Now, we all deplore, or profess to deplore, these differences and controversies.  But we may do that in two ways:  we may say, ’I am very sorry that all Christians do not think alike,’ when all we mean is, ’I am very sorry that all Christians do not think just as I do, for I am right and infallible, whosoever else is wrong.’  The fallen heart of man is too apt to say that, my friends, in its pride and narrowness, and while it cries out against the Pope of Rome, sets itself up as Pope in his stead.

But there is surely another and a better way of deploring these differences:  and that is, to say to oneself, ’I am sorry, bitterly sorry, that Christians cannot differ without quarrelling and hating one another over and above.’  And then comes the deeper home-thought, ’And how much more sorry I am that I myself cannot differ from my fellow-Christians without growing angry with them, suspecting them, despising them, treating them as if they were not my fellow-Christians at all.’  Yes, my friends, this is what we have to do first when we think of religious controversies, to examine our own hearts and deeds and words; to see whether we too have not been making bitterness more bitter, and, as the old proverb says, ‘stirring the fire with a sword;’ and to repent humbly and utterly of every harsh word, hasty judgment, ungenerous suspicion, as sins, not only against men, but against God the Father of Lights, who worketh in each of His children to will and to do of His good pleasure.

But some will say, ’We cannot give up what we believe to be right and true.’  God forbid that you should try to do so, my friends; for if you really believe it, you cannot, even if you try; and by trying you will only make yourselves dishonest.  But does not that hold as good of the man who differs from you?  God will not surely lay down one law for you, and another for him?  ’But we are right, and he is wrong.’  Be it so.  You do not surely mean that you are quite right; perfect and infallible?  You mean that you are right on the whole, and as far as you see.  And how can you tell but that he is right on the whole, and as far as he sees?  You will answer that both cannot be right; that yes and no cannot be both true; that a thing cannot be black and white also.

My friends, my friends—­but where is the religious controversy, the two sides whereof are as clearly opposite to each other as yes and no, black and white?  I know none now; I have hardly found one in the records of the Protestant Church since first Luther and our Reformers protested against Romish idolatry.  On that last matter there should be no doubt, as long as the first two commandments stand in the Decalogue; but, with that exception, it would be difficult to find a dispute in which the truth lay altogether with one party.  The truth rather lies, in general, not so much halfway between the two combatants, as in some third place, which neither of them sees; which perhaps God does not intend them to see in this life, while He leaves his servants each to work out some one side of Christian truth, dividing to every man severally as He will, according to the powers of each mind, and the needs of each situation.