The phrase "Broad-gauge" seems to have been gotten up to express the idea of an intelligent relaxation from "human creeds" as bonds of union and fellowship. In this sense we all ought to be the advocates of "Broad-gauge religion." We should cultivate the spirit of gospel liberality until we utterly disregard and put away all human creeds.
It is a trite saying, that one extreme begets another; against this error we should guard with great caution. To succeed in religion, we must remember, always, that we have in the word of God a standard of truth and right that will always govern us according to heaven's will. Many persons, forgetting this truth, have been led to conclude that departures from the word of truth, as a matter of "liberality," or "broad-gauge religion," are justifiable. And, as "liberalists," or "broad-gauge Christians," they are disposed to recognize all the existing divisions in faith and practice that are known in Christendom. They even go further and allow that somehow all are right, and will stand upon an equality in the righteous judgement of God. This is not perfect love. Charity, over and above a kindly feeling towards those who are in error, is unfaithfulness to the truth, to God, and to the very best interests of our humanity. It is, in all such cases, _love run mad_! A man should never get so broad in his religion as to be unfaithful to truth.
The phraseology has also been appropriated by skeptics and semi-infidels to popularize their own semi-infidel philosophy, which they love to denominate "free thought." Deists, Pantheists and Atheists have seized upon the phrase and appropriated it to their ungodly speculations. It is true that others, in getting away from their old creeds, have run past the standard of truth and right. All this wildness in the _standardless_ field of thought, where Hobbes and other infidels reveled, without any guide save the civil law, has been denominated "Broad-gauge religion," and "Liberalism."
We should always remember that going beyond the truth and the eternal laws of right is _libertinism_ or _lawlessness_.
"Charity," extending, or reaching out thus, is no longer "charity," or "perfect love." Such expressions of love are misdirected, and, if knowingly done, are blameworthy. Charity is governed by the perfect law of truth; when it is not destitute of its own divine nature it conducts us in the "_straight and narrow way_."