mighty Maker of the universe, the great “All and in all!”

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 62–63

   Christian, dwell alone! Seek not the society of the world. Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? If you have any sympathies with the world—if it contains attractions for you—if God and the things of God are not enough for you—there is something wrong. Love not the world! Seek not its society. Seek the things above. Beware of the fascinations of company,the spells which gaiety throws over the young. Stand your ground. Be not whirled away into the tossing current of gay society on any pretext whatever.
   Church of the living God, be separate—dwell alone! That is your security, your strength, your influence. Let the world see that you are not of it; that you do not need it. And you will serve it best by dwelling alone. Not by coldness, sourness, distance; but by love, geniality, gentleness, patience, by all acts of benevolence and words of peace. These are things which are only to be found by “dwelling alone.”

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 83–84.

   There can be no grace where there is no sovereignty. Deny God’s right to choose whom he will and you deny his right to save whom he will. Deny his right to save whom he will, and you deny that salvation is of grace. If salvation is made to hinge upon any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end. . . .
   Men may call these speculations. They may condemn them as unprofitable. To the law and to the testimony! Of such speculations, the Bible is full. There man is a helpless worm, and salvation from first to last, is of the Lord. God’s will, and not man’s, is the law of the universe. If we are to maintain the gospel—if we are to hold fast to grace—if we are to preserve Jehovah’s honor—we must grasp these truths with no feeble hand. For if there be no such being as a Supreme, pre-determining Jehovah, then the universe will soon be chaos: and if there be no such thing as free electing love, every minister of Christ may close his lips, and every sinner upon earth sit down in mute despair.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 89.

   It is not by incarnation but by blood-shedding that we are saved. . . . If Christ be not the Substitute, He is nothing to the sinner. If He did not die as a Sin-bearer, He has died in vain. Let us not be deceived on this point, nor misled by those who, when they announce Christ as the Deliverer, think they have preached the gospel.
   If I throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than that? . . . The very essence of Christ’s deliverance is the substitution of Himself for us, His life for ours. . . . He did not redeem us by a little loss, a little sacrifice, a little labour, a little suffering, “He redeemed us to God by His blood;” “the precious blood of Christ.”

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 111–113.

   It is truth that makes us free, for all error is bondage. If, then, you would be free men, grasp the truth tenaciously, bravely, calmly; bind it round you as a girdle, treasure it in your heart of hearts. “Buy the truth and sell it not;” that is, get it at any cost, part with it never. Error is sin, for which every man shall give an account to God; and sin is no mischance or misfortune that claims pity only, but not condemnation or punishment; else what means the fiery law? What means the cross of the sin-bearer? What means the great white throne? What means the everlasting fire? . . .
   Let neither your words nor your lives give any uncertain sound. Every man to whom the Bible comes is responsible for believing all the truth which the revelation proclaims, and for rejecting all the error which it condemns. Cleave, then, to the Word of the living God; and sit, as teachable disciples, at the feet of Him who has said, “Learn of me.”

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 109–110.

   There is a tendency among some to undervalue doctrine, to exact morality at the expense of theology, and to deny the importance of a sound creed. I do not doubt that a sound creed has often covered an unsound life, and that “much creed, little faith,” is true of multitudes. But when we hear it said, “Such a man is far gone in error, but his heart is in the right place; he disbelieves the substitution on the cross, but he rests on Christ Himself,” we wonder, and ask, “What then was the Bible written for?” it may be (if this be the case) a book of thought . . . , but it is no standard of truth, no infallible expression of the mind of an infallible being! The solemnity with which that book affirms the oneness of truth, and the awful severity with which it condemns every departure from the truth, as a direct attack on God Himself, shows us the danger of saying that a man’s heart may be in its right place though his head contains a creed of error.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 115.

I have come to the conclusion that Horatius Bonar could never have written a book called A Generous Orthodoxy*.

Be discriminating. Do not call error truth for the sake of charity. Do not praise earnest men merely because they are earnest. To be earnest in truth is one thing; to be earnest in an error is another. The first is blessed, not so much because of the earnestness, but because of the truth; the second is hateful to God, and ought to be shunned by you. Remember how the Lord Jesus from heaven spoke concerning error: “which thing I hate” (Rev. 2:6–15; 1 Tim. 6:4, 5). True spiritual discernment is much lost sight of as a real Christian grace; discernment between the evil and the good, the false and the true. “Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). This “discernment,” which belongs to every one who is taught of God, is the very opposite of that which is called in our day by the boastful name of “liberality.” Spiritual discernment and “liberal thought” have little in common with each other. “Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9). The “liberality which puts bitter for sweet. And sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20), is a very different thing from the “charity which thinketh no evil” (1 Cor. 13:5).
   Truth is a mighty thing in the eyes of God, whatever it may be in those of men. All error is, more or less, whether directly or indirectly,. A misrepresentation of God’s character, and a subversion of his relation (Rev. 22:18, 19).

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 123–124.

More evidence from the pen of Horatius Bonar that there is nothing new under the sun:

The religious atmosphere of the present time is much changed from what it was in my younger days . . .
. . . Man is now thinking out a Bible for himself; framing a religion in harmony with the development of liberal thought; constructing a worship on the principles of taste and culture; shaping a god to suit the expanding aspirations of the age. The process of evolution on all these points is so satisfactory and so well advanced that disguise is no longer needful. Faith and certainty, in things outside our senses, are, in the meantime at least, not to be taken into account. . . .
   Amid all this dazzling confusion, it is well to keep in mind that the way leading to life is narrow, the way leading to death is broad. The danger arising from want of spiritual discrimination is more serious than many think. For one authentic light there are a thousand spurious ones. The false christs are many, the true Christ is but one; and whilst glorying in the vitality of truth we must stand in awe of the marvelous fecundity of error. Discrimination is not censorious.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 125–126.

These words by Horatius Bonar, though written around one hundred and fifty years ago, have never been more true than they are today. While those who would call themselves “the church” today are always looking for something fresh and innovative, they continually fall back on the same errors that have been common in ages past. The good news, then, is that we need no fresh answers. The saints who have gone before us and, indeed, Scripture itself, have said all that needs to be said.

Christianity, say many among us, is a life, not a dogma; and they reckon this the enunciation of a great and unappreciated truth. It is, however, a mere truism, or it is an unmeaning antithesis, or it is an absolute falsehood. It sounds oracular and great; it is only pompous.
   Christianity is both life and dogma; quite as much one as the other.
   But it is a dogma before it is life; it cannot be the latter till it has been the former. It is out of the dogma that the life emerges; not the dogma out of the life; and the importance that is attached in Scripture to knowledge—right knowledge—should make us cautious in disparaging doctrine, as if it were harmless when wrong, and impotent or uninfluential when right. The mystics of different ages have tried hard to depreciate doctrine, to praise what they call “the spirit” at the expense of “the letter”; And it is somewhat remarkable that infidelity has generally taken their side . . .
. . . doctrine in general, at least if precise and defined, is inconsistent with liberty of thought and expansion of intellect. “Life” is a pliable thing; it is unfenced and common; it may mean anything a man likes to call it or to fancy it; there is no imperiling of human liberty in calling Christianity a life; the men of “progress” and “freshness” are safe in making their standard; for Christianity = life may mean just Christianity = 0; at least it is an equation capable of being manipulated as to bring out any result which the theological algebraist may desire.
   And then there is the advantage of having a popular and high-sounding watchword. “Christianity a life, not a dogma” sounds noble. . . . it is an axiom rather than a proposition. It takes largely; it convinces hundreds without further inquiry or argument . . . it would enable us to believe anyone to be pious—Moslem, Hindoo, Romanist, Pantheist, or Sceptic—who could produce a worthy and earnest life.
. . . Religion without creed, religion without truth, religion without the Bible, religion without Christianity, religion without Christ—is set down now, not simply among things possible, but amongst things desirable. . . . “Unconditioned” religion is to be accepted as not inconsistent with philosophy or liberty, but conditioned or defined religion is to be regarded as imbecility.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 145–146.

This one true goal or resting-place where doubt and weariness, the stings of a pricking conscience, and the longings of an unsatisfied soul would all be quieted, is Christ Himself. Not the church, but Christ. Not doctrine, but Christ. Not forms, but Christ. Not ceremonies, but Christ. Christ the God-man, giving his life for ours; sealing the everlasting covenant, and making peace for us through the blood of His cross; Christ the divine storehouse of all light and truth, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” [Col 2:3]; Christ the infinite vessel, filled with the Holy Spirit, the enlightener, the teacher, the quickened, the comforter, so that “out of his fullness we may receive, and grace for grace” [John 1:16]. This, this alone is the vexed soul’s refuge, its rock to build on, its home to abide in till the great temper be bound and every conflict ended in victory.

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 171.

Learn self-denying Christianity. Not the form or name, but the living thing. “Even Christ pleased not himself” [Romans 5:3]. Let us in this respect be His true followers; bearing burdens for Him; doing work for Him; not grudging effort, or cost, or sacrifice, or pain; spending and being spent for Him; abjuring the lazy, luxurious, self-pleasing, fashionable religion of the present day.
   A self-indulgent religion has nothing to do with the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; or of that cross of ours which He has commanded us to take up and carry after him, renouncing ease and denying self. Our time, our gifts, our money, our strength, are all to be laid upon the altar. We are to be “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1).

—Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin & Darrin R. Brooker (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 197.