The Church and the World.
WHILE the condition of things may change somewhat from age to age, the great leading features, the essential principles, remain the same. The forces of the world may be a little differently grouped, the dominancy may rest here or there, still the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world are, in this generation, as in every preceding one, antagonistic to each other. Therefore, in any union which may be effected between the two bodies, there must, of necessity, be a radical change. Of course there is no question as to which ought to change. The church was established for the very purpose of making the world an entirely different body; indeed, it was so to act upon those outside of itself as to secure the introduction of a new spirit and then, by taking them into itself, carry forward the renovating work unto completeness. The church was to convert the world, and not the world the church. But as we have seen, in Christ's day there was a party which had the name of being in the church of God. They had the sacred Scriptures, they were zealous in very many particulars; after all, though having the form of godliness, they very decidedly denied the power of it. The Pharisees had gone over to the world. As Christ said, they substituted the honor of each other for the honor of the Lord. They set up their interpretations above the plain import of the written word. They became partisan religionists. They really acted out from their own personality as a source, not as a messenger conveying from God, as a source, a knowledge of his will. The Pharisees had modified the teaching of the law to suit themselves. They had, gone about to establish their own righteousness, refusing to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. In other words, they were in the line of those who had yielded to the temptation to introduce the worldly element into the church for the sake of making converts to their body. They came down from the high plane of being prophets and servants of God to the low level of catering to the ambitions and prejudices of fallen human nature. That is the line of temptation running all through the centuries. As the church faces the world there are, accompanying the desire for conquest, various suggestions as to the way, the most successful way, of doing it. If the prince of this world, as Christ calls him, could think of bringing to bear his influence upon the Son of God, as he did in the second of the temptations of the wilderness, to see if he would conform to worldly methods in the establishing of his kingdom, we certainly are to expect that he will do the same with his followers. How sad the record which the history of the church gives us! Though holding itself separate from the spirit and methods of the world, for a while at first, it afterward sadly illustrated the folly of attempting a compromise. The corruptions of the early Catholic Church grew out of the willingness to make converts even at the expense of allowing the pagan and the barbarian to bring in with them into the church some of their superstitious practices. The Roman Catholic Church is properly named, for it is as its name imports, part Christian and part Roman. The union is the result of an unholy bargain. The pope has gone forth really in his own name, or his own chosen name, High Pontiff, adopted from the Roman high priest and emperor, and has acted accordingly, claiming the world as his empire, not hesitating to use the power of the sword and the ingenious subtleties of the Jesuits in political diplomacy. But the Pharisees and papal hierarchy are not felt to be very near us. And yet they are—as near as heart is to another heart. Their temptations were unlike each other, and yet they sprang from the same generic source. And the temptation of a Protestant church, however humble and obscure it may be, belongs to this same class. It is the temptation to act principally with a view to being acceptable to the world. —B. A. Greene, in the Watchman.