“The way of God’s precepts! Does not that mean that we ought to be acquainted with the relative position which the precepts occupy, for it is very easy brethren, unless God gives us understanding, to preach up one precept to the neglect of another.  It is possible for a ministry and a teaching to be lopsided, and those who follow it may become rather the caricatures of Christianity than Christians harmoniously proportioned.

O Lord, what foolish creatures we are! When you do exhort us one way, we run to such an extreme therein that we forget that you have given us any other counsel than that which is just now ringing in our ears….

Is fidelity to the truth your cardinal virtue? Take heed of being unloving.

Is love to God and man your highest aspiration? Beware lest you become the dupe of false apostles and foul hypocrites…

Oh how easy it is to exaggerate a virtue until it becomes a vice.

There is a way about the precepts: there is a chime about them in which every bell gives out its note and makes up a tune.  There is a mixture, so much of this and that and the other; and, if any ingredient were left out, the oil would have lost its perfect aroma.

So is there an anointing of the holy life in which there is precept upon precept skillfully mingled, delicately infused, gratefully blended, and grace given to keep each of these precepts, and so the life becomes sweet like an ointment most precious unto the Lord…” (emphasis mine)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, aka The Prince of Preachers

From “The Student’s Prayer” sermon, delivered 1877 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

Are you unbalanced?