“Let us beware of the very small beginnings of false doctrine” by J.C. Ryle
“The plague is abroad. If we love life, we ought to search our own hearts, and try our own faith, and make sure that we stand on the right foundation.
Above all, we ought to take heed that we ourselves do not imbibe the poison of false doctrine, and go back from our first love.
I feel deeply the painfulness of speaking out on these subjects. I know well that plain speaking about false doctrine is very unpopular, and that the speaker must be content to find himself thought very uncharitable, very troublesome, and very narrow-minded.
Thousands of people can never distinguish differences in religion. To the bulk of men a clergyman is a clergyman, and a sermon is a sermon; and as to any difference between one minister and another, or one doctrine and another, they are utterly unable to understand it.
I cannot expect such people to approve of any warning against false doctrine. I must make up my mind to meet with their disapprobation, and must bear it as I best can.
But I will ask any honest-minded, unprejudiced Bible reader to turn to the New Testament and see what he will find there. He will find many plain warnings against false doctrine:
“Beware of false prophets,”— “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,”— “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines,”— “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God.” (Matt. 7:15; Col. 2:8; Heb. 13:9; 1 John 4:1)
He will find a large part of several inspired Epistles taken up with elaborate explanations of true doctrine and warnings against false teaching. I ask whether it is possible for a minister who takes the Bible for his rule of faith to avoid giving warnings against doctrinal error?
False doctrine does not meet men face to face, and proclaim that it is false. It does not blow a trumpet before it, and endeavour openly to turn us away from the truth as it is in Jesus.
It does not come before men in broad day, and summon them to surrender. It approaches us secretly, quietly, insidiously, plausibly, and in such a way as to disarm man’s suspicion, and throw him off his guard.
It is the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and Satan in the garb of an angel of light, who have always proved the most dangerous foes of the Church of Christ.
Let us beware of the insidiousness of false doctrine. Like the fruit of which Eve and Adam ate, it looks at first sight pleasant and good, and a thing to be desired.
Poison is not written upon it, and so people are not afraid. Like counterfeit coin, it is not stamped ‘bad.’ It passes current from the very likeness it bears to the truth.
Let us beware of the very small beginnings of false doctrine. Every heresy began at one time with some little departure from the truth.
There is only a little seed of error needed to create a great tree.
It is the little stones that make up the mighty building.
It was the little timbers that made the great ark that carried Noah and his family over a deluged world.
It is the little leaven that leavens the whole lump.
It is the little flaw in one link of the chain cable that wrecks the gallant ship, and drowns the crew.
It is the omission or addition of one little item in the doctor’s prescription that spoils the whole medicine, and turns it into poison.
We do not tolerate quietly a little dishonesty, or a little cheating, or a little lying: just so, let us never allow a little false doctrine to ruin us, by thinking it is but a “little one,” and can do no harm.
The Galatians seemed to be doing nothing very dangerous when they “observed days and months, and times and years;” yet St. Paul says, “I am afraid of you.” (Gal. 4:10-11)
Last of all, let me urge all true believers to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. We have no cause to be ashamed of that faith.
I am firmly persuaded that there is no system so life-giving, so calculated to awaken the sleeping, lead on the inquiring, and build up the saints, as that system which is called the Evangelical system of Christianity.
Wherever it is faithfully preached, and efficiently carried out, and consistently adorned by the lives of its professors, it is the power of God.
It may be spoken against and mocked by some; but so it was in the days of the Apostles. It may be weakly set forth and defended by many of its advocates; but, after all, its fruits and its results are its highest praise.
No other system of religion can point to such fruits. Nowhere are so many souls converted to God as in those congregations where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached in all its fulness, without any admixture of the Pharisee or Sadducee doctrine.
We are not called upon, beyond all doubt, to be nothing but controversialists; but we never ought to be ashamed to testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and to stand up boldly for Evangelical religion.
We have the truth, and we need not be afraid to say so. The Judgment Day will prove who is right, and to that day we may boldly appeal.”
–J.C. Ryle, “Pharisees and Sadducees” in Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1874/2016), 363-386.
