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{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience}
Precise Christians pay attention to conscience. They will listen to and follow their conscience. The voice of a well-instructed conscience is the voice of God, and to this voice they will listen without turning aside in anything, either to the right hand or the left.
Precisians Are Not Overly Righteous
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
They Are Not Overly Righteous}
By turning aside to the right hand, I mean the same thing Solomon does by being overly righteous: “Do not be overly righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7:16).79 When we impose upon ourselves strictness or severities that God has not imposed or make things to be sins that God has not made to be sins, thereby making the narrow way narrower than the Lord has made it, we are overly righteous. This may be done in two ways. We are Overly Righteous by Putting Religion Where God Has Put None
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
The Are Not Overly Righteous
They Do Not Add To Religion}
One way to be overly righteous is to put religion into things into which God has not put religion, laying other bonds and burdens on our necks besides those that the Holy Spirit has laid on us. This is abridging and cutting ourselves short of that Christian liberty that the Lord has not only allowed to us, but commanded us to maintain and stand fast in.80
We Are Overly Righteous by Putting More Religion into Something than God Has Put in It
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
The Are Not Overly Righteous
They Do Not Put More Religion than God}
Another way to be overly righteous is to put more religion into something than God has put into it by laying greater weight and stress upon the lesser and smaller things of Christianity than God has laid on them. By the lesser duties of Christianity, I do not mean any moral duties. The lowest of these, the lowest duties of mercy, justice, charity, truth, and so on, are to be reckoned among the weighty matters of the law. Here, we cannot err by being too strict. We cannot be too just, too true, or too merciful. We cannot be too zealous for truth, justice, and mercy. “He who breaks the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:19). But by the lesser things of Christianity, I mean the incidentals of the worship of God,81 such as the outward forms of worship and the gestures82 and so on to be used in it. This is being overly righteous, to put more in these incidentals than Scripture has put in them.83 It is to be so zealous for or against them that it is as though Christianity stood or fell with them. “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God” (1 Corinthians 7:19 ESV). There were some who hotly contended for circumcision and put much of their religion in that. Others were just as hot against it and there was much of their religion in that. The apostle checks both, telling them that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing; these are not the things by which Christianity stands. Keep the Commandments, fear God, and walk before God in holiness and righteousness. Let your zeal be spent that way, but do not trouble yourselves so much about these lesser matters. Two things must be added here.
First, this is not to be understood as if Christians are to swallow all things of this nature without examining whether they are agreeable to the Word of God or not. A due regard must be paid to satisfying conscience even in the smallest thing. We may not yield to practice any little things that are against our consciences, though we may not spend our zeal on them as though Christianity lived or died by them.
Second, even against these lesser things, there ought to be zeal expressed if they should prove destructive to the substance of Christianity and hinder the main purpose that they pretend to promote.
By these things, I have shown what I mean by turning aside to the right hand, or by being overly righteous.
Precisians Are Not Overly Wicked
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
They Are Not Overly Wicked}
By turning aside to the left hand, I mean the same that Solomon meant by being overly wicked: “Neither be overly wicked” (Ecclesiastes 7:17). This is not to be understood as if there were any wickedness that is not too much. A little is too much; Scripture checks and restrains all liberty to sin. Although in many things we all sin, yet do not let sin get ascendancy over you. Keep it under; keep it down as much as possible, lest it grow to such a height that it proves to be your speedy ruin. So, understand the phrase “turning aside to the left hand” to mean all backsliding to licentiousness by one of two ways.
Making Sin No Sin or Duties No Duties
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
The Are Not Overly Wicked
Making Sin No Sin, Duties No Duties}
First, one may turn to the left hand by making duties no duties or by making sin no sin. One thus makes the way of life broader than Christ has made it and stretches liberty beyond the boundary. Turning aside to the right hand infringes our liberty by imposing burdens that God has not imposed. Likewise turning to the left hand is taking up a liberty that God has not allowed. It throws off those burdens that God has imposed, suppressing the conscience so as to not be strict about them. This evil does not pertain to the incidentals, but to the substance of Christianity. Conscience is bound and bribed over to side with lust so that it accounts it not a duty to be so strict and so precise in something. There may be a great latitude allowed and a remission of our care and zeal, especially in cases of any hazard or danger that our zeal and strictness is likely to cost us.
Boldly Sinning or Neglecting Duties
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Are Upright in the Way
Their Uprightness with Respect to Conscience
They Carefully Pay Attention to Conscience
The Are Not Overly Wicked
Boldly Sinning or Neglecting Duties}
A second way to turn to the left hand is, with full knowledge, to boldly neglect a duty or boldly sin, making shipwreck of conscience to satisfy a lust. Although conscience stands convinced that holiness, in the strictness of it, is our duty and that licentiousness and living after the flesh is sin, yet we will indulge ourselves in fleshly liberty.
Now this is another characteristic of circumspect Christians: they will walk according to conscience in all things without turning aside either way, either to the right hand or the left. They are not willing to turn aside to the right hand, either by putting religion in those things in which God has put none, or by putting more of religion in anything than God has put into it. Their zeal is for the substance and weighty things of Christianity. As for the incidentals, though they will not act in these contrary to conscience, they do not wish to be contentious about them. Nor will they be censorious of those who agree with them in the main, but differ in such incidentals.
But their great care is to not turn aside to the left hand. They will not, for fear of being too precise, sin freely and become unholy. Rather, as the apostle, they have a good conscience, are willing to live honestly in all things (Hebrews 13:18), endeavor to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and endeavor to live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present evil world (Titus 2:12). They are holy and innocent, the children of God, and are without rebuke in the midst of a crooked generation.
79Note that Alleine says, “I mean …” In the Bible, the idiom of not turning to the left or right off a path simply means to stay strictly on the path (1 Samuel 6:12; 2 Samuel 2:19), whether physically or walking on God’s path of righteousness. Alleine’s assignment of over-righteousness to the right hand and wickedness to the left hand is his own illustration. While Scripture does not use this illustration, neither is the illustration at all contrary to Scripture.
80Unfortunately, Alleine does not give any examples or Scripture references to illustrate what he means here, especially as distinguished from the next section. Perhaps an example might be found in the practice of some denominations that closely regulate clothing styles beyond the demands of modesty. Perhaps a better example would be that of some modern-day Jews, who in response to the command to not boil a kid (young of a goat) in its mother’s milk (Deuteronomy 14:21), will not even allow milk and meat in the same room while eating. Such think to gain meritorious favor with God by “exceeding” the requirements of the lLaw.
81Alleine’s text does seem to indicate that he is limiting this discussion to matters of formal public worship. However, the editor is unsure that this was his intent. In any event, his using matters of worship as an example does reflect the controversies of his time and place. Civil laws regulated the manner of worship, oppressing those of other beliefs.
82gestures: in this context, not conversational gestures, but things like kneeling, sitting, standing, lifting up hands in prayer, and the like, particularly during formal public worship.
83An example might be with regard to the lifting up of hands in prayer (1 Timothy 2:8). The entirety of Scripture does not seem to command that hands be always lifted up in prayer. Far less do the Scriptures indicate how high the hands must be lifted, whether elbow height, shoulder height, above the head, or whatever.
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