THE WORLDLY WISDOM OF ST. PAUL.
THERE is a tendency just now among both believers and doubters to emphasise the mystical side of Christianity, and to forget how very much secular wisdom is to be found in the New Testament. "Using this world aad not abusing it" is .a phrase which has seen much hard service, and is certainly the worse for wear. A good many people, we believe, if suddenly asked whether it was in the Bible, would reply that it was not. It has been so long torn out of its context as now to suggest the copybook rather than the Scriptures. Yet there it stands in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, though the grammatical form has been slightly altered for colloquial convenience, and it forms a key to one side of his teaching. The expression " worldly wisdom" means, as a rule, the wisdom which is born of self- interest. Of such a wisdom as this the Apostle knew nothing. But there is a wisdom—which might be called worldly if the adjective had acquired no derogatory meaning—with- out which no cause can be successful in a world made up of average men and women. Of this wisdom St. Paul had a great deal. Like most other men of supreme greatness, he was full of that common-sense without which the force of religious genius tends to evaporate. He was for ever on his guard lest the fervour by which his convects were inspired should lead them to ruin their cause by disregard of ordinary prudence and foresight, He urged them not to neglect all those precautions by which men safeguard their worldly undertakings, and to cultivate those qualities of mind and temper which tend to make men influential among their fellows. He wanted them, he said, not to be " conformed to this world," but " transformed " by the "renewing" of their " mind." Their ideals were to be new, but they were not to neglect those energies by which men with lower aims al ta'ned their goal. The task be set before himself was, even in its conception, almost superhuman ; but, vast as it was, he saw that if in his lifetime it was to be well begun it must be to a great extent delimited. The political side of life must be left alone, and the political status quo as far as possible accepted. The pagan world might lie in religious darkness, but it had a very good idea of law and order, and godliness without order was, he was convinced, impossible. Accordingly he corn- mended his converts to pay tribute. God, he said, was not a God of confusion. Rulers, he taught, were not a terror to good works but to evil. " Wilt thou than not be afraid of the power ? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same," he advised, and his advice must come like a douche of cold water in the faces of many Christian malcontents. No doubt he was not infallible, and, with a wisdom which the moralists of to-day may criticise, he let the question of slavery alone, asserting only a complete equality before God, urging slaves to obey their masters, and putting Christian masters in mind that with Christ there was no respect of persons. Again, all through his Epistles we find serious warnings given to the various Churches not to become esoteric, not to live even in times of toleration 'as though the outside world did not exist for them, or as if its opinion were of no account. They must not imagine they could live and die to themselves. " Provide things honest in the sight of all men," he said; and repeating the same on another occasion, he added, "not only in the sight of the Lord." So fat. as possible they were' to keep the peace with all parties, giving no offence "to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God," and they were to see that all officers of the Church have " a good report of them which are without."
In one of his pastoral letters St. Paul' shows some anxiety lest a stranger entering the Christian assembly should mistake enthusiasm for madness. Members of such a congregation should, he said, speak one at a time, and speak intelligently.' He did not ask them to "despise prophesyings," but he did insist that they should "prove all things." The best wisdom of the 'world is no substitute, he, knew, for an inspired faith. To be a Christian at all a man must sometimes be prepared to say: "The world by wisdom knew not God," and " We are fools for Christ's sake"; but a man may refuse to be altogether bound by expediency, or even by logic, and yet not be unreasonable. " In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men," he said.
Upon those within the Church of God he constantly urged the keeping of peace at almost any hazard, and in such a manner as would certainly be thought latitudinarian to-day. For his own part, he told them, he had made the greatest effort of which he was capable to take the point of view of those who talked to him of the faith. To the Jews he spoke as a Jew, to those outside the Jewish law as also outside it. He sympathised with the weak' in faith, and recommended their stronger brethren to receive them. "but not to doubtful dis- putations." Christianity must first make its way, he realised, among the common people. We hear of some converts who were of " Caesar's household," but Paul warns the Churches against too much desire to make great converts. "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate." It was of the broader minded and more cultivated among his hearers that he always demanded sacrifice. He and they, he said, knew that an idol was nothing at all, that all days were alike, and that it could not make the slightest difference to a man's spiritual state what he ate or drank ; but they must be willing to give up their liberty if they found themselves offending the ignorant. "Meat commendeth us not to God," but is to be eaten or avoided entirely with a view to the moral profit of man.
All this secular wisdom, and much more of a like nature, plainly shows that the early Church had within herself an infinite power of self-adjustment, and that the earliest Christian theologian did not scruple to consider present necessities. Surely we in the present day may without scruple profit by big example. The imperfect social and political conditions to which the majority will always have to submit themselves are constantly changing. They are stable in nothing but their imperfection. To accept them will always mean to the Christian Church new and different sacrifices. In order to be all things to all men that he may by all means save some, a man must belong to his own age and not to that of St. Paul. The Church is con- stantly faced with new superstitions which must be tenderly dealt with, new respectabilities and conventions which must not be outraged, new enthusiasms which must be held in reasonable check, and a new set of idols and a new regard for days. Modern wise men must suffer modern fools with a modern equanimity.
But, again, it may be said : "All this is true enough; but when St. Paul speaks the wisdom of this world we feel that his teaching is on a very different plane from that of the Gospels, and when the Church to-day seeks to emulate him in this respect we feel disposed to remind her that it is Christ, and not Paul of Tarsus, who is her one foundation." There is much also to be said for this view. On the other hand, it seems as though Christianity had needed from the first to be embodied in a system ; and series of systems have succeeded one another, each of which has waxed old, as cloth a garment. As they approach their end the spiritually minded cry out, as St. Paul cried before them : " Who shall deliver us from the body of this death ?" No system was prohibited or prescribed by Christ. All systems, no doubt, belong to that heaven and that earth which are passing away, and make no essential part of the eternal Word. Nevertheless, history proves that the vital principle of Christianity is most active when embodied in the system most suited to the age, and it is by such worldly wisdom as that prescribed by St. Paul that evolution may be substituted for decay.
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