The Clerical Principle

"The night is far spent, the day is at hand"

In recent days the president has invoked the "clerical principle," i.e., professing the unity of all Americans, while evil exists and is not put away!

The President has no warrant to contend for unity "among Americans," where there is no unity, nor should there be! His sworn allegiance is to "faithfully execute the Office of President ["Execute Justice"] and preserve, protect, and defend "the Constitution of the United States."

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness"(2 Corinthians 6:14).

The Body of Christ has a similar and continuing challenge as "the night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light" (Romans 13:12).

"... These fundamental principles are deeply needed in this day, for the saint who seeks to walk truly and thoroughly with God. Latitudinarian unity it may be painful and trying to keep aloof from; it has an amiable form in general, is in a measure respectable in the religious world, tries nobody's conscience, and allows of everybody's will. It is the more difficult to be decided about, because it is often connected with a true desire of good, and is associated with amiable nature.

And it seems rigid, and narrow, and sectarianism to decline so to walk. But the saint, when he has the light of God, must walk clearly in that. God will vindicate His ways in due time. Love to every saint is a clear duty; walking in their ways is not. And he that gathers not with Christ scatters. There can be but one unity; confederacy, even for good, is not it, even if it have its form. Unity, professed to be of the church of God, while evil exists and is not put away, is a yet more serious matter.

It will always be found to be connected with the clerical principle, because that is needed to maintain unity, when the Spirit is not its power, and, in fact, takes its place, guides, rules, governs in its place, under the plea of priesthood, or ministry, owned as a distinct body, a separate institution: it would not hold together without this."
(John Nelson Darby, Separation from Evil - God's Principle of Unity)

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