You know, there is a lot of truth in what Spurgeon says here. We need to be careful in what we read. I’m sure it is true with almost all of us that the level of discernment we have been given is a level that is less than what we believe it to be. I know for myself that I’ve read books that were heretical and I can say with some surety that most of them did me very little good. I may be able to talk with some authority to the specific error of a certain writer, but I’m not so sure it has been good for my soul to, as Spurgeon says, have it ‘dragged through a ditch’ and have had the word of God that is hidden in my heart ‘mingled with the errors of men.’ I have a book sitting on my desk that I was going to crack open tonight that I know denies the gospel of justification by faith alone. I’m going to stick it in a drawer for awhile because other than a blog review, I don’t know what good it will do me to read. I think it’s like this: if I walked into a room with a pungent smell, I may not be able to tell you why exactly it smells that way, or where exactly the smell it emanating from; but I can tell you with some confidence that something stinks. As Christians, we may not always be able to adequately repudiate every error that comes across our path, or give intricate rebuttals to every new teaching, but because of the Spirit and our understanding of God’s word, we can know that certain teachings “stink.” And sometimes, that is as good a description as we can give, and it’s not a bad thing to be content with that.

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colchsoval.jpgI am asked sometimes to read an heretical book: well, if I believed my reading it would help its refutation, and might be an assistance to others in keeping them out of error, I might do it as a hard matter of duty, but I shall not do it unless I see some good will come of it. I am not going to drag my spirit through a ditch for the sake of having it washed afterwards, for it is not my own. It may be that good medicine would restore me if I poisoned myself with putrid meat, but I am not going to try it: I dare not experiment on a mind which no longer belongs to me. There is a mother and a child, and the child has a book to play with, and a blacklead pencil. It is making drawings and marks upon the book, and the mother takes no notice. It lays down one book and snatches another from the table, and at once the mother rises from her seat, and hurriedly takes the book away, saying: “No, my dear, you must not mark that, for it is not ours.” So with my mind, intellect, and spirit; if it belonged to me I might or might not play tomfool with it, and go to hear Socinians, Ritualists, Universalists, and suchlike preach, but as it is not my own, I will preserve it from such fooleries, and the pure word shall not be mingled with the errors of men.

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-Taken from Flashes of Thought by C. H. Spurgeon, 1883, pp. 21-22