It is far safer for me and for you that I preach this truth to you boldly and plainly; and I have a special [pg 073] object in bringing it to your notice now, at this solemn season when you are reviewing the past, and making a new consecration of yourselves to the service of Christ.
Here, as you renew your original vow to come out from the world, it is well that you do this with no vague idea of what you promise. What I shall now say applies to most if not all of you, but especially to the younger members of the church. As you enter upon a season of special religious activity, you also enter upon a season which society is wont to devote largely to pleasure. Ere another communion season shall have come round, the season for evening entertainments and festal gatherings, will be at its height. From the nature of circumstances you will be called upon to participate in these more or less; and it is at these points that the temptation to conformity to the world will be most likely to assail you.
Most of you are probably aware of the ground I have recently taken before the public on the subject of amusements; a position which has excited considerable comment, and some censure. I do not see why it should. There is nothing novel in my views on this subject. I have merely stated the gospel principle, the principle which Christ [pg 074] propounded, and by which he lived—that the proper and only way to preserve our pleasures or anything else from abuse, is to put Christian leaven into them. That our duty in such matters, is not to give them over bodily to the devil and to the world, to be abused and perverted at their pleasure; but to save them from such perversion, and make them legitimate instruments of Christian joy and growth, by using them in the name and under the law of Christ. If these things are evil, we have no right to have anything to do with them. If they are, though not evil in themselves, so under the dominion of evil, and so dependent upon evil for support, as the theatre, for example, is, that Christian participation cannot separate them from their abuses, we ought to abandon them. But as to the general principle, that it is abuse and not proper use which Christ condemns, and that many of the things which the devil has usurped, are as much yours as his, there can be no doubt. I have not one word to modify or retract of what I have written on this subject. Challenged, I would reiterate it word for word, if I knew I should go from this pulpit to my grave. And I dare any Christian to draw from what I have written, or from what I have said to-day, license for improper conformity [pg 075] to the world. If you do so, depend on it, you and not I will be condemned. And I rejoice especially to-day, in having assumed this position; because I have never had so good ground from which to counsel you as to your intercourse with the world of pleasure. If I were to put this matter to you on the ground of men's rules and decrees, if I were to try and show you, by subtle hair-splitting, that this thing is one degree more capable of abuse than that thing; and that, therefore, you may use that, and must abandon this, I should expose myself to merciless logic, and to just ridicule. I leave this ground entirely. I put myself on God's word, and say to you this morning, be not conformed to this world. I say to you as the first, the indispensable requisite for deciding in what conformity consists, see that your relations to Christ are properly adjusted. Present yourselves living sacrifices to him. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Submit your will to the will of God without reserve. Then shall you be able to prove what is his will, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Then shall your judgment be so enlightened as to enable you to render a reasoning, a reasonable, a thoughtful and discriminating service. This is the first thing.
For this I pray for you. For this I am anxious for you, that you be vitally united to Christ; that you have a living, active faith in him; a clear witness of your acceptance with him, an ever burning love for him. If you have these, I know that the details of your lives, whether they concern your pleasures, or your business, or your studies, will take care of themselves. But remember this prerequisite. Do not go away saying, “my pastor says I may lawfully indulge in this or that, and I need give myself no further trouble about it.” I say to you no such thing. I say that you want your whole nature renewed by the indwelling of Christ, and that without this you are not safe in the world one moment. That without this you are in continual danger of conformity to the world. Without this you are in no condition to decide in what you may engage, or how far you may engage in it without abuse. Withal, you will need to trouble yourself about these matters; to study God's law; to watch closely your own heart and life; to avoid needless temptation; to exercise strong resolution when pleasure beckons you beyond the bounds erected by Christian duty. I bid you rejoice in your youth. I bid you use those amusements which are innocent in themselves, freely and with gratitude [pg 077] to God, but to beware of their abuse. I can safely tell you some things which God's word will teach you as to this matter. It will tell you that where you make pleasure the end and rule of your life, and duty the exception, you are guilty of abuse. It will tell you that when pleasure saps the fountains of your health, when it steals away your hours of sleep, and tempts you to excessive indulgence of appetite at an hour which nature prescribes for the rest and recuperation of your organs, when it leads you to expose yourself to sickness by inadequate clothing—it is a gross abuse for which God will hold you accountable. It will tell you that when any description of pleasure trenches on the limits of modesty, it is an abuse; that the public embracing of young men and women in the vile dances of the day, is an offense against decency, an abomination against which manly nobleness and maidenly delicacy ought to cry out with all their power. It will tell you that when pleasure of any kind interferes with your covenant obligations to the church, and keeps you from the ordinances of God's house, it is an abuse; a conformity to the world, against which God warns you in this text.
Come then and give yourselves to Christ, not [pg 078] repelled by any false, ascetic views of his religion, but believing, as his word entitles you to believe, that it is the promoter of innocent joy, of healthy and grateful recreation, of the highest and purest pleasures. Come, and he shall show you by his own life how to be in the world, yet not of it. How to live in strictest conformity to duty, and yet be free indeed, and exhibit to the world a broad, noble, generous Christian life—a life in the spirit and not in the letter. He shall teach you to live by the insight of love, and not by the prescriptions of a bare scheme of duty. Oh, that you may grow to the stature of perfect men and women in Christ; that you may be living examples of a reasoning service, models of a piety, enthusiastic yet judicious; all aglow with the love of Christ carried into every detail of your lives, into your pleasures, your conversation, your business; bringing everything, great and small, into conformity with the law of Christ, and making the whole life move sweetly and harmoniously round him. You will not then be a worldly church. You will not then be stumbling blocks to the kingdom of Christ. You will be living epistles, read and known of all men, and they, seeing your good works, shall glorify your father which is in Heaven.