When St. Paul says, "Come out and be separate," he did not mean that Christians ought to take no interest in anything on earth except religion. To neglect science, art, literature, and politics, -- to read nothing which is not directly spiritual, -- to know nothing about what is going on among mankind, and never to look at a newspaper, -- to care nothing about the government of one's country, and to be utterly indifferent as to the persons who guide its counsels and make its laws, -- all this may seem very right and proper in the eyes of some people. But I take leave to think that it is an idle, selfish neglect of duty. St. Paul knew the value of good government, as one of the main helps to our "living a quiet and peacable life in godliness and honesty." (1 Tim. 2:2) St. Paul was not ashamed to read heathen writers, and to quote their words in his speeches and writings. St. Paul did not think it beneath him to show an acquaintance with the laws and customs and callings of the world, in the illustrations he gave from them. Christians who plume themselves on their ignorance of secular things are precisely the Christians who bring religion into contempt. I knew the case of a blacksmith who would not come to hear his clergyman preach the Gospel, until he found out that he knew the properties of iron. Then he came.
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