MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. Belief in God. 176 pages. 1882 SERMONS AND ESSAYS. Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873 $1.00 Life Questions. 159 pages. 1879 Talks about Jesus. 161 pages. 1881 1.50 1.00 191 pages. 1880 1 00 1.00 1.00 1882 1.00 1.00 1.00 200 pages. 1884 1.00 The Religious Life. 212 pages. 1885 1.00 Social Problems. 189 pages. 1886. 1.00 My Creed. 204 pages. 1887. 1.00 Religious Reconstruction. 246 pages. 1888 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Four Great Questions concerning God. 86 PP. .25 1.00 .25 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.50 .50 .75 Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Unity Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass. WORLDLINESS. My subject this morning is "Worldliness," and my text is in the twelfth chapter of Romans and second verse: "And be ye not fashioned according to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." In order that the full meaning and force of this word "worldliness" may appear to us, it will be necessary for me to tell you what was the New Testament meaning of the term. We have largely outgrown it, so that it does not carry to us to-day anything like the power, the significance, that it had to the New Testament writers, and to those that weighed their words. Worldliness, then, was a comprehensive term, inclusive of almost everything that was evil, that threatened the welfare, the safety, of the soul. This you will understand very easily when you remember that, in accordance with the doctrine of the fall of man, it was universally held at that time that all men were the rightful subjects of Satan. When Adam, "our federal head and representative," to use the terms of the old theology, voluntarily chose the evil, he put himself in the power and under the government of the prince of evil, and became his subject and servant. You will remember also that it was believed at that time that the fall not only touched and tainted human nature, but that it touched and corrupted also all the nature which is below the human. The earth itself felt the shock. Whereas before everything was fair and all the growths of the earth were healthful, now there sprang up thorns and thistles; disease and pain and death came into the world,- things, according to this doctrine, unknown and unthought of before. So that Paul expresses the idea popular in his age, that the whole creation was groaning, was travailing in pain, waiting for that day when man would be redeemed and it might share in the redemption. For it was supposed that, when this process of moral redemption on the part of the human race was perfected, then the evil effects apparent in the material world around us were to disappear. There was to be no more pain or sorrow or evil of any kind; a new heaven and a new earth were to take the place of the old. This now with us has become poetry and figure of speech. It was real fact with them. So true is this that for hundreds of years—indeed, nearly all the time of the first thousand years of Christian history -the popular doctrine of the atonement was that the suffering and the death of Jesus were a literal price paid to the devil in exchange for so many human souls as should accept his offer of salvation, and so transfer their allegiance from the god of this world to the kingdom of heaven. This in all literalness was held and taught. You can imagine, then, that the early Christians felt that they were living in an enemy's country. You can understand why they should have consecrated churches and places of abode, even consecrated spots in which to lay away the bodies of their dead, little places in this kingdom of the world that were set apart and made holy, little camping-grounds in the enemy's territory. Right here, of course, is the secret of the monastic temper and tendency which so long prevailed in the early Church and throughout the Middle Ages. Feeling that it was practically impossible, at least suddenly, to reform the world, men in fear fled away from it, seeking to get out of contact with its corrupt, its depressing, its degrading influences, seeking spots where they might meditate, where they might come into union with God, where they might avoid touch and so complicity with the evil and dangerous ways of the world. The Prayer Book, you know, still retains the old meaning. When a man joins the church or when a child is christened, there is a vow of renunciation, not only of the flesh and of the devil, but of the world. The new convert pledges himself that he will come out of the world and lead an unworldly life, recognizing the antagonism between the two. You remember that phrase of Mr. Moody's — and he was in dead earnest in using it- when he said: "There is no use in trying to save this world as a whole. It is a wreck bound to sink; and the best that we can do is to get off as many of the passengers and crew as possible, and let her go." This, you see, is the logical consequence of that old idea that the world belongs to the Evil One. There are large numbers of Christians still who hold this in all sincerity. During the last week or two we have had a convention representing believers in this doctrine all over the country,- people who are looking not to the reform of this world, not to a gradual growth of goodness into the millennium, but expecting the immediate or speedy coming of Christ in the clouds to put an end to this present evil order and establish the spiritual in its place. This idea has about it a touch of that which is carried to its logical conclusion in the Persian Zoroastrian religion. They believed that the entire period of human history is an age-long conflict between two opposing kingdoms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of good and the kingdom of evil,- and that those who represent the light and the good must come out and be separated from those that stand for the opposite principles. Right here is the key to those movements that we have seen so many times in the Church. The Pilgrims were comeouters the Puritans were separatists inside of the Church. They did not feel that they were obliged to leave the Church, but they created a new spiritual order within ecclesiastical limits. So spiritually they came out, though externally they still seemed to conform. Jesus himself, if he is correctly reported, accepts in the main this idea. The world to him is under the dominion The New Testament everywhere tells us of the evil one. |