There is a tendency among some to undervalue doctrine, to exalt morality at the expense of theology; and to deny the importance of a sound creed. I do not doubt that a sound creed has often covered an unsound life and that "much creed, little faith" is true of multitudes. But when we hear it said, "Such a man is far gone in error, but his heart is in its right place; he disbelieves the substitution on tbe cross, but he rests on Christ himself," we wonder and ask, "What then was the Bible written for?" It may! be (if this be! the case) a book of thought; but it is no standard of truth, no infallible expression of, the mind of an infallible Being! The solemnity with which that book affirms the oneness of truth and the awful severity with which it condemns every departure. from the Truth as a direct attack on God Himself show us the danger of saying that a man's heart may be in its right place though his head contains a creed of error.
On true doctrine rests the worship of the true God. From error springs the worship of a false god. If, then, Jehovah is a jealous God, not giving His glory to another; unbelief must be one of the worst of sins, and error not only a deadly poison to the soul receiving it, but hateful to God, as blasphemy against Himself, and the same in nature as the blind theologies, of paganism. The real root of all unbelief is ATHEISM. Man's guilty conscience modifies this, turns it into idolatry, or his sentimental nature modifies it and turns it into pantheism. The fool's "No God" is really the root of all unbelief. --Horatius Bonar