Chapter 8: Conformity to the World office as any others? The world must be fools to believe in a change of heart on such evidence.
8. Christians ought to cease from conformity to the world in politics, from the influence which such a course would have on the world. Suppose Christians were to act perfectly conscientious and consistent in this matter, and to say, "We will not vote for any man to office, unless he fears God, and will rule the people in righteousness." Ungodly men would not set men as candidates, who themselves set the laws at defiance. No.123
Every candidate would be obliged to show that he was prepared to act from higher motives, and that he would lay himself out to make the country prosperous, and to promote virtue, and to put down vice and oppression and disorder, and to do all he can to make the people happy and holy! It would shame the dishonest politicians, to show that the love of God and man is the motive that Christians have in view. And a blessed influence would go over the land like a wave.
IV. I am to answer some objections that are made against the principles here advanced.
1. In regard to business.
Objection. "If we do not transact business on the same principles on which ungodly men do it, we cannot compete with them, and all the business of the world will fall into the hands of the ungodly. If we pursue our business for the good of others, if we buy and sell on the principle of not seeking our own wealth, but the wealth of those we do business with, we cannot sustain a competition with worldly men, and they will get all the business."
Let them have it, then. You can support yourself by your industry in some humbler calling, and let worldly men do all the business.
"Objection." But then, how should we get money to spread the gospel?"
A holy church that would act on the principles of the gospel, would spread the gospel faster than all the money that ever was in New York, or that ever will be. Give me a holy church, that would live above the world, and the work of salvation would roll on faster than with all the money in Christendom.
Objection. "But we must spend a great deal of money to bring forward an educated ministry."
Ah! if we had a HOLY ministry, it would be far more important than an educated ministry. If the ministry were holy enough, they would do without so much education. God forbid that I should undervalue an educated ministry. Let ministers be educated as well as they can, the more the better, if they are only holy enough. But it is all a farce to suppose that a literary ministry can convert the world. Let the ministry have the spirit of prayer, let the baptism of the Holy Ghost be upon them, and they will spread the gospel. Only let