Scruples.
I. We are all liable at various times to be troubled with perplexities about our duty, not because we find it hard or unpleasant, but because we cannot clearly see our way, and this perplexity sometimes amounts to something like darkness, and causes much fear. It is sometimes a doubt about the past, whether we have done right, and sometimes about the present, whether we are in the right way, and sometimes about the future, what we are henceforward to do. Such scruples and perplexities are sent or are permitted to come, it matters not which, by God; and it is intended that with these, as with all other opportunities that come in our way, we should fulfil some end which God would have fulfilled, and their purpose is too plain to be mistaken for a moment.
II. Scruples or difficulties which come in the way of duty are of the wrong kind; they are perversions of conscience, and they require a satisfaction which we have no right to ask. Very often they ask to have settled by reason what really is a matter of feeling. Very often they ask to be blessed with feelings which God chooses to give or withhold at His own pleasure, and which we cannot demand at our pleasure. The time is spent in lamenting past sins which ought to be spent in attending to present duties; the heart is given up to fears which ought to be given up to God; weak regret takes the place of vigorous resolution; longings for a sense of God's presence, or for a sense of our own love, fill up our souls when we ought to be proving our love by the proof which He has named, that is, keeping His commandments. All such scruples and such inward difficulties are not healthy, and to indulge them is not right.
III. We should consider whether these inward questionings elevate the general tone of our minds, not merely for the discharge of immediate duties, but for the formation of higher and nobler purposes in life. Unless this be the case, these self-questionings are simply of no use whatever. There were no men in the whole of the world's history who devoted themselves more entirely to questions of this sort than the Jewish Pharisees. And it ended in their case with the grossest and worst hypocrisy. Something of the same sort is very possible still. And the only way to avoid it is always to press the gaze of our consciences towards God and God's will rather than towards ourselves.
Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermonsp. 101
Liberty is one of the ideas on which the progress of mankind depends. It is now said that liberty is not only an indefinite term, but that it is nothing more than a negation. We are told, in order to prove its indefiniteness, that it has meant different things to different people and at different times, and that, if you ask a number of persons, they will give different explanations of it according to their prejudices or desires. And that is true enough. But all the same, it does not prove that the idea is indefinite in itself. It is the characteristic of any large idea to take different forms at different times: in fact, it must do so it is the characteristic of an idea to grow as mankind advances, and its form is therefore sure to change. Outwardly, it must always be in a condition of weaving and unweaving, of ebb and flow, of birth and death. But if people took the trouble, they could at any time arrive at its root and express that in a definite statement. That is the work of the student.
I. The idea of liberty on the side of religion is founded on the fact that God has made each one of us a distinct person; that we each possess, and are bound to act up to, an individuality. I have an intellect, heart, character, and life of my own, modified by circumstances and by the influences of others, but my own; and I have a body of thought as the result of this, which I have a more absolute right to than I have to my property, and which I am bound to express by a stronger duty than that which binds me to my property. Why is that? From the religious point of view I answer, Because it is God who has made you an individual. It is He Himself who, in you, has made you a representative of a distinct phase of His being, a doer of a distinct part of His work. If anything is remarkable in Christianity, it is the way in which it gave an impulse to individual thought and to the freedom of self-development.
II. But this development is impossible if thought and its expression are restrained. For a father to do that for his child is bad enough for a state or a church to do it for a large number of their subjects is worse still; and whenever this liberty is repressed by force of arms, those who do it are fighting against God. And men have always felt this and every struggle for liberty of thought becomes a religious one, and ought to be considered as such. We hold then, (1) that God practically says to man, "Fight out every question; I give you absolute freedom of thought on them, and I wish you to use it." On the whole, and often by reason of the very elements which seem to oppose it, there has been in this world a fierce freedom of discussion and thought, and it has had its source in God. (2) We hold, secondly, since God guides the world, that, however fierce the battle, and however confusing the chaos of opinions, the best and noblest thing will in the end prevail, and its idea in its right and perfect form stand clear at last and be recognised by all. And when all the ideas which are necessary for man to believe and act on have gone through this long series of experiments, and are known and loved by all, then will the race be perfect.
III. Now, these things, being believed, are a ground of the idea of liberty I have put forward. We ought to fall in with the method of God's education of the race, and the way to do it is for the state in public life, and for ourselves in social and private life, to give perfect liberty of thought and its expression on all possible subjects. "But if we allow absolute freedom of thought and expression we do not produce any clear ideas on any subject, only a chaos of opinions as, for example, on the subject of Liberty." That is only too likely to be your view, if you do not believe in a God who is educating the race. And you are driven back, having no faith or hope, on the plan of authority; but the true lover of liberty, who believes in God as a Divine and guiding Spirit in men, has not only hope, but certainty that a solution will be found. He knows that the best and highest view of the idea will in the end prevail, and that the more liberty of discussion he gives, even of evil and dangerous opinions, the sooner will the solution be arrived at.
S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith,p. 99.
Liberty at Home.
I. If is the habit of some parents, not only to check, but even to forbid the expression of opinion on the part of their sons and daughters long after they have reached an age when they ought to be able and to be encouraged to think for themselves. As long as their opinions are the mere echoes of those that rule the household nothing is said, but the moment they differ from them restriction comes in. Such a household lives under a paternal despotism, a government which may have some good results as long as the children are quite young, but the results of which are evil in a home when the age of childhood is passed as they are evil in a state when the age of barbarism has been gone through. For if this kind of despotism succeeds, either through love or through violence, and you have imposed your opinions and your character on your children, what have you done? You have crushed that which was individual in them, their own views. They are not themselves; they have never known what they are, and of course they have no original power and can make no progress. Their life is dull, their thoughts conventional, and they become in after life only one addition the more to the rolled pebbles on the beach of society. And if English parents were all to follow the same plan, or if English children did not continually break through this plan, our society would soon sink into the prolonged infancy of a society like that of China, and all the progress of the nation and of the race of man, so far as England sets it forward, be stopped. That would be the result of complete success, and it is just the same in states as it is in families.
II. Having freedom, your children will not abuse it, for they will not only love you, which counts for nothing in these matters, but have real friendship for you, which does; and it will be a friendship which will since you have accustomed them to weigh evidence frankly give its full weight to your longer experience. Then, too, they will never be exposed to those violent religious shocks which come on young men and young women who have been hidden away from the difficulties of the day, and who are often utterly overwhelmed when they come out into the world. A boy so trained is not likely to have all his religion knocked on the head, like many weak persons at their first entrance into controversy. Nor is he much horrified with himself if he does doubt or get in some religious darkness, for he has been taught by his father that God is educating him, and that in the end he must see truth. He does not then give up the battle, for his whole training makes him love God too well for that; but he is not in a great hurry, nor is he ever in despair. He watches and waits when he cannot see his way; he is ready to move forward when he does; he has a great faith to support him that he is God's for ever, and that God will make the best opinion prevalent both for him and the world. And through all, his "parents" who have always reverenced his soul, always given his questioning intelligence and soul freedom of expression, always looked forward to, and when it came accepted, even with joy, the time when he would emancipate himself from the narrower interests and say, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" remain his friends, trusted, believed in, communicated with. He owes to them the greatest gift one man can owe to another, independence of mind, and at the root of life a noble, religious faith faith that God has chosen him to be a living individual person, and that He will make him perfect in the end.
S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith,p. 118.
References: Romans 14:5. T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. v., p. 23.Romans 14:5; Romans 14:6. F. W. Robertson, Sermons,2nd series, p. 160.