Having therefore these promises . . . let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of
God.'--2 COR. vii. 1.
It is often made a charge against professing Christians that their
religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has
sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it
is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be
distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's
religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy does not condemn them
half so emphatically as their own religion does: the sharpest censure of
others is not so sharp as the rebukes of the New Testament. If there is
one thing which it insists upon more than another, it is that religion
without morality is nothing--that the one test to which, after all,
every man must submit is, what sort of character has he and how has he
behaved--is he pure or foul? All high-flown pretension, all fervid
emotion has at last to face the question which little children ask, 'Was
he a good man?'
The Apostle has been speaking about very high and mystical truths, about
all Christians being the temple of God, about God dwelling in men, about
men and women being His sons and daughters; these are the very truths
on which so often fervid imaginations have built up a mystical piety
that had little to do with the common rules of right and wrong. But Paul
keeps true to the intensely practical purpose of his preaching and
brings his heroes down to the prosaic earth with the homely common sense
of this far-reaching exhortation, which he gives as the fitting
conclusion for such celestial visions.