Moral Friction | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 12, 1865

Moral Friction.

ThE laws of moral friction are very similar to those of mechanical friction. Bodies that press heavily against the surface of other objects are necessarily retarded in their progress. It is on the same principle that many Christians move so heavily and sluggishly on the heavenly journey. They are so loaded down with worldly love and selfish care that great moral friction is produced, which frequently results in the racking and disjointing of their profession. It is not our being within or upon the world, that produces this friction, but it is the world's being within or upon us. Philosophers tell us that it is not the greater extent of surface hrought into contact that produces the greater friction, but the additional weight and pressure brought to bear upon a given surface. Even so may a Christian be brought into contact with worldly care on every side, and yet move smoothly and rapidly on the divine pathway. We may eat with publicans and sinners without acting as publicans and sinners. We may have to do with the world without being corrupted with the world. "I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil."