XVIII.

NATURE AND DANGER OF EVIL COMMUNICATIONS.

1 Cor. XV. 33.-Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.* [PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE, IN AUGUST, 1826.]

THIS passage is taken from a heathen poet, Menander, and shows that Paul was not unacquainted with the literature of the pagan world. By this he was peculiarly fitted for some parts of his work, being destined to bear the name of Christ before princes, magistrates, and philosophers, especially in the Roman and Grecian parts of the earth. The maxim accords with universal experience, and was worthy, therefore, of being adopted as a portion of those records of eternal truth which are to be the guide of mankind in all succeeding ages.

The connexion is not that in which we should have expected such a maxim to be inserted, it is in the midst of a very affecting and instructive view of the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting; but the occasion of it was this: the Corinthians had received, from the intrusion of false teachers, principles which militated against that great doctrine. They had been taught to explain it away, and to resolve it merely into a moral process which takes place in the present world; interpreting what is said of the resurrection of the dead in a mystical and figurative manner. The apostle insinuates, that it was by a mixture of the corrupt communications of these men with the Christian church, and the intimate contact into which they had permitted themselves to come with them, that they had been led off from the fundamental doctrine of the gospel, and rejected a primary part of the apostolic testimony. "For, if there be no resurrection of the dead, then," as he observed, "is Christ not risen, and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain; ye are yet in your sins."

We see, that, notwithstanding the apostle had planted pure Christianity among the Corinthians, and had confirmed it by the most extraordinary miracles and supernatural operations; yet, such was the contagion of evil example and corrupt communication, that the members of the Corinthian church, in a very short time, departed from the fundamental articles of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ; and hence we may learn the importance, nay, the necessity, of being on our guard in this respect, and of avoiding such confidence in ourselves as might induce us to neglect the caution here so forcibly expressed. "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners."

Among the first things accomplished by our blessed Lord after his This sermon has been prepared by collating and blending the notes of the Hon. Mr. Baron Gurney with those of Joshua Wilson, Esq. † 1 Cor. xv. 13, 14, 17.

ascension was the organization of the Christian churches by his Word and Spirit through the instrumentality of his apostles. These he placed under suitable laws, appointing proper officers, and regulating them by the simple maxims of mutual love, forbearance, and charity and no doubt the great design which he had in thus forming Christian churches was to furnish room for the cultivation of a social spirit, without that danger of infection which would spring from it in a world abounding with evil examples, and actuated by evil maxims. Knowing that man is naturally a social creature, and prone to unite with his kind, he was pleased to form a select society wherein the exercise of the social affections might tend to the purification of the heart, the sanctification of the character, and the perfecting of man in the image of God and the Redeemer. A principle of action so efficacious as that of the social affections, by which men are perpetually assimilating themselves to one another, was not to be neglected by the great founder of our religion. He has consecrated it in the formation of Christian churches, and thus erected the strongest rampart against the incursions of evil example, and the influence of a "world that lieth in wickedness."

In considering these words, there are three things to which I would request your serious attention:

In the first place, I shall state what those communications are which may be termed “evil.”

Secondly, explain the way in which they operate so as to "corrupt good manners:" and,

Thirdly, shall endeavour to enforce the warning, or exhortation, insinuated or comprehended in the passage, "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners."

I. It will be natural to inquire, What are "evil communications?" It is plainly impossible, in the present state of the world, entirely to avoid intercourse with bad men; this would be, as the apostle observed, "to go out of the world." "I write unto you," said he, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, "not to company with fornicators; howbeit, not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world: but now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, no not to eat.”* 'The intercourse of society must be maintained, without respect to the characters of men, to such an extent as the business of life requires. No one can possibly avoid occasional intercourse with those with whom habitual communications would be in the highest degree dangerous. If he is led into such society by the demands of his calling, the very necessity of going into it, in distinction from his choice of it, will excite a degree of caution well calculated to counteract the contagion; and, being in the path of duty, such a person may expect to be upheld by the succours of Divine grace, which are never withheld from those who commit themselves to the guidance of God. An

* 1 Cor. v. 10, 11.

unsocial spirit, that would lead us, like the Essenes of old, into the solitudes of the wilderness, and to desert the active stations of human society, though it would be accompanied with the advantage of being entirely exempted from evil example, would be utterly inconsistent with the genius of Christianity, and the example of our great Lord. But still, we must not, under pretence of yielding to the necessary calls of business, cultivate and cherish that "evil communication" which is here said to "corrupt good manners."

1. Now, in the first place, that communication may be justly regarded evil, in the highest sense, which is corrupt in relation to its immediate tendency to taint the purity of the mind by associations of a lascivious and sensual nature. That conversation which is calculated to bring before the mind images of indelicacy and impurity, which owes its zest and force to the power of such associations, and is adapted to familiarize the mind to that from which a pure and chaste imagination recoils, must be considered in the highest degree of this kind; and how large a proportion of many societies owe their attraction almost entirely to this ingredient! The real Christian will never, for a moment, put himself, voluntarily, into a society where this contagion prevails, and will take the earliest opportunity of escaping from it, if by accident he is thrown into such company.

2. But, short of this, that may be denominated evil communication where the parties are of such a character that religion is not adverted to, or thought of in a serious or practical manner, where it has no hold upon the mind, where the fear of God is evidently dismissed, and there is no Scriptural rule of action.

The mere absence of religion is sufficient to constitute that evil communication against which we are guarded. Those persons whose conversation is not plainly vicious, but who appear to have no true fear of God, no regard to the obligations of religion, who evidently live" without God in the world," without any habitual reference to a future state, must be considered as constituting a class of characters with which he who earnestly seeks his salvation will not voluntarily come into contact. It is not to be supposed that the Christian can always select, even as the associates of his confidential hours, those who are partakers of Divine grace, those who are really converted to God; though, as far as possible, it will be his wisdom to select such as these yet, it is not too much to say, that he should avoid, as much as possible, any intimate connexion with such as appear to be not at all influenced by the considerations of religion, and seem entirely strangers to its hopes, fears, restraints, and prohibitions; though their conduct may be in other respects unexceptionable and inoffensive.

3. It is almost unnecessary to observe, that is an evil communication, in a high degree, which abounds with objections to Christianity, and is calculated to produce a doubt, either of its Divine origin or of the certainty of its most important truths. He who wishes to have his faith confirmed in the evidence of Christianity will never form an intimacy with those who are opposed to that evidence; who have

thrown off the restraints of religion, renounced allegiance to the Saviour, and adopted the loose and skeptical doctrines of a licentious age. 4. And to this class we may add those who have discarded the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and who are envenomed with an antipathy to them, so as to be desirous, on all occasions, to multiply proselytes, by winning men to their own persuasion in regard to the distinctive points in which they are at variance with real Christians of all ages. Such as have endeavoured to corrupt the fundamental principles of Christianity must, in the esteem of persons who hold those principles sacred, be regarded as tempting to "evil communication." To this caution we are led by the context; for those who corrupted the faith of the Corinthians were not such as had rejected Christianity altogether, not such as had entirely relapsed into heathenism or Judaism, but those who had denied the fundamental testimony of the apostles, contradicted the primary truths of Christianity, and introduced another and different gospel from that which the apostles had promulgated. The apostle John lays down an injunction on this subject, which must be regarded as still in force: "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God; he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." "If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed."* We are not to encourage an intercourse of a voluntary kind with them, nor place ourselves under their influence: for that influence must be considered as anti-christian in proportion as such persons have deviated from the fundamental doctrines which are taught in Christianity.

5. They whose moral principles are loose, with respect to the great obligations of justice and equity, who indulge themselves in dishonourable practices, who propagate loose and licentious maxims with regard to the mode of conducting business, who acknowledge themselves to be ready to take any advantages, and are restrained by no other consideration than the penalty of the law, who are ready to sacrifice principle and conscience to filthy lucre, must be considered as a source of evil communication, against which we are here expressly warned.

II. But I proceed, in the next place, briefly to point out the way in which "evil communication" operates in corrupting "good manners." You know very well, my brethren, that the order of the natural world is maintained by the operation of matter upon matter; and that the order of the moral world is maintained by the action of mind upon mind. As the great revolutions of nature are carried on by the reciprocal action of the various parts of which the visible universe consists, upon each other, whether of smaller portions or of greater masses; so that mysterious order which the Divine Being maintains in the moral world is upheld and preserved by the mutual action of one mind upon another. This action is incessantly going on; and

* 2 John 9, 10.

though it borrows for its instrumentality the organs of the body, yet the ultimate object is mind. The great medium through which this is maintained is the intercourse and conversation of man with man, which brings one mind into contact with another, and is perpetually modifying the mind which is thus drawn into union, and derives modification from that mind with which it converses. We are continually drawing and being drawn, impelling and resisting or yielding, assimilating ourselves to others, and others to ourselves; nor is it possible to go into any company and come from it exactly in the same state of mind. The moral modification is perpetually going on; and if we trace it exactly, we shall find that it is either evil or good; very seldom, if ever, entirely indifferent or neutral. It is one of the fundamental laws of nature, that our minds should be subject to perpetual modification from the minds of others; nor is it within the reach of our will to determine whether this influence shall be exercised or not. Yet we may determine to what influence we subject it: we may determine what society we will keep, but not what influence that society which we choose shall have upon us. It operates according to certain fixed and infallible laws, so that no person can, by any pretence of self-control, justify exposing himself to the action of a power the operation of which is determined by laws quite independent of himself.

One of the first feelings of every person who goes into company is, to please and be pleased. If he be a person of a benevolent and social spirit, he goes with the very design of assimilating his mind, as much as possible, to the minds of those with whom he converses. This is a silent compact, without which pleasure can neither be imparted nor received. Just in proportion to the delicacy and force of this sympathy is the pleasure derived from society; and they possess it in the most intense and vivid degree who can most imperceptibly slide into the feelings of others, so as to incorporate for a time their sentiments, feelings, and dispositions with their own. Hence we plainly perceive that there is a preparation in the very nature of society, that society especially which is chosen and of a voluntary nature, for an assimilation of our minds to the views and principles, sentiments and dispositions, of those with whom we converse.

We not only go into society unarmed, but we go with a preparation in favour of the action of the sentiments and the agency of the minds of others which is then operating upon us. We go with the intention of being pleased with the sympathies which that intercourse excites, and lay our hearts and minds, as we experience or expect social pleasure, open as much as possible to the full and entire action of the social instinct. Let us suppose then, at least, that the society into which we enter is not positively vicious in any other sense than as it is distinguished by a total absence of religion; let the persons with whom we associate be only characterized by an entire neglect of God, an absence of the fear of the Almighty: let their general conduct and deportment be such, and such only, as might be supposed to take place if the verities of religion were exploded, and the expectation of a future account entirely dismissed; it is not too much to say that this