Fellowship with True Christians, continued

The command of the Lord is absolute, that we are to act the part of sheep in the midst of wolves; wise as serpents, but unharmful as doves. The faithful of the first century recognised this as involving non-resistance. This is evident from James's incidental remark to the wanton rich men of the twelve tribes: "Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you" (James 5v 6). It is also distinctly evident from Paul's claim in 2nd Epistle Corinthians 11v 20, to be heard on this ground: "For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face."

As much as to say, "It is a usual thing with you to submit without resistance, to personal injury; how much more may you endure my words." He had expressly enjoined: "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written: Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12v 19-21). Again, he says, "See that none render evil for evil" (1 Thess. 5v 15). Again, "Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" (1 Cor. 6v 7).

These principles exclude a resort to law on the part of those who obey the commandments of Christ. Going to law is inconsistent with submission to precepts requiring us to accept evil, and to refrain from vindicating ourselves. What is going to law but resorting to the utmost extremity of personal violence and coercion? Those who look on the surface may not see this, but they feel it readily enough when directed against themselves. They may imagine it is doing a very gentle deed to pay a visit to a quiet lawyer's office, and ask him to set the law in motion in a "legitimate " way, protesting you want only justice, etc., etc.

But follow the matter to its upshot; see what it means, and then judge whether, as a friend of Christ, you are at liberty to do such a bloody and forbidden thing. You get the judgment of the law in your favour: and let us suppose the debtor is unable to pay. What happens? Your servants (for the agents of the law are your servants, for the time being, and would not act a moment after your authority was withdrawn) enter his house and sell his bed, and cast him homeless on the street. But suppose he is able to pay and won't, and takes it into his head to resist, enlisting, let us suppose, a band of bold spirits to his aid. The myrmidons of the law arrive at the house; the door is locked, admission demanded in vain. Your agents knock the door down, but they find the passage barricaded. They demolish the barricades, but find the occupants of the house in an attitude of defiance. Your servants of the law push them; the debtor's friends smite your servants of the law. Your servants smite in return, but seeing they are over-matched, they withdraw.

The debtor exults and fearing a return of the myrmidons, he sends for and obtains a reinforcement of roughs. The bailiffs return with assistance. A melee ensues: heads are broken and property destroyed, and the bailiffs are repulsed. What next? A riot. Part of the people take sides with the debtor and part with the bailiffs. What next? The soldiers are sent for. The soldiers are now your servants. If the men in the house don't give in brains will be blown out and lives taken, and all this will be done because you have set the law in motion. In fact, this is the law in motion. What is commonly called " the law," is but the smooth end of the bludgeon. It is the fear of the other end that makes people cower at the sight of the handle. A bailiff goes and shews the handle, and this is generally sufficient, but the fact remains, that what is called the law is a terrible instrument of destruction, which will break skulls if there is any resistance. A battered house and blood-covered corpses, are elements in the picture to be considered. The fact that it is rarely needful to push matters to this length does not alter the nature of the transaction, or weaken the conclusion that saints are not at liberty to employ such an engine of offence.

The fact that a man does not personally employ the violence only makes the matter worse, so far as the nature of his act is concerned; for which is worse: to do the deed honestly and bravely yourself, or to stand behind a curtain and whisper the words that set a lot of heartless ruffians to do it? If you were the personal actor, your debtor might have some chance of mercy by personal appeal; but when you set the law in motion you hand him over to the tender mercies of men with hearts of stone, and without the power to be merciful even if they had the mind.

It is generally conceded that a brother has no right to resort to law against a brother, because of Paul's express words in 1 Cor. 6v 1-4; but some conceive they may do so against a stranger. The first thought upon such a proposition is, that it is contrary to the entire spirit of Christ's teaching to suppose we are at liberty to apply any process of hurt to strangers which we are not to apply to brethren. His command to be absolutely harmless, extends even to any enemy, still more to a debtor, who may not necessarily be an enemy. The supposed distinction in favour of brethren in this matter would be a return to the spirit of things which said "Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy," which Christ expressly superseded.

How comes it that Paul mentions a "brother," in connection with law-going at all in 1 Cor 6v? Is it to intimate that a brother may go to law with a stranger, while not at liberty to do so with, a brother? There is no such hint in the context. It is rather to illustrate the great extent to which the Corinthians had gone in their disobedience. "Brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers." He commands the brethren to judge if there is anything wrong between brother and brother; but does he recommend a resort to even this judicature? On the contrary, he says, "Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?"

The command to be passive in relation to evil, is an ordinance for the present probation merely. In due time, the saints will trample the wicked as ashes under the soles of their feet, if they prove themselves worthy of the honour by a faithful submission to what God requires of them now. "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations." (Rev. 2v 26). In this view, it is of paramount importance that the saints remain true to the commandments of Christ; and do not suffer themselves to be led into the path of disobedience by glosses on his word, which while making the way smoother to the flesh will have the effect of depriving us of the crown in the day of glory to be revealed.

5. There are other commands to which the everyday practice of the churches is totally opposed, but to which, after the great length to which this lecture has already gone, we cannot do more than merely refer. Christ:-

• a. Forbids all manner of oaths (Matt. 5v 34; James 5v 12).
• b. Prohibits the taking of the sword (Matt. 26v 52; Rev. 13v 10).
• c. Condemns retaliation and rough speech, and all evil speaking (Matt. 5v 44; 1 Pet. 3v 9; Rom. 12v 14).
• d. Insists on peace-making and personal private communication with the offended with this view (Matt. 5v 24: 18v 15; Col. 3v 13)
• e. Commands kindness to even the undeserving and the evil (Matt. 5v 44; Luke 6v 35).
• f. Allows marriage with believers only (1 Cor. 7v 39).
• g. Enjoins modesty of dress and deportment even to shamefacedness and sobriety (1 Tim. 2v 9; 1 Pet. 3v 34).

It is notorious that the churches habitually violates all these commandments, without the violation of them being supposed to unchristianise the violators in the least degree, although Christ has plainly declared that it is vain for men to call him Lord who do not obey his commandments.

Oaths are regularly administered in public courts (not to speak of the profanities of private intercourse).

The military profession is cultivated as a fitting sphere for the Christian sons of Christian men. The countenance of the "church "is extended to the army in the appointment of chaplains, involving this fearful anomaly that when two so-called Christian nations go to war, Christians on one side cut the throats of Christians on the other side, as a perfectly legitimate business, and Christian "chaplains"on one side pray to the God of all Christians so considered, to prosper the deadly measures of one set of Christians against the prayer of Christian chaplains and the deadly efforts of another set of Christians, that the latter set may strew the field of strife with their corpses while the others march victoriously over their dead bodies, singing Te Deums to God for enabling them to butcher their Christian brethren!

Retaliation is both preached and practised among the masses of the churches as the right and the noble and manly thing to do; and arrogant and resentful speech is excused on the score of necessity, while speaking evil and gloating on the frailties of your neighbours, is the daintiest luxury of common life.

Peace-loving and peace-making are looked upon as signs of effeminacy, and the man who should advocate and practice the duty of seeking a private interview with an enemy, with a view to reconciliation, would be regarded as a demented nuisance.

Kindness to the evil is almost unheard of. Ingratitude and unworthiness are invariably seized on as a reason for not helping anyone in distress. It is the rule to consider yourself justified in withholding help in such a case. It is only excellence (and that too, carried to the heroic point) that propitiates the grace of the churches in favour of private distress.

The idea of restricting matrimony to discipleship is scouted as the prejudice of fanaticism.

And as for dress, so far is the churches astray from the apostolic standard that the mass of so-called Christian women (especially in the upper walks of society), consider it an honourable thing to enter into mutual rivalry in the style and magnificence of their attire. "Fashion" is a goddess whose sway is undisputed. No one owns to be a worshipper, but everyone acts the part of one. Ambition, the love of display, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, are not acknowledged as the ruling motives, though there is scarcely another at work. All is justified on the score of "taste."

This state of things is grievous to every mind in sympathy with divine aims in human life, as revealed in the Scriptures. There is no alternative but to fight the prevailing corruption. It is for earnest men, in private practice and in public inculcation, so far as there may be opportunity, to uphold the ideal exhibited in the apostolic writings. By no other course can we save ourselves from a generation which is as "untoward" as the one that listened to a similar exhortation from Peter. The fight may be hard, but the objects are supreme.

We can afford to shut our ears to cavils of the adversary. It is not true that the commandments of Christ enfeeble and deteriorate the character. What is considered enfeeblement and deterioration is only the discipline and restraint of the lower propensities, which re-act in the invigoration of all that is noble and pure. While excluding the animal energies and activities that go to make up what is popularly considered "manliness," the commandments of Christ draw us into the channel of higher and ennobling obligations in the direction of goodness and duty, activities unknown to the mere man of natural feelings. They give us the fear of God for deference to public-opinion; the enterprise of benevolence for the energy of self-assertion, the enlightening stimulus of a clear philosophy for the muddy impulse of self-gratification; the guidance of rectitude for the slavish and uncertain law of expediency, the virtue of self restraint for the action of resentment, the power of motive for the caprice of feeling; principle for whim; knowledge for feeling; godliness for manliness; life for death.

The unpopularity of the commandments of Christ is due to their opposition to natural impulse; and their opposition to natural impulse constitutes their very power to educate men in obedience of God, that they may be disciplined and prepared for the great glory He has in store for those who please Him. Let us not make the great mistake of following popular doctrines. If we are to continue in the disobedience which the world practices - (though called the churches) - we had better hold on to their superstitious and theological monstrosities; for the abandonment of the latter, while holding on to the former, will only expose us to all the inconveniences of the faith of Christ, while securing for us none of its glorious benefits.

These lectures must now be brought to a close. Where they may be instrumental in shewing the truth in contrast to prevalent error, the merit lies not with him who has delivered them, but with another -(John Thomas, M.D., of America; died, 1871) - who, under God, has been the means of opening the Scriptures in our generation, and removing from them the veil thrown over them by popular theology.

These lectures constitute a feeble attempt on the part of the author to render the service to others which has been rendered to himself; and if any mind be exorcised of error - if any taste attracted to the study of the Word of God - any judgment matured to the comprehension, belief, and obedience of the truth, the effort will have received a perfect recompense in that which shall have been accompished for THE AGES BEYOND.

The only thing deserving a man's earnest attention in this state of existence, is the truth revealed in the Bible. It makes him free for the present, and safe for the future. Time devoted to anything else in preference, is wasted. The truth does that for a man which no other study can do: it sets him at ease with reference to the many questions which perplex the unenlightened; it gives a key for all the problems of life; it inspires him with confidence amid the uncertainties which distract other mortals; it guides him into a simple, one-hearted, peaceful direction of his affairs; it fills his mind with comforting assurance concerning the future, illuminating his prospect with a well-founded expectation of attaining the perfection which the yearning heart finds not in all the present; it subdues his propensities, corrects his natural tendency to moral obliquity, awakes his holiest affections, develops lagging interest, and improves and elevates and sanctifies his whole nature, while giving him a guarantee of, and making him meet for "the inheritance of the saints in light."

"It hath promise of the life that now is, and also of that which is to come." Its pursuit is more worthy than that of any secular object. Labour spent in its acquirement, or put forth in its dissemination, will develop results that will gloriously flourish when the fruits of mere worldly effort will have perished in irrecoverable oblivion. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away; but the WORD OF THE LORD ENDURETH FOR EVER; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1v 24, 25).