Christian community

“ Do not isolate yourself, standing aloof from the general Christian community, but seek the acquaintance of all good men. Show a friendly, cordial spirit and a readiness for all offices of kindness, alike in the relations of social life and on those public occasions when all Christians gather for united counsel and worship. In such a course you will find the love and sympathy of the Christian community attracted to you, greatly augmenting your comfort and influence, and giving added power to your public work. ”

“ A whole-hearted Christian life which has in view all the relations of the Kingdom of God in this or in any other world, which loves God and loves its neighbour in God, is quite the best contribution that a human being can make to the cause of social progress. If it were possible to put in evidence anywhere a wholly Christian community I am quite convinced that we should see that our social problems were there solved. ”

“ We are social beings; we are, as we are beginning to see more plainly, brothers in a community; we must organize our religion as we organize everything else in which the community of persons has its common interest. And God, the Christian may say, and has said, would not leave us, has not left us, to uncertainty and to our questioning and wondering and speculative adventure. ”

“ The Church was gradually transformed from being a community of saints—of men who were bound together by the bond of a holy life, separated from the mass of society, and in antagonism to it—to a community of men whose moral ideal and moral practice differed in but few respects from those of their Gentile neighbours. ”

“ Finally, and most important, we must recognize that no other institution can take the place of the Christian church as a source of those ideals of life which give religious sanction to loyalty to the common good—to the community—rather than to self or particular interests. ”

“ The results of religious work must appear in the lives of the people, in the Christian sentiment of the community, in the upward trend of all things that make for righteousness and for the establishment and prevalence of the kingdom of God. ”

“ For if any one follow after wickedness and do things contrary to the will of God, such a one will be counted as a nation that transgresses against God. [162] Abstain then from all covetousness and unrighteousness.” [298]
2. The second proof is afforded by the place which discipline held in contemporary Christian life. The Christians were drawn together into communities. Isolation was discouraged and soon passed away. To be a Christian was to be a member of a community. The basis of the community was not only a common belief, but also a common practice. ”

“ It is well known that the early Christian church was persecuted because, from the first, it preached a total regeneration of human society and its reëstablishment of a basis of peace and good-will, social equality, absolute justice, mutual aid, respect and sympathy, unselfish, disinterested subservience of the individual to the interest of the community. ”

“ If Christians are as grateful to God, to Christ, and to the Bible as they should be, they will give attention to every problem that affects the individual, the community, and the larger units of society and government. They will consider it their duty to carry their religion into business and politics and to apply the teachings of Christ to every subject that affects human welfare. In another lecture I call attention to the Church's duty to reconcile capital and labour, and to teach God's law of rewards. ”

“ The community consider the chief problem of Christianity to be, not merely the bringing of its principles to living recognition among the members of the community, by public worship, teaching, and instruction, but also the promoting, according to their ability, the spiritual, moral, and physical good of their fellow-men, without distinction.—Art. ”

“ Put thus on the defensive, it may be well to recur to first principles, in order to satisfy ourselves that the church is the unit idea in all Christian labor. And to unfold that idea in the conversion of men, and to make it potential in society, through the preaching of the Gospel and the sanctified lives of believers, is the end of the family, of the school, and of all the forces which go to civilize and uplift communities. ”

“ You see, the Church is supposed to look after the morals of the community. That is a great relief—it simplifies life and makes it much more honest. The Church does the best it can, and the State helps it out when necessary. ”

“ True, the Church is or should be at each moment of its career such a living spiritual society or household of faith. It is, essentially, a community of persons, who have or should have a common sentiment—belief in, and reverence for, their God—and a common defined aim, the furtherance of the spiritual life under the special religious sanctions which they accept. ”

“ Let the value and necessity of an Established Church be recognized by the evidence of its usefulness; let the pure doctrines of the Gospel be proclaimed in our pulpits; and a noble ardour and co-operation be manifested in the prosperity of our great Institutions,—our Bible, Missionary, and Jewish societies. She will then attract the favour, the love, and the veneration of the poor, and diffuse a holy and purifying influence among all classes in the community. Her priests will thus be clothed with righteousness, and her saints shout for joy. ”

“ That we do deplore the perversion of the power of God, as men and Christians, and believe it highly commendable to this, the only true society of Christian principles, to associate and connect ourselves with all churches, of every denomination, and with all societies, not for the purpose of supporting them, but through these means to the furthering of our own designs. ”

“ The church that shall go into the business of becoming self-conscious and of realizing its democracy will hear God’s summons to community redemption and begin to re-scale the map of church importance and usefulness in the community on heroic lines. ”

“ Small as our numbers are, compared with the bulk of the community among whom we live, I believe, that if we are faithful to God, we have an important part to act as a distinct religious Society. It is therefore my fervent desire, that, accepting the whole truth of the Gospel, and walking in accordance therewith, as it is set forth by the Evangelists and Apostles—that, living in love and charity towards all men, we may all, younger and older, unitedly labour for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. ”

“ Therefore, I hold that it is the duty of all christian men, and of the Christian Church also, to work in the first place towards the amelioration of personal character, and to have the influence from that emanate into society. ”

“ Does not the visible Scriptural unity of the Christian Church consist in the unity of her public profession and practice, and, under this, in the manifest charity of her members, one toward another, and not in the unity of private opinion and practice of every individual? ”

“ The gradually ameliorating influence exercised by the exhibition of the religion of Jesus Christ in purity of life, in ceaseless benevolence, in truthfulness and loyalty to engagements, in kind and just dealing, in temperance and self-denial, and the many virtues which make up Christian discipleship, and the dissemination in the city and neighbourhood of a higher teaching on the duties of common life, illustrated by example, not in fits and starts, but through years of loving and patient labour. ”

“ A church truly Christian, professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which aims directly at the welfare of man. ”

“ He thought that Christians of all denominations should form one great community, united and upheld by the bonds of charity and brotherly love; with the exception, however, of Roman Catholics, who, on account of their idolatrous worship and persecuting spirit, must be unfit members of such a society. ”

“ Even where church and state are, in theory, quite divorced—a modern conception—the church with its ordinances and prescriptions, its sacred days, its ceremonial, its educational institutions, remains a very significant factor in the social environment of man. Religious duties have at all times and in all sorts of societies been regarded as constituting an important aspect of conduct. They color strongly the mores of the community. ”

“ Christ said "I am come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly." If this statement is accepted at its face value, then we have the foundation for judging every activity in which the church may partake. Does the activity tend to increase the material and spiritual welfare of the community, so that the influences that tend to the extermination of the group are less? ”

“ I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the community of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and an everlasting life. ”

“ That society is the society that Christ came to found upon earth; and what the State cannot do by its laws—what society dare not do by its forgiveness—the Church of the loving Saviour of men can do by the strength He puts into it, and by the love with which He fills it. It is in the Church, and in the Church of Christ alone, that there can be entire forgiveness for the penitent, because the Church of Christ alone is strong enough to overcome and reclaim. And therefore this work is especially the work of the Christian Church. I hold that it is eminently Christian work. ”

“ The Church and all its doings must serve the Kingdom of God.
II The social efficiency of religion is a permanent social problem. What is the annual expense of maintaining the churches in the United States? How much capital is invested in the church buildings? (See U. S. Census Bulletin No. 103, of 1906.) How much care and interest and loving free-will labor does an average village community bestow on religion as compared with other objects? All men feel instinctively that religion exerts a profound and subtle influence on the springs of conduct. ”

“ If a community of people are perfectly devoted to the cause of righteousness, truth, light, virtue, and every principle and attribute of the holy Gospel, we may say of that people, as the ancient Apostle said to his brethren, "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates;" ”

“ The church has the wealth. I need only say, that the church represents by far the largest proportion of the money of our communities. Take our own city for instance, and count up our wealthiest men, and you will find that the most of them are not only members of congregations, but also members of churches.
4. The church ought to deal with young men, because she represents the only restraining and reforming power.
[pg 093] No reform that is not Christian in its essence is radical. No restraint that is not Christian is permanently effective. ”

“ Make a community deep fertilized by the idea of Mormonism, train your children in it, cling one family to the other in helpfulness and to the church in faith. Co-operate with each other and with the church, and the church will stand by you and loan you money, give you advice, be your very fountain of life. ”

“ So again he was always eager to insist on the essential points of union between various denominations of Christians. He was throughout his life an unflinching advocate of the connexion between Church and State. By this he under- stood: (1) " the recognition and support on the part of the state of the religious expression of the faith of the community," and (2) "that this religious expression of the faith of the community on the most sacred and most vital of all its interests should be controlled and guided by the whole community through the supremacy of law." ”

“ The Church is one society, nay, the world is one society, for man without his fellow-men is not; and into the society, both of the Church and the world, are inextricably woven the most social sacraments. ”

“ Has the religion of Christ been a disturber of the social organization where social rights were properly understood and regarded? or has it set aside the rights and obligations of men in social life where men were enjoying peaceable, happy relations? Does its legitimate influence make men more wicked and miserable? An honest answer to these questions will commend the religion of Jesus Christ, and do honor to him as our Lord and Master. The Scriptures have been the means of establishing institutions which have stood for centuries. ”

“ We are also to tell how that, out of the furnace fires of such a strife, a community of churches grew up that have for their purpose a restoration of primitive and apostolic Christianity, and the unity of all Christians under a supreme loyalty, to the Lord Jesus Christ as our only Leader and Lawgiver, and as the great Author of our American civilization. ”

“ Another important fact which the history of the acts of the Apostles, and the first age of the church reveals, is that every community whether it consists of ten individuals, or ten millions contains within herself all the official materials, necessary for her official wants. This is the work and the gift of God, who furnishes for society and the world, those talents that are needed, and just as they are needed. ”

“ On the one hand, do theological doctrines—the most adequate statements we can make of the great Christian truths—best explain and best ground the social consciousness, so as best to bring our entire thought in this sphere of the social into unity? ”