wit, the salvation of men, was benevolent and of all things important, therefore it was lawful and proper to use all kinds of means to bring it about, even duplicity, fraud, and dishonesty. How strange the solecism! Nor do we mean that the Apostle had no opinions, no principles of his own, to which he attached importance, and which he felt himself bound to defend. All such associations with the conduct of this sincere, upright, and earnest man, do injustice to his language, his life, and his sa cred fame. Opinions he had; preferences he had; a definite creed and theology he had; opinions and faith, than which he would rather have surrendered his life. While this was so in reference to vital truths, other matters there were which were perfectly indifferent -indifferent to him, though not to others. The Jew held to opinions and practices to which he attached great importance, but which Paul had learned to regard as altogether trivial and unimportant. He, Paul, was not under the law of ritual observances; he had experienced a better thing than that, even Christianity. Christ had liberated him from that punctilious adherence to rites and letters, which was no better than servile. But freeman though he was, if he might the better secure the confidence and affection of the Jew, so as to save his soul, he would conform to Jewish customs and preferences, so far as he might without the compromise of principle. He was willing to make himself a servant to all, that he might gain the more. Just as a slave submits to all the whims and caprices of his master, unwarrantable though they be, so Paul, with Christian magnanimity, says that he was accustomed to forego his own opinions and preferences, and accommodate himself to the preference and prejudice of others, so far as could be done with a good oonscience, that he might gain them to Christ. So again, when laboring among the Gentiles-described by him as those who were "without law," that is, being uninformed concerning the rites and ceremonies enjoined in the law of Moses -he tells them that they were perfectly right in omitting many things which were practised by the Jew. He does not insist upon circumcision; indeed he absolves them from it, declaring that the obligations to observe that, and other kindred rites, have been done away in Christ; they were no more binding as matters of authority or necessity at all, even though he himself, when among the Jews, had conciliated them by practising what was their preference, but to him a matter of indifference. Thus his consistency is made out-and more than consistency-a noble magnanimity; a superiority above all personal preferences and prejudices, and that for others' good. When he was at Lystra, he took Timotheus and circumcised him. He was among the Jews who regarded the rite as essential. He had been taught to believe that now it was nothing. Circumcision or uncircumcision, it was nothing, if we were in Christ. Howbeit, if the Jews could be conciliated and won to Christ, by what was "no-thing" to him, happy was he to meet their wishes; telling them at the same time, that he did not attach the same importance to the rite with themselves. He gives up himself to be a servant to Jewish whims, caprices, and prejudices; but, observe, it is upon points which he pronounces to be indifferent. He would prefer that they should see things as he did; and should do as he did; but as they could not see with his eyes, and adopt all his sentiments, he will cheerfully relinquish his own preferences to their advantage. In this, how careful was he to violate no obligation, bend no principle, break no law, offend no truth. He himself has interpreted in this parenthesis the declaration that all this plant conformity was not as though he was .without law to God; for "under law to Christ" he was; so that though he was flexible as a willow wand in his elastic and cheerful conformity to all the preferences and prejudices of Jew or Gentile, in things indifferent, he was ready to go to the cross in defence and testimony of those vital truths by which God was to be honored, and the world could alone be saved. Understood in this sense, the conduct of the Apostle presents a rule of conduct of incalculable service to all who would seek to gain their fellow-men to Christ. If this motive to save men, be first in the mind; if it be distinct, intense, and earnest, it will vindicate the conduct from all those inconsistencies and meannesses which make up a selfish sycophancy. Christian pliancy, and unchristian, conformity, are distinguished in two respects; as to what is sur rendered, and the motive by which anything is surrendered. The selfish parasite flatters and yields, cringes and surrenders, that he may ingratiate himself, and obtain his own purposes. The Christian yields and conforms when he can, that he may save others. The one hopes to exalt himself, secure his own ends, and rise in favor with all. The other, forgetful of himself, gives up all he can, that he may win souls to Christ. The one surrenders everything, trifles with matters the most sacred, counting no price too great to be paid for his ambitious ends; willing to sell his soul and his Saviour. The other, steadfast and unshaken in vital truth, displays a magnanimous indifference in all things immaterial and unimportant. Bunyan has sketched the portrait of the one in Mr. By-Ends, in lines so bold and strong, that no one who has ever seen the face will ever forget it. He came from the town of Fair-Speech, and pretended to be on the way to the Celestial City. For kindred he had my Lord Turnabout, and Mr. Smoothman, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Anything; and the parson of the town was Mr. Two-tongues, and his great-grandfather was a waterman, looking one way and rowing another; and his wife was my lord Feigning's daughter, so remarkably well-bred that she knew how to carry it to all, even to prince and peasant. Here was a man who, in his own words, "jumped in his judgment with the present way of the times;" whose rule of life was never to strive against wind and tide; but seek to please everybody, for his own advantage." The portrait, we fear, does not belong to an old gallery. It is a lifelike representation of that worldly conformity which is practised in all times and places for one's private ends. Here it is, and thus it is, that many pervert this rule of apostolical conduct, this becoming all things to all men. They learn to do as others and be as others; but alas! it is not for others' good. Conform when you can consistently, innocently, if your motive be, as with the Apostle, to save the soul. But beware that you do not take fire into your bosom to be burned, rather than hold out a lamp to enlighten others in the way of life. If your motive be not like the Apostle's, your conduct will not be as his. If you become all things to all men, that they may be pleased with. you by seeing what a high-minded, accommodating, easy, worldly Christian you are, the whole process is vitiated by a bad motive, which leads you to dishonor religion, deny Christ, and instead of saving, delude and mislead, by your inconsistency, many to destruction. There is a vast difference between the Apostle Paul and Cardinal Wolsey. Another thing is implied in this rule of conduct we are now considering. There is a great variety of means to be employed for the salvation of different men. I do not mean that there is more than one Gospel, or any second way of entering the kingdom of God. But the aspects of truth are indefinitely varied; the one great truth by which we are saved is not to be confined to one fixed and changeless form of expression; and it spreads itself out in conformity to the capacity and accomplishment of the mind into which it enters. If it were not so, we might as well have automata moved by clock-work to parrot off a set form of words, muezzin-like, from the top of our churches. What an infinite variety in men themselves, their talents, their dispositions, their education, their habits, their prejudices, their modes of acquiring and retaining opinions. These are circumstances which are not to be overlooked by any wise man, in the pulpit or out of it, who would be successful in saving souls. What is an excellent rule in all forms of convincing and persuasive speech, at the bar, before a jury, in a schoolroom, in a political meeting, should never be disregarded by any man who would inform, persuade, and guide others on religious subjects; viz. Place yourself, as much as possible, in the circumstances of those whom you address. Take into account how they have been educated; make allowance for their prejudices; enter into all the feelings peculiar to their age, their station in society, and adapt your mode of approach, as far as possible, to them. Here the example of the Apostle again instructs us. With no chameleonlike propensity to change his opinions with his company; with no inconsistency whereby to condemn and degrade himself, he possessed the power, in the intense desire to do good, to place himself in the very position of any and every man whom he would win to Christ. He did not go through the world like Sir Artegale's iron man Talus, with a flail, crushing and trampling down all opposition, provoking wrath, and stirring up to the utmost every malignant passion, rasping and lacerating feeling, having no part or lot in human infirmity. He knew how the Jew felt; and throwing himself into a Christian sympathy with the Jew, sought to save the Jew. He turned again to the Gentile, educated under different customs, familiar with a different philosophy, and forthwith he who determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, adroitly conforms his style of address, his mode of approach, to his new auditors. He would have been insane had he done otherwise. He would have frustrated his own object by a different procedure. It would be a pleasant rhetorical exercise, suited better to another place, to analyze the several discourses of Paul, as recorded in the book of the Acts, and show how skillfully he varies himself so as to conform to his several auditors. Contrast his speech or sermon in Pisidia, in the synagogue of Antioch, with his address before the Areopagites, the highest court at Athens. In the one he becomes a Jew, thinks like a Jew, speaks like a Jew; he descants on Jewish history, out of which history he brings forth the Saviour. At Athens he encounters the Epicureans and the Stoics. No stranger is he to their prejudices and their philosophies. what inimitable grace and self-possession, a master of himself and his subject, does he set off in his address. The very style of his Greek is classical. He quotes their own Greek pagan poets. Verily the Christian Jew is transformed into a polished Grecian debater; and why should he not be, seeing that he would save some at Athens too? With Listen to him again, when, standing on the stairs of the temple, he speaks in the Hebrew tongue to the Jews; relating his conversion, and subsequently repeating the same narration in a very different form and style before Agrippa, the Roman governor. With the weak he became weak; forcing his large mind down into sympathy with all their weak and narrow prejudices, for the weak he would save. With the mighty and the noble, the wise and the great, though he had a theme which he knew would be unwelcome to their hearts, the more did he raise himself up to their level, that he might command a hearing and a respect. Among the tent-makers of Corinth, he became a tent-maker; talked in their language, sympathized in their pursuits, that they might be saved. Because the Gospel detects prejudice, it is a sad mistake to infer that it was designed to excite and provoke prejudice. When our Lord told his disciples that the effect of his gospel would be to send swords rather than peace among the relationships of life, he spoke of an effect incidental and not designed. He also instructed his disciples to be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves; and that man has not yet learned the first lesson of nature or grace who hopes to save the souls of any in his family, neighbor.. hood, or walks of usefulness, without considering the age, circumstances, education, and characters of those whom he seeks to approach and address. A young minister just entering upon his profession in a rural district, was informed that a certain farmer in his parish was violently prejudiced against him as a "proud and college-bred" man. He resolved to pay him an early visit. The man was in the fields mowing the clover, in the midst of his men. The minister, wisely avoiding untimely interruption, resorted to the meadow, while the dew was yet sparkling on the grass, and requesting the loan of a scythe, led on the work, as if it had been the pleasant pastime of his youth. Prejudice was disarmed, and melted into partiality and confidence, and, subsequently, Christian conversion. To the farmer he had become a farmer, that he might save the farmer. Precisely what Paul did on Mars Hill, when he quoted to his classic audience from Cleanthus' Ode to Jupiter, and "Dionysius the Areopagite clave unto him and believed." If you would save a child, you must become a child. How absurd to give a babe strong meat; or feed Christ's little lambs in racks so high that nothing but a giraffe can reach them. A man who has an object to accomplish, devises all expedients, invents and tries now this, now that. What is most admirably adapted to one, may be repulsion and effervescence to another. Of the art of doing good we should be studious; and means are many. We could not, in conscience, eulogize the poetry of John Bunyan as the best versification in our language. It is not quite so smooth and polished as that of Pope; nor does its measure equal the glorious majesty of Milton. Yet we might search far and long before we found better sense, or sager advice, than the following lines in his rhyming apology for the Pilgrim's Progress: "You see the way the fisherman doth take To catch the fish; what engines doth he make? God be thanked that we have the Dreamer's Allegory, as well as Butler's Analogy. Give children their medicine, if you must, in their milk. Many a man has found Jesus Christ in the Tinker's Dream-the second uninspired book in our language for genius, wit, and wonder-who would have found nothing but verjuice, spleen, and prejudice, as Bolingbroke did in the forced reading of Dr. Manton's one hundred and nineteen sermons on the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. |