LAW-SUITS-CHRISTIANS

HEATHEN COUNTRIES

CHAPTER VI.

CONDEMNED FOR GOING TO LAW IN ABOUT INTERNAL DISPUTES-LAW-SUITS IN ENGLAND-CHARACTER-ENCOURAGEMENT TO FAITH AND REPENTANCE-SINS OF THE BODY.

In this chapter we have the Christian Church in its relation to the world. Once there was between these two entire disruption; but gradually there arose approximation.

The first caution that the apostle here gives to his Corinthian converts is, not to go to law before the tribunal of the heathen Cæsar; and thus to bring before the wide world, to their common discredit, disputes and questions that might have been amicably adjusted in the Church, or closed by a fair, a Christian, and an impartial arbitration. It has been argued by some that this is an absolute prohibition against going to law at all. It is certainly a prohibition against going to law in the courts of the heathen; but it is another question whether it be a prohibition against all appeals to constituted courts, in an empire professing to be Christian, the processes, laws, and jurisprudence of which are based upon Christian truth and Christian principles. To go to law before the heathen, because of internal disputes in the Chris tian church, is to expose our weakness, to injure our influence; to alienate, not to conciliate them that are

without, to bring dishonour on the cause of Christ, and permanently and in the long run to do no good to ourselves. But while this would apply to the circumstances of the Corinthians, and to that government of heathendom under which the Corinthians were, it does not therefore follow that it is applicable to us.

Our courts, as already stated, are professedly Christian courts; our judges are professedly Christian judges; our laws are professedly saturated and sustained by Christian principle; and whether, therefore, it be wrong, where there arises a dispute which no arbitration can decide, no concession accommodate, to appeal to a Christian judge, and the interpreters of Christian law, in order to reach a decision that will morally and legally bind, is not touched, and therefore not answered, in this decision of St. Paul. It is quite true, as a matter of fact, that law is a most expensive and not always the most satisfactory thing; and that many who might accommodate their disputes by arbitration, rashly and unadvisedly rush into courts; bring ruin on themselves, and discredit upon that cause with which they have been identified. This is painfully true. Wherever there is a dispute among Christian men, about property, or about personal matters, or about imputations upon character, the most expedient and certainly the most scriptural way is, to ask two or three seniors or elders, officially or personally so, for a statement of their judgment, to submit the whole thing to them; and let each party abide by the judgment conscientiously and fairly given. And if our disputes could be settled in this way, it would be much better for all parties. But if you cannot settle them in this way, I do not see that it is, with our

present constitution, sinful to go to law; nor do I see that you are guilty of the crime that attached to the Corinthians in the days of Cæsar, when in the days of Queen Victoria you appeal to laws which govern you, and assert your rights as citizens as well as your' privileges as Christian men.

It is not desirable to go into a court of law; but it may be inevitable. In fact, going to law is very much like going to war; both are dire necessities, both should be last resources; everything should be done, and diplomacy, and arrangement, and arbitration should be exhausted, before the sword is drawn or the judge is appealed to. But when it becomes inevitable, I cannot conceive that in either case there is sin; there may be weakness, there may be folly, there may be imprudence, there may be indiscretion; but in our circumstances, there cannot be the sin condemned in the case of the Corinthians, when a Cæsar was the judge, when a heathen tribunal was the only resource, and when laws were brought to bear upon the Christian subject intolerant, proscriptive, unfair, and unjust.

Situated as the Christians then were, these regulations laid down in this chapter were most important; and, no doubt, they have still their reference and bearing upon us. If Christians are to be assessors with Christ on the judgment-seat; if he is to come with ten thousand of his saints seated with him to judge the world, then surely they may be trusted with those minor disputes that occur in every Christian congregation, and in every phase of Christian society. "And if even," says the apostle, "they be the lowest in the visible Church, yet, if Christian men, they ought not to be unworthy to be assigned this office of settling, by

their opinion and decision, internal disputes in the Christian Church."

But he says, in these days so utterly indiscreet were they, that "brother goeth to law with brother. I speak it to your shame. Much rather," he says, "suffer wrong, and suffer yourselves to be defrauded, than go to law."

That is true in two senses; it is true still that an appeal to law, with all the disputes on either side, reported in the papers, must be injurious to Christian character; and, secondly, it is inexpedient in a subordinate sense, for you will lose more by going to law than by suffering yourselves to be defrauded. If a sum which is justly yours be unjustly seized or withheld by a brother, then on the ground of economy, on the ground of the highest and holiest expediency, let the last thing you adopt be an appeal to a court of law; if possible, let the dispute be arbitrated and settled by impartial Christian men-a course always open for any that seek it.

We do not mean that it is wrong to consult a lawyer. A Christian lawyer, a barrister, or attorney, actuated by Christian principle, will always give his client the advice to suffer, and suffer a good deal, before he embark on the uncertainties and perils of law. And therefore to consult a lawyer is not necessarily to go to law; but it is to consult one in whose judgment, learning, Christian principle, you have confidence; and if he be a right-minded man, seeking the welfare of his client rather than the aggrandisement and profit of himself, it is pretty certain that the very first and last advice he will give you will be very much in the words which the apostle wrote 1800 years ago: "Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye

not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded than go to law before the world?" Is there not in this chapter the recognition of the necessity of courts of law, and the germ of their development also?

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Then says the apostle, speaking of moral character, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" The immoral are neither members of the Church below, nor are they the destined inheritors of the Church above. And he gives here the dark and black catalogue, dark and black even as an apostle was constrained to depict it; and states that such as these shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. But, what is rich in the deepest comfort to all truly penitent Christians, he says, " Such," not are some of you, but such were some of you." The past dark, sinful, criminal guilt forgiven; the present condition, trust; the future mortgaged to consistency of Christian character and conduct before God and man. "Such were some of you." Then there is forgiveness for the worst, then the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin; for if that precious blood could wash away the sins and stains that are enumerated here, it is a precedent for all that shall believe to the end of the world, that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the chief; and that none may despair, none despond, while none may venture to presume. But," he says, "ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus; ye are washed in his precious blood; ye are sanctified by the Holy Spirit."

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Having thus alluded to sins of the heart and the mind, he proceeds in the sequel of the chapter to allude to the sins that stain and defile the body. But what does this teach us? That not only the soul of a