al, respect which no
easy-going coming down to the level of popular moralities will ever
secure for a silver-slippered Christianity. And so, brethren, I would
say to you, Do not be afraid of the old name _Puritan_. Ignorant people
use it as a scoff. It should be a crown of glory. 'Have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness.'

But how is this to be done? Well, of course, there is only one way of
abstaining, and that is, to abstain. But there are a great many
different ways of abstaining. Light is not fire. And the more that
Christian people feel themselves bound to stand aloof from common evils,
the more are they bound to see that they do it in the spirit of the
Master, which is meekness. It is always an invidious position to take
up. And if we take it up with any heat and temper, with any lack of
moderation, with any look of ostentation of superior righteousness, or
with any trace of the Boanerges spirit which says, 'Let us call down
fire from heaven and consume them,' our testimony will be weakened, and
the world will have a right to say to us, 'Jesus we know, and Paul we
know; but who are ye?' 'Who made this man a judge and a divider over
us?' 'In meekness instructing them that oppose themselves.'

III. Lastly, note the still harder Christian duty of vigorous protest.

The further duty beyond abstinence which the text enjoins is
inadequately represented by our version, 'but rather reprove them.' For
the word rendered in our version 'reprove' is the same which our Lord
employed when He spoke of the mission of the Comforter as being to
'convince (or convict) the world of sin.' And it does not merely mean
'reprove,' but so to reprove as to produce the conviction which is the
object of the reproof.

This task is laid on the shoulders of all professing Christians. A
_silent_ abstinence is not enough. No doubt, the best way, in some
circumstances, to convict the darkness is to shine. Our holiness will
convict sin of its ugliness. Our light will reveal the gloom. The
presentation of a Christian life is the Christian man's mightiest weapon
in his conflict with the world's evil. But that is not all. And if
Christian people think that they have done all their duty, in regard to
clamant and common iniquities, by simply abstaining from them and
presenting a nobler example, they have yet to learn one very important
chapter of their duty. A dumb Church is a dying Church, and it ought to
be; for Christ has sent us