Chapter Ii. Conformity To The World.
CHAPTER II. CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD.
As members of society, some intercourse with the world is a matter of necessity; or we “must go out of the world.” 491 Some measure of communication is also indispensable to duly discharge our Ministerial responsibilities. It is, however, most important to ascertain the Scriptural limits and principles of this intercourse, lest we deviate from our Divine Master’s rule, transgress its requirements, lower its standard, or substitute other principles in the regulation of our conduct. Now if the prohibition of conformity to the world, and the call of God to “come out and be
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separate,” 492 have any meaning at all, they must be supposed to warn the Minister of the sanctuary away from the field of sports or the fox-hunt,493 from the theatre, the ball-room, the card-table, and the race-course; and from that unprofitable, sensual life of folly which unconsciously hurries us on from social intercourse to the ensnaring pleasures of sin. ‘A life, in which the love of the world is predominant, is incompatible with that dignified and edifying piety which should be the distinguishing characteristic of the sacred Ministry. It is this spirit of piety alone that can insure to us usefulness.’ 494 For what aptness to teach can be exercised or nourished where the taste, time, talents, and activity are devoted to secular and self-indulgent engagements?
Many shades of worldly conformity, most detrimental to our spiritual influence, attach themselves particularly to the Clergy of the Establishment. Their rank in society, their education, their mode of living, and the necessity which is commonly felt for keeping up appearances—all are circumstances which need the control of a heavenly and mortified mind, lest they prove to be offences in our great work.495 Perhaps few of us are aware of the keen eye, with which our dress, furniture, tables, and household are scrutinized, and the minuteness of comparison instituted between our Ministration and personal habits. Mr. Scott’s observations on this subject are entitled to great consideration. After remarking upon the inconveniences and temptations of Ministers indulging an affectation of appearance beyond their legitimate station, he adds,—‘If we form our judgment on this subject from the Holy Scripture, we
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will not think of finding the true ministers of Christ among the higher classes of society in matters of external appearances or indulgence. If a Minister thinks that the attention of the great and noble requires him to copy their expensive style of living, he grievously mistakes the matter. For this will generally forfeit the opinion previously entertained of his good sense and regard to propriety.496 His official declarations concerning the vanity of earthly things, and the Christian’s indifference to them, will be suspected of insincerity as long as it is observed that he conforms to the world as far, or even further, than his circumstances will allow; and thus respect will often change into disgust.’ At a later period of life he writes thus—I am sorry to say that worldly prudence, and the desire to make provision for families, not only for necessary things, but for gentility and affluence, is in my opinion eating up the life of spirituality and simple trust in the Lord, even among those who preach scriptural doctrines. I believe these are clogged in their Ministry—no, they sink in general estimation, and they are excluded from usefulness more than they are aware of.’ 497 Even admitting that our income allows for this expensive indulgence, is it not a point of Christian forbearance to refrain? Is it not most important to show that our heart is not set on these things; that Christian plainness and simplicity are our deliberate choice; and that it is a matter of conscience and of privilege to devote to the service of God the expenditure that might have been wasted upon “paneled houses,” 498 or other useless decorations.
Social intercourse with our neighbourhoods often presents a serious hindrance to our work. It is not that religion inculcates any breach of good breeding, habits of moroseness, or declaiming the follies of the world with contemptuous severity. This is neither the spirit of the Gospel of love, nor the spirit that should distinguish its professors—and much less its Ministers. What is said or done in this temper had far better have been forborne than exhibited in a garb of such unkindly roughness. Courtesy is an obligation, fully consistent with the exercise of Christian faithfulness;499 and under decided Scriptural restraint, it often melts down prejudice, and conciliates good-will. But latet anguis in herbâ.500 The double guard
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of watchfulness and prayer is most necessary to preserve the single eye, and the heart devoted in simplicity to God. It is enchanted ground. A prudent Christian dares not walk on it without a special call. The late excellent Mr. Hervey resolved—‘Never to go into any company, where he could not obtain access for his Master.’ And at least we should determine to venture into no society, except where we sincerely desire and endeavour to introduce our Master. There is indeed “a time for keeping silence,” 501 and “keeping our mouth with a bridle,” in the presence of the ungodly; lest by “giving what is holy to dogs, and casting our pearls before swine,” 502 we were to provoke a needless excitement of enmity against the Gospel. But (as Dr. Watts has well observed)—‘I doubt this caution has been carried much further by our own cowardice and carnality of spirit, than David ever practised it in the thirty-ninth Psalm, or than Jesus Christ meant it in the seventh chapter of Matthew.’ 503 Certainly if we are “dumb with silence, and hold our peace even from good,” without feeling, as David did under these circumstances, our “sorrows stirred;” 504 it is only too plain that we have lost that distinction of “the servants of Christ” which it would have been our honour to have preserved; that our Christian prudence has degenerated into worldly cowardice; and that our conversation with the world has been regulated by the fear of man, fleshly indulgence, and practical unbelief of the most solemn warnings of the Gospel.505
Our Divine Master never intended that we should confine our religion to the services of the sanctuary. As men of God, we should have it at heart and in hand, spreading a spiritual savour over the common walks of society, and stamping us with the mark of confessors of Christ in the midst of a world that still holds him in the same contempt as when, eighteen centuries ago, they nailed him to the cross. There must be some defect if we do not bring an atmosphere with us which is more or less instantaneously felt.
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It is the lack of this high tone of character that makes our private Ministrations so pointless and ineffective.506 For when parochial visits have not been accompanied by a searching inquiry respecting the state of their soul, it is easily supposed that, because no suspicion was raised, none was entertained; and that if there was not quite so much religion with them as with some others, yet there was no ground for alarm, nor did the solemn statements of the pulpit have any specific reference to them.
The importance of studying urbanity507 of behaviour in our intercourse with the world, is sometimes pleaded as an excuse for avoiding the direct offence of the cross. But let it be remembered that God never honours a compromising spirit. The character of our profession with the world must not be merely negative. It must be marked by a wise, tender, but unflinching exhibition of the broad line of demarcation which, under the most favourable circumstances of mutual accommodation, still separates the world and the church from real communion with each other. Did the Apostle mean no more by that emphatic term—“the course of this world” 508— than the round of giddy dissipation or vicious pleasure? Did this prohibition of worldly conformity have no regard to the principles, the standard, the taste, the external decency of worldliness? Does his warning against even contact with the world 509—(deduced from the reason and fitness of things, as well as from the express declaration of God)— not directly apply to all the sources of interest, the fellowship, the habit of mind and conversation, which by the Scriptural standard are proved to be “not of the Father, but of the world?” 510 Or will an evangelical accuracy of doctrine, and correctness of outward deportment, be sufficient to stamp our profession with the broad seal of conformity to our Master’s image?—“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” 511 ‘Doubtless’ (as Archbishop Seeker reminds us)—‘we should endeavour to make religion agreeable; but not to make ourselves agreeable by leading our company to forget religion. We should, ‘every one of us, please his neighbour for his good;’ but not so ‘please men,’ as to fail in the character of ‘Servants of
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Christ.’ 512 We should be made in a fitting sense and measure, “all things to all men, that we may by all means save some;” but we will lose ourselves, and not save others, if we are quite different persons in the pulpit and out of it.’ 513 These admirable sentiments fix the precise character and Scriptural limits of Christian courtesy, bounding it by the line of Christian edification, and distinguishing it by an entire disregard of our own interest, and a single devotedness to the main object of the salvation of immortal souls.514 Indeed a successful attempt to ingratiate ourselves with the world, would rather afford matter for godly jealousy, than anticipation of advantage. To have attached the world to ourselves by adventitious accomplishments, while the Master whom we profess to venerate, is still to them a “despised and rejected” Saviour—to a mind reflecting on Scripture principles, this is a matter of far greater alarm than of self-complacency.515 If they could not endure the conciliating attractiveness 516 of the Son of God, even while devoting himself to their service at an infinite cost to himself 517—if they could count the great Apostle—(endued with so large a portion of his Master’s loveliness of deportment)—“as the filth of the earth, and the off-scouring of all things,” 518 then they can only court our society by perceiving that we approximate their own standard, rather than these heavenly models.
Sometimes, however, this Ministerial association with the world is justified on principle. It is said to operate as a restraint on unbecoming conversation or dissipated recreation. It is even conceived to promise positive advantage in recommending religion to a more general acceptance. Yet surely the transgression of a plain command, having a primary reference to Ministers,519 can be nothing less than wilful sin;520 while the motive pleaded in its extenuation marks the character of the sin—“doing evil that good may come.” The best-intentioned motives can never justify the infringement of a Divine obligation, even if (what in the present case is contrary to fact and experience) the prospect of eventual benefit were both assured and satisfactory. But who does not know that the awe and restraint of our presence cannot reach the root of the evil? Its temporary and inefficient influence therefore
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has been dearly purchased, by lowering the tone of Ministerial character, by yielding a conformity to the taste, habits, and conversation of the world, and by a virtual sanction of an erroneous standard of conduct.521 Would the Levitical high-priests have descended from their sacred elevation of immediate intercourse with God, to participate in the frivolities of decorous worldliness? Then why should we, under a more spiritual dispensation, be less separate, or our standard be less heavenly? If indeed this connexion with the world were to recommend us to their kindly consideration, yet no additional regard to our Master accrues from it—since usually we have been unable to mention his name with any glow of interest, nor has any feature of his holy image been illustrated or embodied in the spirituality of our conversation.522
It is allowed indeed, that our Divine Master occasionally associated with men decidedly adverse to his doctrine. But he could breathe a polluted atmosphere with perfect security, and therefore might venture where common prudence would forbid those to follow whose constitutions are predisposed to contagion. Besides, his intercourse with the world was uniformly that of an Instructor, not of a Conformist; and he accomplished his important designs, not by accommodating his conversational subjects to their taste (except indeed when illustrating his instructions from the topics and circumstances of the day), but by chaining down their wondering attention to “the gracious words, which proceeded out of his mouth.” 523 But is our intercourse with the world thus conformed to our Master’s pattern? Are we ready to do “the hard and rough work of
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bringing God into his own world?” 524 Or are we not too easily satisfied with the influence of outward restraints, while no plain testimony has been delivered for him “whose we are, and whom we” profess to “serve?” It has been justly remarked, that “a worldly state of mind is not less destructive of true holiness than gross sin.” 525 The example of Demas, the fellow-labourer of the Apostle, stands as a beacon at the close of the Ministerial Epistles, to remind us—even while invigorated by the glorious prospects of eternity 526—of the need for watchful carefulness against this baneful snare of our Ministry.527
On the full consideration of the subject, the Writer is constrained to express his decided conviction that a very large proportion of our inefficiency may be traced to the source of worldly conformity. This needs no proof in the too frequent cases of decided love of pleasure and dissipation, ‘For’ (as Massillon asks his clergy) ‘after having fully mixed in the diversions and follies of the world, can you appear in a Christian pulpit, impressed with a sense of the importance of the Gospel and zealous for its success?’ Of such Ministers we would speak “even weeping,” that they are the sores of the church—that they have given more strength to the cause of separation, than the most powerful objections either to our established formularies or government—and (what is far more fearful)—that they are charged with the awful responsibility of dragging
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immortal souls down to perdition with them by their negligence, or by the positive influence of their example.
But is not also the lax, indulgent approximation to the spirit of the world—either in our general habit and appearance—or in our intercourse with the world—a leading, though not always tangible, cause of failure? Even the faithful exhibition of the cross must be materially weakened by a lack of the corresponding exhibition of its power in crucifying its Ministers to the lusts and affections of the world. A connexion with the world beyond the point of clear duty (or even within these narrow bounds, without a heavenly temper), must bring us into a worldly atmosphere, which deadens the vigorous actings of a spiritual life until, like the torpedo, we numb everything we touch. Conscience in a tender and susceptible state, might almost determine the question—What is the effect of such connexions on the spiritual frame? Has there not been in this atmosphere a closer communion with the world than with God? Has the spirit of prayer not been well near extinguished, and delight in the more spiritual exercises of our work fearfully lost? And does not our Ministry thus become (perhaps unconsciously to ourselves) weak, general, and indefinite on the main point of separation from the world? Or, even if our exhortations reach the Scriptural standard of decision, must their power not be wholly counteracted by this compromising spirit?
Accurate and earnest statements of truth, combined with sociable conformity to the world, will give no offence, and bring no conviction.528 Cowper’s line—‘If parsons fiddle, why may’nt laymen dance?’—has at least as much truth as wit in it. If we go one step into the world, our flock will take the sanction to go two; the third will be still more easy, and the atmosphere more enticing, till at last it proves that “a bird hastens to the snare, and does not know that it is for his life.” 529 ‘The Minister, therefore, who would not have his people give in to worldly conformity in a way he disapproves, must keep himself at a considerable distance from it. If he walks near the brink, others will fall down the precipice.’ 530 ‘A preacher who enjoys the smiles of the world, can hope for little success from
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God;’ but ‘a Minister of the Church, who is entirely disengaged from the love of earthly things, is a great treasure and a great “consolation “to her.’ 531