We join the glorious host! We join the glorious host!”
LECTURE IV
THE JOY OF THE MINORITY
There are two forms of disloyalty. One is flinching, the other is compromise. Of course, the compromiser will never allow that he is disloyal. He is a practical man who realizes that theories and ideals have to be adapted to a practical world, and he gives up a part, and as unimportant a part as possible, in order that he may gain the rest. He feels himself quite capable of judging how much to give up and what part may rightly be given up. He will simply abate the unreason of a God who demands all righteousness, and to Whom the whole truth is truth. Let us set up against such men the uncompromising principle of the duty of non-compromise. It is a principle from which the wisest and best of men are sometimes won away in the supposed interest of the great ends which they seek, and for which they feel that they may rightly sacrifice subordinate issues. There is what some regard as a striking incident of this character in the life of that uncompromising man, Saint Paul. It is an exciting and instructive story. This is the way it is told in the twenty-first chapter of Acts (vs. 17–30):
“And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present. And when he had saluted them, he rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles through his ministry. And they, when they heard it, glorified God; and they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them that have believed; and they are all zealous for the law: and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? they will certainly hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men that have a vow on them; these take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges for them, that they may shave their heads: and all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, keeping the law. But as touching the Gentiles that have believed, we wrote, giving judgment that they should keep themselves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication. Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them went into the temple, declaring the fulfillment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them.
“And when the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the multitude and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place; and moreover he brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath defiled this holy place. For they had before seen with him in the city Trophimus the Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple. And all the city was moved, and the people ran together; and they laid hold on Paul, and dragged him out of the temple: and straightway the doors were shut.”
And that was the disastrous end of this conscientious experiment. Paul never tried another like it. Perhaps there is a construction of the story which forbids the idea that it was compromise but it suffices at any rate to raise the whole question of the wisdom of compromise as a principle of action. It is the one incident in Paul’s life where he might be thought even for a moment to have embarked on that course. Wherever else we see him, he is a man of firm and unflinching principles, who made no concealment of what he believed, and did not try to adjust his convictions and practices to other convictions and practices that were at variance with them.
In the second chapter of Galatians, you will remember, Paul is telling of a visit he made to Jerusalem some time before with Barnabas and Titus, in which they went up to consider these very questions. Some of the brethren in Jerusalem had endeavoured to persuade Paul to have Titus, who was a Gentile, circumcised, and Paul says, “To whom we gave place ... no, not for an hour.” And then he tells of the time when Peter came to Antioch and he withstood him to his face because he had been a trimmer and compromiser; for Peter, acting on the generous impulse of his own heart as to what was right, had indeed bravely eaten with the converted Gentiles, but when some men came down from Jerusalem who were close to James, he withdrew himself from the Gentiles, fearing, no doubt, that it might injure him in Jerusalem.
Paul does not say anything in any letter about this particular incident in Jerusalem, in which, for the one time in his life, he was overpersuaded by his friends and put in a position where he was very much misunderstood, and where he appeared to be compromising the great principles in which he earnestly believed. We know what the far-reaching consequences were. A great deal of trouble was brought into his life by this act. It was out of it that all those succeeding events came which took him at last to Rome to be tried before Cæsar. Some may say that these results were good. Undoubtedly God led Paul’s course on, but we may believe that God might have had even greater things for him to do if only he had in this incident pursued his customary course.
But we want to go far beyond the question as to whether the consequences may ever appear to justify acts of compromise. A course of action is right or wrong, not according to the consequences, but according to its conformity or unconformity to the character of God. And the point now raised is whether it is ever right for us to compromise our own firm convictions of truth and principle.