Practical Religion Part 24

"Pure religion and undefiled before G.o.d and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James i. 27.)

"Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with G.o.d?

Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of G.o.d."

(James iv. 4.)

(_c_) Let us hear what St. John says:--

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

"For all that is in the world, the l.u.s.t of the flesh, and the l.u.s.t of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

"And the world pa.s.seth away, and the l.u.s.t thereof; but he that doeth the will of G.o.d abideth for ever." (1 John ii. 15--17.)

"The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." (1 John iii. 1.)

"They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them." (1 John iv. 5.)

"Whatsoever is born of G.o.d overcometh the world." (1 John v. 4.)

"We know that we are of G.o.d and the whole world lieth in wickedness." (1 John v. 19.)

(_d_) Let us hear, lastly, what the Lord Jesus Christ says:--

"The cares of this world choke the Word, and it becometh unfruitful."

(Matt. xiii. 22.)

"Ye are of this world: I am not of this world." (John viii. 23.)

"The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." (John xiv. 17.)

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you."

(John xv. 18.)

"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." (John xv. 19.)

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John xvi. 33.)

"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (John xvii.

16.)

I make no comment on these twenty-one texts. They speak for themselves.

If any one can read them carefully, and fail to see that "the world" is an enemy to the Christian's soul, and that there is an utter opposition between the friendship of the world and the friendship of Christ, he is past the reach of argument, and it is waste of time to reason with him.

To my eyes they contain a lesson as clear as the sun at noon day.

I turn from Scripture to matters of fact and experience. I appeal to any old Christian who keeps his eyes open, and knows what is going on in the Churches. I ask him whether it be not true that nothing damages the cause of religion so much as "the world"? It is not open sin, or open unbelief, which robs Christ of His professing servants, so much as the love of the world, the fear of the world, the cares of the world, the business of the world, the money of the world, the pleasures of the world, and the desire to keep in with the world. This is the great rock on which thousands of young people are continually making shipwreck.

They do not object to any article of the Christian faith. They do not deliberately choose evil, and openly rebel against G.o.d. They hope somehow to get to heaven at last; and they think it proper to have some religion. But they cannot give up their idol: they must have the world.

And so after running well and bidding fair for heaven, while boys and girls, they turn aside when they become men and women, and go down the broad way which leads to destruction. They begin with Abraham and Moses, and end with Demas and Lot's wife.

The last day alone will prove how many souls "the world" has slain.

Hundreds will be found to have been trained in religious families, and to have known the Gospel from their very childhood, and yet missed heaven. They left the harbour of home with bright prospects, and launched forth on the ocean of life with a father's blessing and a mother's prayers, and then got out of the right course through the seductions of the world, and ended their voyage in shallows and in misery. It is a sorrowful story to tell; but, alas, it is only too common! I cannot wonder that St. Paul says, "Come out and be separate."

II. Let me now try to show _what does not const.i.tute separation from the world_.

The point is one which requires clearing up. There are many mistakes made about it. You will sometimes see sincere and well-meaning Christians doing things which G.o.d never intended them to do, in the matter of separation from the world, and honestly believing that they are in the path of duty. Their mistakes often do great harm. They give occasion to the wicked to ridicule all religion, and supply them with an excuse for having none. They cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of, and add to the offence of the cross. I think it a plain duty to make a few remarks on the subject. We must never forget that it is possible to be very much in earnest, and to think we are "doing G.o.d service,"

when in reality we are making some great mistake. There is such a thing as "zeal not according to knowledge." (John xvi. 2, Rom. x. 2.) There are few things about which it is so important to pray for a right judgment and sanctified common sense, as about separation from the world.

(_a_) When St. Paul said, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to give up all worldly callings, trades, professions, and business. He did not forbid men to be soldiers, sailors, lawyers, doctors, merchants, bankers, shop-keepers, or tradesmen. There is not a word in the New Testament to justify such a line of conduct. Cornelius the centurion, Luke the physician, Zenas the lawyer, are examples to the contrary. Idleness is in itself a sin. A lawful calling is a remedy against temptation. "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." (2 Thess. iii. 10.) To give up any business of life, which is not necessarily sinful, to the wicked and the devil, from fear of getting harm from it, is lazy, cowardly conduct. The right plan is to carry our religion into our business, and not to give up business under the specious pretence that it interferes with our religion.

(_b_) When St. Paul said, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to decline all intercourse with unconverted people, and refuse to go into their society. There is no warrant for such conduct in the New Testament. Our Lord and His disciples did not refuse to go to a marriage feast, or to sit at meat at a Pharisee's table. St. Paul does not say, "If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast," you must not go, but only tells us how to behave if we do go. (1 Cor. x. 27.) Moreover, it is a dangerous thing to begin judging people too closely, and settling who are converted and who are not, and what society is G.o.dly and what unG.o.dly. We are sure to make mistakes.

Above all, such a course of life would cut us off from many opportunities of doing good. If we carry our Master with us wherever we go, who can tell but we may "save some," and get no harm? (1 Cor. ix.

22.)

(_c_) When St. Paul says, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to take no interest in anything on earth except religion. To neglect science, art, literature, and politics,--to read nothing which is not directly spiritual,--to know nothing about what is going on among mankind, and never to look at a newspaper,--to care nothing about the government of one's country, and to be utterly indifferent as to the persons who guide its counsels and make its laws,--all this may seem very right and proper in the eyes of some people. But I take leave to think that it is an idle, selfish neglect of duty. St. Paul knew the value of good government, as one of the main helps to our "living a quiet and peaceable life in G.o.dliness and honesty." (1 Tim. ii. 2.) St. Paul was not ashamed to read heathen writers, and to quote their words in his speeches and writings. St. Paul did not think it beneath him to show an acquaintance with the laws and customs and callings of the world, in the ill.u.s.trations he gave from them. Christians who plume themselves on their ignorance of secular things are precisely the Christians who bring religion into contempt. I knew the case of a blacksmith who would not come to hear his clergyman preach the Gospel, until he found out that he knew the properties of iron. Then he came.

(_d_) When St. Paul said, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians should be singular, eccentric, and peculiar in their dress, manners, demeanour, and voice. Anything which attracts notice in these matters is most objectionable, and ought to be carefully avoided.

To wear clothes of such a colour, or made in such a fashion, that when you go into company every eye is fixed on you, and you are the object of general observation, is an enormous mistake. It gives occasion to the wicked to ridicule religion, and looks self-righteous and affected.

There is not the slightest proof that our Lord and His apostles, and Priscilla, and Persis, and their companions, did not dress and behave just like others in their own ranks of life. On the other hand, one of the many charges our Lord brings against the Pharisees was that of "making broad their phylacteries, and enlarging the borders of their garments," so as to be "seen of men." (Matt. xxiii. 5.) True sanct.i.ty and sanctimoniousness are entirely different things. Those who try to show their unworldliness by wearing conspicuously ugly clothes, or by speaking in a whining, snuffling voice, or by affecting an unnatural slavishness, humility, and gravity of manner, miss their mark altogether, and only give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

(_e_) When St. Paul said, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to retire from the company of mankind, and shut themselves up in solitude. It is one of the crying errors of the Church of Rome to suppose that eminent holiness is to be attained by such practices. It is the unhappy delusion of the whole army of monks, nuns, and hermits. Separation of this kind is not according to the mind of Christ. He says distinctly in His last prayer, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." (John xvii. 15.) There is not a word in the Acts or Epistles to recommend such a separation. True believers are always represented as mixing in the world, doing their duty in it, and glorifying G.o.d by patience, meekness, purity, and courage in their several positions, and not by cowardly desertion of them. Moreover, it is foolish to suppose that we can keep the world and the devil out of our hearts by going into holes and corners. True religion and unworldliness are best seen, not in timidly forsaking the post which G.o.d has allotted to us, but in manfully standing our ground, and showing the power of grace to overcome evil.

(_f_) Last, but not least, when St. Paul said, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to withdraw from every Church in which there are unconverted members, or to refuse to worship in company with any who are not believers, or to keep away from the Lord's table if any unG.o.dly people go up to it. This is a very common but a very grievous mistake. There is not a text in the New Testament to justify it, and it ought to be condemned as a pure invention of man. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself deliberately allowed Judas Iscariot to be an apostle for three years, and gave him the Lord's Supper. He has taught us, in the parable of the wheat and tares, that converted and unconverted will be "together till the harvest," and cannot be divided.

(Matt. xiii. 30.) In His Epistles to the Seven Churches, and in all St.

Paul's Epistles, we often see faults and corruptions mentioned and reproved; but we are never told that they justify desertion of the a.s.sembly, or neglect of ordinances. In short, we must not look for a perfect Church, a perfect congregation, and a perfect company of communicants, until the marriage supper of the Lamb. If others are unworthy Churchmen, or unworthy partakers of the Lord's Supper, the sin is theirs and not ours: we are not their judges. But to separate ourselves from Church a.s.semblies, and deprive ourselves of Christian ordinances, because others use them unworthily, is to take up a foolish, unreasonable, and unscriptural position. It is not the mind of Christ, and it certainly is not St. Paul's idea of separation from the world.

I commend these six points to the calm consideration of all who wish to understand the subject of separation from the world. About each and all of them far more might be said than I have s.p.a.ce to say in this paper.

About each and all of them I have seen so many mistakes made, and so much misery and unhappiness caused by those mistakes, that I want to put Christians on their guard. I want them not to take up positions hastily, in the zeal of their first love, which they will afterwards be obliged to give up.

I leave this part of my subject with two pieces of advice, which I offer especially to young Christians.

I advise them, for one thing, if they really desire to come out from the world, to remember that the shortest path is not always the path of duty. To quarrel with all our unconverted relatives, to "cut" all our old friends, to withdraw entirely from mixed society, to live an exclusive life, to give up every act of courtesy and civility in order that we may devote ourselves to the direct work of Christ,--all this may seem very right, and may satisfy our consciences and save us trouble.

But I venture a doubt whether it is not often a selfish, lazy, self-pleasing line of conduct, and whether the true cross and true line of duty may not be to deny ourselves, and adopt a very different course of action.

I advise them, for another thing, if they want to come out from the world, to watch against a sour, morose, ungenial, gloomy, unpleasant, bearish demeanour, and never to forget that there is such a thing as "winning without the Word." (1 Peter iii. 1.) Let them strive to show unconverted people that their principles, whatever may be thought of them, make them cheerful, amiable, good-tempered, unselfish, considerate for others, and ready to take an interest in everything that is innocent and of good report. In short, let there be no needless separation between us and the world. In many things, as I shall soon show, we must be separate; but let us take care that it is separation of the right sort. If the world is offended by such separation we cannot help it. But let us never give the world occasion to say that our separation is foolish, senseless, ridiculous, unreasonable, uncharitable, and unscriptural.

III. In the third place, I shall try to show _what true separation from the world really is_.

I take up this branch of my subject with a very deep sense of its difficulty. That there is a certain line of conduct which all true Christians ought to pursue with respect to "the world, and the things of the world," is very evident. The texts already quoted make that plain.

The key to the solution of that question lies in the word "separation."

But in what separation consists it is not easy to show. On some points it is not hard to lay down particular rules; on others it is impossible to do more than state general principles, and leave every one to apply them according to his position in life. This is what I shall now attempt to do.

(_a_) First and foremost, he that desires to "come out from the world, and be separate," _must steadily and habitually refuse to be guided by the world's standard of right and wrong_.

The rule of the bulk of mankind is to go with the stream, to do as others, to follow the fashion, to keep in with the common opinion, and to set your watch by the town-clock. The true Christian will never be content with such a rule as that. He will simply ask, What saith the Scripture? What is written in the Word of G.o.d? He will maintain firmly that nothing can be right which G.o.d says is wrong, and that the customs and opinions of his neighbours can never make that to be a trifle which G.o.d calls serious, or that to be no sin which G.o.d calls sin. He will never think lightly of such sins as drinking, swearing, gambling, lying, cheating, swindling, or breach of the seventh commandment, because they are common, and many say, "Where is the mighty harm?" That miserable argument,--"Everybody thinks so, everybody says so, everybody does it, everybody will be there,"--goes for nothing with him. Is it condemned or approved by the Bible? That is his only question. If he stands alone in the parish, or town, or congregation, he will not go against the Bible.

If he has to come out from the crowd, and take a position by himself, he will not flinch from it rather than disobey the Bible. This is genuine Scriptural separation.

(_b_) He that desires to "come out from the world and be separate,"

_must be very careful how he spends his leisure time_.