It may be thought that this clause, at all events, has reference to special epochs only, and especially to the first founding of Christianity. Such a reference, of course, there is. And very remarkable is it how clearly and honestly Christ always warned would-be disciples of what they would earn in this world by following Him.
But He seems to take especial pains to show that He here proclaims a principle of equal generality with the others, by separating the application of it to His immediate hearers which follows in the next verse, from the universal statement in the text. Their individual experience was but to illustrate the general rule, not to exhaust it. And you remember how frequently the same thought is set forth in Scripture in the most perfectly general terms.
1. Notice that antagonism is inevitable between a true Christian and the world.
Take the character as it is sketched in verses preceding. Point by point it is alien from the sympathies and habits of irreligious men. The principles are different, the practices are different.
A true Christian ought to be a standing rebuke to the world, an incarnate conscience.
There are but two ways of ending that antagonism either by bringing the up to character world Christian or letting Christian character down to the world.
2. The certain and uniform result is opposition and dislike, persecution in its reality. Darkness hateth light. Some will, no doubt, be touched; there is that in all which acknowledges how awful goodness is. But men the loftier character is not loved by the lower which it loves.
Aristides' the Just.' Christ Himself.
As to practice a righteous life will not make a man a popular.' And as for opinions'--earnest religious opinions of any sort are distasteful. Not the profession of them, but the reality of them--especially those which seem in any way new or strange--make the average man angrily intolerant of an earnest Christianity which takes its creed seriously and insists on testing conventional life by it. Indolence, self-complacency, and inborn conservatism join forces in resenting the presence of such inconvenient enthusiasts, who upset everything and want to turn the world upside down.'
The moping owl doth to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her ivy tower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign.'
The seeds of the persecuting temper are in human nature, and they germinate in the storms which Christianity brings with it.
3. The phases vary according to circumstances.
We have not to look for the more severe and gross kinds of persecution.
The tendency of the age is to visit no man with penalties for his belief, but to allow the utmost freedom of thought.
The effect of Christianity upon popular morality has been to bring men up towards the standard of Christ's righteousness.
The long proclamation of Christian truth in England has the effect of making mere profession of it a perfectly safe and even proper thing.
But the antagonism remains at bottom the same.
Let a man earnestly accept even the creeds of established religion and live by them, and he will find that out. Let him seek to proclaim and enforce some of those truths of Christianity whose bearing upon social and economical and ecclesiastical questions is but partially understood. Let him set up and stick to a high standard of Christian morality and see what comes of it, in business, say, or in social life.
All that will live godly will suffer persecution.'
4. The present forms are perhaps not less hard to bear than the old ones.
They are, no doubt, very small in contrast with the lions in the arena or the fires of Smithfield. The curled lip, the civil scorn, the alienation of some whose good opinion we would fain have, or, if we stand in some public position, the poisonous slanders of the press, and the contumacious epithets, are trivial but very real tokens of dislike. We have the assassin's tongue instead of the assassin's dagger. But yet such things may call for as much heroism as braving a rack, and the spirit that shoots out the tongue may be as bad as the spirit that yelled, Christianos ad leones:
5. The great reason why professing Christians now know so little about persecution is because there is so little real antagonism. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own.' The Church has leavened the world, but the world has also leavened the Church; and it seems agreed by common consent that there is to be no fanatical goodness of the early primitive pattern. Of course, then, there will be no persecution, where religion goes in silver slippers, and you find Christian men running neck and neck with others, and no man can tell which is which.
Then, again, many escape by avoiding plain Christian duty, shutting themselves up in their own little coteries.
(a). Let us be sure that we never flinch from our Christian character to buy anybody's good opinion.
It is not for us to lower our flags to whoever fires across our bows. Do you never feel it an effort to avow your principles? Do you never feel that they are being smiled away in society? Are you not flattered by being shown that this religion of yours is the one thing that stands between you and cordial reception by these people?
(b) Let us be sure that it is righteousness and Christ which are the grounds of anything of the sort we have to bear, and not our own faults of temper and character.
(c) Let us be sure that we are not persecutors ourselves.
To be so is inherent in human nature.
Men have often been both confessors and inquisitors. The spirit of censorious judgment, of fierce hate, of impatient intolerance, has often disgraced Christian men. It is for us to be only and always meek, merciful peace-bringers; and if men will not accept truth, to seek to win and woo them, not to be angry.
It is very hard to be both firm and tolerant, not letting the foolish heart expand into a lazy glow of benevolence to all beliefs, and so perilling one's own; nor letting intense adherence to our own convictions darken into impotent wrath against their harshest opponents. (But let us remember that as God is our great example of mercy, so Christ is our great example of patience, both under the world's unbelief and the world's persecution.
