A Discourse on the Evils of Dancing

by John F. Mesick

The sentiment of the text is not the voice of a solitary passage, but is amply sustained by other portions of the word of God. There are many similar precepts addressed to believers: "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest; because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction;" "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." "If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him."

These commandments of our Heavenly Father, are not hard sayings to the soul that has been delivered from this present evil world through faith in Jesus; for it has acquired through the work of the Spirit, a holy resignation to every intimation of the Divine will, and supreme delight in God as infinitely lovely, which causes every other source of pleasure or of happiness to become tasteless and insipid. To carnal minds, we admit, that they will sound like tyrannical edicts, because they seem to them to take away their natural liberty; shutting them up from the pursuit of that kind of enjoyment for which they pant, which they know not where to find, and in search of which they wander "through earth, its gay pleasures to trace."

But to souls renewed by Divine Grace, the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden light. True Christians, the heirs of glory, are separated from the world, not only by profession, not only by external badges, but what is of higher moment, by their character and spirit. They are essentially a peculiar people; singular in their opinions and practices, and created unto good works. They are distinguished by a conversation in Heaven. They move through society as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. They keep themselves unspotted from the world, as temples of the Holy Ghost. They seek in Heaven an inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, as heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And they reflect the love and holiness of Jesus, as those who bear the Saviour's image.

A wide and unalterable distinction exists, therefore, between the servants of God and the people of the world, a distinction as perceptible as that which divides the night from the day, and the darkness from the light. "The one are born from above, the other from beneath. The one are quickened by Divine grace; the other are dead in trespasses and sins. The one are governed by the Spirit of God, and the other are under the dominion of Satan. The one consult the glory of God, and cheerfully resign all for Christ; the other make self the centre around which they move."

Such irreconcilable discordance in the primary elements of their character forbids the thought of their amalgamation. We might as reasonably expect that oil and water would commingle and become one fluid, as that true Christians should blend their hopes and interests with those of the world. The natural and ardent opposition, growing out of their respective principles and aims, renders a separation between them inevitable, absolutely necessary, necessary at least for the safety, comfort, consistency, and usefulness of believers.

There is no need of further exposition, to show that the injunction of the text is deep-laid in the very constitution of things—and is the natural result of the incompatible differences between submission to the will of God and rebellion against his moral government. The followers of Christ can never consent to a compromise involving these principles, unless they are willing to sacrifice his cause. Allegiance to Heaven demands that true Christians should never shrink in the hour of trial from the ignominy or suffering of the cross. If they would be holy, they must possess the courage to dare to be singular, and to meet the world's derisive laugh on account of the tenderness of their consciences, or their inexperience in the vanities and customs of fashionable life. They should receive as an honor its scorn and ridicule, when heaped upon them because they continue faithful to Christ; because they implicitly follow the directions of his humbling doctrines before men; and because they steadily maintain the line of separation between the church and the world.

No man deserves the name of Christian, no man can indulge a good hope of salvation, unless his faith in Christ is productive of non-conformity to the world; a stand which is indispensable to his separation from a perishing race and his incorporation into the Kingdom of Heaven.

II. In the second place we proceed to adduce the facts proving that Dancing is an act of conformity to the world.

1. Even if could be shown that it is a healthful amusement, the position assumed by the text, would exclude it from the recreations of those who love and obey God, imposing on them the obligation to refrain from it, and to resort to other means of exercise, to which no valid objection could be made.

No apology, we are sure, can be offered for Dancing, as usually conducted, more weak than the common one, that it promotes the health of the body. Some thing doubtless might be accomplished by it for the attainment of this object, if it were practised in the day-time and in the open air. But usually, in obedience to the arbitrary decree of fashion, the most unseasonable hour, and the most unfavorable circumstances are chosen.