Amusement: A Force in Christian Training

by Marvin R. Vincent

'Tis all that I can do.”

The other method of securing nonconformity to the world by acting for the mere sake of difference or according to circumstances, constitutes a dead sacrifice. Such were the sacrifices of the Pharisees. They thanked God they were not as other men; but the difference was but outward. To the spectator's eye they were not conformed to the world. They did not dress like it. Their prayers were longer and more frequent. They did not eat with publicans and sinners. But these differences had become the chief end of their religious life. Their development was like arranging the limbs of a corpse for exhibition. They were not the natural, spontaneous outgrowths of a living inward principle; and hence the Pharisees have passed into history as the representative hypocrites of all time.

The essential character of this self-sacrifice will farther appear from a correct understanding of the phrase reasonable service. On this, two things must be remarked. 1st, that the expression does not belong to the words “living sacrifice” alone, but to the whole exhortation. In other words, it is not the living sacrifice which is a reasonable service, but the presenting the bodies a living sacrifice, “holy, acceptable unto God.” 2dly, it is to be noted that the expression “reasonable [pg 062] service” is very commonly misunderstood to mean a service which is proper or becoming; which we have the best of all reasons for rendering. This is all true; but this is not what the text means. It signifies a service whose main spring is in the thinking, reasoning, spiritual department of man's nature—a spiritual service rendered to a God who is a spirit, and who requireth to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. Of such Peter says: “ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” In pursuance of this idea, the apostle, in our text, after speaking of the presenting of the body as a living sacrifice, and of such a presentation as a reasoning service, gives us the key to the whole thought by his final exhortation, “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind;” so that it is clear that the outward conformity of the body to God's will, is made both a living sacrifice and a reasoning service by having its mainspring in a renewed mind. Only thus will the body be offered alive to God. Only thus will the mind be truly transformed. All the outward developments of the life will then bear the stamp of a reasoning service. The way of peace will be chosen from conviction. The will, self-impelled, will [pg 063] set toward God. The conscience will be alive with a divinely inspired sensitiveness. All the affections and desires, of their own accord, will stretch their hands towards Christ, and the renewed man will daily realize that the water which Jesus gives is in him, living water, springing up into everlasting life.

It is then clear, I think, from what has been said, that nonconformity to the world is not the aim, but one of the incidents of Christian life. The Christian's aim is distinctly stated here to be the proving of the will of God—that which is good, acceptable and perfect. Yet nonconformity to the world will develop itself as a necessary incident of Christian living. Being transformed by the renewing of the mind, the outward life will necessarily be transformed also, and will cease to be conformed to the world. The soul which desires that which is good, acceptable, perfect, can no longer find affinity with that which is bad, imperfect, and displeasing to God. The differences are not incidental, they are generic. The Christian and the world belong to different orders; are regulated by different laws. The Christian is, as it were, grafted upon the new stock, and can no more bear the fruit of his old sinful life, than the ingrafted branch can bear its former fruit. [pg 064] Old things have passed away. All things have become new. He is a new creature in Christ Jesus. These differences have not to be marked by finely drawn lines of casuistry. There are indeed points at which the worldly and the Christian life run for a little way parallel. Points where neither party can very well act differently from the other. But for all that, the divergence is wide enough at many other points to leave no doubt. I am speaking now of true Christians, thoroughly renewed in the spirit of their mind; courageous, unflinching, consistent Christians: not of those whifflers and compromisers who call themselves Christians, and who try to trim between God and the world, so as to relinquish no advantages on the side of either. A man cannot live many hours by the rule of Christ without coming into direct issue with the world. And now, as to these points of difference, they are, of course, too numerous to be dealt with in detail. And I can, therefore, only call your attention to one or two classes of them.

1st: On which I need not dwell, is the class of worldly sins. Of course the transformed man will not be conformed to the world in these. Not that a Christian never errs, by any means, but that the general current of his life will set in the direction [pg 065] of pleasing God, and away from those things which are plainly contrary to his will.

2d. A marked difference develops itself in the region of the motives, the tempers, the dispositions, and the principles of action. Sometimes it is difficult to pronounce upon these differences with certainty, yet some of them are easily recognizable. Two men will often do precisely the same thing from different motives. A Christian and a worldly man, for example, are foully abused by a profane ruffian. Both receive the abuse in silence, and go their way without bestowing any attention upon him. But the two are commonly actuated by very different impulses. The one turns away with anger and loathing, and is silent because it is beneath his dignity to reply, or to notice the aggressor. The other, though tempted to anger, remembers the example of him whom he serves. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again and leaves the railer, striving to pity his ignorance, and to forget his insult. Pride accomplishes, outwardly, in the one case, what Christian humility does in the other. So in cases of great affliction, it is sometimes hard to decide, from outward indications, whether divine grace or native force of will is the stronger. The worldly man will exhibit equal composure with [pg 066] the Christian; will seem, for the time, to accept the visitation with no less equanimity than the other. But those who are much with men under such circumstances, and come perhaps as close to their hearts as it is possible for man to do, recognize a very decided difference. They know that the composure which springs from stoicism, iron nerve, indomitable will, is a different thing from that which is born of submission and resignation to the will of God. That the one but crowds the sharp grief deeper into the heart, and shuts up the fountain of healing tears, and makes the man hard and sullen and defiant, and chills his sympathies, and disposes him to solitary brooding, and after all, gives way at last, and leaves him a broken reed, while the other finds in the breach which God made in his cherished plans, an opening through which heaven smiles on him, rises on the ruins of his wrecked hopes to a purer and more unselfish life, draws sweetness out of his sorrow, and wins a firmer trust in God, and a deeper and more comprehensive sympathy for his sorrowing brethren everywhere. These differences are endless. They cover every variety of experience. The world talks of the dignity of man, asserts his knowledge and his unimpaired judgment. The Christian distrusts his deceitful [pg 067] heart and fallen nature, and becomes a little child that he may know the truth. The world walks by sight and sneers at faith. Faith is the Christian's atmosphere, out of which he cannot breathe freely. The world talks of law, the Christian of providence. The world knows God, either vaguely, as a deity to be feared for his power, and but dimly apprehended by man, or as a mere aggregate of laws divorced from any real, apprehensible personality. The Christian communes and walks with him daily as a tender, loving, and wise father.

But I hasten to a third class of differences, with which I shall deal more at length: I mean those which appear in the Christian's conduct respecting those things which he uses in common with the world. Under this head falls that large class of actions, which, in themselves considered, have no moral value, but acquire one from the end they are made to serve, the manner in which they are pursued, or the motive in which they originate. On these arise the most perplexing of all moral questions, the most subtle cases of conscience, and too often, I grieve to say, the most acrimonious discussions. Under this head are included most of those vexed questions as to amusements, dress, meat and drink, and the like. And this text, [pg 068] I am sorry to say, has been made the basis for inculcating some most false and pernicious doctrines concerning these things.

Now it seems to me that very many of the difficulties which arise on these subjects are quite unnecessary, and would be in great part destroyed by resting upon the simple, unequivocal testimony of the Bible. I do not think that God's Word is at all wanting in explicitness on these points. Here is this text for instance. Nothing can be plainer. It tells us our first great duty is to submit our wills to God's will; to commit ourselves to his guidance without reserve, a living sacrifice; to be transformed; and that when this shall have been done, we shall know what the will of God is; we shall practically prove what is good and acceptable and perfect, and, as a matter of course, shall not be conformed to the sinful principles and practices of the world. Now it follows from this that whatever is good and acceptable and perfect, not opposed to the new principle of life in us, is ours, given us by God to use and enjoy; and that in the use and enjoyment of it within the limits he prescribes, we are not conformed to the world in any bad sense. I say this, well aware that every one of these things contains capabilities for abuse, and that the world does most [pg 069] sadly abuse them; and this brings me directly to my point that the difference between Christians and the world as respects these things is to be developed in the proper use and regulation by Christians of what the world abuses. Christians are not to be driven from every point which the world sees fit to occupy by the hue and cry of nonconformity. They are to remember that in these things there is a duty to be done as well as a pleasure to be enjoyed, and that they are to show their nonconformity, not by abandoning, but by refusing to conform to the world's excesses, and by insisting on the restraining principles of God's Word. Let us here hold closely by the opening thought of our discussion, that conformity to the world in itself is no sin, and nonconformity in itself no virtue. Conformity to the world is sinful when the world's practice is sinful and not otherwise.

Now this is a very plain rule. It is Christ's rule. Paul takes it directly from Christ. But I am aware that another question enters here, namely, that of expediency. There may be private considerations tending to make the relinquishment of a harmless thing expedient for you or for me. There may be considerations growing out of your relations to others which may render use [pg 070] inexpedient. In such cases, expediency, of course, assumes to you the obligation of law. But as regards these cases no man can decide for you. The Bible throws them on your own conscience. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Expediency is a matter for individuals. No law can be laid down for it. The two things necessarily exclude each other. If you lay it down that such a course is expedient for every one, you remove the matter at once from the region of expediency, and put it on the ground of law; and this course no man nor body of men is ever justified in pursuing. Such a step trenches on the sacred enclosure of the individual moral sense, a holy of holies, into which man and his Maker alone enter. At the same time, abundant light will be given to every humble, faithful child of Christ, to settle these questions of expediency. When love to God is the moving principle of a man's life, it develops in him an insight which guides him unerringly through questions where casuistry would become hopelessly entangled. You may see the same truth illustrated in your own homes. See that loving, obedient child, whose highest delight is to perform your behest and anticipate your wishes. How very few errors that child commits, even in cases where you have [pg 071] laid down no rule. It reaches the knowledge of your wishes through a kind of instinct as reliable as it is undefinable. Surely faith ought to teach us to expect a clew through such mazes from a Father who has promised that he will direct the paths of those who acknowledge him.

And here, I insist, whether the question be one of law or of expediency, has been a grave error of the church in not trusting enough to this inward principle of life in the soul, to this insight of love, to regulate the outward developments of the life, and to prevent the obliteration of the lines between the church and the world. She has busied herself too much with details, and not enough with that which lies back of them; too much with the circumference and not enough with the centre. Christ teaches us that if the fountain be pure, the streams must be pure. But the church, in her unconscious distrust of the purifying power of the fountain, has thrown into the streams such abundance of mint, anise, and cummin, that the taste of the original water is sometimes sadly impaired. Too often, while she has been busy with the streams, the fountain head has been gathering unsuspected poison. While I recognize the church's duty to watch carefully over Christ's flock, to counsel, rebuke, [pg 072] restrain, I think that she has encouraged, in many cases, by her want of faith in the power of the relation between Christ and the believer, an artificial religious life, a factitious conscience, a life wanting the freedom and naturalness of movement properly engendered by the gospel. I think she should have insisted more on having this clearly defined and constantly maintained, more on a full assurance, and a lively faith, and an ever burning love, and less on details which these would have regulated of themselves. I believe that if she had done this, and moreover had preached the word literally and boldly to the people, had told the people their privilege to use God's gifts, and pointed them to the principle of love to God as competent to regulate use, and not twisted its declarations into warrants for the abridgment of Christian liberty,—there would be in the church to-day more simple, strong, manly, intelligent piety, and far less conformity to the world. This distinction between safe and unsafe truths is a Romish and not a Protestant idea; and the temporary gain secured by acting upon it is more than counterbalanced by the final pernicious result.