Watch with a jealous watchfulness every part of your inward man. Formality is ever ready to come in upon us, like the Egyptian plague of frogs, which went even into the king's chamber. Watch, and be on your guard.—Watch over your Bible-reading,—your praying,—your temper and your tongue,—your family life and your Sunday religion. There is nothing so good and spiritual that we may not fall into formal habits about it. There is none so spiritual but that he may have a heavy fall. Watch, therefore, and be on your guard.
Look forward, finally, and hope for the coming of the Lord. Your best things are yet to come. The second coming of Christ will soon be here. The time of temptation will soon be past and gone. The judgment and reward of the saints shall soon make amends for all. Rest in the hope of that day. Work, watch, and look forward.—One thing, at any rate, that day will make abundantly clear. It will show that there was never an hour in our lives in which we gave our hearts too thoroughly to Christ.
XII
THE WORLD
"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord." 2 Cor. vi. 17.
The text which heads this page touches a subject of vast importance in religion. That subject is the great duty of separation from the world. This is the point which St. Paul had in view when he wrote to the Corinthians, "Come out,—be separate."
The subject is one which demands the best attention of all who profess and call themselves Christians. In every age of the Church separation from the world has always been one of the grand evidences of a work of grace in the heart. He that has been really born of the Spirit, and made a new creature in Christ Jesus, has always endeavoured to "come out from the world," and live a separate life. They who have only had the name of Christian, without the reality, have always refused to "come out and be separate" from the world.
The subject perhaps was never more important than it is at the present day. There is a widely-spread desire to make things pleasant in religion,—to saw off the corners and edges of the cross, and to avoid, as far as possible, self-denial. On every side we hear professing Christians declaring loudly that we must not be "narrow and exclusive," and that there is no harm in many things which the holiest saints of old thought bad for their souls. That we may go anywhere, and do anything, and spend our time in anything, and read anything, and keep any company, and plunge into anything, and all the while may be very good Christians,—this, this is the maxim of thousands. In a day like this I think it good to raise a warning voice, and invite attention to the teaching of God's Word. It is written in that Word, "Come out, and be separate."
There are four points which I shall try to show my readers, in examining this mighty subject.
I. First, I shall try to show that the world is a source of great danger to the soul.
II. Secondly, I shall try to show what is not meant by separation from the world.
III. Thirdly, I shall try to show in what real separation from the world consists.
IV. Fourthly, I shall try to show the secret of victory over the world.