RELIGION IN OUR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
When the Word of God has obtained its true place in any man’s heart, it disposes at once of a hundred questions which were difficult or perplexing before. On the one hand, when we have the divine standard of right and wrong set up, it becomes immediately apparent that one class of actions are right, are just, are necessary, on the part of all who would make God’s will their rule. On the other hand, it becomes no less apparent that another class of actions are distinctly prohibited. No man who believes the Word of God to be his word can do these things.
But between these two, or the decidedly right and the decidedly wrong, there are some actions whose moral character it is not so easy to adjust. They are not so exactly described in the Word of God. They lie on the debateable territory between the right and the wrong. They may partake of the one character or the other, according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They may be right, for example, for me in sickness, but wrong for me in health; or the reverse.
Now, it is generally among these undecided cases that a man’s principles are exposed to the greatest strain. No one who professes to respectT-15 the Word of God can refuse to do what is decidedly right, and as little can he refuse to shun the decidedly forbidden. If he do not shun it, he is detected as offering to the Bible only the mockery of respect—to its God only the semblance of homage. He has extinguished the lamp of life, and deliberately walks in darkness.
THE SABBATH LAW.
THE
SABBATH
LAW. In regard, for example, to the Sabbath law, certain things are distinctly commanded, and other things are as distinctly forbidden. There can be no doubt in any mind which has bowed to the supremacy of God, or recognised his right of property in us and ours, that he claims a seventh part of our time as his own, to be employed in his service and in preparing for his abode for ever. Our blessedness here and hereafter is thus involved in that law; and all objections to spend the Sabbath with God, are suggested by ignorance of what is at once our chief good and our chief end—God.
But it is equally certain that works of necessity and mercy are not prohibited; and it is regarding these that a man’s principles are put to the most decisive test. It is not possible to lay down any rule applicable to every case, for what is necessity at one time may be no necessity at another; or what is mercy in one case—for instance, to the aged and the feeble—may be indolence and sloth in others. Between the unvarying right, then, and the unvarying wrong, lies the territory where men are tried as moral agents. Will they use their liberty, or will they abuse it? Will they grasp at feigned reasons for violating the Sabbath law? Will they be guided by the necessity which God creates, or will they fabricate pleas and pretences for themselves, under cover of which the law of God may be broken, and the consciences of men entangled or defiled?
THE EXCELLENT OF THE EARTH.
Now, our ordinary Social intercourse belongs to the class for which it is difficult or impossible to lay down rules which are applicable to all occasions. It is a divine maxim from which we cannot swerve, that our “speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” Whatever is offensive or unholy should not be once named among us; but still it is difficult to lay down any rules which apply to every case. On the one hand, there are men with whom intercourse the most cordial may be cherished, nay, earnestly coveted. Where “they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, while the Lord hearkens and hears,” the man of God may expect to find what will gladden his soul. THE
EXCELLENT
OF THE
EARTH. “The excellent of the earth” can impart blessings of the highest order, for the law of the Lord is on their lips. But, on the other hand, there are the profane, the godless, who walk through the world trampling on the laws of the Eternal, and with these we can hold no willing intercourse, unless we would catch their spirit, and at last share their doom—“The companion of fools shall be destroyed.” But between these two classes there are various shades of character; and it is in reference to these that our difficulties in life actually occur.
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE UNGODLY.
There is one passage in the Word of God39 which may throw light upon this subject. A patriarch is speaking of certain cruel deeds, which he contemplates with strong emotion. Aware that man cannot be much in contact with what is immoral without being polluted, or associate with the profane without learning profanity, he thus expresses, in graphical language, the recoil of a pure or an upright mind: THE
ASSEMBLY
OF THE
UNGODLY. “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.” He is referring to his own sons, but he feels that his honour would be laid in the dust were he associated with them in some of their doings; and he therefore plants a beacon over the spot of danger, to warn us away from what may end in death. He enforces the words, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” He, in substance, asserts what Paul asserted seventeen centuries thereafter, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” He takes up the language of John, and says in effect, “He that bids God-speed to an ungodly man becomes a partaker of his evil deeds;” and thus we have, at least, a general rule for universal guidance—The godly cannot choose the godless for their associates.
To illustrate this point, we observe: Enter some societies. Listen to the conversation which excites; notice the amusements which exhilarate—the pleasures which impart the greatest gladness. Might they not all exist in a world where the Son of God is unknown—where no need of him is felt, and no reference to him made? It could not be discovered from such social intercourse, that men are sinners, that they need a Saviour, or that there is one pressed on their acceptance by the God whom they have offended; nay, a single reference to these things would cast a cloud over the scene, would turn its mirth into muteness, and be regarded as an offence.
FORBIDDEN INTERCOURSE.
FORBIDDEN
INTERCOURSE. Now, wherever that is common, the earnest Christian cannot prosper; his soul must pine; it is deprived of what is to it like vital air, and plunged into an atmosphere of azote. There may be cases where duty compels some humble believer to witness such things, and at the sight his heart must be sore pained within him; but where the language of Canaan is not spoken, where the things of God are not relished, where He, the soul, and eternity do not obtain the prominence which heavenly wisdom has assigned to them, a child of God will not willingly go; he will never go of choice; duty may compel, but the feelings of the soul even in that case must be like those of the Jews by the rivers of Babylon, when they said, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Children are reared—friends are entertained—sometimes the dead are buried, amid unequivocal proofs that God is forgotten; and should not a believer in Jesus “flee these things?”
LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE.
LIKE
ATTRACTS
LIKE. Wherever we look in the wide domain of nature, we may notice that it is an universal law—Like attracts like. We do not find a timid bird associating with its natural enemy, a bird of prey. They fight.—We do not find the gentler animals seeking to associate with the beasts of prey.—We do not see the men of high civilization associating, in common life, with the savage or the gross—there is always something monstrous or unnatural where that universal law is outraged. Such a thing is commented on as a marvel, a departure from the established order of nature. Just as the fishes of the deep have their element, and the birds of the air have theirs, there is a broad unvarying line separating the different orders of creatures in the world which God has made.
REPULSIONS.
Now, to apply this to our present subject, that law reigns with more than common force in the domain of grace. Has the truth of God taken possession of any man’s soul? Has the wisdom which comes from above been consulted? Is God’s revealed mind placed high above the highest of all authorities? Then from that day, that man cannot repose, with the confidence of cordial friendship, upon him who turns the truth of God into a lie, or the authority of God into a name: there must be a separation, however painful it may be. Does the love of Christ constrain any heart and soul? Under that constraining power, do old things pass away, and all things become new? Then, “unto the assembly of the ungodly, mine honour, be not thou united,” becomes the language of that soul. Has any man felt that salvation must take precedence of all besides, in the mind of a rational being? REPULSIONS. Then that man cannot consent, or choose to consort, with those who are ripening their souls for an undone eternity, in spite of the warnings of their God. Has any man felt that the high concerns of an infinite futurity demand instant attention, and adjustment on the earliest possible day? Then that man can be no willing party to the wide conspiracy formed by worldly men against that futurity, and all that is momentous there. Has any man discovered that, to live only for the present hour and its pleasures, is to sink to the level of the beasts which perish? or that to be a coward before man’s frown, and to have no fear of God’s, is to act an impious part? Then the man who has made such a discovery will take up the language of the patriarch; he will shun the company of men who prefer what debases to what ennobles, for he clearly sees, or deeply feels, that their company is contamination.
Since these things are so, the general law in grace is established—There can be no friendship, of choice, between a godly and a worldly man. Their hearts, their feelings and sympathies, cannot coalesce upon the most momentous of all topics—God, eternity, and the soul; and just as water repels fire, or fire water; just as the vulture cannot and does not choose the dove for its mate, the soul of a man who loves God, who believes in the Saviour, and who would grow in holiness, is repelled and chilled by the assemblies where these great realities are ignored. He cannot, without self-inflicted degradation, walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scorner.
THE WISDOM OF SCRIPTURE.
THE WISDOM
OF SCRIPTURE. But it has already been noticed, that there is nothing strained, nothing extreme or overdone, in the Word of God. Whether it be giving a command, or issuing a prohibition, it is always wise, always considerate as to man’s condition—if we may presume with such a word, it is always judicious. We are more and more struck with that fine peculiarity of the Bible the longer we study its ever-blessed pages.
Now, in connection with our Social intercourse in common life with men not godly, we have an instance of this considerate care in the Word of God. In writing to one of the churches,40 Paul had occasion to lay down rules for their dealings with unholy men. He prohibits such intercourse; and in giving the prohibition, he points to some of the impious by name. After indicating their crimes—too gross to be lightly mentioned—he adds, “Yet not altogether must ye refuse to company with such men, for then must ye needs go out of the world.” In other words, the believer has duties to do in the world; and these he must discharge. His principles may be put to the test; his heart may be pained and vexed; what he hears and sees may distress or imperil him; but still, even amid such trials, duty, when it is duty, must be done. A man is not merely not at liberty—he is forbidden, to flee from his post. He is to lean the more on God when temptation meets him in the path of duty; but he may not forsake the path. He has duties perhaps to unconverted kindred, and to those who depend on him in life. He has duties to discharge to the Church and to God, and these no man is free to forsake. On the one hand, the most lovely earthly affection is to be put aside whenever it opposes the will of God; but, on the other, we are to remember, that wherever God has placed us, He will keep us—as our day is, so our strength will be. But do we rush into danger unsent? Do we meet it while we are in pursuit of pleasure, and not in the path of duty? Then we may expect to fall; nay, we have fallen already. By tempting God, we have unnerved ourselves, and shame and confusion may be the result.
THE YOUNG CONVERT.
THE
YOUNG
CONVERT. In connection with this, we observe that perhaps there never was a young convert, who, during the first days or weeks after his conversion, had not thoughts of fleeing from the post where the renewing Spirit found him. Aware of its dangers, perhaps groaning under its temptations, that young soul would flee, and seek that in change which can be found only in the unchanging One.
Now, are the engagements of that young convert really sinful? Is he violating God’s law? Is he, for the sake of gold, or honour, or any selfish end, sojourning near some focus of sin? Then all that must be abandoned; conversion, while these things are retained, is a thing impossible.
But, on the other hand, are the lines of that young convert cast only amid trials, and not actual sins? Has He who appoints the boundaries of our habitations, appointed ours where faith is put to the proof, and the need of Almighty grace more clearly demonstrated? Then, by that grace, that young Christian must stand; even there it may be with him as it was with the three children in the tyrant’s furnace when it was heated seven times. The highest display of the power of truth, the brightest trophy to the triumph of grace, is to see some devoted believer holding fast the faith without wavering at the post of duty, alike against the scorn of the money-worshipper and the grossness of the unblushingly profane; and, blessed be God, his grace is sufficient even for that.
THE WORLD AN OBJECT OF PITY.
But farther: While the Christian, in his social intercourse, tries to shun the society of godless men, he is to make it plain that he shuns, because he loves them. We assume that that Christian will shun them; for he is bound to that by a law both in nature and in grace. But his motive is not that of spiritual pride. It has nothing akin to the feeling which dictated the words, “Stand by, for I am holier than thou;” nay, he is to show that he withdraws, because he cannot countenance what is ruinous to man and opposed to the mind of God. While we try to make religion felt, it must be the religion of love, and not of haughtiness or of bigotry. THE WORLD
AN OBJECT
OF PITY. We should remember that the world is a poor jaded world, and calls for pity rather than for wrath: its men have no resting-place either for the body or the soul; it has no antidote for its misery, no remedy for its disease. It is the shipwrecked seaman on his raft, trying to quench his burning thirst with the water of the ocean, only to make that thirst more burning still. It is the body weighed down with dropsy to the grave’s edge, yet seeking relief in what only augments its misery. And all that should awaken pity for the world in our intercourse with it. Be it made plain, that we can be no parties to the world’s ruin; we cannot trample on the Word of God to gratify the sinner’s love of sin. Nay, if we be Christians indeed, if we have in us the spirit of Him who died for the ungodly, we must love the sinner too well to countenance him in his ways. Our shunning of him, wherever duty will permit, is to be our silent protest against what the holy God so emphatically describes as “drowning men in perdition.” Love, wisdom, God, all demand that course.
THE WORLD’S DEADENING POWER.
And, to re-enforce all this, let it be remembered that we cannot associate of choice with wicked men without bringing our own religion into doubt. THE WORLD’S
DEADENING
POWER. Our relish for communion with God is blunted. Our love to the holy and the pure is lessened. The world to come fades away into dimness, and even a child of God is thus prone to catch the world’s spirit by intercourse of choice with worldly men. All this is notorious in regard to those haunts where the pride of life is pampered, and where the children of folly squander in frivolity or guilt the hours which are given to prepare for eternity and its joys. But it is true also of more ordinary social intercourse; and the man who loves his own soul will guard, by the grace of God, against the first approach to the world’s godless ways, as he would against the first drop in a poisoned cup, or the first inch of a stiletto.
THE TRUE LIGHT.
We feel, however, that we must repeat the warning—Be sure that you display the religion of love, not of bigotry, in separating from the world. THE TRUE
LIGHT. Let your light shine before men, but be sure that it is the true light—Heaven’s.—There is a vessel sweeping across the deep. It is night, and her hundreds on board are locked in the insensibility of sleep. But suddenly there is a collision, a crash; her timbers are breaking up; and the hundreds who slept so securely a few breaths before, are now screaming out their agonies as they sink to rise no more. And what caused that disaster and these watery graves? The man at the helm just mistook the light, and, in doing so, hurried some hundreds into eternity. In like manner, we may exhibit a false phase of Christianity which shall tend only to ruin. It may not be God’s light, but sparks which we ourselves have kindled, and these may only drive men nearer to destruction.
But hitherto we have done little more than attempt to show how and why they that fear God should separate from those who have no fear of Him before their eyes. We have endeavoured to show that a godly man cannot go down to the world’s level without dragging Christ’s religion along with him. We have been urging the followers of the Saviour never to let the world think that the Christian and it are the same in their likings and pursuits. If we leave the world under that conviction, we have given an uncertain sound, and we have therefore endeavoured to make it plain that there is a broad, clear, deep line drawn by the Eternal God between the world and the church—between the converted and the unconverted—the man who lives for earth and the man who lives for God. They do not pass into each other by imperceptible shades, like the colours of the rainbow; they are separated like mid-day and midnight; they are different in nature, in liking, in pursuits, and in end.
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
THE
COMMUNION
OF SAINTS. All this, however, is only preparatory to telling how the godly should proceed in their intercourse with each other.—A prophet has said that “they who fear the Lord speak often one to another;” he has added, that “the Lord hearkens and hears,” and assured us, moreover, that “a book of remembrance is kept before the Lord for them that fear him and think upon his name.” Now, amid such employments, what can be the topics but the common salvation? What can engross the mind more than the death which Christ accomplished at Jerusalem, when he finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness? What but the love of the Redeemer, and the mercies to which that love opened the way, can occupy such men’s souls? Holiness, and its author, the Spirit; grace, and its fountain, God; its channel, the Redeemer; glory, and the Almighty One who made it sure by his blood; that which is perfect “when the former things shall have passed away;”—these and kindred topics may well animate the souls and strengthen the faith of the people of God. It is amid employments like these that their hearts may burn within them, like the hearts of the disciples while they walked with the Saviour to Emmaus. It is thus that foretastes of the heavenly joys are obtained, thus that clusters are brought from Eshcol, and thus that the earnest of the purchased possession is at once secured and rejoiced in. To have a relish for such holy and hallowing employments, is a proof that we are born from above; our soul’s native land is there; and to have no such relish is a proof that the soul is dead to the holiest and the noblest things.
TRUTH IN THE HEART.
TRUTH IN
THE HEART. But enough to have indicated this; none can completely fill up the sketch, for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.” Still, however, where the truth of God is in the heart, it will well up. Attempts may be made to repress a gushing spring; but it will rise at another place, and another, and another, spreading verdure and fertility wherever it flows. Now, the truth in the heart is a well of water springing up unto eternal life. It waters the waste, it purifies the vile, and fits us for that home where nothing that defiles can enter.
MARRIAGE.
MARRIAGE. There is one sphere, that of married life, regarding which we offer a closing sentence. Considering the importance which is attached to that relation, and its mighty influences for good or ill, alike on our time and our eternity, nothing can surprise us more than the recklessness with which it is often formed. How rarely is the guidance of the Holy One sought! How little is his will consulted! How limited is the influence which eternal things are allowed to exert in the choice on either side! And who will marvel, then, if not a few make shipwreck of the faith and a good conscience, just at the threshold of their marriage-chamber? Who will wonder to see so many hearts broken, so many wives worse than widowed, so many children worse than orphans, the promise of godliness given in youth all blighted—the book, the house, the day of God, deserted? When He himself has been left out of view, it is as easy as the downward current of a stream, to abandon all besides.
But wherever the lamp of life illumines a soul, this relation should be peculiarly directed by it. The results are for life, nay, they are for eternity; and they who leave the Eternal God out of view in forming such a bond, are digging a pit into which they are sure to fall, or laying a snare in which they will assuredly be taken. The grace of God may win such parties after all; but that can only be in His own holy sovereignty, according to his word, “I was found of them that sought me not,” for the man who ventures here without the guidance of the Wonderful, the Counsellor, is gambling with a stake which may be eternal death.—Marriage was meant to double man’s happiness, and, when contracted in the fear of God, it accomplishes his purpose; on other terms, its misery is unspeakable.
THE HEROES OF TRUTH—LUTHER.
CALVIN—KNOX—CHALMERS.
THE
HEROES
OF TRUTH
—LUTHER. One closing sentence more. The difficulty and delicacy which are often felt in ordering our Social intercourse, makes a wise decidedness essential. To follow the right path implies self-denial; and, what is often worse, it may compel us to shun those whom we perhaps fondly love in the bonds of nature. Now, to arm us for this, we should call to mind that all the men who have signally served their God have been remarkable for decision—they were everywhere spoken against; their names were often a hissing and a byword, because they were decided for the ways of God against the ways of man. Paul was thus decided, and we know that, for his reward, he had to fight with wild beasts, and contend with wilder men. Luther was thus decided, and Romanists, in every age and land, have poured forth their enmity against him. CALVIN
—KNOX
—CHALMERS. Calvin was decided, and men have piled calumny upon calumny in their attempt to crush him. Knox was decided, and shared the same portion—he is sharing it still. Chalmers was decided, and had to live and die in armour. The truth, and nothing but the truth of God, was their guide—
“Not the light which leaves us darker;
Not the gleams that come and go;
Not the mirth whose end is madness;
Not the joy whose fruit is woe.”—
The banner which the Eternal gave to be displayed, these men held up, that all might learn to rally round it; and the times on which we have fallen are such as require a wise decision, a holy boldness, a close walk with God, like the times of these heroes of the truth.
