" The first
letter to the Church at Corinth, proves that the new principles
implanted in its members had not yet purged out the leaven of their old
wickedness; and that their conceptions of Christian purity and conduct
were sadly defective. As it was with the Corinthian Christians, so was
it to a great extent with the other Christians of that age. Now, if the
Apostles did not directly teach the primitive believers that wars, and
theatres, and games, and slavery, are sinful, it is because they thought
it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere
alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The
construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The
rudiments of the gospel, if once possessed by them, would be apt to lead
them on to greater attainments. Indeed, the love, peace, truth, and
other elements of holy living inculcated by the Apostles, would, if
turned to all proper account, be fatal to every, even the most gigantic,
system of wickedness. Having these elements in their minds and hearts,
they would not fail of condemning the great and compound sin of war
whenever they should be led to take it up, examine it, resolve it into
its constituent parts, and lay these parts for comparison, by the side
of those elements.
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