FORMALISM
Isaiah 58:2. Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, &c.
One of the most wicked things that Machiavel ever said was this: “Religion itself should not be cared for, but only the appearance of it; the credit of it is a help; the reality and use is a cumber.” Such notions are from beneath; they smell of the pit; for if there is anything about which the Scripture speaks expressly, it is the sin and uselessness of mere formalism. The Jews were especially liable to this evil. They so rested in the outward observances of the law as to lose its spirit. They were indifferent to the practical forms of godliness, without which religion is but a name and a form. In this chapter we read that they sought God, &c.; and all the time there were grievous sins which they were living in the daily practice of, and of which they were content to be ignorant. As a consequence, they were without the special manifestation of the Divine favour, and were ever ready to upbraid God for unfaithfulness. But God requires “truth in the inward parts.” The passage suggests—
I. THE RATIONALE OF FORMALISM.
A form of religion includes—
1. Theoretical religious knowledge. Attach high importance to a well-digested system of truth, but remember you may subscribe to every article of the Christian faith with a sincere and hearty ascent, and yet be destitute of spiritual religion, &c. A creed however scriptural is not vital religion.
2. The practice of moral duties. These are not to be disparaged, but morality is not the love of God.
3. Frequent attendance on religious ordinances. Very devout and regular, earnest in self-sacrifices, fastings, and self-mortifications (Isaiah 58:1-7). It is the very essence of formalism to set the outward institution above the inward truths, to be punctilious in going the round of ceremonial observances while neglectful of those spiritual sacrifices with which God is well pleased—to substitute means in the room of ends [1734] It is much easier to observe the forms of religion, than it is to bring the heart under its all-controlling influence (Isaiah 1:10-15; Ezekiel 33:30-33; Matthew 15:8).
[1734] The tendency to turn Christianity into a religion of ceremonial is running with an unusually powerful current to-day. We are all more interested in art, and think that we know more about it than our fathers did. The eye and the ear are more educated than they used to be, and a society as “æsthetic” and “musical,” as much English society is becoming, will like an ornate ritual. So, apart altogether from doctrinal grounds, much in the condition of to-day works towards ritual and religion. Nonconformist services are less plain; some go from their ranks because they dislike the “bald” worship in the chapel, and prefer the more elaborate forms of the Anglican Church, which in its turn is for the same reason left by others who find their tastes gratified by the complete thing, as it is to be enjoyed full-blown in the Roman Catholic communion. We freely admit that the Puritan reaction was possibly too severe, and that a little more colour and form might with advantage have been retained. But enlisting the senses as the allies of the spirit in worship it risky work. They are very apt to fight for their own hand when they once begin, and the history of all symbolic and ceremonial worship shows that the experiment is much more likely to end in sensualising religion than in spiritualising sense. The theory that such aids make a ladder by which the soul may ascend to God is perilously apt to be confuted by experience, which finds that the soul never gets above the steps of the ladder. The gratification of taste, and the excitation of æsthetic sensibility, which is the result of such aids to worship, is not worship, however it may be mistaken as such. All ceremonial is in danger of becoming opaque instead of becoming transparent, as it was meant to be, and of detaining mind and eye instead of letting them pass on and up to God. Stained glass is lovely, and white windows are “barn-like,” and “starved,” and “bare;” but perhaps, if the object is to get light and to see the sun, these solemn purples and glowing yellows are rather in the way. I, for my part, believe that of the two extremes a Quakers’ meeting is nearer the ideal of Christian worship than High Mass; and so far as my feeble voice can reach, I would urge as eminently a lesson for the day Paul’s great principle, that a Christianity making much of forms and ceremonies is a distinct retrogression and a distinct descent. You are men in Christ; do not go back to the picture-book A B C of symbol and ceremony, which was fit for babes. You have been brought into the inner sanctuary of worship in spirit; do not decline to the beggarly elements of outward forms.—Dr. Maclaren, in “Expositor.”
4. Membership in the Church. In the Church, but not “in Christ.” The day is coming when union with the Church will not be worth the paper on which it is written, if there is no real spiritual union with Christ.
5. Party zeal and external philanthropy. The piety of Israel at this time seems to have been anything but inactive: it was very busy. Indeed it would seem that they were divided into religious parties or factions, some professing to be more orthodox than others. There was a rivalry, therefore, in their devotion; one tried to excel the other, and the competition ran so high that they began to “smite each other with the fist.” Formalism is ever full of denominational zeal. Much is said, and done, and given for man in this age of philanthropy, in the spirit of partisanship.
6. Sanctimonious solemnity (Isaiah 58:5). If men are in deep sorrow it is natural for them to droop their heads. In the east men wore sackcloth, as we do crape, to indicate their grief. But with the formalist all this is pretence—theatrical sadness and gloom. True religion is joy inspiring, and ever manifests itself in cheerfulness and sunshine. But the mere formalist cannot be happy, hence he robes himself in garbs of sadness, and produces the impression that religion is characteristically grave, &c. Such sanctimoniousness has done untold damage.
What is the character of your religion? Is it formal or spiritual, conventional or Christly—form or heart?
II. THE DEFICIENCIES OF FORMALISM.
1. It tends to form and foster intolerance. “The people of the Lord, the people of the Lord are we.” In the name of religion men have committed and still commit some of the greatest enormities on which the sun ever shone.
2. It fails to yield the solid happiness found in spiritual religion. It is impossible in the nature of things. True religion is an inward principle (1 Samuel 16:7; Romans 2:28; 1 Corinthians 7:19; Galatians 5:6; Galatians 6:15). A painted fire cannot warm, a painted banquet cannot satisfy hunger, and a formal religion cannot bring peace to the soul.
3. It is directly opposed to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel.
4. It is injurious to its possessor and to others (Isaiah 58:1). It warps the judgment, it deadens the conscience, it hardens the heart, it awakens false hopes, and it will put to shame at the last day. Its influence upon others is most pernicious and destructive. It misrepresents religion, &c. Let every minister cry aloud, spare not, lift up his voice like a “trumpet” against this common foe, this bane of Christendom.
5. It is an insult to Almighty God. If this formalism were so odious to God under the law—a religion full of ceremonies, certainly it will be much more odious under the Gospel—a religion of much more simplicity, and requiring so much the greater sincerity (Ezekiel 33:21; Matthew 15:8, and others). He peers into the heart, He sees the sham, and abhors the sacrifice, where the heart is not found.—A. Tucker.