It is very common for professing Christians to draw a distinction between essentials and non-essentials in religion, and to infer that, if any fact or doctrine rightly belongs to the latter class, it must be a matter of very little importance, and may in practice be safely set at nought. The great bulk of men take their opinions on trust; they will not undergo the toil of thinking, searching, and reasoning about anything, and one of the most usual expedients adopted to save them the trouble of inquiry, and to turn aside the force of any disagreeable fact, is to meet it by saying, "The matter is not essential to salvation; therefore we need give ourselves little concern on the subject."
If the distinction here specified is safe, the inference drawn from it is certainly dangerous. To say that, because a fact of Divine revelation is not essential to salvation, it must of necessity be unimportant, and may or may not be received by us, is to assert a principle, the application of which would make havoc of our Christianity. For, what are the truths essential to salvation? Are they not these: That there is a God; that all men are sinners; that the Son of God died upon the cross to make atonement for the guilty; and that whosoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved? There is good reason for believing that not a few souls are now in happiness, who in life knew little more than these-the first principles of the oracles of God-the very alphabet of the Christian system; and if so, no other Divine truths can be counted absolutely essential to salvation. But if all the other truths of revelation are unimportant, because they happen to be non-essentials, it follows that the Word of God itself is in the main unimportant; for by far the greatest portion is occupied with matters, the knowledge of which, in the case supposed, is not absolutely indispensable to the everlasting happiness of men. Nor does it alter the case, if we regard the number of fundamental truths to be much greater. Let a man once persuade himself that importance attaches only to what he is pleased to call essentials, whatever their number, and he will, no doubt, shorten his creed and cut away the foundation of many controversies; but he will practically set aside all except a very small part of the Scriptures. If such a principle does not mutilate the Bible, it stigmatises much of it as trivial. Revelation is all gold for preciousness and purity, but the very touch of such a principle would transmute the most of it into dross.
Pages 11-12 "The Apostolic Church , Which is it?" Thomas Whitherow (1824-1890) Irish Presbyterian minister and professor of Church history, Londonderry.
I have often heard in this day and age the words "essentials and non-essentials" bandied about (almost exclusively in the main, by Arminian churches and theologians) and could never myself understand the distinction. Of course, knowing the "way of salvation" is what we may say the first principle, as for example, the "thief on the cross" didn't have a great deal of time thereafter to partake in Wednesday evening Bible study classes! How can we "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" 2 Peter 3.18 with such an attitude?
Did not Paul say "For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God" acts 20.27? To "set at nought" vast swathes of Divine revelation as Mr Witherow says, is surely a dangerous thing for the Christian to do, is it not? The woeful state of Christendom today no doubt owes much to the dividing of "essentials" from so-called "non-essentials".
"For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." Romans 15.4.
"Every scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 2 Timothy 3.6 (my emphasis).
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