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XXI.

WORLDLINESS ENMITY TO GOD.

'Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God. 5 Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6 But He giveth more grace: wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’—JAMES IV. 4–6.

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'HE statements and appeals contained in these verses follow up the remarks in the verses immediately preceding. By the world' here James means obviously, according to a very frequent use of the word in the language of Jesus and the apostles, man and his institutions and surroundings considered as penetrated and controlled by malignant moral influences. God made the world 'very good,' with beauty and harmony everywhere. All things around contributed to man's rational happiness, ever sending up his thoughts and his affections in admiration and love to the great Creator; so that he, in the sublimity of reason and free-will the lord of the creatures, led the chorus of the world's praise. But sin, alluring his heart from his heavenly Father, brought in jarring and discord. The devil became the prince of this world,' and what God had made order he made chaos. The world was now enveloped in a distorting and misleading atmosphere of falsehood. All things presented themselves to man's mind and heart in untrue dimensions and relations; and instead of drawing him towards God, and leading him into 'the land of uprightness,' guided him further away into the 'far country' of wickedness and death. Thus now God, and the world which He created, are morally in opposition to each other.

Our apostle, then, makes a statement concerning the friend

ship of (or "with ") the world, as thus understood. Experience shows that there is considerable possibility of mistake as to what is meant by this 'friendship.' One form of error, for example, is what may be called the monkish. Seeing that we reckon those to be friendly whom we often see by choice in each other's company, the monk concludes that, if not the only, at least the highest, form of a life that aims to escape 'friendship with the world,' is one of retirement; as far as possible, from intercourse with it—one that shuns all association with the accursed thing. This has 'a show of wisdom;' and, beyond doubt, here and there, perhaps in many places, the flower of true piety has bloomed very beautifully in the garden of a monastery. Yet this type of religious life is essentially morbid. It might almost be described as baptized selfishness, for it proceeds on the view that a man's religion is to be a self-contained thing, having no ends or influences beyond his own personal growth in spirituality: whilst the constant teaching of Scripture is, that we are to 'let our light shine before men, that they, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven,' and that we are to 'hold forth the word of life' as well as hold it fast. This can be done, in all ordinary circumstances, only by a life in the world, but under the government of a faith which plainly soars above the world. The great High Priest's supplication for His people was, 'I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.' The tendency of monkery is to utter uselessness; and naturally the energies of the monks themselves grow dull, and all the good that may be in them rusts from want of exercise. There have been monks in the famous monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai for some fourteen hundred years, and not the slightest approach to missionary effort among the darkened tribes around seems ever to have been put forth. Nay, the descendants of some hundreds of professed Christians, who in the early ages were given to be servants of the monks, have been so neglected religiously as to lapse into Mohammedanism; whilst the monks themselves are described by travellers as having countenances deeply

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marked with melancholy, and singularly destitute of intellectual expression. This is the legitimate working of the system, for the want of a free natural life amidst their fellow-creatures has a most debasing and narrowing influence. Now, brethren, although we from our training and circumstances have no temptation to become monks, yet we must remember that this is but the extreme form of a tendency which under a diseased state of feeling may obtain some dominion over us,—the tendency to shrink from a free and energetic outward life, and to brood in indolent solitude on our spiritual condition. Our Master ever and anon retired to the wilderness and to lonely mountain-sides, to commune with His Father, and receive strength for labour; but His life was pre-eminently one spent in the world, in constant and close contact with men. 'Friendship with the world,' then, does not mean simple presence in the midst of the activities of the world, and taking part in its work.

Another error on this subject, by way of defect, to which in our time professing Christians are much more liable than that we have now been speaking of, is the belief that 'friendship with the world,' or conformity to the world, is shown only in attending balls, card-parties, theatres, and the like; so that among those who shun these scenes there is necessarily nothing of what the apostle here condemns. Now, no thoughtful Christian, as it seems to me, can doubt for a moment that there is some hazard to spiritual life, and to influence for good, in even occasional visits to scenes of mere frivolous excitement and amusement, and that the habitual or frequent resort to them shows concentrated and deplorable worldliness,-involving, as such conduct does, much waste of precious time, an outlay of money wholly inconsistent with adherence to the Scripture principle of stewardship for God, and much social intercourse of a spiritually debasing kind. But 'friendship for the world' may exist, and even rule, apart from any indulgences like these, and in connection with a most quiet and decorous life; for worldliness is the spirit of a life, not its outward form, and may be in full activity as the spirit, where the body of the life

has been moulded by the pressure of education and circumstances into a form which one might expect to find inhabited by a spirit of heavenly-mindedness.

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The question then, you observe, is strictly one in regard to the state of the affections. Friendship implies substantial accordance of opinion and of aims. Two cannot walk together—that is, be intimate friends-' except they be agreed' in their views on all matters which they deem of primary importance. Now the unregenerate world plainly considers that the great object of each man's life should be to aggrandize, and glorify, and enjoy himself, and that, thinking as little of God and of a future life as he can, he should seek his portion on the earth. The riches which it believes in and seeks are those that 'perish with the using;' the honour, that 'which comes from men, and not from God only.' With innumerable varieties in detail, these are the great and unvarying general articles of the world's creed,-a creed held, alas, there is every reason to fear, by multitudes who would be greatly astonished, and think themselves greatly wronged, if they were told that they held it, and which many will never see to be theirs until they read their hearts by the light shining around the Judge as He seats Himself on the throne. Now, where there is sympathy with this creed of the world, and with the world's desires, there, in the measure of the sympathy, is an approach to the 'friendship with the world' of which our apostle speaks, and under the power of which he intimates that many of his readers-if one might judge from their wars and fightings' for earthly advantages-had fallen, or were in imminent danger of falling. Where this sympathy is so strong that there is more love for the world and its pursuits than for God and His cause, there is the 'friendship' in fulness.

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This friendship,' he says, 'is enmity with God.' Observe the strength of the expression. Occasionally in the world we see a man having a friendship of a kind with both of two parties who are opposed to each other; and often the friend of one who is hostile to another may remain in a relation at least of indifference to that other. But in the case before us

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nothing of this sort is possible. Enmity' is merely a short form of enemy-ty,' the state of an enemy; and thus we have the matter clearly set before us : The friendship of the world is the condition of an enemy to God.' There is a direct opposition between the views and desires and aims of the world and those of God; and from the relation in which we stand to Him, there can be no neutrality of position or feeling. If we are the friends of the world, then we are God's enemies; for through the simple fact that we are His moral creatures, we are under obligation to be His loving servants, and we cannot serve God and mammon.' 'The carnal mind'-the spirit of the world-' is enmity against God; for (here we have the sum of the whole matter) 'it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.'

For professing Christians to have 'friendship with the world' involves, the apostle intimates, a peculiar criminality. They are 'adulterers and adulteresses,' or, according to the best au thenticated reading, simply 'adulteresses.' A little consideration of the scope of the passage shows that this name is not intended to be taken literally, as charging the apostle's readers with violation of the marriage-bond. To such a charge there is not the slightest allusion anywhere in the verses, and what follows equally with what precedes has plainly reference to worldliness of spirit and life. But James speaks according to that very common Old Testament figure, familiar to all his Jewish readers, in which God, with infinite condescension and grace, represents Himself as the Husband of Israel,—who was, alas, an unfaithful spouse. Similarly, the Lord Jesus spoke of the Jewish church of His time as 'a wicked and adulterous generaIn James's individualizing word, 'adulteresses,' there is something very startling and rousing. When, according to the ordinary form of the image, a church is accused of being 'adulterous,' each member is very apt to hide himself in the crowd, and shake off the thought of personal guilt. But our apostle presses the matter home to every conscience, reminding his readers that each professing Christian soul which, yielding to the lust of the eyes, or the lust of the flesh, or the

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