'Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.' Now, the
text, as it stands in our version, seems to suggest that these dark
works are personified as companions whom a good man ought to avoid; and
that, therefore, the bearing of the exhortation is, 'Have nothing to do,
in your own individual lives, with evil things that one man can commit.'
But I take it that, important as that injunction and prohibition is,
the Apostle's meaning is somewhat different, and that my text would
perhaps be more accurately translated if another word were substituted
for 'have no fellowship with.' The original expression seems rather to
mean, 'Do not go partners with other people in works of darkness, which
it takes more than one to commit.' Or, to put it into another language,
the Apostle is regarding Christian people here as members of society,
and exhorting them to a certain course of conduct in reference to plain
and palpable existing evils around them. And such an exhortation to the
duty of plain abstinence from things that the opinion of the world
around us has no objection to, but which are contrary to the light, is
addressed to all Christian people.
The need of it I do not require to illustrate at any length. But let me
remind you that the devil has no more cunning way of securing a long
lease of life for any evil than getting Christian people and Christian
Churches to give it their sanction. What was it that kept slavery alive
for centuries? Largely, that Christian men solemnly declared that it was
a divine institution. What is it that has kept war alive for all these
centuries? Largely, that bishops and preachers have always been ready to
bless colours, and to read a Christening service over a man-of-war--and,
I suppose, to ask God that an eighty-ton gun might be blessed to smash
our enemies to pieces, and not to blow our sailors to bits. And what is
it that preserves the crying evils of our community, the immoralities,
the drunkenness, the trade dishonesty, and all the other things that I
do not need to remind you of in the pulpit? Largely this, that
professing Christians are mixed up with them. If only the whole body of
those who profess and call themselves Christians would shake their hands
clear of all complicity with such things, they could not last.
Individual responsibility for collective action needs to be far more
solemnly laid to heart by professing Christians than ever it has been.
Nor need I remind you, I suppose, with what fatal effects on the Gospel
and the Church itself all such complicity is attended. Even the
companions of wrongdoers despise, whilst they fraternise with, the
professing Christian who has no higher standard than their own. What was
it that made the Church victorious over the combined forces of imperial
persecution, pagan superstition, and philosophic speculation? I believe
that among all the causes that a well-known historian has laid down for
the triumph of Christianity, what was as powerful as--I was going to say
even more than--the Gospel of peace and love which the Church proclaimed
was the standard of austere morality which it held up to a world rotting
in its own filth. And sure I am that wherever the Church says, 'So do
not I, because of the fear of the Lord,' it will gain a power, and will
be regarded with a possibly reluctant, but a very real, respect which no
easy-going coming down to the level of popular moralities will ever
secure for a silver-slippered Christianity. And so, brethren, I would
say to you, Do not be afraid of the old name _Puritan_. Ignorant people
use it as a scoff. It should be a crown of glory. 'Have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness.'
But how is this to be done? Well, of course, there is only one way of
abstaining, and that is, to abstain. But there are a great many
different ways of abstaining. Light is not fire. And the more that
Christian people feel themselves bound to stand aloof from common evils,
the more are they bound to see that they do it in the spirit of the
Master, which is meekness. It is always an invidious position to take
up. And if we take it up with any heat and temper, with any lack of
moderation, with any look of ostentation of superior righteousness, or
with any trace of the Boanerges spirit which says, 'Let us call down
fire from heaven and consume them,' our testimony will be weakened, and
the world will have a right to say to us, 'Jesus we know, and Paul we
know; but who are ye?' 'Who made this man a judge and a divider over
us?' 'In meekness instructing them that oppose themselves.'