YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

THE

TWO GREAT COMMANDMENTS
" Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and thy Neighbour as Thyself."

Eluatratrb in a Snrfes ot JBtarourseB on tl)e 12ti) ffiljaptn: of tye
Uptatlr to tljr iiomans.

By ROBT- S. CANDLISH, D.D.,
ST. GKORGE'S FREE CHOKCH, EDINBURGH.

LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH ; AND NEW TOEK.

Vale Divinity Library
Npw Hgupn Conn.

CONTENTS.

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THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO GOD.

I. Consecration to God,
A Sacrifice —
1. Its Nature, ...
2. Its Conditions,
8. Its Qualities,
4. Ita Matter, ...
6. Its Motive, ...
II. Separation from the World, ...
1. Nonconformity to the World,
2. The Renewing of the Mind,
3. Proving the Will of God,

P.g.

sei),

... 11

...

... 15

... 18

...

... 23

... 2G

... 33
« 2),
... 40
... 40
5S
... 70
f nrt Iranfo.
THE CHEISTIAN IN HIS EELATION TO HIS FELLCW-CHEISTIANS-
THE CHUECH, OE COLLECTIVE BODY OE BELIEVEES.
I. Qualification for Membership— Self Estimation,
IL Diversity of Gifts and OfBces among the Members,
III. Distribution of OfBces and Works among the Memliers,
Characteristics of Active Membership—
IV. „ Love and Brotherly Love, ...
V. „ Diligence— Fervour— Service,
VI. „ Hope— Patience— Prayer, ...
VII. „ Mutual Beneficence and Hospitality, ...
(Verse 3),
.. 91
( ,, 6),
.. 101
( ., 6-8), .
.. 114
( „ 9,10), .
.. 127
C „ H), .
.. 151
( ,, 12), •
.. 183
( „ 13), •
.. 203
IV CONTENTS.

fart ${jiri.
THE CHEISTIAN IN HIS EELATION TO A HOSTILE WOELD. P»5«
L The Alternative of Blessing or Cursing, ... ... (Verse 14), ... 223
II. The Charm of the Blessing— Sympathy, ... ... ( „ 15), ... 239
III. The Charm of Sympathy— Mind Accommodating itself to
Mind,  ( „ J6>, ... 251
IV. The Essential Conditions— Generosity and Honour, ... ( „ 17), ... 269
V. The End Sought— Peace, ... ... ... ... ( „ 18), ... 2S9
VI. Redress and Retribution — Abdicated by Man and left to
God,  ( „ 19), ... 302
VII. Good Overcoming Evil— The Solemn Issue of Weal or
Woe, ... ... ... ... ... ( „ 20, 21,) ... 323
VIII. Force of the Appeal— "Dearly Beloved," ... ... ( „ 19), ... 339

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

The Twelfth Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans is
usually regarded as a section complete in itself. The
thirteenth chapter, or at least the first ten verses of it,
might perhaps be taken in as part of the section. The topic
there discussed, — which is, the duty of Christians as mem
bers of civil society — the obedience which they owe to
their civil rulers and the obligations under which they lie
to their fellow-subjects, — fits in well enough to those which
occupy the twelfth chapter. And the pithy and emphatic
maxim about charity or love, — " Love worketh no ill to
his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law,"
— would form a not unsuitable close to a series of prac
tical lessons which all turn on the cultivation of that
grace or virtue of love, in the different forms or modifi
cations of it which different relations and circumstances
require. I am inclined, however, to adhere to what seems
to be the ordinary opinion. The thirteenth and subsequent
chapters embrace several questions of a somewhat casuis
tical nature, and of rather difficult solution, apt to arise
in particular states of the Church and the world. The

VI INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.
twelfth is quite general and comprehensive. It is not of
course to be disconnected from the preceding and follow
ing portions of the Epistle, — especially from the preced
ing. But as a summary of Christian ethics, it is, when
taken by itself, an entire whole ; — having, if I may so say,
its own beginning, middle, and end.
Considered in that light, the summary has always com
manded the warm admiration, not of divines only, but of
moralists also ; — and is, indeed, rather a favourite with a
class of persons who are fond of praising the preceptive
part of Christianity at the expense of those peculiar dogmas
which they regard as hard and mystical. Even Christian
readers themselves, perhaps, have been apt to feel as if
the moral beauty and simplicity of the exhortations of this
chapter were a relief, after the more abstruse matters of
doctrine which have strained and taxed their attention so
severely in what goes before.
One object of the present volume is to modify any such
impression, and to show how thoroughly the ethics of the
Gospel are impregnated with the spirit of its theology.
Not merely does the word of connection or inference in
the first verse, — " therefore," — warrant the general con
clusion, that it is upon the views given in the previous
chapters of the Divine Sovereignty, first in the grace of
justification, and then in the grace of election, that the
precepts of the present chapter all hang ; — but when
these precepts come to be examined in detail, they are
found, one and all of them, to embody the principle, that
man's right conduct, in all the relations in which he is
placed, consists essentially in his knowing, and believing

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. vii
and sympathizing with what may be called the conduct
of God ; insomuch that, in every instance, man feels and
acts rightly just in proportion as he understands, by
divine teaching, how God himself feels and acts in his
great plan of saving mercy. I believe that what is re
quired of me, in every department of duty, is, that,
on the one hand, I apprehend God's sovereign grace,
in his justification of the unrighteous through faith in
the righteousness of his Son, and in his choice and call
ing of the unworthj' and the unwilling according to his
own mere good pleasure ; and then, on the other hand,
that apprehending this sovereign grace in its imme
diate personal application to me, and as ruling God's
treatment of me, I enter into the spirit of it, and apply
it myself to all with whom I have anything to do, for
the ruling of my treatment of them. Now these are the
two themes which occupy the whole doctrinal part of the
Epistle ; — the sovereignty of God's grace in justification,
and the sovereignty of his grace in election and vocation;
— the one being discussed in the first eight chapters, and
the other in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh. I assume
the teaching of these chapters upon both of these views
of God's grace ; and I endeavour, with reference to the
twelfth chapter as a whole, and with reference to its pre
cepts in detail, to bring out the amazing harmony and
identity that there are between that grace of God and
every duty which, on the ground of it, he requires of them
that believe.
The plan which I have adopted, dividing the chapter
into three parts, is explained and vindicated as I proceed

Vlll INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.
from verse to verse in my exposition.1 It is not necessary
to enter upon a formal defence of it beforehand; I trust
to its approving itself in the course of its detailed develop
ment. I may observe, however, that down to the end
of the eighth verse, there is little or no room for doubt.
Believers are in the first place (ver. 1, 2), summoned to a
personal dealing, each for himself, directly and immediately
with God. They are to consecrate themselves to God,
and separate themselves from the world, for the proving
of the will of God ; and this they are to do as individuals,
— not jointly, but severally. Then, in the second place,
(ver. 3-8,) they form themselves, or find themselves
formed, into a collective body, in which they have all
their separate gifts, and functions, and offices ; while yet
such order and mutual subordination reign that they all
act in harmony, — not only severally, but jointly also.
Thus far, the arrangement is clear enough. After the
eighth verse, however, there might at first sight seem to
be a mere miscellaneous string of good advices, some
having reference to the Christian's duty in the Church,
others to his duty towards the world, and others again
partly to both, but all mingled together, as one would
say, very much at random. Thus the ninth verse brings
in the duty of universal charity, or love, in the midst of
precepts evidently bearing upon the fellowship of Chris-

1 It is proper to explain that the Discourses on the first eight verses of the
chapter, occupying rather more than a hundred pages of the present volume
(pp. 11-126), appeared some years ago in a small volume, now out of print,
under the title of " The Christian's Sacrifice." They have been carefully revised,
and adapted to their position as part of the larger treatise, which I had then in
progress, and which, such as it is, I have now eompleted.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. IX
tians as such ; whereas again in the fifteenth and six
teenth verses, or at all events in the latter, we have
what looks like a counsel of Christian brotherhood, while
both before and after the teaching refers to the treatment
of persecutors. Hence I believe the notion has come to
prevail, that beyond the first eight verses there is no
exact order to be traced in the chapter. I am persuaded
that this is a mistake, and that it has led to an inade
quate interpretation, to say the least, of some of the
verses in question. I have endeavoured to show how
the introduction of the general commandment of love
(ver. 9) qualifies the special commandment of brotherly
love (ver. 10) ; and also how the enjoining of sympathy
(ver. 15), and even apparently of unanimity (ver. 16), is
very much to the purpose in considering how a hostile
world is to be treated. I look at those precepts which
appear to be out of their place, and inquire what, sup
posing that they are in their place, is their bearing in
the connection in which they actually stand ; and in doing
so, I begin to find in them a force and point not other
wise observed. I trace an orderly sequence in the whole
train of thought, as the writer would lead believers in
Jesus to apprehend what they are to God, as his peculiar
people ; what they are in respect of their union among
themselves, and their organization into one body, for the
purposes of fellowship and of work ; and what they are
in respect of their position in a hostile world, and the
duties which they owe to " them that are without."
It is this view that has reconciled me to the Title
suggested by a friend for my treatise. I do not profess

X INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.
formally to discuss the " two great commandments" in
connection with my theme. But having sought to enter
into the meaning of Paul's ethical directory, without
any immediate reference to the Lord's summary, I have
noticed with much interest how the law or principle of
love, given forth as a pure ray of light from the Sun of
Righteousness, is as it were broken up in its application
to the details of duty; — how, as if he were giving a
practical commentary on his Master's saying, the Apostle
brings out the working of supreme love to our God in
self-consecration, transformation, and obedience; and brings
out also the working of equal love to our neighbour, —
our loving him as ourselves, — in Christian brotherhood
among believers, and Christian humanity towards all men.
There is no attempt in this work to deal with the
chapter critically, or even, in the strict sense, exegeti
cally. If that had been my aim, I must have discussed
some questions of interpretation which I have not even
raised, and dwelt upon some sentences and clauses on
which I have only slightly touched. It is to be remem
bered, however, that there are not any considerable criti
cal or exegetical difficulties in the passage.
Of the various readings, two only are noticeable, not for
any force of external evidence in their favour, — the weight
of manuscript authority, both in quantity and in quality,
being decidedly against them ; — but because they illustrate
the way in which alterations of the text have sometimes
crept in, through the prejudice or erroneous judgment of
transcribers. Thus in the thirteenth verse, some copies
have, instead of distributing or ministering to the " neces-

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. xi
sities" of saints, ministering to their "memories" (/Wats for
xpet'ais) ; — an alteration evidently savouring of that undue
reverence for the departed which early began to prevail in
the Church, and ultimately became worship. Again at verse
eleventh, the clause, serving "the Lord," is in a considerable
number of manuscripts, serving "the time," or "season" (/caipu
for Kupt<3). The copyist apparently thought that the idea
of " serving the Lord" was too general to come in among
the specific directions with which it is joined, atid there
fore he made it "serving the time," — that is, acting in con
formity or in obedience to the time or season ; an injunc
tion not very appropriate or emphatic, and not very much
in accordance with what Paul elsewhere says about being
diligent in season and out of season. That the received
text, as it stands, has a relevant meaning, I have endea
voured to show.
Much has been made, in former times, by theologians,
both Romanist and Protestant, of the expression in the
sixth verse, "the proportion" or the analogy "of faith."
It has been used, in fact, as a sort of proof text to sup
port a principle of interpretation of very wide application,
and requiring somewhat delicate handling. The principle
is this, — that in fixing the meaning of any particular
passage, regard is to be had to the general strain of the
teaching of Scripture, and of the system of truth as
understood and held by the Church Catholic. However
sound the principle may be, within due limits, it derives
no support from the passage now in question ; in which
it cannot be an objective measure or standard of faith
that is intended, but rather the inward, subjective kind,

xii INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.
or amount of conviction which a man has in himself.
Having formed that opinion, I have not deemed it needful
to dwell on the phrase, " the proportion of faith," or to
discuss the principle of interpretation which it has been
supposed to countenance ; since I take it to mean simply
that he who prophesies should in doing so go to the full
extent of the faith wrought in him, or, as I have expressed
it, should prophesy — " believing all that he says, and say
ing all that he believes" (see page 119). I am glad to
find that I may appeal in support of my opinion to so
high an authority as Alford.1
Had my plan been different from what it is, I must
have gone much more fully into the consideration of the
topic treated of in the fourth and following verses,
taken in connection with Paul's teaching in his First
Epistle to the Corinthians, (ch. xii.,) where the same sub
ject is handled at greater length. I am aware that I
have thus been led to omit some topics of interest regard
ing the constitution and organization of the Church,
whether viewed as an unseen, spiritual fellowship, or as
an outstanding society in the world. But the discussion
of these topics would have drawn me away from the
more immediate design of the Apostle's discourse ; which
is not to lay down an ecclesiastical platform, but to en
force personal obligations.
For much the same reason, I have dealt somewhat
summarily with the phrase in the twentieth verse, " coals
of fire," or "burning coals;" contenting myself with a
1 Greek Testament, in loco, vol. ii. page 416, third edition.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. xiii
single reference to the passage in the Old Testament
which the Apostle manifestly has in view (Prov. xxv.
21, 22). Several other Old Testament texts1 might have
been exegetically examined, and might have been found
very much to the purpose. An inquiry of deepest interest
would thus have been opened up, into the harmony of
the teaching of both Testaments, not only as to the penal
justice of God, but as to the sentiments with which his
saints regard the execution of its righteous awards. The
inquiry, however, would demand, and deserve, a separate
treatise. It would demolish, I am persuaded, the notion
of there being any real difference between the Christian
dispensation and those which preceded it, on the subject
of God's treatment of hi3 enemies and his people's acqui
escence and sympathy therein ; and would make it clear,
that, with all the fuller discoveries of his love which we
have in the Gospel, we are called all the more on that
account to realize, for ourselves and for others, the dark,
overhanging cloud of ultimate retribution. But any such
discussion as that would have led me away from the line
I had prescribed to myself. Of the texts indicated, it is
enough to say, that since they, one and all of them, apply
the phrase exclusively to the infliction of judicial venge
ance, for the vindication of the righteous and the punish
ment of the ungodly, they confirm the opinion that we
cannot interpret the Apostle's precept (ver. 20) as if it
contemplated only a good issue of kindness shown to an
enemy ; that its meaning is not exhausted unless we hold
1 Deut. xxxii. 24 (marginal reading) ; Ps. xviii. 12, 13 ; cxx. 4; cxl. 10 ; Ezek,
x. 2 ; Hab. iii. 5.

XIV INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.
it to have fully in view the possibility of the issue being
exactly the reverse.
What I wish to be understood, in short, is, that the
present treatise is entirely practical. The Discourses
when preached were meant to be practical ; and they are
published nearly as they were delivered. When I call
them practical, however, I mean practical in an evangeli
cal point of view. I endeavour, throughout, to carry the
stream of sound doctrine through all the departments of
duty that I have to survey. In particular, as the
chapter begins with a pointed reference to Sacrifice, and
ends with a very solemn appeal to Judgment, so I think
there is a propriety in viewing the whole of this brief
code of Christian ethics, as well as every part of it, in
the light of those high attributes of the Divine character,
and those great principles of the Divine government, of
which the first and second advents of Christ may be said
to be the exponents. I start with the assumption of the
Atonement made by Christ at his first coming being a
real satisfaction to Divine justice, through his real substi
tution of himself in the room of the guilty who are ob
noxious to justice. And I can find no meaning in the
very solemn closing verses of the chapter unless they in
volve the reality of wrath and retribution, to be consum
mated when the Lord cometh again. I solicit special
attention, in this view, to the last two or three Discourses
in the volume. For, however modern theological refine
ment may shrink from any notion of righteousness that is
not remedial, and any notion of punishment that is not
resolvable into correction, I am fully persuaded that it is

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. XV
fatal, not less to the high and healthy tone of Christian
morals than to the living power and influence of Christian
faith, to repudiate or keep in the back-ground the doc
trine or fact of judicial retribution. That doctrine, or
fact, I take to be the essence of law and government
Without it, neither the Divine sovereignty nor human
responsibility, — neither the sovereignty which is God's
prerogative as a moral ruler, nor the responsibility which
is man's dignity as a free moral agent, — can, in my
opinion, be safe. On any system which excludes that
element, God is dishonoured, and man must in the long
run be degraded. I recognise it alike in the theology and
in the ethics of Paul. R. S. G.
Edinburgh, Febi-uaru 1860.

PART PIRST.

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO GOD.

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO GOD.

i.
CONSECRATION TO GOD.
" I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of (Jod, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service." — Rom. xii. 1.
Believers in Christ are consecrated to God. This is the
first element in their relation to him ; the second being
separation from the world. They are addressed as priests ;
called to execute a priestly office, — to "present a sacrifice."
And this implies consecration to God.
In one view, it is a high calling. "Ye are a royal
priesthood," is the testimony of the Apostle Peter. " Thou
hast redeemed us to God by thy blood," is the new song
of the saved, " and hast made us unto our God kings and
priests." In another view, it is a humble position. A
priest is ordained to minister and serve at the altar. In
this passage, it is not so much the high dignity of the
priestly office as its humble ministry, that is brought out.
Still it is, in every view of it, a sacred position ; a posi
tion of consecration to God.
Paul has been touching some of those deep, dread mys
teries which shroud in impenetrable gloom the eternal

12 CONSECRATION TO GOD.
throne and the eternal world ; mysteries which only thicken
into darker midnight the more we try to pierce them. For
the sovereignty of God, in its bearing on the ultimate issues
of his providence, and on the final destinies of the crea
tures whom he has made inteUigent and free, must ever
be inscrutable. Paul, accordingly, closes the great argu
ment which he has been maintaining for the Divine prero
gative, with a solemn ejaculation, implying utter impotency
and prostration : " 0 the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are
his judgments, and his ways past finding out !" (xi. 33).
To sUence, however, where he cannot satisfy, he appeals
abruptly to any who would stiU raise questions.
By what right, he asks, do you presume to judge
or to interrogate the Supreme ? Have you been in his
confidence from the first ? Or must he advise with
you? Or have you any such claim on him as to
lay him under an obligation to give you satisfaction?
" For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or
who hath been his counsellor ? or who hath first
given to him, and it shaU be recompensed unto him
again ?" (34, 35.) Are you the Lord's confidants? Are
you the Lord's councilors? Are you the Lord's creditors?
If not, how are you entitled to pry into those " secret
things" which " belong to the Lord your God ?" " The
things which are revealed belong to you and to your chil
dren." But as to the secret things which belong to him,
he is not in any way bound to you ; nor with refer
ence to them can you demand that he should discover
more of his plans to you than he sees fit ; " For of him,

A PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICE. 1 3
and through him, and to him, are all things : to whom
be glory for ever. Amen.'' (36.)
Your becoming attitude is that of the Psalmist :
" Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty :
neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in
things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and
quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother :
my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope
in the Lord from henceforth and for ever" (Psalm
cxxxi.) We are then in our right place, when, instead of aspir
ing to master, as critics, the whole mind and wiU of God,
we thankfuUy consent to learn, as children, what it is
his pleasure to teach. He is not dependent on us : he
is not indebted to us. The dependence and the debt
of obligation are all on our side. We are not competent
to dictate or give lessons to him. We are children and
scholars under his training.
And the training is for service. We are to be, not
advisers or judges, but ministers, servants, priests. " I
beseech you, therefore, brethren," instead of aspiring to
be the confidants, or the coundllors, or the creditors of the
Lord, to assume the office and discharge the functions
of the priesthood.
For the priesthood is to be considered as a ministry
and service. It was so to Him with whom we are
associated in its exercise. " The Son of man came not
to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many." So he came to do the busi
ness of his priesthood. So we are summoned to do the

14 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
business of our priesthood. The business of his priest
hood was to "give his life a ransom for many." The
business of our priesthood is to " present our bodies a
hving sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our
reasonable service."
From this general account of what Christians have to
do, as consecrated to God, in the character of priests, the
following particulars may be drawn out in detail: —
I. There is to be a sacrifice : " I beseech you, brethren,
that ye present a sacrifice."
II. It must be a sacrifice that fulfils two conditions :
it must be such as may righteously find acceptance in
the sight of God, and such as may reasonably be required
and expected at the hands of man : " I beseech you
that ye present a sacrifice;" such as shall, on the one
hand, be "acceptable to God;" and such as shaU, on
the other hand, and on your part, be " a reasonable
service." III. If it is to fulfil these two conditions, the sacrifice
must possess the two qualities of hfe and holiness : " I
beseech you that ye present a living sacrifice, holy ;" — for
such a sacrifice alone can be acceptable to God ; such a
sacrifice alone can be your reasonable service.
IV. The substance, or matter of the sacrifice is indi
cated ; it is to consist of " your bodies,'' your persons,
yourselves: " I beseech you that ye present your bodies."
V. The motive also is indicated which is to prompt
the sacrifice : " I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies
of God."

ITS NATURE. 15
Under these heads, the sacrifice which as Christiana,
bearing the character of priests, we have to present to
God may be considered ; and the connection and corre
spondence, as well as the difference, between it and the
sacrifice of Christ may be traced. The connection and
correspondence wiU be found, if we rightly apprehend the
Spirit's teaching, to be very close.
I.— THE SACRIFICE : ITS NATURE
" I beseech you that ye present a sacrifice." — Rom. xii. 1.
There is to be a sacrifice. Priests are not to approach
to God empty handed. " Bring an offering and come
into his courts ;" so runs their summons.
This law applies to the High Priest as weU as to
ordinary priests. It applies pre-eminently to the High
Priest. " Every high priest is ordained to offer gifts
and sacrifices ; wherefore it is of necessity that this one,"
our great High Priest, Christ, " have somewhat also to
offer " (Heb. viii. 3). So far, Christians who are priests,
and Christ who alone is the High Priest, have this in
common, that they as well as he have to present a sacri
fice. But there is a wide and essential distinction. Any
sacrifice which we as priests can present, must be of an
entirely different nature from what Christ, the High
Priest, presents. His sacrifice is, in the strict and proper
sense of the term, a sacrifice of atonement. His sacrifice
alone can be so. Our sacrifice is a sacrifice of thanks
giving and praise.

16 CONSECRATION TO GOD — -A SACRIFICE:
This is a distinction recognised in the Levitical economy,
In that economy, there were atoning sacrifices, designed
to be effectual for the expiation of guilt and the recon
cihation of offenders to God. Of this kind, in particular,
were the sacrifices appointed for the great annual day of
atonement, when the high priest entered within the veil
with the blood of buUs and of goats, " which he offered
for himself and for the errors of the people." The sacri
fice of Christ is represented in the New Testament as
exactly of the same character with these sacrifices, only
infinitely more efficacious. Thus the Apostle writing to
the Hebrews reasons : " If the blood of bulls and of
goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh : how much more
shaU the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?" (ix. 13, 14.)
In the offering of a sacrifice of this kind, Christ, our
High Priest, stands alone. Into his ministry of atone
ment, his propitiatory work, we may not, as priests,
intrude. But there were sacrifices of another kind under
the law ; sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, offered in
acknowledgment of the sovereignty and bounty of God, and
as pledges of dependence and gratitude. These sacrifices
had nothing to do with the canceUing of guilt and the
restoration of the guilty party to favour. They did not
make peace. They proceeded on the faith of peace being
otherwise made, by a previous sacrifice of atonement.
They were, in fact, expressions of thankfulness on that
account. ,

ITS NATURE. 17
The sacrifice of Cain was a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
And as a sacrifice of thanksgiving, it would have been
legitimate and right, if it had been preceded by the
ordained sacrifice of atonement. The sacrifice of Abel
was a sacrifice of atonement. And undoubtedly, if his
life had been spared, it would have been followed up by
an appropriate sacrifice of praise. Having offered " of
the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof;" and
having evidence of the acceptance of his offering, in the
" light of God's reconciled countenance lifted up upon
him," and " the love of God shed abroad in his heart by
tlie Holy Ghost being given to him ;" he would gladly
and gratefully have " brought of the fruit of the
ground an offering " of thanksgiving and praise " to
the Lord."
And this now is our ministry as priests. This is all
our ministry. The ministry of atonement is not ours,
either for others or for ourselves. That ministry Christ
alone exercises. " He treads the wine-press alone," in
his work of bloody propitiation, as well as in his work of
bloody judgment, " and of the people there is none with
him." AU the more may the ministry of thankoffering
be ours. For our pardon and peace, our acceptance and
justification, we have nothing to offer, we have nothing
to give. The Apostle calls for no sacrifice at our hands
for the purpose of cleansing us from sin and restoring us
to favour. So far as that matter is concerned, he
uniformly points our view exclusively to the one only
sacrifice of the one only High Priest : " We are am
bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
B

18 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to
God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him" (2 Cor. v. 20, 21). But now, upon the supposi
tion that we are reconciled, freely, effectuaUy, thoroughly
reconciled, through faith in the great Atonement, the
Apostle calls for some suitable offering of praise. He
tells us that the atoning ministry of the High Priest,
thus avaUable on our behalf, opens the way for a graceful
and grateful ministry of thanksgiving : " I beseech you,
brethren, that ye present a sacrifice."

II. — THE SACRIFICE : ITS CONDITIONS.
" I beseech you, brethren, that ye present a sacrifice, acceptable to God, which
is your reasonable service. " — Rom. xii. 1.
The nature of the sacrifice which, as priests, Chris
tians are called to present, having been ascertained, the
next point is to consider the general principles which
ought to determine the character of the matter, or material,
to be used in the sacrifice, or of which the sacrifice is to
consist. If there is to be a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise,
proceeding upon the faith of a sacrifice of atonement
having been offered and accepted, let it be a suitable
sacrifice. Let it be a sacrifice that fulfils these two indis
pensable conditions: let it be, as regards him to whom
it is presented, "acceptable to God;'' let it also be, as
regards you who present it, " your reasonable service."
Of the sacrifice of atonement which our great High

ITS CONDITIONS. 19
Priest has to present, it may with equal justice be said
that it must fulfil these two conditions. To that sacrifice
also — to that sacrifice primarily — they apply, as condi
tions. When a ransom was to be found for sinful man,
it was necessary on the one hand, that it should be such a
ransom as it might be worthy of God to accept ; and on
the other hand, that it should be such a ransom as it
might be reasonable to expect should be offered on be
half of reasonable creatures.
The character and nature of the offended party, God,
the holy lawgiver and righteous judge ; the character and
nature of the offending party, man, a free and intelligent
being, made in the image of God ; and the relation be
tween the parties, implying just condemnation on the one
side and guilty enmity on the other ; all must be taken
into account. The sacrifice must bear some adequate
proportion, or suitable relation, to the majesty of violated
law and the unforced responsibility of its violators. It
must have in it worth and value enough to meet the
case of God's sovereign authority having been outraged,
and to meet also the case of man's conscience having
become burdened and defiled. It must be sufficient to
satisfy Divine justice ; and sufficient also to assuage the
anguish of genuine remorse and shame.
Tried by this test, it is easy to see how the blood
of buUs and of goats can never take away sin. The
substitution of a senseless, unconsenting animal, as
a victim or ransom, in the room and stead of a race
which has intelligently and wilfully sinned, is felt to
be, upon every principle of common sense and reason,

20 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
as weU as of right religious feeling, an utterly
inadequate atonement. There is no propriety or suit
ableness in the idea of the death of such a substitute
being accepted as an equivalent for the execution
of the sentence upon the guilty. The law cannot
in that way be vindicated. The Lawgiver cannot on
that ground be warranted in treating offenders as if
they had never sinned ; or as if they had themselves
suffered the penalty, and come out from the suffering of
it, pure and upright. Nor can such a vicarious endurance
of my punishment, by a bull, or goat, or ram, or lamb,
held to represent me, satisfy my own conviction of right
and my own consciousness of wrong. Whatever may
come of my controversy with my Maker, I instinctively
feel that these animal sacrifices cannot avail for its settle
ment ; — no ; nor any formal observances I may be
inclined to put in their place. " The blood of bulls
and of goats cannot take away sin." "None can by
any means redeem his brother," or ransom his own
soul. The conditions which it was necessary that the High
Priest's sacrifice of atonement should fulfil must be ful
filled also by the sacrifice of praise which believers, as
priests, are to present. This sacrifice of theirs must be
in accordance with what God is, and with what they
are. In particular, it must be in accordance with what
God is to them, and with what they are to God.
Let it be remembered that we present our sacrifice of
praise, as priests, on the footing of the High Priest's sac
rifice of atonement being on our behalf offered and ac-

ITS CONDITIONS. 21
cepted ; on the footing of our personal interest by faith
in its efficacy and fruit.
Upon that footing, what is the idea which we are
called to entertain of the God to whom we have to pre
sent our thank-offering ? " God is a spirit ; and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. The Father seeketh such to worship him." He
is weary and impatient of aU other worship. " My son,
give me thy heart," is his demand. That we may be in
a condition, and may be made willing, to give him our
heart, — he redeems us to himself by the blood of Christ,
and renews us by the power of the Holy Ghost. He,
therefore, to whom we are to present our sacrifice is a
spirit, requiring spiritual worship. And we, who are
to present the sacrifice, are spiritual men. "Now he
that is spiritual judgeth all things" (1 Cor. ii 15).
We can judge, therefore, what may be fairly regarded as
our "reasonable service;" what is the sort of service that
may be reasonably expected and required, as a sacrifice
of praise, at our hands, if God is a spirit and we are
spiritual men.
And this we may the rather do, when we consider the
relation now subsisting — the relation which ought to
subsist — between our God, who is a spirit, and ourselves
who are spiritual men. Through that one sacrifice of
propitiation presented by the High Priest on our behalf,
there is peace, friendship, reconciliation. All our gmlt is
expiated : aU our sin is purged. We are no longer
treated as guilty criminals under a respite. We are ac
cepted as righteous in the sight of God. We are adopted

22 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
as chUdren in his Son : we receive " the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father '' (Gal. iv. 6).
Now it is as thus knowing God, who is a spirit ;
knowing thus, also, ourselves as spiritual men ; and know
ing, above all, the footing on which we stand with our
God and Father ; — that we are caUed, as priests, to present
a sacrifice of praise. May we not decide and determine
for ourselves, according to these considerations, what sort
of sacrifice is suitable and appropriate? what is worthy
of God ? what is worthy of ourselves ? What sort of
sacrifice may God be expected to accept? What sort of
sacrifice, in the full view of aU the circumstances, may be
regarded as our "reasonable service?"
At aU events, tried by such a test, how miserably
wiU many a sacrifice and service that we are apt to pre
sent to God fail and be found wanting ! Form, cere
mony, routine ; heartless prayers, however long ; ostenta
tious alms, however large ; bodily exercise, whether in
the way of easy compliance with outward rites, or in
the way of painful inward self-mortification ; enforced
obedience ; reluctant abstinence from pleasure ; the cold
and cheerless performance of duty; all or any of these
kinds of worship — all similar methods of serving God —
we can bring to this criterion. Is it such a sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving that a reconciled God and Father
should in fairness be asked to accept? Is it such a sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving that we, his reconcfled children,
may be reasonably asked to offer? Is it such a sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving that should signalize and seal so
thorough a repairing of the breach caused by sin between

ITS QUALITIES. 23
our God and us, as that which the High Priest's sacrifice of
atonement effects? Surely, if it is felt by the universal
moral instinct of all men to be true, that the blood of
buUs and of goats cannot take away sin, — it must be felt
also by the universal spiritual instinct of all those whose
sins are taken away, by the blood of a better ransom, to
be not less true, that formal worship, or obedience ren
dered in the spirit of bondage, is not the sacrifice which
a redeeming God can worthily accept, and is not a " rea
sonable service" on the part of the people whom he
redeems.

III. — THE SACRIFICE : ITS QUALITIES.
" I beseech you that ye present a living sacrifice, holy." — Rom. xii. 1.
The sacrifice which Christians present, as priests,
must possess two quahties which formal worship, or
obedience rendered in the spirit of bondage, is sure to
want. It must possess the qualities of life and holiness.
Without these qualities it cannot fulfil the two indispen
sable conditions ; it cannot be either an acceptable offering
to God, or, on our part, a reasonable service. The sacrifice
must be living and holy: " I beseech you that ye pre
sent a living sacrifice, holy."
It was necessary that the sacrifice of atonement which
our High Priest was ordained to present should possess
these two qualities. It must be hving and holy. It
must have in it life and holiness.
Life must belong to it. And what life ? Not merely
animal life, the life that is common to aU sentient and

24 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
moving creatures ; not merely, in addition to that, in
telligent life, the life that characterizes aU beings capable
of thought and voluntary choice ; but spiritual life : life in
the highest sense ; the very life which those on whose be
half the sacrifice of atonement is presented lost, when
they fell into that state which makes a sacrifice of atone
ment necessary. If a ransom is to be found, — an adequate
and suitable substitute for those who have ceased to live,
as they were originaUy made and meant to live, in the
favour and loving-kindness of God, and have become
dead under his sentence of righteous condemnation, — it
must be a ransom, a substitute, having the life which
they once had ; exempt and free from the death which
they have incurred. A living sacrifice of atonement alone
can suffice ; a sacrifice of atonement having the quality
of life ; of that hfe which consists in a right standing
with God ; in complete exemption from his condemna
tion, and the complete enjoyment of his favour and
loving-kindness. And the sacrifice must be holy also. As it must have
hfe forfeited by no guilt, liable to no sentence of death ;
so it must have holiness tainted by no corruption. Let
either guilt or corruption — let either death or sin — be
long, by whatever tenure, hereditary or personal, to the
ransom or victim that is to be the atoning sacrifice pre
sented by the High Priest on behalf of guilty sinners ; —
it is not such a sacrifice as God, the Lawgiver, can be
justified in accepting as a compensation for the breaking
of his law; it is not such a sacrifice as can be considered
a reasonable service on behalf of the breakers of that

ITS QUALITIES. 25
law, — if it is to exempt them from the penalty which
they have incurred, through the vicarious endurance of that
penalty byaworthy substitute in their stead. The dead and
unholy cannot be ransomed or redeemed, if the only sacri
fice provided for that end is itself involved in their death
and unholiness. " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world," is a welcome call to sinners,
and to me, the chief of sinners. But if that very Lamb
of God that is to take away the sin of the world, is in
volved in that very sin of the world which is to be taken
away, where, alas ! is my hope ?
Thus the sacrifice of atonement presented by the Hio-h
Priest for us must be free alike from the condemnation
and from the corruption, from the death and from the
defilement, of our sin. It must be " a living sacrifice,
holy." And so, also, must be the sacrifice of praise and thanks
giving which, as priests, we are to be always presenting ; it
must be " a living sacrifice, holy." It must partake of
the character of the sacrifice of atonement, in immediate
connection with which it is presented. It is by faith in
the sacrifice of atonement that we present the sacrifice of
praise. This last sacrifice is the fruit of the first; and
indeed, in some sense, a continuation of it. We enter into
the spirit, whUe we appropriate the efficacy, of our great
High Priest's sacrifice of atonement, as a living sacrifice
and holy. We become one, as priests, with him who, as
High Priest, presents it. We become one with him in his
presenting of it. And being one with him who is the
High Priest, we go on, as priests, to present our sacrifice

26 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
of praise. We cannot, in such circumstances, think of pre
senting any sacrifice of praise that is not in keeping and
in harmony with the High Priest's sacrifice of atonement.
We cannot ask God to accept, we cannot offer as our
reasonable service, any tribute of gratitude, any sacrifice
of thanksgiving, that does not possess the qualities which
impart worth and efficacy to the High Priest's great pro
pitiation. Ours, like his, must be a sacrifice, living and
holy. IV.  THE SACRIFICE : ITS MATTER.
" I beseech you that ye present your bodies a sacrifice." — Rom. xii. 1.
The nature of the sacrifice as a sacrifice of praise, as
well as the indispensable conditions and qualities of it,
having been considered, the next inquiry relates to the
substance or matter of the sacrifice. What shaU it be ?
Our bodies: " I beseech you that ye present your bodies
a sacrifice." The same phraseology is used when it is the High
Priest's sacrifice of atonement that is in question. " We
are sanctified," it is said, we are cleansed from the guilt
of sin, " through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all" (Heb. x. 10). It is the entire person of
Christ that is there meant. He offered himself That
was his sacrifice of atonement. The offeriner of ourselves
is our sacrifice of thanksgiving.
But how can there be any parallel or analogy here ?
How can there be any correspondence, in respect of life
and holiness, between Christ's person, offered as a sacrifice
of atonement, — and mine, offered as a sacrifice of praise ?

ITS MATTER. 27
That Christ, the High Priest, may offer his body, or
present himself, as a sacrifice of atonement, living and
holy, I can understand.
As to his life, I read what his beloved disciple records
as part of his teaching in his humiliation : " Therefore
doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay
it down, and I have power to take it again. This com
mandment have I received of my Father" (John x.
17, 18). I read also what that same beloved disciple
records as a voice from his beloved Master in his exalta
tion: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, be
hold, I am alive for evermore, Amen " (Rev. i. 1 8).
He has life; hfe forfeited by no guilt, liable to no con
demnation or death. When he offers, or presents, him
self as a substitute for the dead, the guilty, the condemned,
he offers, or presents, himself a living sacrifice. His life;
his right to live, according to the highest idea of life ; his
prerogative of hfe in the favour of God, in the bosom of
the Father; — cannot be chaUenged or impugned. He is
not under any sentence of condemnation, he is not doomed
to die a penal death on his own account. No fault,
therefore, can be found with him on that score, when
he offers himself as willing to be the substitute of the
guilty. Nor can any objection be taken on the score of his
being one of our race, as if that involved any compromise
or surrender of his essential holiness, or any participa
tion in our sin. His holiness is still as untarnished,

28 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
as his life is unforfeited and uncondemned. It was
needful that he should become one of us, that he
should become one with us, if he was to present
himself as a sacrifice of atonement in our stead. And,
without a miracle, there might be difficulty in his taking
our nature, without taking also our corruption and crimi
nality; — which if he had taken, his offering of himself in
bur stead would have been in vain. But it is miraculously
otherwise arranged. He is essentiaUy the living one,
the holy one, in respect of his divine nature. And even
when he associates the human nature with that divine
nature, so as to constitute one person, Emmanuel, God
with us, — the Word made flesh, — Jesus, saving his
people from their sins, — he is stiU the hving one and the
holy one. A sacrifice of atonement is needed, a ransom
to deliver from going down to the pit. The sacrifice or
ransom, in order to fulfil the twofold condition of its
being such as God may accept and such as may be a suit
able and reasonable service of propitiation for man's sin,
must be hving and holy. It must possess the quahties
of life and holiness; life in God's favour forfeited by no
gmlt; holiness unstained by any taint of pollution. Such
a sacrifice of atonement is found in Christ. He is the
living one. He " lays down his life of himself." He is
"holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners."
" He offers himself without spot to God " (John x. 1 8 ;
Heb. vii. 26; ix. 14).
Now our sacrifice of praise must partake of the quali
ties of his sacrifice of atonement. It must be living
and holy.

ITS MATTER. 29
But how may that be, if it is our bodies, our persons,
ourselves, that we are to present as the sacrifice ?
'Woe is me!' some poor soul may be heard to cry
out, ' I am asked to present a thank-offering and sacrifice
of praise. It is a just demand ; a gracious invitation.
Fain would I comply with it. — But the sacrifice, I am
told, must be hving and holy.' — ' Certainly,' I answer, 'it
is most right and fitting that it should be so.' — ' But I
am further told that it must be myself; myself bodily ;
my very self. — Alas! alas! are life and holiness in me,
that I should furnish in my own person the material of
this sacrifice ? — Life and holiness in me ! — I am lost and
dead in sin ; I am carnal, sold under sin. In me, that
is, in my flesh, dweUeth no good thing ; — nothing but guilt
weighing me down to utter destruction, and corruption
defiling the whole inner man. For me, undone, unclean,
to present myself a living and holy sacrifice ! — it can
not be.'
Nay but, my brother, it must be. It is thyself that
thy God will have thee to present as a thank-offering.
He will accept no other thank-offering at thy hands : it
is not reasonable that he should. Say not that there
is no life in thee. Is not Christ in thee? "Thou
art crucified with Christ, nevertheless thou livest ; yet
not thou ; but Christ liveth in thee " (Gal. ii. 20). And
for thine uncleanness — " what God hath cleansed, that caU
not thou common or unclean" (Acts x. 1 5).
Believers in Christ, caUed to be priests, present your
selves a sacrifice, as the great High Priest presents himself
a sacrifice. Let your ministry and his be one. Are not

30 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
you and he now one, — intimately, inseparably one ? When
you present yourselves a sacrifice, are you not presenting
him? Even as when he presents himself a sacrifice, is he not
presenting you ? He presents himself as crucified for you ;
he presents you as crucified with him. You now present
yourselves ; yet not yourselves ; it is Christ in you that
you present. The Spirit making you one with Christ by
faith, makes you partakers of Christ's life ; the life which
he laid down that he might take it again, — the life which
he has as no more bearing guilt, but justified, accepted,
raised and glorified. The same Spirit, making you one
with Christ in nature, by the renewing of your mind,
makes you partakers of Christ's holiness. The Spirit
takes of what is Christ's, and shows it to you. And
when, through the Spirit, you present yourselves a sacri
fice, he takes of what is Christ's in you, and shows it to
God. May not this be an acceptable thank-offering? Is
not this, ye redeemed and regenerated saints of God, — is
not this your reasonable service ?
" I beseech you therefore, brethren, that ye present
yourselves a sacrifice." And let it be yourselves in
Christ ; let it be Christ in you. For thus only can it be
a sacrifice " living and holy." When Christ presents
himself a sacrifice of atonement, be you one with him in
his doing so. When you present yourselves a sacrifice of
praise, let him be one with you in your doing so. Let
the two presentations be ever going on together, simulta
neously, unitedly. The presentation by Christ of himself
as the sacrifice of atonement is always going on in the
sanctuary above. There, in the true holy place, he is

ITS MATTER. 31
always ministering as your great High Priest, having his
own blood to offer, ever freshly flowing, and freshly effi
cacious to cleanse from aU sin. Enter, be always enter
ing, within the veil, that you may associate and identify
yourselves by faith, through the Spirit, with Christ, in
what is there transacted for your peace. In a corre
sponding manner, let your presentation of yourselves, as a
sacrifice of thanksgiving, be always going on in the
sanctuary here below ; the only sanctuary now owned on
earth, — the deep and sacred shrine of a believing heart.
And oh ! let Christ be always entering in there, within the
veil, and dwelling there, that he may associate and
identify himself with you, in what is there transacted for
God's praise. Thus it will be always Christ, and Christ
alone ; yet always you in Christ, and Christ in you. In
the sacrifice of atonement, it is Christ crucified for you,
and you crucified with him. In the sacrifice of thank
fulness, it is Christ living in you, and you become par
takers of his holiness. It is the sacrifice of propitia
tion, living and holy, prolonging itself, in a manner
most acceptable to God and most reasonable on your
part, into a living and holy sacrifice of praise. There is
the sin-offering of the living and holy body of Christ
once for all ; and there is the thank-offering of the hving
and holy Church, "which is his" mystical "body, the '
fulness of him who filleth aU in aU" (Eph. i. 23).

32 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE :

V. — THE SACRIFICE : ITS MOTIVE.
" I beseech you, by the mercies of God." — Rom. xii. 1.
It now only remains for us to advert a httle to the
motive by which Christians are to be animated in their
discharge of the oflice of their priesthood, for which they
are consecrated to God. As it is a sacrifice of praise
and gratitude that they are to present, they are fitly
adjured and implored to do so " by the mercies of God."
The adjuration, the entreaty, is very earnest. "I beseech
you," says the Apostle. I make it a matter of personal
request, as if I were asking you to do me a personal
favour. I may weU thus appeal to you; for the motive
which I have to urge is one which I have had good
reason myself personally to feel. " The mercies of God "
have been very abundant towards me. But it is not
from myself, or for myself, that I speak. I speak as an
ambassador of Christ. I caU to mind what these mercies
of God were to Christ, — what they were in his eyes and
in his esteem, — when, as the great High Priest, he went
about the business of presenting his sacrifice of atone
ment. What were they to him ? What were they in his eyes
and in his esteem 1 — These mercies of God ?
Go back in imagination, to the unfathomed depths of
that unbroken eternity, before the world was, wherein
the Son is alone, with the Spirit, in the bosom of the
Father. There are mercies in that bosom, throes of pity,
yearnings of kindness and love unquenchable. A guilty,

ITS MOTIVE. 33
lost and ruined race is before him ; a race of beings who
are miserably, to fall, under the temptation of an evil
spirit more powerful and more knowing than themselves.
The great Father's heart is moved ; his bowels of com
passion are stirred : his mercies are overflowing. But
alas ! there is a barrier ; a great rampart of righteous
ness ; a holy law ; a righteous rule of government ; — that
keeps these mercies back ; pent up, barred, restrained ;
so that they can find no vent or channel through which
they may reach their miserable objects. Is the Father's
heart to hold these mercies in, through reverence of
sacred justice, until, if we may dare to say so, it shaU
burst or break ?
Lo ! the Son, moved by these mercies thus struggling
to find a vent, comes forth, and by his own sacrifice of
himself, becomes himself their vent, the outlet and chan
nel for their effusion. He opens a door, a door of right
eousness, through which these floods of richest love may
freely flow, tiU they reach and revive and renovate even
the guiltiest of the guilty, the chief of sinners.
Now by these mercies, no longer pent up in the bosom
of the Father, but gushing in fuU stream through the
rent veil, — the veil rent by that offering of his body once
for aU which the great High Priest makes, — and coming
in, through the Spirit opening the door of your hearts,
into the deepest recesses of your souls, and pouring life
and gladness, peace and hope, through your whole inner
man ; — by these mercies of God, thus issuing from the
bosom of the Fa.ther, thus coming home to your bosoms,
as you beheve on Him who is the way, the truth, and
c

34 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
the hfe, " I beseech you, brethren, that ye present your
bodies a hving sacrifice, and holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service."
Some practical applications of the views which have
been given on the subject of the Christian's sacrifice of
praise may be briefly stated : —
I. If any of you who are caUed to be priests feel that
there is something vague and shadowy about the sacrifice
of praise which you are here caUed to present, and that
you would like to have materials more tangible to offer, —
or at least to have some more definite instruction as to
what is meant by offering yourselves, — wiU such scrip
tural intimations as these afford you any help ?
First, hear what David says (Psalm li.), in the depths
of his sorrow for his grievous sin, after he has sought an
interest anew in the sacrifice of atonement, offering the
prayer of faith, " Purge me with hyssop and I shall be
clean," " Create in me a clean heart, 0 God." He looks
about for a fitting sacrifice of praise, to seal and witness
his appropriation of the sacrifice of atonement. And he
finds it, not in any external acts of worship, but in
his own sense and experience of the evil of his sin ; —
" For thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it :
thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of
God are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart,
0 God, thou wilt not despise." Next, hear what the
Lord himself testifies (Ps. 1.) when he pleads with " his
people, who have made a covenant with him by sacri
fice," — by faith in the sacrifice of atonement; — hear

CONCLUSION. 35
what sort of sacrifice of praise the Lord desires ; —
" If I were hungry, I would not teU thee : for the world
is mine, and the fulness thereof. WUl I eat the flesh of
bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God
thanksgiving ; and pay thy vows unto the most High :
and caU upon me in the day of trouble : I wiU dehver
thee, and thou shalt glorify me." Or again, hear the
words which the Lord so graciously puts into the mouth
of penitent Israel (Hosea xiv.) ; — " Take away aU iniquity,
and receive us graciously : so wiU we render the calves
of our lips." Or once more, hear the exhortation of the
Apostle writing to the Hebrews (ch. xiii.), when, having
spoken of Jesus, who, that he might sanctify or cleanse
the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate,
he adds ; — " By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continuaUy, that is, the fruit of our hps
giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to com
municate forget not : for with such sacrifices God is weU
pleased." Here is a choice of materials for a thank-offering ; a
broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart ; the pay
ment of your vows, calling upon God in the time of trou
ble ; the calves of your hps, the fruit of your lips, con
fessing and praising the name of Jesus ; good deeds, good
gifts ; all or any of these things may be sacrifices of praise.
And in fact, are they not all comprehended in your pre
senting yourselves a sacrifice ?
So Paul seems to teach when writing to the Corin
thians (2 Cor. viii.), he stimulates their zeal by quoting
the example of the churches of Macedonia ; — " How that

36 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy
and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their
liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and
beyond their power they were wUling of themselves ;
praying us with much entreaty that we would receive
the gift, and take upon us the feUowship of the minister
ing to the saints." A fact like this — such abundance of
joy in great affliction, such abundance of liberality in
deep poverty, requires explanation. The Apostle feels
this, and accordingly he furnishes the explanation when
he adds, " And this they did, not as we hoped ; but first
gave their own selves to the Lord."
They first gave their own selves to the Lord.
Ah ! this solves the riddle : this accounts for the mys
tery. No wonder their joy abounded in a great trial of
affliction ; no wonder the riches of their liberality
abounded in deep poverty. And no wonder your joy in
your religion is marred by gloom, and your liberality
straitened by selfishness, if you do not first give your
own selves to the Lord. That you may rejoice right
heartily in God your Saviour, that you may be always
abounding in the work of the Lord, " I beseech you,
brethren," that you first give your own selves to the Lord ;
"that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, and holy."
II. And let the deed of gift, the act of presentation,
be thorough and unreserved. There is no reserve on the
part of Christ, when he presents himself a sacrifice of
atonement. Let there be no reserve on your part, when
you present yourselves a sacrifice of praise. Let your
surrender of yourselves be as complete as Christ's surren-

conclusion. 37
der of himself was. Through the Eternal Spirit, he
offered himself to God ; his whole self : himself whole
and entire. Through the same Eternal Spirit, offer ye
also yourselves to God ; your whole selves : yourselves
whole and entire : mind and body, heart and soul. That
is what as Christians you profess to do : let it be what
you really do. Sin not as Ananias and Sapphira sinned ;
when wishing it to be understood that they were giving
their aU, they kept back a part. Remember how it was
not the amount withheld that was the measure of their
guilt. Even their offering of what they gave was vitiated.
They lied to the Holy Ghost. Grieve not thus the
Spirit. Let no portion whatever of yourselves, — none of
your affections, faculties, powers, energies, resources, — be
held back from God. Be it ever so httle, the holding
back of anything mars your whole sacrifice ; its life and
holiness are gone ; it is dead and duU ; it is hollow and
insincere ; it is a cheerless, joyless, routine of duty ; not
a glad service of love. If that be your religion, it may
well weary you and repel others : you neither glorify
God, nor do good to man ; no, nor even gain content
ment for yourselves. Follow the Lord wholly ; give your
aU to him ; if you would be really Christians, and happy,
as well as useful, in your Christianity.
III. FinaUy, let it be always by the mercies of God
that you are moved to present yourselves a sacrifice of
thanksgiving to him.
"The mercies of God!" How precious is the very
phrase! How sweet its sound ! " The mercies of God ! "
How great is their multitude ! How manifold are they!

38 CONSECRATION TO GOD  A SACRIFICE:
New every morning, fresh every moment, coming down
as rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the
earth ! Only let your eye be open to see them ; your hand
to take them ; your mouth to sing of them all the day long;
above aU, your heart to keep them in its inmost shrine.
Thy mercies, Lord, in Christ, flowing in upon me
through Christ, — if I would declare and speak of them,
they are more than can be numbered. First and chief-
est of them all is Christ himself, whom thou, 0 Father,
givest to be mine ; my Saviour, brother, friend. And in
his train what troops of mercies ! — mercies of aU sorts,
for soul, body, spirit : if I am weary, rest ; if I sin, for
giveness ; if I have sorrow, comfort ; if I am weak,
strength ; if I am wayward, chastening ; if I am dying,
hope ! — mercies for all times and places ; songs in the
night ; a table spread in the wUderness ; bread and water
sure ; oU to anoint the head ; a cup running over ! —
mercies always, mercies everywhere ! Thy tender mer
cies, Lord, are great : thou crownest me with loving-
kindness and tender mercies. What shall I render to
thee for them aU? WUt thou take myself, 0 Lord?
WUt thou suffer me to give myself to thee ? WUt thou
enable me to give myself to thee ? Wilt thou make me
thine ? thine alone, thine altogether, thine for ever ?
But what if thou art disqualified, 0 sinner, for pre
senting a sacrifice of praise at all? And art thou not
disqualified if thou hast not embraced the appointed sacri
fice of propitiation ? In such a state, unbelieving, unfor
given, think not that any offering of thine can avail thee

CONCLUSION. 39
with God. I move, for thee, the previous question. I
beseech thee, brother, to let Christ wash thee in his blood,
and present thee to his Father. Think not that whilst
thou continuest in thy present state, thou canst bring
into God's house any offering that he wUl accept as thy
reasonable service. Thou art dead ; thou art unclean.
Thou canst not present any service or sacrifice that will
at all avail thee for averting the Divine wrath or win
ning the Divine favour. But see, O Sinner, there is a
sin-offering lying at thy door. And it is thine, if thou
wilt but have it to be thine. Why shouldst thou con
tinue in so sad a condition as to be debarred from offer
ing songs of praise to thy God % Nay, it is a condition
which, if thou continuest in it, must extort from thee,
ere long, instead of songs of praise, weeping and waning
and gnashing of teeth ! But thou needst not continue in
it, no, not for an hour. Accept now in faith the sacrifice
of atonement, and thereupon present the sacrifice of praise.
First, be reconriled to thy God ; then come and offer thy
gift.

40 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
II.
SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD.
"And be not conformed to this world; but be transformed by the renewine of
your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect
will of God." — Rom. xii. 2,
The change which takes place in our relation to God,
when, through faith in the High Priest's sacrifice of pro
pitiation, we, as priests, present ourselves a sacrifice of
praise, implies a corresponding change in our relation to
that system of things — that course and current of thought
and feeling — which, in scriptural language, is the world.
It implies, — and this is the second element in the Chris
tian's relation to God, — separation from the world.
That separation is described in this verse as a trans
formation. And it may be viewed in three practical
hghts — with reference, I. To what it puts off ; — " Be
not conformed to this world." II. To what it is in
itself ; — '¦ Be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind." And III. To what it aims at accomplishing ; —
" That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect wm of God."
I.— NONCONFORMITY — " BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS
WORLD."
The antagonism or opposition between God and the
world is strongly asserted in the word. Thus.John, the be-

NONCONFORMITY. 4 1
loved disciple, speaks, "Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of
the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust
thereof : but he that doeth the will of God abideth for
ever." John, it wUl be observed, fastens upon one feature as
characteristic of the world, whose friendship, as another
Apostle testifies (James iv. 4), is "enmity with God:"
" The world passeth away, and the lust thereof." The
Apostle Paul, also, singles out the same feature, in sum
ming up his argument as to the bearing of Christian faith
on the relations and arrangements of the world : " But
this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that
both they that have wives be as though they had none ;
and they that weep, as though they wept not ; and they
that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ; and they that
buy, as though they possessed not ; and they that use
this world, as not abusing it : for the fashion of this
world passeth away" (1 Cor. vii. 29-31).
" The fashion of this world passeth away ;" — " Be not
conformed to this world ; " — the statement and the ex
hortation are intimately connected. The verb, " be not
conformed," is a derivative of the noun, " the fashion."
The admonition literaUy is, — Be not co-fashioned with
this world ; take not the fashion of this world ; the
fashion which passeth away.
In this view, the warnings of the Divine word, as

42 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
to nonconformity with the world, may be regarded as
having a distinctness and definite precision not always
apprehended. Whatever passeth away, is the fashion of this world.
Whatever is permanently abiding, and always the same,
is not the fashion of this world. In so far as our hearts
and minds take the character, the stamp or impress, the
form or fashion, of what is transitory in this present
state of things, we are conformed to this world. And
in so far as we are in that sense conformed to this world,
we are unfitted and disabled for presenting ourselves a
sacrifice of praise to God.
Plainly therefore, in reference to every institution,
every pursuit, every work, every pleasure, every com
pany or companionship, of which this world is the
scene, the question arises, Is there in it and about it
anything, — and, if so, what is there in it and about it, —
that is not fleeting and fickle, but lasting and unchanging?
Has it, in short, a fashion, — and if so, what fashion has
it, — that does not pass away ?
If it has nothing in it or about it that can fairly be
held entitled to that character, — if it has no fashion that
does not pass away, — there is no practical difficulty in
deciding how you are to deal with it, if you would not
be conformed to this world, but would present yourselves
a sacrifice, living and holy.
But there is scarcely anything in this world, not
in itself sinful, which can be said to partake exclusively
of the fashion which passes away ; scarcely anything
which has in it no germ or element of what is abiding,

NONCONFORMITY. 43
what is permanent and unchanging. In so far as what
you come in contact with in this world has in it any
such germ or element, conformity of spirit with it is not
forbidden. It is only in so far as its fashion is a fashion
which passeth away, that you can apply with reference
to it the maxim, "Be not conformed to this world."
Perhaps I may best iUustrate what I mean by taking
the particular instances which the Apostle, writing to the
Corinthians, specifies, in the passage already quoted.
He names two social institutions — marriage, and trade
or business ; — he names also two social affections, weeping
and rejoicing ; — as proper to our social state. He speci
fies those who marry and those who buy ; he specifies
also those who rejoice and those who mourn; — and so he
suggests a double lesson of nonconformity to the world ;
1. In its institutions ; and 2. In its events.
1. NONCONFORMITY TO THE WOELO'S INSTITUTIONS.
Let us, in the first place, take the two social institutions,
marriage and commerce. Let us ask what it is, with a
special application to them, not to be conformed to this
world, in respect of the fashion of this world which
passeth away ? " It remaineth that both they who have
wives be as though they had none,  and they who
buy as though they possessed not."
I. Marriage, and the relations of which marriage is
the source and centre, are not permanent ordinances of
God. They are, when considered in the hght of eternity,
temporary and provisional arrangements. In heaven

44 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
they " neither marry nor are given in marriage ; neither
can they die any more ; for they are equal unto the
angels ; and are the chUdren of God, being the children of
the resurrection." And in heaven there will be realized
among the redeemed that equal feUowship, superseding
all family distinctions, which the Lord Jesus recognised
on earth when he stretched forth his hand toward his
disciples and said, " Behold my mother and my brethren ;
for whosoever shaU do the wUl of my Father which is in
heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."
It might seem, therefore, that marriage, and its atten
dant and accompanying relationships in this world, have
stamped upon them essentially the brand of that fashion
of this world which passeth away. This world's fleeting
fashion is theirs. It is but a little while, and there shaU
be but one family ; the family of which the Apostle speaks
when he says, " I bow the knee to the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole famUy in heaven
and earth is named."
But is there nothing in these relationships, or about
them, that wiU abide, even when the fashion of them
passes away? Is there not a living spirit enshrined
and embodied in every one of them, which will survive
when its mere outward earthly tabernacle is dissolved?
Conformity to that living and abiding spirit is not for
bidden, but only conformity to the passing form or
fashion in which, as in a husk, for a season it lives and
grows. A searching practical question may here be raised and
pressed home with a special application to every one of

NONCONFORMITY. 45
the institutions of domestic and social hfe — every relation
which any one of us occupies, as spouse, parent, child,
brother, neighbour, citizen, friend, lover. What, with
reference to that particular relation, — what is it for
nie to be conformed to this world ?
The answer may be found in the putting of another
question — What is it, in that particular relation, that I
chiefly regard ? What is it that I have habitually at
heart ? Is it what pertains to the form or fashion of it
which passes away ? Or is it what breathes, or may
breathe, into it a living and, therefore, an abiding spirit?
Try by this test your walk at home, in your family,
among your kinsmen and familiars. You form no alliance
or connection that can be caUed sinful. AU your feUow-
ships are in themselves lawful and right. And you are
faithful, upright, and exemplary in them aU. No wilful
or customary breaking of any of these ties or relations of
private hfe can be laid to your charge. So far good.
But what, after aU, is it in these relations that you feel
to be congenial? What is there in common between
them and you ?
Is it their adaptation to your mere animal desires and
wants, whether of a higher or of a lower sort? Is it
their fitness to minister to your bodily or mental con
tentment, and make the time you have to spend in this
world pass the more easily and the more pleasantly ? Is
it for their convenience to you in your journey of life,
their advantageous bearing on your comfort, your credit,
your advancement and success, that you use and value
them? Or is it for their capacity of being turned to

46 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
far higher and more lasting account that you prize them?
Do you, as with a spiritual instinct, seize that in them
which can be made avaUable for eternity ; — that which
wiU live and fructify when the fashion of them, with the
fashion of this world, passeth away?
As husbands and wives, are you walking together as
heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be
hindered ? Are you helpers of one another's faith, hope,
love and labour, as weU as sharers of one another's joy and
grief ? As parents, are you training your children in the
Lord ? Are you training them for the Lord ? — not provok
ing them to anger by caprice or passion : not making mere
playthings of them, or slaves, or helps and conveniences in
your business, or in your idleness, or in your pleasure, or in
your sin ; but treating them reasonably, reverentially, affec
tionately, as belonging to the Lord, and placed under your
guardianship by the Lord? As chUdren, are you obeying
your parents in the Lord, and through obedience to them,
exercising yourselves in obedience to the Lord ? As brothers
and friends, are you not merely amusing one another,
instructing one another, showing kindness to one another;
— but praying for one another, praying with one another.
seeking the Lord and serving the Lord together ? As
masters and servants, are you owning a common Master
in heaven, and a common service to him on earth ? And
generaUy, in all the cares and crosses, as well as in all
the endearments, joys and comforts of society and of
home, — what tastes are you cultivating by means of
them ? What affections are you" cherishing ? What
habits are you forming? Are they tastes, affections,

NONCONFORMITY. 47
habits of regardless selfishness, as if you had a right to
consult for your own ease alone, and to expect that aU
around you should minister to your pleasure or your
peace ? That surely is the fashion of this world. When
you use these blessed institutions and arrangements for
ends and purposes thus transitory and fleeting, are you
not conformed to this world in the using of them ? But on
the other hand, are they tastes, affections, habits of an
other kind altogether that you are exercising ? Are they
tastes, affections, habits of unselfish, disinterested, gen
erous, and self-denying kindness, — mutual forbearance, —
mutual tenderness and truth ? Are they tastes, affections,
habits of pure and benign, Christ-like and God-like,
charity? These wiU bear to be transplanted into the
soU of heaven. They do not partake of any fashion of
this world that passeth away. They will live and thrive
in the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness ; — in the recovered and regained paradise
of God ; — where all is light and aU is love.
Thus with reference to the social institutions, the
domestic and social relationships of life, represented by
marriage, — the origin at once and cement of them aU, —
and thus only, — we comply with the precept, " Be not
conformed to this world ; " not by disparaging or disown
ing them ; not by withdrawing from them and evading
them ; but by seeing to it, and making conscience of it,
that it is not in what about them is fleeting and transient
that we rest with complacenc}'', but in the more abiding
good which they may be made to minister to us as pil
grims, declaring plainly that " we seek a country."

48 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
II. So also with reference to the other class of insti
tutions, or operations, specified by the Apostle — those
connected with property and the transfer of property, re
presented by the instance of buying — exactly the same
principle may be applied.
We may speak here comprehensively of the whole busi
ness of life ; the transactions of the farm, the counting-
house, the market-place, the exchange, the bar, the court,
the senate, the camp ; whatever work a man has to do,
whatever bargain he has to make, in any lawful caUing,
any honest trade, any honourable profession, or in the
preparation for any of them. These surely are things of
which the fashion wholly passeth away, with the passing
fashion of this world. What room in heaven for money-
changing, for buying and selling, any more than for
marrying and giving in marriage ? Is not my strenuous
application to such pursuits as these, necessarily, so far as
it goes, conformity to this world ?
Yes, if I contemplate merely what in them and about
them is temporary and passeth away ; whether it be the
mere pleasure of present occupation and excitement, or the
chance of speedy gain ; whether it be the daily pittance
that I get for myself and those whom I love, with such
weary, drudging toil, or the wealth which I am beginning
to accumulate and lay up, or the character for sober in
dustry that I am so steadUy maintaining. If these, and
such as these, are the considerations connected with my
calling, which alone come home to me — which alone have
power to touch me, and move me to discontent or to hope
¦ — too plainly the point of contact, the bond of sympathy,

NONCONFORMITY. 49
between them and me, partakes exclusively of that
fashion of the world which passeth away. This is to be
conformed to the world in these things.
But I do not mend the matter by ceasing to buy, to
sell, to work. WhUe the hands are idle, the heart may
all the more be drawn to what is of most fugitive
interest in the pursuits and affairs of time. And so on
the other hand, attention, diligence, activity, and if you
will, ambition, in aU the laudable pursuits of busy life, may
be entirely compatible with a state of mind quite other
wise fashioned than according to the passing fashion of this
world. What binds me to them, what moves me in them,
may be no mere delight or complacency in what is mani
festly transitory and fleeting about them, but a view of some
thing, nay, of much, in every one of them, that for myself or
for my feUow-mortals may be made avaUable for eternity.
Art thou condemned to tread the incessant round of
never- varying, never-advancing routine ; paying thy
day's task for thy day's food ; paying often, not only in
the sweat of thy brow, but almost in the blood of thy
heart; and getting less than thou wouldst call thy daily
bread for what thou payest ? Be nst conformed to this
world. Fasten not, in thy musings, on those incidents of
thy hard fate of which the fashion will pass away with
tlie fashion of this world. Grasp, as a Christian man,
what, even in thy dreary monotony of thankless toU,
may aUy thee, and those dear to thee, to eternity and the
Eternal; its lesson of obedience in suffering, of faith
hoping against hope, of love not to be quenched even by
the waters of despair.
D

50 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
Art thou chained, hke a gaUey-slave, to thy desk, all
the live-long day, and often also through the sleepless
hours of the night ? Is thy business anxious, engrossing,
uninterruptedly importunate in its demands ? Give thy
mind to it, brother ; but be not conformed to this world in
it. Only be sure, by God's grace, that what fastens thee to
thy work is no mere regard to any fruit of it that must
pass away with the fashion of this world, but some sight,
such as faith can give thee, of its bearing on eternity, and
on thy relation to the Eternal.
Art thou plunged into the conduct of a hot and bloody
war, — immersed in the calculations of an inextricable
campaign, — or rushing up the heights to storm the ram
parts of the foe ? Let there be no misgiving, no shrink
ing from thine occupation, dark and bloody as it is. But
be not conformed to this world in it. Ask the Lord to
give thee his Spirit, that what nerves thee for the strife
of death, may be no sympathy with the fierce passions
which rage furiously for an hour of battle, and pass away
when the stern crisis is over, — nor any mere lust of
plunder or of fame, — but some insight into the mind of
that great God and Saviour, who maketh the wrath of
man to praise him, and who stiU, in aU the march and
movements of time, is consulting for the issues of
eternity. Thus human society, in its mutual relations and in its
necessary avocations, is consistent with divine Christi
anity. Thus it is possible for a man to marry and to
buy — to be a father or member of a family, and a trader
in the business of hfe — yet not conformed to this world.

NONCONFORMITY. 5 \
The secret lies in that faith which, wherever it is, and
whatever it is doing, looks " not to the things which are
seen, but to the things which are not seen ; for the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal." 2. NONCONFORMITY TO THE WOELD's EVENTS.
From the institutions of society and the occupations of
busy life, — from marriage and merchandise, let us now
turn to the events and occasions in the world which cause
either weeping or joy; as these two affections are named
by the Apostle, — "And they that weep, as though they
wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced
not." Now the events and occasions in the world which
cause either weeping or rejoicing may be of two kinds;
either such as in the providence of God seek and find us ;
or such as we, at our discretion, seek and find for our
selves. Let us consider both kinds.
I. The dealings and dispensations of providence move
us to tears or to gladness ; and with reference to them
and their effects, the exhortation is to be applied, " Be
not conformed to this world."
And here again the same test as before may be used.
Whatever befaUs us, whether joyous or grievous, has a
double character, a double aspect or bearing. It partakes
of the fleeting and shadowy nature of the world whose
" fashion passeth away." But it has in it and about it
that also which touches eternity, and may be turned to

52 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
account for eternity. After which of these two forms or
moulds into which it may be cast is our mind, when we
come in contact with it, fashioned ?
Do we take to what is merely transient and temporary
in the occurrence ? Is that the bent and bias of our
mind ? Is it exclusively or chiefly in that direction that
we find ourselves moved ? Or is it rather in the light of
eternity that what has happened presents itself to us ?
Is it there, in the light of eternity, that the point of
assimilation, if I may so speak, between the event and
us, is to be discerned ? Do we, not as by an effort, but as
it were instinctively, seize it, and make it our own, on that
side of it which looks towards eternity ? That, I would
say, is, in reference to that matter, not being conformed to
this world.
You weep, for some calamity has overtaken you. You
have lost some cherished comfort, some favourite posses
sion, some beloved friend. You are in poverty, in distress,
in pain, in bitter grief. That you are so, does not neces
sarily imply that you are conformed to this world. It
did not in the case of Jesus. "Jesus groaned." " Jesus
wept." And he surely was not conformed to this world.
Nor need you, in your groanings, in your weeping, be so
either. But your sorrow and its cause are in themselves
transitory ; the fashion of them passes away. The
calamity presses sore upon you for a season. You feel as
if you did well, as if you had a right, to be angry be
cause your pleasant gourd is withered. There is fond
complaining, peevish melancholy, wailing lamentation.

NONCONFORMITY. 53
GraduaUy, however, your passion expends itself. The
trial is over. And you resume your activity as if nothing
had been afflicting you. Or, if you do carry with you, as
you may ever after, a settled despondency and gloom, it
is because to your apprehension there is a fixed dark cloud
over your path and your prospects, and the world is be
come to you aU dark and dreary.
Such effects and fruits of your suffering too plainly in
dicate that you are conformed to this world ; that your
minds are fashioned according to that fashion of the world
which passes away. It is in its aspect towards what is
transient and fleeting in time that the suffering affects
you, not in its aspect towards what is permanent and un
changing in eternity.
For if it were so, your grief in your suffering, your con
solation in your grief, and the issue of aUthe three — your
suffering, your grief, your consolation — in a calm and trust
ful peace, would aU possess a character harmonizing with
the solemn realities of eternity. Your grief would be
neither discontent, nor despondency, nor defiance, nor
despair, but the humbling of yourselves under the hands of
the Eternal God. Your consolation would be neither apathy
nor oblivion, but your taking to yourselves the sure and
free love of the Eternal Father. And the issue would be
the peaceable fruit of righteousness to the praise of the
Eternal Father's glory, in the Eternal Son, and by the
Eternal Spirit.
Again, you rejoice. You have good cause to rejoice.
You eat your pleasant food. You live in a quiet habita
tion. You dwell among your own people. You have

54 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
quiet nights and comfortable days: loving children, troops
of friends. And from time to time events occur to cheer
you. Good news reaches you from a far country. Your
lost and banished ones are restored to you. Unlooked-
for prosperity comes to you. Surely you do weU to re
joice for these things, and such things as these : to be
grateful, to be cheerful.
But be not conformed to this world in them. These
benefits and blessings partake very largely of the fashion
of this world which passes away. And there is a strong
tendency in your hearts to rest in them and rejoice in
them under that aspect. In their immediate bearing on
this transitory scene, they are but too congenial to you.
Learn to regard them in another light. View them as
fitted to feed and cherish gracious, loving, kindly feelings
— benignant and benevolent affections — feelings and
affections not tainted with the vice of the world's transi
toriness, but destined and fitted to endure for ever. And
above all, unite with your enjoyment of them all, that
submission to the wUl of the Eternal God, which animated
the bosom of the Eternal Son when he " rejoiced in the
Spirit," and said, " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
in thy sight." They who thus re oice, in the same Spirit
in whom he rejoiced — the bab( ^ to whom is revealed
what is hid from the wise and j 'udent — they who echo
the Saviour's own words, whethe • the Lord gives or takes
away, " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
thy sight," — they assuredly are not conformed to this
world in their joy. They enter into the joy of then-
Lord.

NONCONFORMITY. 55
II. There is another class of events and occasions pro
ductive of weeping or of joy, with reference to which the
exhortation is to be apphed, — " Be not conformed to this
world." These are not such as in the providence of God
seek and find us, but such as we, at our discretion, seek
and find for ourselves. In regard to them, we have evi
dently much more liberty and power of choice, and there
fore, of course, a much more immediate and direct respon
sibility. Our voluntary pursuits and pleasures ; our studies,
our relaxations, our amusements ; our places of resort,
our companionships and associations ; — these are all to a
large extent under our own control And two questions
evidently present themselves here: Are they such as I
ought to countenance and frequent at aU ? And if so,
how am I to use them, if in the using of them I would
not be conformed to this world ?
As to the first question, let it be honestly and fairly
met, in the spirit of the Apostle's test or criterion, honestly
and fairly understood. And there will be an end of not
a httle special pleading and partial counsel
May I go into a certain company ? May I attend a
certain spectacle or show ? May I read a certain kind
of literature ? That is the question. In reply, let it be
asked — What is the fashion of it ? Is its fashion the
passing fashion of this world, and nothing more ? Is it
altogether cast into the mould of what is as fleeting and
transitory as is the present state of things ? Are the
feelings which it moves, the emotions which it calls forth,
the impulses which it prompts, the principles which it en-

56 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
forces, such as wUl pass away with the fashion of this
WOrld — the fashion of its lust, the fashion of its sentiment,
the fashion of its romance, the fashion of its vain pomp and
pride ? Should not that, if it be so, be enough to decide
your judgment, and determine your conduct ? On that
supposition, is not the line of duty clear ?
Or, since we are now in the region of what is matter of
discretion and voluntary choice, let the determination turn
on the influence actually exercised, and the effect actuahy
produced upon yourselves. Does the practice in question
tend to move you rather according to the fashion of the
world, which passes away, than according to the fashion of
the heavenly state, which endures for ever? Are you
conscious that when you are engrossed in the gay party,
or entranced by the sweet music, or absorbed in the fasci
nating scene, or possessed by the spell of the resistless
eloquence or pathos of the book, — there steals over you
a disposition to rest with fond complacency on the sha
dows of time, and to recoil from the realities of eternity ;
insomuch that when you are interrupted in your grief or
joy, or when the exciting cause is over, you have more
difficulty than before in adjusting your thoughts and
affections for the feUowships of eternity, and more ea.se
than before in squaring them with the conversations of
time ? Should not this be enough for you ?
Judge not others. Judge not by others. Judge not
for others. Judge and act for yourselves. And if there
be a pursuit or a pleasure which you find from sad ex
perience has a tendency to unfit you for the closet or the
sanctuary, to make you weary of the Bible and heartless

NONCONFORMITY. 57
in secret prayer, to mould you, in short, after the fashion
of things seen and temporal, rather than after the fashion
of things unseen and eternal, — for your soul's sake, be
firm. Let there be no wavering. " Be not conformed
to this world."
And then, secondly, as to- the other question — How, if
you do find the pursuit or the pleasure to be one which
you may countenance, — how you are to be safe in coun
tenancing it? — let the same principle be scrupulously
applied. Let it be applied with peculiar delicacy, with
peculiar and very sensitive jealousy. For the danger is
peculiarly great when you are satisfied that you may, —
when you are convinced even that you should, — take a
part in studies and occupations and recreations, which
have in themselves scarcely anything of the element of
heaven's perpetuity ; being of the earth, earthy ; fashioned
after the fashion of the world which passeth away. It
may be that you are right in what you are doing : that
you can do it safely ; that you could scarcely do other
wise. But it can do no harm to suggest, in the first
place, that your warrcnt should be very clear, that your
call should be very strong ; and above aU, that your con
science should be void of offence in regard to it. What
you do with a misgiving ; what you aUow yourself with
hesitation ; however lawful it may be, is not expedient.
Be fuUy persuaded in your own minds. Then, secondly,
go into the scene, or company, or occupation, with prayer
and pains ; prayer that God may show you — pains that
you may discover — some way of glorifying him in it.
Not that you are to do so artificiaUy : as if by a forced

58 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
effort, felt out of place, out of keeping, out of season. If
it is only by outraging the proprieties of any meeting,
that you can do good, is not that a hint to you to be
away from it ? If your Christianity is not at home and
at ease in it, surely you had better be elsewhere. But
with all simplicity, with the gracefulness and graciousness
which singleness of eye bestows, move freely among the
elements of time, with a heart stiU full of eternity. And
you wiU find none of them altogether barren of what
may be turned to account for something better than the
fashion of this world which passeth away ; — none of
them that may not be made to minister to that habit
of obedience which the Apostle John commends, when
he says : " The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof: but he that doeth the wiU of God abideth for
ever." This doing of the will of God is not the
fashion of this world ; neither is it a fashion that passeth
away. II. — THE RENEWING OF THE MIND.
" Be ye transformed, by the renewing of your mind." — Rom. xii. 2.
The Christian's sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving is to
be himself. It is to be himself living and holy : hving,
yet not himself living, but Christ living in him : holy,
as being a partaker of Christ's holmess. If he is to be in
a position to present his body thus, " a hving sacrifice,
holy," he must not only cast off the fashion of this world;
he must assume a fashion of an entirely opposite charac
ter. The negative prohibition, accordingly, " Be not con-

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 59
formed," is followed up by the positive commandment, " Be
ye transformed."
This word — transform — occurs elsewhere in the New
Testament on two occasions. It is the word used to de
note the Lord's transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 2 ; Mark
ix. 2). And it is the word employed by Paul to describe
that growing conformity to the likeness of the Lord,
which results from the contemplation of his exceUency :
" We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord, are changed" — transformed or transfigured
— "into the same image from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18).
In his transfiguration, the Lord's mortal body was seen
invested with the glory in which he is to appear at his
second coming. So the Apostle Peter expressly testifies,
when he says concerning himself and the other apostles
present at that scene, " We were eye-witnesses of his
majesty" — the very majesty which is to mark his coming
in power (2 Peter i. 16). They saw him then trans
figured, or transformed. But it was only in appearance,
and only for a few moments. His real transfiguration,
his actual transformation, did not take place tiU that
mortal body of his passed through death, and the resur
rection from the dead, into the beavenly glory. We are
to see him thus really transfigured, thus actually trans
formed. And we are to be partakers of the transforma
tion: " For our conversation is in heaven ; from whence
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned" —
formed, figured — " hke unto his glorious body, according

60 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
to the working whereby he is able even to subdue aU
things unto himself" (PhU. iii. 20, 21).
That transformation is for the hfe to come. But there
is a transformation in the life that now is. This also is a
transformation into the image or hkeness of the Lord.
And therefore it is a transformation into glory, — " from
glory to glory." The glory, however, is not what was
seen on the mount of transfiguration, but what was seen
in the manger at Bethlehem, in the wilderness of Judea,
beside the lake of Galilee, along the streets of Jerusalem,
in the garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross. Behold
ing that glory we are changed into the same image ; —
not suddenly and completely, all at once, as beholding the
other glory, we shall be changed into the same image with
it, when this corruptible shaU put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall put on immortality — but by a gradual
and ever brightening progress, "from glory to glory."
And not as it wiU be then, without our concurrence and
co-operation, is the transformation to be effected, but by
means of it. For whUe in that Second Epistle to the
Corinthians it is announced as a natural consequence, or a
gracious promise, or both, that beholding the glory of the
Lord we are transformed into the same image — here, the
matter is put upon the footing of a peremptory command,
"Be ye transformed."
The manner of this transformation is indicated ; it is
by " the renewing of your mind." And the end of it
also is indicated ; it is " that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect wUl of God." You are
to prove this, as the Lord himself did. You are to be

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 61
changed into his likeness as proving it. For this is his
glory in his humUiation, — and it is into his glory in his
humiliation, and into that alone, that you are now to be
transfigured and transformed, — he " proves what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect wUl of God."
For this end there was needed in his case a previous
transformation ; a transformation, as to the manner of it,
analogous to ours ; not indeed by the renewing of his
mind, but by what may be viewed as the type and model
of the renewing of our mind, his receiving a new nature
and entering into a new state. His transformation, in the
sense now indicated, — as being not his ultimate transforma
tion, upon his work being finished, but his preliminary
transformation, for the doing of his work, — is his being
made of a woman, made under the law. He is trans
formed, when, being the Son of God, he becomes man, in
order that in his experience, as a man, he may " prove
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect wUl of God."
" The renewing of our mind," our being born again, our
being created anew, is our corresponding transformation.
And in our case as in his, the transformation is in order
that "we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect wiU of God."
Thus, as to the manner of it, our transformation con
sists in " the renewing of our mind." And as to the end
or design of it, it is developed and unfolded, it grows and
makes progress, in our " proving what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect wUl of God." In both of these
points of view we are to be transformed into the image of
Christ.

62 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
The end of this transformation wiU afterwards be con
sidered. Let us meanwhile advert to the manner of it.
The source and essence of the transformation in our
case is the renewing of our mind. In the case of Christ,
it was his receiving a new nature. He was transformed
by becoming man. We are transformed by becoming
new men in him. The renewing of our mind, when we
become new men, is our being brought to have the same
mind which Christ had when he became man. And
what mind was that ? Let Christ himself reply, speaking
by the mouth of the Psalmist (Ps. xl. 7, 8 ; Heb.
x. 5), " Then said I, Lo I come ; in the volume of the
book it is written of me, I delight to do thy wUl, 0 my
God ; yea, thy law is within my heart." To be renewed
in the spirit of our mind, is to have " the same mind in
us which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but
made himself of no reputation and took upon him the
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."
(Phil. ii. 5-7.)
" I come, to do thy will, 0 God," is the language
of the Saviour, in the very act of taking the new nature,
the new position, of a creature and servant. The renew
ing of our mind is, our making that language our own.
There is a new nature, there is a new position, in our case
also, when we do so. For we are made partakers of the
Divine nature ; and we receive the adoption of sons.
How close the analogy is, how intimate and vital the
connection, between Christ's being transformed by a body

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 63
being prepared for him, a new and holy human frame, and
our being transformed by the renewing of our mind, — the
consideration of a few particular points of resemblance
may suffice to show.
In the first place, the agency is the same — the agency
of the Holy Ghost. It is he alone who can make the
Son partaker of our human nature, reaUy, — and yet with
out making him to be as fallen man. It is he alone who
can make us partakers of the Son's divine nature, really, —
and yet without making us to be as God. Born of the
Spirit, the Son comes into the world, one with us indeed
in nature, yet not involved in our natural vileness. Born
again of the same Spirit, we enter into the kingdom of
God, one with the Son indeed in nature, yet not exalted
or aspiring to his essential majesty. When our human
nature and condition was to become his, could this be,
without its radical vice becoming his also ? When his
divine nature and condition, as the Son, is to become ours,
can this be, without its incommunicable sovereignty be
coming ours also ? Could he become what we are, as the
fallen children of men, without being a sharer in our
apostasy and rebellion ? Can we become what he is, as
the beloved Son of God, without being sharers in his
everlasting Godhead itself? These are questions to
which, in both instances, the fact of the agency of the
Holy Ghost furnishes an answer — a satisfactory answer
— and it may be confidently said, the only possible
answer. Thus, on the part of Christ, his supernatural birth, by
the power of the Holy Ghost, secures his exemption and

64 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
immunity from aU participation in what sinks and de
grades our nature to the level of that which the faUen
angels now own. And so also our being supernaturally
born of the Spirit, provides for our being partakers of the
divine nature of the Son, without intruding into that
essential divinity which is indefeasibly the prerogative of
the one only God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is
the same Spirit who enables tbe Son to become a servant,
as we are, without prejudice to his holy character and
high standing as the Son, — who also enables us to become
sons, as he is, without any abandonment of our place and
position as servants.
In the second place, these two operations of the Spirit
admirably fit into one another : the one effecting that
supernatural birth by which the Son becomes a servant ;
the other, that supernatural new birth by which the ser
vants become sons. The new creation by which the Son
becomes partaker of our human nature, has for its
counterpart the new creation by which we become
partakers of his divine nature. The one transforma
tion is the cause of the other. It is so, not only as
being that without which the other could not have
been, but also as being that by means of which the other
is wrought. But for the Son being transformed into our likeness,
we could never have been transformed into his. And it
is through our believing, apprehending, laying hold of,
and appropriating, his transformation, that we are our
selves transformed. For the transformation, in either case,
is a union. His being transformed, is his being united,

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 65
by a new creation, to us. Our being transformed, is our
being united, by a new creation, to him. The Spirit
makes him one, in his birth, with us. The same Spirit
also makes us one, in our new birth, with him. This, in
point of fact, is the renewing of our mind. It is our
being one with the Son, reaUy and intimately one with
the Son, in his entrance, through a new and unprecedented
birth, into a state of subjection, as a servant, but stUl the
Son, to the Father.
In the third place, it is a transformation " by the re
newing of our mind." To the Son himself, his being
born of the Spirit brought a new mind. It was a
new thing for him to have the mind of a servant ;
to be minded, as the Father's servant, to say; — " I
come to do thy wiU, 0 my God; yea, thy law is within
my heart." This was to him, the Eternal Son, a new
mind. And is it not a new mind in us, when we are minded,
as sons, to say the same ? Truly this is a great change,
a thorough transformation. Naturally, self-wUl is the
ruhng principle of our mind. We aspire to a hberty of
independence. We would fain be our own masters.
" Our lips are our own, who is lord over us ? " " Who
is the Almighty that we should serve him ? Or what
profit shaU we have if we bow down to him ? " Insub
ordination to God is the characteristic of faUen man; the
setting of his own wiU against the wiU of God. This is
that fashion of this world which passeth away. It must
pass away. For there is nothing stable, nothing perma
nent in the world, but the wUl of God. What the

66 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
creature wills, — what the world wills, — the works it wiUs
to have done, — the customs it wUls to have established,
— the conventional rules of convenience and expediency
it wUls to have observed, — can endure but for a season.
It is what the wiU of God ordains that alone can stand.
Therefore " be not conformed to this world, but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind." Be
changed into the same image with the Lord, " from
glory to glory." For it was his glory as well as his
meat to do the wiU of Him that sent him. There
was glory in his saying, " I come to do thy will, 0
my God."
FinaUy, in the fourth place, observe the imperative
way in which this transformation is enjoined : " Be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind." It is a com
mand addressed to us. And it is rightly so. For the
transformation, by the renewing of our mind, is with our
own consent. Otherwise it could have no worth or value
in the sight of God. It could not reaUy be a renewing
of the mind.
The transformation- in the case of Christ, when he
humbled himself to do the wUl of God, was voluntary on
his part ; he himself consented to it. Otherwise his
humiliation, with aU his subsequent obedience unto death,
could have had no efficacy, either as satisfactory to God
or as avaUable for us. Equally voluntary — as thoroughly
an act of our own wiU — must be the transformation on
our part. We are not passive, but active, when we are
transformed into the same image with the Lord, and say,
with renewed minds, entering into his mind, " I come to

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 67
do thy wUl, 0 my God." It is true, that in order to our
thus acting, we must be acted upon by the Holy Ghost.
In that sense we may be said to be passive in our renewal
or regeneration, and in that sense only, — that we are
acted upon. But we are not acted upon as inert matter,
or as an uninteUigent hving creature, may be acted upon.
We are acted upon as beings who, strictly speaking,
never can be passive, whose wUls ever are, and ever must
be, active. We are so acted upon that our own active
consent is ultimately and effectuaUy secured. And there
fore, in entire consistency with the statement of the great
fact or doctrine that we are saved by the renewing of
the Holy Ghost, the peremptory command is to be urged,
" Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind." It is by
the Spirit of the Lord that we are changed into the same
image with the Lord. AU the more on that account does
the exhortation apply to us, " Be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind ; " — just as the Apostle puts the
matter, with reference to our sanctification, " Work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is
God which worketh in you both to wUl and to do of his
good pleasure" (PhU. ii. 12, 13).
Such is the manner of our transformation. It is by
the renewing of our mind ; that renewal being exactly
analogous to the new creation that there was when the
Eternal Son was transformed into the condition, and took
the character, of a servant.
Two practical applications here suggest themselves as
appropriate. I. If it be so — if the transformation in us is thus

68 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
like the transformation in Him — let the transforma
tion be complete ; let the renewal be thorough. It
was so in the case of Christ. It must be so in our
case. Let us meditate on the humiliation of our Lord, in the
very first act or instance of it, his assuming our nature
and condition, being made of a woman, made under the
law, with this language on his lips, or rather in his heart,
"I come to do thy wiU, 0 my God." What an unquali
fied surrender of himself ! What a transformation !
What a change ! He who, as the Son, is from everlasting
the heir of aU things — he who claims the homage and
obedience of aU creation — he whose wUl is the law of the
universe, — becomes the servant of the Father; — subject to
him as the holy Lawgiver and righteous Judge; — bound
to do his wiU, whatever to him in that character his wUl
may be ; — consenting, ah ! how wiUingly, how cordially,
how absolutely and without reserve, to do it ! And let
us remember, that this transformation, and nothing short
of it, is to be the type, and model, and standard of ours.
" Be ye " thus " transformed."
Be je transformed, by the renewing of your mind, into
the attitude and frame of mind in which the Son con
sented so unreservedly to do the wiU of God. He made
himself of no reputation. He emptied himself. Do you
also empty yourselves. He laid aside his natural position
of equahty with God ; he did not eagerly retain it ;
when he was willing to take upon himself the form of a
servant. Do you lay aside your assumed and usurped
position, — alas ! now your natural position, — of seeking

THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. 69
to be equal with God, presuming to make terms with
God, venturing either to set him at defiance, or to think
that you may capitulate upon conditions. Grasp not,
retain not, a position in your case so impious. Empty
yourselves. Empty yourselves of aU self-complacency,
self-confidence, self-will. Take at once, and out and out,
the form of a servant. Say, as Christ the Son says, " I
come to do thy will, O my God." "Be ye" thus "trans
formed by the renewing of your mind."
II. That it may be so, — that you may be thus
thoroughly transformed into the image of your Lord, —
apprehend and appropriate, as available for you, your
Lord's transformation into your image, into your likeness.
It was for your sakes, it was in your stead and on your
behalf, that he humbled himself to become obedient. AU
the benefit of his being transformed, — from his being the
Son only, to his becoming the servant also, — is yours.
It is the beginning, it is the essence, of his offering
himself for you. Consider it in that hght. Behold him
thus transformed for you. And be ye, after a corre
sponding manner, transformed in him.
The correspondence, the mutual adaptation, between
bis being transformed for you, and your being transformed
in him, is very gracious, nay, very glorious. The Eter
nal Son, the Father's feUow, becomes one of you, one
with you, taking your place under the law of God, to
fulfil all its obligations, — nay, to meet aU its responsi
bilities and all its threatenings, — in your stead and on
your account, as you were bound to do, but could not.
All this is implied in his being transformed, by his taking

70 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
what to him was the new nature of man, and the new
position of a servant. Receive him, welcome him,
embrace him, cleave to him, be one with him, in this
surrender of himself, — this giving of himself up to do the
wiU of God for you. Then will you be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. You wiU find yourselves,
being one with him, already surrendered, already given
up, to do the wiU of God in him. You wUl apprehend
your being so. You will consent to your being so. Let
Christ, in his being transformed, become yours ; and you
are in him yourselves transformed, by the renewing of
your mind.
You are transformed into his position, as he is trans
formed into yours. He becomes a servant for you, con
tinuing stUl to be the Son. You become sons in him,
feeling yourselves now more than ever, — now for the first
time, — to be reaUy servants. He, being the Son, comes
to do the wiU of God as a servant. You, being servants,
come to do the wUl of God as sons. You become one
with Christ in the filial love and filial submission with
which he said — " I come to do thy wiU, 0 my God."

III. — PROVING THE WILL OF GOD.
" That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will
of God." — Rom. xii. 2.
The believer's transformation, by the renewing of his
mind, is not the ultimate end which the Holy Spirit seeks
in his regenerating and renovating work. It is the
immediate and primary design of that work, in one

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 71
sense. We are created anew in Christ Jesus. That new
creation is what the Holy Spirit first aims at and effects.
But " we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them " (Eph. ii. 10). The essence of a good work is the
doing of the wiU of God. The proving of the wUl of
God, therefore, is a fitting sequel of our " being trans
formed by the renewing of our mind."
Now here, in the first place, let it be noted that the
wUl of God requires to be proved. It can be known
only by trial. Its nature and qualities can be discovered
and ascertained only by experiment.
This, it would seem, is a universal law or principle of
created inteUigence ; a truth applicable to every order of
mind in the universe which God has made. No one who
is partaker of a finite nature, and who occupies the
position of a subject or servant, under the authority of
God, — under his law, — can understand what, or of what
sort, the wiU of God is, otherwise than through actual
experience. You cannot explain to him beforehand what
the wiU of God is, and what are its attributes or character
istics. He must learn this for himself. And he must
learn it experimentaUy. He must prove, in his own
person, and in his own personal history, what is the will
0f Qod — " that good, and acceptable, and perfect wiU of
God." How it should be so, — why it should be necessary for
created beings thus to learn the wUl of their Creator by
reducing it to practice, and impossible for them reaUy to

72 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
apprehend or appreciate it in any other way, — is a
question which might open up a field of thought deeply
and richly valuable. The nature of God, and the authority
of God, — the one, the nature of God, as determining the
essence of his wiU ; the other, the authority of God, as
determining the form of it, — would need to be considered.
Essentially, the wiU of God is and must be the expression
of his nature. Formally, it is the assertion of his autho
rity. Whatever God wills, he wUls in accordance with
what he is in himself. He wiUs it authoritatively,
because he reigns supremely. But the nature of God far
transcends the comprehension of finite minds ; and there
fore his wiU, as the expression of his nature, may weU
be expected to be incomprehensible too. God himself
cannot be grasped in the understanding ; and therefore
neither can his wUl. Hence, in its first announcement
to the creature, antecedently to experience, the will of
the Creator presents itself rather in its formal aspect, as
the assertion of his authority, than in its essential char
acter, as the expression of his nature. But in that formal
aspect of it, as the assertion of the authority of God, let
his wiU be put to the test of actual trial. Then wiU its
real character, as the expression of his nature, come out.
For while neither God himself, nor his wiU, can be grasped
in the speculative understanding, — both he and it can
be grasped in the obedient and loving heart.
But apart from any inquiry into the reason of it, the
fact may be assumed to be as it has been stated. And
it is a fact pregnant with not a few important doctrinal
and practical consequences.

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 73
For one thing, it may be noted, in the second place,
this fact, — that the wiU of God needs thus to be proved,
— partly explains the economy of probation. It makes
it cease, at all events, to appear very startling or sur
prising that every new order of free and inteUigent minds,
caUed into existence by the Creator, should have to stand
a trial. Nay more, it tends to show how the trial, in every
instance, must be both summary and decisive. It must
be summary ; — that it may be ascertained at once, and
once for all, whether the authority of God, which his wiU
formaUy asserts, is to be acknowledged or disowned.
And it must be decisive ; — for if his wUl, as the assertion
of his authority, is acknowledged, the way is open for
proving it, as the expression of his nature, to be good,
and acceptable, and perfect ; — whereas, if, in its form of
an assertion of his authority, the wUl of God is disowned,
aU opportunity of testing and knowing its real character,
as the expression of his nature, is hopelessly and for ever
cut off.
Let actual instances of probation be contemplated in
this light.
I. The probation of the angels is a fact revealed in
Scripture, though the manner of it is not fuhy explained.
These bright and blessed spirits had to stand a trial.
The wiU of God was revealed to them in an authoritative
form. What precise commandment issued from the eter
nal throne, is not expressly said. It may have been — ¦
in aU likelihood it was — the command to worship the
Son. " When he bringeth in the First-begotten into the

74 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship
him" (Heb. i. 6); — "Worship him aU ye gods" (Ps.
xcvn. 7).
But whatever it was, the wiU of God, as communi
cated to them, did not beforehand commend itself to
them as in itself, in its nature — in the matter or sub
stance of it — good, and acceptable, and perfect. On the
contrary, too many of their number took exceptions to
it, deemed it unreasonable, if not unrighteous ; unwel
come, if not unfair ; and were on that account offended.
Even those who wUlingly comphed, did so most probably
very much in the dark. They acted under a just sense
of the Almighty Father's sovereignty ; — but certainly
with very little apprehension of aU the beauty, all the
glory, aU the joy, to be found in that worship of the
Son, which it was the wUl of God to demand. This they
have been learning ever since. This they are learning
stUl. For they have not yet half proved — no, nor
throughout eternity will they ever have fuUy proved —
" what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of
God;" — that wiU of God the Father that his Son
should be worshipped ; — that aU created intelligences
should "honour the Son even as they honour the
Father!" Alas ! alas ! for those who missed the first step in this
high training of the sons of God.
II. The probation of man, in the temptation of the
first Adam, is more circumstantially recorded than that of
the blessed angels. But it is substantially of the same

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 75
kind. He too was tried upon this very point, — his will
ingness to put the wiU of God to the proof.
Without actual trial and proof, the will of God, as it
was barely, and without explanation, announced in para
dise, was not such as to command either approbation, or
consent, or satisfied acquiescence and rest, on the part of
our first parents. On the contrary, it was capable of
being insidiously misrepresented to them, and fatally mis
apprehended by them. The, command, not to eat of the
fruit of the tree, — which was to them, as they were then
situated, the testing will of God, — did not naturally and
obviously commend itself as good, and acceptable, and
perfect. Doubtless, if they had kept it, they would have proved
it to be so. In the first place, they would have found by
experience that what God announced to them as his wUl
was really in itself, as the seal of his previous covenant
of life, and as the preparation for the unfolding of his
higher providence, fair, reasonable, good. Secondly, they
would have learned experimentally that it was suited to
their ease and circumstances ; deserving of their accept
ance ; sure to become more and more weU pleasing, as
they entered more and more into its spirit, and became
more and more thoroughly reconciled to the quiet simpli
city of submission which it fostered. And thirdly, they
would have ascertained by time that it was the only sort
of formal expression of his wUl that could consistently up
hold the perfection of the Creator, and ultimately secure
the perfection of the creature. For it would have been
made clear to them that thus only could the perfection

76 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
of the Creator be vindicated : — the perfection of his
character and authority, the perfection of his intolerance
of evil, the perfection and completeness of his sovereign
right to rule ; and also, that thus only could the per
fection of the creature be wrought out, in an onward and
upward path of confidence, loyalty, and love.
All this, and far more, our first parents would have
learned concerning the wiU of God, if they had consented
to prove it.
But they would not prove it. They formed an opinion
of it, they passed judgment upon it, unproved. They
refused to give it a fair trial They chose to make the
opposite experiment. And they have left that sad ex
periment, with its issue, as their legacy and inheritance to
aU the race.
For how, ever since, have men, left to themselves, been
occupied? Not in proving what is that wiU of God; how
good, how acceptable, how perfect ; — but in proving what
is the fashion of this world, and how they may be so
conformed to it as to make the most of it ; — proving, in
short, what is the wUl of this world, and of this world's
god ! (Eph. ii. 2.)
III. The probation of Christ, the second Adam, the
second representative of mankind, proceeds aLso upon this
principle. In consenting to do the will of God, he un
dertook to prove it.
That wUl of God, in his case, had httle in it at any
time that, in the anticipation of it, could be attractive or
weU-pleasing to him.

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 77
Behold him, the man Christ Jesus, come in the flesh to
do the wiU of God !
First, see him in the wilderness, tempted by the DeviL
He is there tried as the first Adam was tried. And he
is tried upon the same issue, — his willingness to prove
the will of God. In his case also, as in Adam's, the wUl
of God which he has to do may be so presented to his
human soul as to appear neither reasonable, nor expedi
ent, nor desirable, but the very opposite. In such a light,
accordingly, Satan tries to put it before him. The priva
tions and pains ; the shame and obloquy ; the protracted
service of toil, and weariness, and blood ; awaiting him
in the course he has to finish, if he is to do the wUl of
God ; — aU these hard conditions the tempter contrasts
with the simpler, brighter, shorter road to glory which he
would have him to take. But the second Adam wUl not,
like the first, accept Satan's representation of the will of
God. He wiU prove it for himself. And so he goes on
to do. " He learns obedience by the things which he
suffers" (Heb. v. 8).
Behold him thus learning obedience ! See him prov
ing the will of God in his own experience ; proving
what and of what sort it is to him ; to him, the surety of
the guUty !
All throughout he needed to prove it. It was only
by proving it that he could find it to be good, and ac
ceptable, and perfect. It was not so to him beforehand.
It did not so commend itself to him beforehand. He
must prove it to be so.
Look at him as he sits at the well of Samaria, He is

78 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
weary, hungry, faint. To his human frame, what could
be more welcome, what more necessary, than repose ; the
repose of an hour's solitary meditation, while his disciples
are gone into the city to buy bread. The interruption
may well be felt to be irksome and vexatious, when the
woman comes to draw water ; aU the more when, as it
appears, he has to deal with the perversity of an unintel
ligent, and apparently impracticable, mind. It may be
the will of God that his rest should be thus broken, and
that his spirit should be chafed by the necessity of what
might seem an unseasonable and unprofitable conversa
tion. Flesh and blood may feel it to be hard. But he
proves the will of God in this instance, — to see what it
is. He makes trial of it. And in the proving and
actual trial of it, he finds it to be good, and acceptable,
and perfect. His soul is refreshed by seeing the pleasure
of the Lord prospering in his hands. The opening of the
woman's understanding, the softening of her heart, her
going to bring her countrymen, are his immediate and
present reward. This will of God, that might seem at
first anything but reasonable or agreeable, turns out to
be hke a savoury banquet to him. " My meat," he cries,
" is to do the wUl of him that sent me, and to finish his
work." Ah ! there was much in that wiU of God which he had
to do on earth that might have made the Holy Jesus
shrink back from it at every step. The acute and ten
der sensibilities of his bodily frame, the pure tastes and
heavenly affections of his spotless soul, must have re-
coUed with poignant and nervous sensitiveness from the

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 79
rude shocks and coUisions which the wiU of God required
him to be ever sustaining, as he went on enduring such
contradiction of sinners against himself. It must have
been, it often was, with him, a struggle — an effort — -to do
the wiU of God. It was not easy, it was not pleasant.
It was self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-crucifixion through
out. It was repulsive to the highest and holiest instincts
of his pure humanity. It laid upon him most oppressive
burdens ; it brought him into most distressing scenes ; it
involved him in ceaseless, often thankless, toU ; it exposed
him to aU sorts of uncongenial encounters with evU men
and evil angels. But he proved it. And in the proving
of it, and as he was proving it, he found it to be good,
and acceptable, and perfect.
Yes ! he was reconciled to the will of God in the doing
of it. He tasted the delight of obedience, as " he learned
obedience by the things which he suffered." He " re
joiced in spirit" as he found the work advancing, and the
meek, and poor, and guilty, receiving gladly what the
rich and righteous cast away. He rejoiced in proving
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of
God, when he said, " I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in thy sight."
Need I point to that crowning instance of his willing
ness to prove the will of God, — his unknown agony in
the garden of Gethsemane ? What then presented itseh
to him as the will of God ? The cup to be drunk, — the
cross to be borne, — the Father's sword of justice to be

80 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
sheathed in his bosom, — the shame, the sting, the curse
of death, — the endurance of the law's awful sentence of
condemnation, — the hiding of his Father's countenance
from him as he was to be made sin for us. The wiU of
God then, in that garden, wore a dark and terrible aspect
before the soul of Jesus ; — witness the bloody sweat, and
the cry of bitter anguish, " Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me." " Nevertheless," he adds, " not
as I wiU, but as thou wUt." He consents to prove this
wUl of God, all dark and terrible as it is. And he does
prove it. And in the very proving of it, he finds it to
be good, and acceptable, and perfect. Yes ! In the very
proving of it. For does not the penitent's prayer, " Lord,
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," pour
into his spirit some sweet, consoling balm, in the very
moment of his utmost pain ; — making him feel that the
will of God which he is so fearfully proving, is indeed
good, and acceptable, and perfect ; — causing him already
to "see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied?" And
is not his latest utterance the expression of that satis
faction, — " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit?" IV. Now it is into this image, — into the image and
hkeness of Jesus, thus proving what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect wUl of God, — that you are to be
transformed, by the renewing of your mind. This is
that glory of the Lord which you are to " behold as in
a glass, that you may be changed into the same image,
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 81
You are to prove for yourselves, as Christ did, " what is
that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." You
are to put it fairly to the test. You are honestly to give
it a trial.
In the first place, You are to prove for yourselves what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect wiU of God, — in
what must always be the first act of your obedience ; —
your believing on Him whom God has sent. For this is
his commandment, " that you should believe on the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ." This is his will It is de
clared to you authoritatively and peremptorUy. And as
an assertion of his authority, it binds you to instant com
phanee with it. What this will of God is, as an expres
sion of his nature, you cannot really or fuUy know until
you prove it. How good, and acceptable, and perfect it
is, you can find out only experimentaUy, by actual per
sonal trial. You must " taste and see that God is good,
and that the man is blessed that trusteth in him." You
must put the gospel to the proof of actual trial. This is
the inexorable law of the obedience of faith.
You would fain have it otherwise. You would fain
have aU made clear to you ; you would have aU made
bright and satisfying to you ; you would have a perfect
and complete understanding of the whole matter; — before
you surrender yourself to the caU of the Gospel, and con
sent to be reconcUed to your God. Not only so. You
stand aloof, and start objections, and raise difficulties.
You do not see how this aspect of the gospel system may
be compatible with that. You cannot harmonize its
sovereignty and its freeness ; the secret decree of election
r

82 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
and the open proclamation of mercy. You cannot see
how an extreme case such as yours is to be met. You
cannot get rid of doubts and misgivings besetting you
on every side.
Nay, but, is it not enough for you that this is the wUl
of God, that you should believe and embrace Christ as
your Saviour ? WUl you not prove it ? Be very sure
that in the proving of it, and not before, aU about it wUl
be cleared up, and it will be found by you to be good,
and acceptable, and perfect. Try this dipping in the
Jordan seven times. It may seem an unlikely mode of
cure; it does not commend itself to you; you have grave
scruples about it. But at anyrate try it. Prove it and
see if it wUl not turn out to be the good, and acceptable,
and perfect wiU of God.
Yes ! You wiU have cause to exclaim, The saying
which I have heard is good, " It is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."
Yes ! " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the
soul." "As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the
Lord is tried. He is a buckler to aU them that trust in
him." So also, in the next place, aU along the path of your
new obedience, you are to be proving what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, wiU of God. At every step
it wUl be a trial to you ; often a trial most severe. It
may be very hard sometimes to believe that the will
of God concerning you is good, and acceptable, and per
fect; — very hard even in httle matters ; when you have

PROVING THE WILL OF GOD. 83
to bear the disappointment of an anticipated pleasure,
or to yield your own way to the unreasonable pertinacity
of a companion, or to suffer some wrong you may not
resent, or to return good for evil, kindness for injury; —
very hard, when you have to forego some indulgence you
can scarcely see to be wrong, or to go through some task
and toU that seems to be quite unprofitable ; — very hard,
when you have to deny yourself, and take up your cross,
and brave the frowns of the world, and the estrangement
of friends, the ridicule of singularity, the coldness of sus
picion, the imputation of insincerity ; — very hard, when
you have to cultivate unwonted tastes and overcome be
setting sins ; — very hard, when you have to endure the
loss of all things, to bear suffering, sorrow, bereavement,
death. But prove what the wiU of God is in every such
instance ; give it a trial. Make full proof of it. Let it
have a fair trial. Accommodate yourselves to the wiU
of God in it. Accommodate yourselves to God him
self in it. Go through with whatever may be the
wiU of God, in whatever circumstances you may be
placed. And assuredly you wUl find, that in the very
keeping of his commandments there is a great re
ward. The waters of Marah may be bitter. But the Lord
shows you a tree, which when you have cast into the
waters, they are made sweet. There he makes with you
a statute and an ordinance, and there he proves you, and
says, — " If thou wUt diligently hearken to the voice of
the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his
sight, and wUl give ear to his commandments, and keep

84 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
aU his statutes, I wiU put none of these diseases upon thee
which I have brought upon the Egyptians ; for I am the
Lord that healeth thee."
May not this word sweeten any waters ; — " I am the
Lord that healeth thee ? "
Let a brief practical appeal be suffered, upon this whole
subject of nonconformity to the world, transformation by
the renewing of the mind, and proving what is that good
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
I. Mark how opposite to one another are the two
habits, or frames of mind, indicated ; the one, in the pro
hibition, "Be not conformed to this world;" and the
other in the command, " Be ye transformed by the re
newing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
There are here two types, of one or other of which you
must take the fashion : the world — and the will of God.
You must either be conformed to the one, — or trans
formed into the proving of the other. The fashion of
the world : the fashion of the Divine will : one or other
of these you must adopt. To adopt the fashion of the
world — to be conformed to the world, is to take things
as they are and make the best of them ; to consider what
is, and accommodate yourself to what is. The opposite
habit is to try things as they should be : to ascertain what
ought to be, and put that to the proof. There is aU the
difference between floating down the current and making
head against it ; between acquiescence and resistance ;
between a surrender of yourselves to the ungodly spirit

CONCLUSION. 85
of earth, and an emphatic protest against it, in the name
and on behalf of the God of heaven.
II. Mark how complete the transformation by the re
newing of your mind must be, if you are to acquire and
cultivate this latter habit ; if, instead of being conformed
to this world, you are to prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect will of God. For the trial must
be a fair one. And in order to its being so, your com
pliance with the will of God must be sincere, willing,
cordial. You must make full proof of it. But that you
cannot do, if you give merely a grudging, reluctant, and
enforced submission. A son, yielding obedience to his
father's wiU in such an ungracious spirit, never will, he
never can, become acquainted with its true character and
blessedness. But let him throw himself heart and soul
into the doing of it. Then, and then only, will he prove
it, — of what sort it is. So you must prove the wiU of
God. And to have the mind so to prove it ; — to be
wUling so to prove it ; — in the way of a cheerful, ready,
honest, out and out conformity to it; — this implies a
great change, a new creation, a new heart, the renewing
of the mind.
III. Mark also how, so long as the fashion of this
world lasts, and so long as that second transformation
which awaits you is postponed, this proving of the will
of God must all throughout be more or less an effort ;
often an effort both difficult and painful. But take
courage. The fashion of this world is not to last always.
It passes away. You look for new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And you your-

86 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:
selves are to be changed at the coming of the Lord. For
" as you have borne the image of the earthy, you are to
bear the image of the heavenly."
Ah ! weU may you long for that coming of the Lord !
— for the time of the restitution of all things ! Then
the fashion of that new world, and the fashion of the
will of God, wiU no more be opposed to one another.
They coincide ; they are in harmony. The proving of
the wiU of God then, in that world, with body as weU as
soul renovated and transformed, — your whole nature
changed into the image of the heavenly ; — ah ! what a
joyous exercise of hberty and love will it be ! No
more complaining of " the law in your members war
ring against the law of your mind " — " the flesh lust
ing against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh."
No more, — " I would do good ; but evil is present with
me." WeU may you long for the appearing of the Lord,
which is to harmonize all, within and without, in you
and around you ; — and to bring about a state of things
in which God shaU be all in aU.
IV. MeanwhUe mark the encouragement which you
have to struggle on, here and now. Mark in parti
cular one point of contrast between the two types, or
fashions, to one or other of which you must be conformed.
Of the fashion of the world, it may be truly said that
the more you try it, the less you find it to be satisfying.
It looks well, it looks fair, at first. But who that has
lived long has not found it to be vanity at last ?
It is altogether otherwise with the wUl of God. That
often looks worst at the beginning. It seems hard and

CONCLUSION. 87
dark. But on. On with you in the proving of it.
Prove it patiently, perseveringly, with prayer and pains,
And you will get growing clearness, light, enlargement,
joy. You will more and more find that " the path of
the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and
more unto the perfect day." For "Wisdom's ways are
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
" The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto
gether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than
much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey, and the honey
comb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned ; and
in keeping of them there is great reward."

PART SECOND.

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO HIS FELLOW-
CHRISTIANS; THE CHURCH, OR COLLECTIVE
BODY OF BELIEVERS.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF CHRISTIANS-
THE ONE BODY OF CHRIST.

SELF-ESTIMATION.
" For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly, than he ought to think ; but to think
soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
For as we have many.members in one body, and all members' have not the
same office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another." — Rom. xii. 3-5.
The form of this exhortation to think soberly is re
markable. The Apostle gives it very authoritatively.
And those to whom it is addressed, are singled out in-
d-ividuaUy; one by one, to receive it : " I say, through
the grace given to me — to every man that is among you."
The Apostle assumes a high tone : " I say, through
the grace given unto me." He speaks as one entitled to
issue an order and insist on its being obeyed. He takes
his stand upon the grace given unto him. That grace,
in his case, reached not merely to his being converted,
and united to Christ for his own personal salvation, but

92 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
to his being invested with the apostolic office, and caUed,
as an apostle, to rule in the Church. Thus, elsewhere,
he speaks of his having "received grace and apostleship"
(Rom. i. 5), and of his being made a minister of the
gospel, " according to the gift of the grace of God given
unto him, by the effectual working of his power " (Eph.
iii. 7 ; see also Rom. xv. ] 5, 1 6).
" Through the grace thus given to me," — the grace, or
favour, or mere good pleasure of God, to which I owe it
that I am myself a behever, and to which I also owe it
that I have a commission to speak and act as an apostle,
— " I say unto you."
Evidently this manner of introducing the exhortation
which he is about to give, must have a meaning. It
indicates the importance which he attaches to it. But it in
dicates, also, that he applies it and takes it home to himself.
He would have aU the members of the Church to know,
each his proper gift or calling, his proper place, his pro
per work ; and he sets the example by showing that he
knows this himself. He is not now deahng with
Christians generaUy and indiscriminately, in the mass,
considered simply as converted and believing men,
having a common character, and lying under a com
mon obligation to give themselves up to God, to
separate themselves from the world, to be transformed
by the renewing of their minds, to prove what is
that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. He
is proceeding to deal with them as associated together
in a community or organized body, and to enforce the
essential principles and conditions of good order and good

SELF- ESTIMATION. 93
working in such a fellowship. Of these the very first is,
that every member shall fall into his right rank, — as I, the
Apostle virtually says, faU into mine when I say,
" through the grace given unto me, to every man that is
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he
ought to think ; but to think soberly, according as God
hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
I say this " to every man who is among you." For
manifestly in this matter every man must judge for him
self. In fact he has to judge himself. He has to form
an opinion, to make an estimate, of what he is, what he
is fit for, what he is intended for. This he must do in
the exercise of his own individual discretion ; and, there
fore, what I have now to say, I say, not to your society
as a whole, but to every man who is among you, indi-
viduaUy. The exhortation itself, thus authoritatively introduced,
and thus individually addressed, is connected with what
goes before, as well as with what foUows.
Its connection with what goes before is indicated by
the particle " For." It is brought in, apparently, as a
reason for your " not being conformed to the world, but
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect wiU
of God." It is doubly so. You need to be no longer con
formed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of
your mind, because the injunction which I have to give
as to your thinking soberly is one which you cannot
otherwise obey; — that sobriety of thought which I enjoin,

94 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
being a habit very foreign to the world's way of think
ing, and very characteristic of the new mind. Again, you
may weU hope and expect, being transformed by the re
newing of your mind, to prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect wiU of God, because the state of
mind which I desire you to cultivate is peculiarly favour
able to your doing so; your thinking soberly of your
selves being the best preparation for your practicaUy and
experimentaUy learning the nature and the exceUency of
the wUl of God which you have to prove. Thus the
exhortation is connected with what goes before.
Its connection with what foUows appears in the fourth
and fifth verses. There the duty of thinking soberly is
enforced by the consideration of the great law or principle
of unity in diversity, which prevaUs in the Church as the
body of Christ ; — " For as we have many members in one
body, and aU members have not the same office : — so we,
being many, are one body in Christ, and every one mem
bers one of another."
Such being the manner in which the exhortation is
introduced, and such the connection in which it stands, a
few words may suffice to Ulustrate its meaning.
In itself, the Apostle's command or counsel would be
very vague and indefinite, but for the concluding clause —
" According as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith." A general advice, to the effect that you should
not think too highly of yourselves, but should think
soberly, might be very edifying as a commonplace, or trite
topic, in morals. It rebukes self-conceit. It commends

SELF-ESTIMATION. 95
modesty. But as addressed to the members of a body
which ought to be intensely active, — it is desirable that
it should be made more specific.
There is a spurious sort of modesty, of a negative or
passive character, which hinders combined effort, and
paralyzes activity. It takes the form of shyness, bash-
fulness, diffidence, reserve. It interprets an admonition
of this sort against self-conceit, — a mere general exhorta
tion to think soberly, — as if it were a reason for evading
responsibility, — an excuse and apology for indolence or
sloth, for indifference or unconcern, for cowardice or
treachery. It settles down, under the cover of meek
self-distrust, into tame pusiUanimity. But aU pretence
for thus construing the precept is obviated and done
away, when there is given, not a negative warning merely,
but a positive command : — to think soberly — " according
as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
Now the measure of faith, as the phrase is here used,
must mean the measure of faith considered as working ; —
using the gifts, and employing the talents, conferred by
the Great Head of the Church upon its several members.
For faith has a double function ; it has two offices to
discharge. On the one hand, it is receptive of Christ.
On the other hand, it is energetic from Christ and for
Christ. When the question of one's acceptance in the
sight of God is raised, faith is receiving and resting upon
Christ, embracing Christ, coming to Christ, closing with
Christ, feeding upon Christ, abiding in Christ, being shut
up into Christ, and growing up more and more into
Christ. But the question of acceptance being settled,

96 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
and in a sense set aside, another question arises as to
what foUows and flows from acceptance. And then faith
takes the character of an impulse, a power, a principle
of activity. As a lost and guilty sinner, I am moved
by the Holy Ghost, and under his movement constrained
by the sense of my own need, and drawn by the sight of
Christ's glorious excellency and gracious suitableness and
sufficiency, to receive and welcome him, for the saving of
my soul. He is the Saviour of sinners, and, the Lord,
the Spirit, enabling me, I take him to be my Saviour.
I acquiesce in, I approve of, the whole arrangement ac
cording to which God " sent forth his Son, made of a
woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons." Thus beheving, I live in and with Christ:
" Christ hveth in me." And now, believing, I live for
Christ, and to Christ. " The life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20). "I
live, not unto myself, but unto him who died for me,
and rose again" (2 Cor. v. 15).
Faith makes me one with Christ, as to my personal
standing before God. It does so, as the hand laying
hold of Christ. Faith makes me, as being one with
Christ, a fellow-labourer with him. It does so, as the
hand not now withered, but healed with his own health,
strengthened with his own strength, nerved with his own
life, and therefore fitted for working in his name and on
his behalf.
In both of these aspects of it, faith admits of degrees ;

SELF-ESTIMATION. 9 7
and we may speak of the measure or degree of faith.
There are different degrees, or measures, or proportions of
faith, considered as appropriating Christ. There are also
different degrees, or measures, or proportions of faith,
considered as acting and working for Christ, and with
Christ, and in Christ.
But the measure of faith which the Apostle has in
view when he issues the precept to think soberly, can
scarcely be understood as having reference to the degree
or amount of faith which each man has subjectively in
himself. It rather points to an objective standard of faith.
In this view, the precept is applicable only to that
exercise of faith which wields and works the power of
Christ, for usefulness in his Church and in the world. It
cannot apply to the other act or exercise of faith, which
appropriates the grace of Christ for one's own salvation.
For, in this last case, there is no thinking of one's self at
aU ; there is thinking of Christ alone. When I believe
on Christ for the pardon of my sin, for my peace with
God, for reconciliation and renewal, I go out of myself.
I lose myself in him. I am nothing, He is all in all.
There is no occasion, therefore, — there is no room, for the
adjustment of any measure or proportion of faith here.
The object of my faith is without measure. It is the
Father's measureless love ; — it is the Son's measureless
fulness of grace and truth. To speak of a measure of
faith with reference to such an object, as if different sorts
of minds were to acquiesce in different proportions of
faith, is neither reasonable nor safe. The measure ol
faith equaUy for aU alike, — the one standard to which
c

98 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
aU alike should reach, " is the fulness of the blessing of
the gospel of Christ."
But it is otherwise when faith is summoned to the
exercise, not of appropriating Christ for one's own salva
tion, but of working with Christ and for Christ, in the
discipline of new obedience, — in the labour of love.
Here faith has to deal, not, if I may so speak, with a
fixed quantity, the same for aU ; but with what is variable,
and different in different believers. For it has to use
the powers, the gifts and endowments, the means, occa
sions, and opportunities, which Christ distributes to every
man, severally as he wiU.
When, therefore, I am caUed to this exercise of faith,
I must form my judgment as to the measure of it, upon
a right estimate of the spiritual capacity or ability which
Christ is pleased to bestow upon me. My gift, whatever
it may be, is to me the measure of faith. It may be the
gift of prophecy, or the gift of ministering, or teaching,
or exhorting, or giving, or ruling, or showing mercy.
Whatever it may be, let me ascertain the gift that I
have, according to the grace of God that is given to me ;
and let me " think soberly, according as God hath dealt
to me that measure of faith." Such, generally, is the
import of the exhortation.
It is an exhortation which receives its best practical
iUustration and application in the directory for work in
the Church which the Apostle gives in the verses that
foUow. In the meantime, two brief observations, sug
gested by the place which it occupies in the chapter, may
suffice to show its importance.

SELF-ESTIMATION. 99
In the first place, the relation in which we stand to
God, to whom we present ourselves a sacrifice, enforces
the admonition, both in its negative and in its positive
form. If we present ourselves a sacrifice of praise, on
the footing and in the spirit of Clirist's presenting of
himself a sacrifice of propitiation, we can scarcely be in
much danger of thinking more highly of ourselves than
we ought to think. We present ourselves, indeed. And
in one view that might seem to afford ground for self-
complacency. But it is ourselves in Christ, it is Christ
in us, that we present. What a death-blow to aU in
ordinate self-esteem ! And yet, on the other hand, a fair
and sober self-estimate cannot be evaded. If it is our
selves in Christ, — if it is Christ in us, — that we present,
we cannot get rid of the obligation and responsibUity of
ascertaining, or doing our best to ascertain, what it is
that we have to present. We must think, soberly, indeed,
but stUl we must think, we must consider, what is fairly
imphed in our giving ourselves to God as a sacrifice of
praise, — what it is precisely that we have to give. For
this end, we must know ourselves. In a high and holy
sense, for a high and holy purpose, we must seek to
attain to this sober self-knowledge.
And, secondly, the relation in which we stand to one
another, in consequence of our presenting our bodies a
hving and holy sacrifice to God, precludes all undue
magnifying of ourselves, in rivalry with one another.
In presenting our bodies, we present ourselves jointly as
well as severally — we coUectively present ourselves as

100 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
the one mystical body of Christ. In such an act, there
is no room for anything like our having separate interests,
or advancing antagonist claims to superiority. Nor is
there room for anything like our shrinking from the
recognition of what is to every one of us the measure of
faith. The gifts severally bestowed on us by the sove
reign grace of our common Head, are for our mutual
edification in Christ, and our unitedly growing up to the
measure of the stature of perfect manhood in him. They
are not, therefore, the ministers of strife and vain-glory ;
although they may afford fitting occasions for our " con
sidering one another, to provoke unto love and to good
works." For we must ever remember, as a motive at
once to humility, to charity, and to activity, that " as we
have many members in one body, and all members have
not the same office ; so we, being many, are one body in
Christ, and every one members one of another." We
must needs, therefore, in the view of our being aU
members of one body, and members of one another in
that one body, — if the body is to thrive well and work
usefully, — ascertain our several faculties and functions,
and take our several offices accordingly ; none of us think
ing more highly of himself than he ought to think ; every
one of us thinking soberly, according as God hath dealt
to him the measure of faith. Otherwise there must
ensue, disorder and disunion, — and ultimately, if grace
prevent not, the dissolution of the body.

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 101

II.
DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES.
" Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether
prophecy, let us prophesy," &e. &c— Rom. xii. 6.
Let us use our several gifts in their appropriate offices.
Such, in a general sense, is the import of the Apostle's
words in the sixth and two following verses, whether we
understand him as giving a description or as issuing an
order. For there is room for doubt. The italics used in
our translation show that the imperative mood, or form of
command, into which the discourse is here thrown, has not
the express warrant of the original. In fact, this whole
passage, down to the thirteenth verse, might be viewed
as descriptive, rather than hortatory ; forming a con
tinuation or enlargement of the brief picture given in the
fourth and fifth verses.
The Christian society or congregation is represented
as one body, with many limbs or members, discharging
different offices or functions. The figure is expanded
and applied. The diversity is first Ulustrated, and then
the unity : " We, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another ; but having gifts
differing according to the grace that is given to us ; such
as either the gift of prophecy, for our prophesying accord-

102 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
ing to the proportion of faith ; or the gift of ministering
or serving, for service ; the teaching brother occupied in
his vocation of teaching, the exhorting brother in his
vocation of exhortation ; he who gives, doing so in sim
plicity ; he who rules or presides, using diligence ; he who
shows mercy, being cheerful." We are members one of
another, having thus different gifts and offices; and yet
reaUy aU one ; of one mind and of one heart : " our love
unfdigned ; all ahke abhorring evil and cleaving to good ;
kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love ; in
honour preferring one another ; not slothful in business ;
fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord ; rejoicing in hope ;
patient in tribulation ; continuing instant in prayer ; dis
tributing to the necessity of saints ; given to hospitality."
The difference is not material between such a render
ing of the passage and that preferred by our translators.
Whether it be the descriptive or the imperative form
that is adopted is of little consequence. What was true,
as a matter of fact, of the early Christians ; of those, for
example, who after the day of Pentecost lived together
so harmoniously and so holily in Jerusalem ; — is binding
as a matter of obhgation on aU societies gathered into
one in the name of Jesus. The diversities among the
members are to be observed, and turned to account;
while the essential principles of the unity are to be
sacredly fostered.
It is with the diversities, as indicated in the sixth
and two following verses, that we are now, in the first
instance, specially concerned.
There are several different works specified. They are

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 103
aU of them necessary works in the Church of Christ ; —
in every branch and in every section of it. They must
aU be done, if there are to be health and vigour, life and
energy, in the Christian body. No society or congregation,
formed and organized in the name of Christ, can be com
plete, unless it has in it the means, the agency, the instru
mentality, for doing aU these works. There must be
found among its members persons fitted, qualified, and
inclined, to do them.
This implies, however, a division of the labour, and an
orderly distribution of it. For the works differ widely
froni one another in their character, and in the kind of
qualification required for the doing of them. And in
regard to every one of them, whatever the qualification
may be that is required, it is the gift of the Lord.
The division of the labour, therefore, the distribution
of the works among the members of the body, belongs
properly to the Lord alone. It is his grace — free, sove
reign, and discretionary, — which imparts, as a gift, to
any one, the qualification needed for any work. And
whatever qualification any one has got, for whatever
work, it must be understood to be the mind of the Lord
that he should undertake that work. It is the work
assigned to him. It belongs to him. It becomes his
proper function, his office. Therefore says the Apostle,
" Having gifts, differing according to the grace that is
given to us," let us be about the several works for which
our several gifts are bestowed.
This rule applies, this exhortation is addressed, to aU
the members of the body; to all ahke and indiscriminately,

104 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
and to every one in particular. It is not intended for
officials, as such. It does not concern any one class in a
Christian community more than another ; the man more
than the woman; the scholar more than the peasant;
the eloquent and elegant orator more than him who is
slow of speech and of feeble presence ; the rich and in
fluential more than the humble poor. The cah is to one
and aU of you, to stir up the gift that is in you, whatever
that gift may be.
For this end you must first ascertain what gift you
have, and within what sphere it may be best exercised.
And then, secondly, you must make conscience of occupy
ing the place, and doing the work, whatever it may be,
which the gift points out as yours.
I. The gift which you have, according to the grace
that is given to you, is the index of the function or office
which He who bestows it would have you to undertake.
How important, therefore, how indispensable is it, that
you know what the gift is !
And here, you are required to be very, faithful. You
are to be very jealous over yourselves ; and very con
scientious as regards Him whose servants and stewards
you are ; " not thinking of yourselves more highly than
you ought to think," as regards your gifts ; but yet
" thinking soberly" and seriously; forming a just estimate
of what you are and what you can do, " according as
God hath dealt to every one of you the measure of faith,"
or " according to the grace that is given unto you."
Observe particularly what sort of gift is here meant

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 105
It is the gift which you have for the Church's work.
There are gifts of another' kind which you must possess,
and ascertain that you possess : — gifts, the possession
of which must be admitted to be even of prior urgency
and necessity, in comparison with this gift of which I
now speak.
Thus, in the first place, there is the gift whereby you
are enabled to believe to the saving of your own souls.
For " by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God." The question about
your possessing that gift must always be first and para
mount with you, The inquiry, " What must I do to be
saved 1 " can never, at any time, be evaded or postponed.
Always, and above all things else, let it be your chief
concern to have the answer to that inquiry fulfilled in
your experience and consciousness ; — " Beheve on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
To receive the gift of saving faith : to be ever freshly
and anew receiving it : to have grace given you to lay
hold of Christ, to keep hold of Christ, to recover hold of
Christ : to have the Holy Spirit ever shutting you up
into Christ : to have an assured confidence that he, the
only and all-sufficient Saviour, saves you the chief of
sinners : that he firmly holds you : that none is able to
pluck you out of his hands : — that is the gift to which
you must ever give your first and most earnest heed.
Again, secondly, there is the gift whereby you are
enabled to " grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ." Your progressive personal sanctifi
cation is the gift of God. Faith working by love, faith

106 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
purifying the heart, faith overcoming the world, is as
much the gift of God as faith apprehending and appro
priating pardon, peace, righteousness, and the love of
God in Christ Jesus your Lord. About your receiving
and possessing this gift also, you are ever to be above
all things anxious. You are to " work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who
worketh in you both to wiU and to do." You are to
" give dUigence to make your caUing and election sure."
You are to give earnest heed that " the God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ,
that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of
the everlasting covenant, may make you perfect in every
good work to do his wiU ; working in you that which is
weU-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom
be glory for ever and ever, Amen."
Once more, in the third place, there is the gift whereby
you are enabled to behave yourselves wisely in a perfect
way : to keep yourselves unspotted from the world : to
guide your affairs with discretion: to steer a safe, prudent,
consistent, and honourable course, through the manifold
temptations and snares of ordinary social hfe : amid the
entanglements of business, the allurements of pleasure,
the worrying, petty cares and irksome provocations of
your common household drudgery and routine. It is a
gift, and a great gift, to have your minds rightly exer
cised amid these distracting and disturbing influences, in
patience, meekness, charity : tempering zeal with know
ledge ; decision with sympathy ; opposition to sin with
kindness to sinners; being wise as serpents and harmless

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 107
as doves. You do well to seek and covet, to prize and
cultivate, this most excellent gift, that you may put on
" the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the
sight of God is of great price."
But, in the fourth place, the gift to which Paul here
refers is something different from all these : it is some
thing to be superadded, over and above them all. It is
the qualification or endowment, whatever it may be,
that fits you for taking a part, and being useful, in
one or other of the Church's proper works. What
these are, wUl be considered presently. In the mean
time it is enough to say that they are works im
plying direct personal exertion and sacrifice in the
line of Christian usefulness. They are essays or efforts
to do good.
Have you a gift for any of these works \ For which
of them is it that you have a gift ? Is there any depart
ment of the Church's business, whether connected with
her own edification or with the discharge of her duty as
Christ's witness in the world and Christ's missionary to
the world, for which you have a taste — a turn — a faculty?
Have you considered such questions as these, seriously,
soberly? Have you put them to your own conscience?
Have you put them conscientiously to your God ? Or
do you think it enough if you take heed to yourselves,
to your own interest in Christ, the sanctifying of your
own hearts, and your safe preservation from the evU
that is in the world?
It is as much as you can do, you say, to look after the
welfare of your own souls. As to your being expected to

1 08 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
take an active share in managing the affairs of the Church,
or to offer yourselves as agents in the carrying out of her
plans — it is not your province, it is not what you are
cut out for. You leave all that to others who have the
time, the talent, the inclination. For yourselves, it is
enough if, in your own poor way, you are enabled, in
such a world as you have to live in, to mind the things
which belong to your peace, and give no occasion to the
enemy to speak reproachfully.
But think for a moment, before you acquiesce in such
a timid policy, or make a merit of such false modesty as
that. Consider first your position, as members of a body
organized for work. What right have you, as one of a
band of brothers, to decline your share of the business
for the transacting of which the brotherhood exists?
Consider next the account which you have to give of
every talent your Lord bestows. You may hide your
one talent in a napkin. Will you venture, with the
hidden talent in your hand, to meet your Lord ? Con
sider, again, the wrong that you do to Him whose gift you
refuse to stir up. Your capacity, your opportunity, what
ever it may be, is the gift of God — of the Lord the Spirit.
It is not your own power or ability that you ate trifling
with, but the gift of God. And once more, consider the
wrong which you do to yourselves. You hinder your
own souls from prospering ; for it is mere idle folly to
imagine that your own faith, and hope, and love, can be
strong and healthy, while the common weal, and the
common woe, and the common work, are disregarded.
The arm cannot thrive, let it be held ever so devoutly

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 109
high, that refuses to do its office in the body; it shrinks,
and shrivels, and dies. You miss also a great recompense
of reward. You deny yourself a present pleasure. You
run the risk of coming short of much glory in that day
when " they that are wise shall shine as the brightness
of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteous
ness as the stars for ever and ever."
And be not in haste to conclude that you have no
gift, or scarcely any, that may be available for the
Church's work, — or rather for the work of the Church's
Lord. Every one has something in his power ; and if
he wUl but begin to try, he will discover that he can do
a good deal more than he thought. Every one, if once
he sets himself seriously to look out for business of this
sort, will find his proper business laid to his hand.
Only let him not go in search of it to the ends of the
earth. Let him not fancy that the gift which he has,
according to the grace that is given to him, is a gift
which he could exercise in some other sphere than that
which he now occupies. Look not abroad, look not
above, for the office you ought to fill, and the function
you ought to discharge. Look at home : look at your
own very door. Look within. Form a just and sober
estimate of yourselves as you now are, and your position
as it now is, " according to the grace that is" now " given
to you." Is there nothing that, — being what you now are, by
the mercy of God, and placed where you now are, in
the providence of God, — you can now be doing for his
beloved Son, your beloved Lord, of whose living body

110 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
you are caUed to be the living members? Is there
nothing the Lord would have you to do for him ? Is
there no walk of Christian usefulness inviting you to
enter on it ? Is there no department of Christian charity
waiting for you to undertake it ? Is there no vacant
place for you among any of the regiments of Christ's
army that go to fight against ignorance, and ungodliness,
and crime, and disease, and misery, and death ? Oh !
surely, if only you are willing to use any gift, however
poor, in any sphere, however low ; if — aU false pride,
false shame, false delicacy, false modesty and humility
apart — you are ready, whatsoever your hand findeth to
do, to do it with your might ; — " not thinking of yourself
more highly than you ought to think, but thinking
soberly, according as God has given to you the measure
of faith;" — you will not be long at a loss to know what
is your gift, what your cahing, what your office, what
your work : not at least ff yours is the experience, if
yours is the heart of him, the deeply abased and graciously
revived prophet of the Lord, who heard a voice saying,
" Whom shaU I send, and who will go for us ? " and
lost not a moment in sending heavenwards the un
reserved and unambitious and unconditional reply, " Here
am I, send me."
II. But this is not all. Not only must you thus
ascertain the gift which you have, and the work to which
it points, — you are also to make conscience of the work,
as being your work. It is your business ; it is your
office. Whatever you undertake, you are to make con-

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. Ill
Bcience of undertaking it, with as deep a feeling of obli
gation and responsibUity, as ifyou were solemnly ordained
to it by the laying on of hands. This is plainly implied
in what the Apostle says : " Having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given unto us," let us take
our several places, let us assume our several offices, let us
discharge our several functions, accordingly.
In this view, most truly and emphatically, all the
members of Christ's Church are office-bearers. All be
longing to the communion of any Christian society are
virtually and reaUy office-bearers in that society. You,
my friend, whoever you are, who come to worship with
us from Sabbath to Sabbath, — you who sit with us at
the table of the Lord, — you become one of us ; a mem
ber of our body : and for accomplishing the ends and ful-
fiUing the purposes of its organization, the body has a
right, the Lord who made the body and is its head has a
right, to the services of every member.
What, then, is your gift, Brother ? What can you do,
as one of us, for advancing our common cause, — the cause
of our common Lord ? What wUl you become ? To
which of our different staffs of labourers wiU you join
yourself ? Which of our various plans of usefulness wiU
you patronize ? WiU you be a teacher of the young on
the Sabbath? or a week-day visitor from house to house ?
or a collector of two or three together for prayer ? A
fighter ? or a holder up of the hands of those who fight ?
An active agent in the field ? or, if so the Lord wiU, a
sympathizing sufferer, looking on from a sick-bed and
interceding for a blessing ? Use your discretion. Make

112 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
your election. Judge for yourself what is your caUing.
Only be something. Undertake something. You must
have an office ; the office that best suits your gift : but
an office of some sort you must have.
And you must regard it as an office. You must make
conscience of so regarding it. You must go about it with
the same preparation, the same punctuahty, the same
prayerfulness, that you would feel to be incumbent upon
you, if the gift that is in you had been given you " by
prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presby
tery" (1 Tim. iv. 14). Beware of the notion which is
apt to insinuate itself into the minds of some workers in
the Lord's cause, that because the task or duty you have
got on hand is one which you assume spontaneously, and
discharge gratuitously, therefore you may take it, some
times, somewhat more easUy than you would consider
yourselves entitled to do, if it were the life-business to
¦which you had been set apart by a special caU, and for
which you received stipend, wages, or pay. True, you
offer yourselves willingly at first for the service ; it is of
your own mere good pleasure ; and it is of your own
good pleasure that you continue to render the service.
But while in the service, you are to regard yourselves
as ordained to it, and bound to it : ordained to it as
solemnly as I am ordained to the ministry of the word
and the cure of souls ; bound to it as sacredly as the
enhsted recruit is bound to his Queen's and his country's
work of arms when he has sworn the military oath.
The Lord, the King, delights in volunteers. His
people are to be aU volunteers in the day of his power.

DIVERSITY OF GIFTS AND OFFICES. 113
He holds out a flag of invitation for volunteers. Who
is on the Lord's side — who ? Who wUl go up to the
battle ? Whom shaU I send on my errand ? Choose
your rank, take your place, anywhere you please, so as
only it be where you have some work to do that you may
fairly think the Spirit has given you ability to do. And
once in your place, remember that you are there by ap
pointment of the Holy Ghost. For it is " according to the
grace given to you" that you have the gift which you are
now called to use. Use it faithfully, in prayer, persever
ance, patience. Stir up the gift that is in you, It is
the gift of God.

H

1 ] 4 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.

III.
DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS.
" Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith ; or
ministry, let us wait on our ministering : or he that teacheth, on teaching ;
or he that exhorteth, on exhortation : he that giveth, let him do it with sim
plicity ; he that ruleth, with diligence ; he that showeth mercy, with cheer
fulness." — Rom. xii. 6-8.
The general principle upon which the distribution of the
Church's necessary works among the members is to pro
ceed, is, that every man, " not thinking of himself more
highly than he ought to think, but thinking soberly, ac
cording as God hath dealt to every man the measure of
faith," should form an estimate of the gift, whatever it
may be, which he has received, " according to the grace
that is given to him," and should take the place, and
hold himself responsible for the service, for which his
gift may seem best to qualify him. In iUustration of
this general principle, and with a view to its application,
the Apostle enters somewhat into detail
The works to be undertaken are enumerated. They
are seven. They may be miscellaneous specimens merely,
strung together at random ; or they may be exhaustive
heads, embracing the classes to which all Christian enter
prises and movements may ultimately be reduced. This
last is the more probable view. .

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 115
For one thing, the bringing together of the first two
of these seven works is remarkable. The second is un
like the first. Ministry differs from prophecy. And it
comes in between the first, — prophecy, — and the third and
fourth, — teaching and exhorting, — which are congenial
to the first. The fifth, sixth, and seventh, again, — ruling,
giving, showing mercy, — are evidently more akin to the
second, — ministry, than to the first, — prophecy. They
partake of the nature of a ministry or service, more than
of the nature of prophesying.
No doubt aU the functions mentioned after the second
may faU under the general category of ministering, or
serving ; for to teach, or to exhort, is a ministry, or ser
vice, in the Christian Church, in which there are no lords
over men's consciences ; — in which even Apostles must
say, " We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake." But
then, for the same reason, prophesying also must come
under the head of ministering, or serving.
On the whole, it seems to be the most natural conclu
sion as to this enumeration, that here, as elsewhere
(1 Cor. xn. 4), Paul adopts an orderly arrangement, and,
in particular, that he puts first his general heads, and
then brings in the particulars into which they respec
tively branch out.
The works, then, are twofold ; prophesying and minis
tering ; prophetical and diaconal. And both of them
admit of expansion or sub-division. Prophesying includes
teaching and exhorting. Ministering includes giving,
ruhng, and showing mercy.

116 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
I. There is a grand general division. To prophesy, to
minister ; these are the two great functions of the
Church of Christ on earth, of aU its branches, and of all
its members.
They were the two great functions of her Head when'
he was on earth. He prophesied. He ministered. He
prophesied ; not merely in the sense of foreteUing future
events, but in the sense of revealing the whole counsel of
God. He ministered ; for " the Son of man came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many." He was a prophet, opening up and
unfolding the heart of God. He was a deacon, minis
tering to the service of man.
His Church is hke himself. It is, in fact, himself. It
has the same double office that he has. It prophesies,
and it ministers. It is at once a seer and a servant ;
God's seer and man's servant. It is God's seer, as hav
ing, by revelation, an insight into the mind of God, and,
by express authority, a commission to declare that mind.
It is man's servant, as ordained for his good, appointed to be
the instrument, the means and minister of his salvation.
For both of these offices the Church, which is Christ's
body, needs and caUs for the agency of her members.
Whatever gifts they have, according to the grace that is
given to them, they are to bring to the Church's help, or
rather to the help of her Lord against the mighty, under
one or other of these two departments of labour, pro
phesying or ministering.
Even the extraordinary and miraculous endowments of
apostohc times feU under these two heads. The most

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 117
gifted man was either a prophet, having in greater or less
perfection the faculty of understanding God, and helping
others to understand God ; or else he was a minister, ser
vant, deacon, dispensing manifold relief and comfort, to
meet the manifold wants and woes of suffering men.
Ail the supernatural manifestations of wisdom and
power in the early Church might be thus classed. The
highest inspiration, by which men spoke and wrote as
the oracles of God, and the gift of tongues, by which
men found access to their fellows of aU nations ; — the
faculty of supernatural insight, and the faculty of super
natural utterance ; — belonged to the function of prophesy
ing. The miraculous healing of the sick, the raising of
the dead, the casting out of devils, were acts of ministry
or service. They were the extraordinary signs and
tokens of the honour of the deaconship.
And so stUl, — whatever gifts we severaUy have, as
members of Christ and of his Church, we may exercise
in one or other of these two ways. Does our gift lie in the
direction of insight or of utterance? Is it spiritual dis
cernment, or enlargement and hberty of speech ? Is
either of these attainments our forte, if I may so call
it, or our faculty? Then our call is to prophesying.
But failing that, we have another resource. " Whether
prophecy, let us prophesy;" — or if "ministry," rather
than prophecy, be our function, for which we are fitted,
let us be content and thankful to have it so ; " let us
wait on our ministering."
II. Under this general division of aU the Church's

1 1 8 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
work into the two great heads of prophesying and minis
tering, there are particulars specified.
1. Thus belonging to prophecy, we have teaching and
exhorting. If you cannot prophesy, in the highest sense
of that term; — which we may now, in the absence of
miraculous endowments, be warranted in applying to the
preaching of the word ; — if you have not the leisure, the
learning, the cultivated talent and fluency of speech, the
sanctified genius and eloquence, which — instead of inspira
tion and the gift of tongues — might qualify you for being
a prophet of the Lord, a herald of the cross ; — you may
yet have it in your power to do something in that line.
You may be apt to " teach." You may have a facility
in so dealing with the understandings of men or of chil
dren, as to get them to open to the apprehension of the
truth. With no pretension to the gift of discovering new
truth, or even to the gift of presenting old truth in a new
hght, and enforcing it with new strength, — you may be
skilful in carefully breaking up the truth, and affection
ately training the raw and rude inteUect for its reception.
Or you may have a power of direct appeal to the
conscience and the heart. Yours may be the gift which
many prophets and preachers have coveted in vain, and
in which many plain and simple believers have excelled,
• — the gift of speaking right home to the convictions
and feelings of your neighbours.
To "exhort;" — to warn, entreat, invite; to use aU the
weapons of direct, straight-forward expostulation and per
suasion ; to tell a neighbour in a kindly way, that as a
feUow-sinner he is lost, as you were ; to bid him repent

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 119
and believe, that he may be saved by the same grace by
which you hope to.be saved yourselves; simply to reason
with him, as you would reason with a drowning man
when you held out to him a rope to rescue him ; — that
may be your province ; that may be your gift and calling.
And when you go, in the exercise of that gift and calling,
to remonstrate with an ungodly family ; to plead with a
backsliding professor ; to speak a word in season to a
weary soul : — brother ! you are doing a prophet's office :
brother ! you are winning a prophet's reward.
Only see to it that when you thus " prophesy, or teach,
or exhort," — and so far as you thus " prophesy, or teach,
or exhort," — you make conscience of doing so, strictly, and
out and out, " according to the proportion of faith." Speak
because you believe. Speak as you believe. Whether
in the higher office of prophetic preaching, or in the
lower, or at least humbler, departments of teaching and
exhorting, be sure that you speak out clearly, fully,
unreservedly, all that you have to say of God, all that
you have to say for God, to your feUow-man, — to this
your brother whom you are teaching and exhorting in
particular, — according to the fuU measure of your own
light and your own convictions. Shun not to declare
the whole counsel of God. Prophesy, teach, exhort ;
believing all that you say, and saying all that you
believe. That I take to be in substance and spirit, and to
all practical intents and purposes, what Paul means by
prophesying " according to the proportion of faith."
2. And if you cannot prophesy, you can minister. If
you cannot preach, or teach, or exhort, as a seer, you

120 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
can serve as a deacon. And the diaconate in Christ's
Church is very honourable. There is variety enough in
it also. There is room for the exercise of gifts, differing
according to the grace that is given to you.
There are the three departments of giving, ruling,
showing mercy. There is the ministiy of giving; whether
of your own substance, or as gathering in and applying
the gifts of others. There is the ministry of ruling ;
superintending and directing plans of usefulness; presiding
over holy and charitable movements; helping to manage
the Church's affairs, and to carry on her government.
There is the ministry of showing mercy ; the blessed
task and office of manifesting the divine compassion, as
it flows from the heart of God, through the hearts of his
believing and sympathizing people, into aU the channels
of human experience, and aU the chequered vicissitudes
of human affairs.
Have you means at your disposal, your own means or
the means of others, so that you may go forth, fuU-
handed, a giver of good things to those who need them?
It is a good and grateful ministry, if only you go about
it " in simplicity ;" with singleness of eye ; not seeking
applause, or even thanks ; not yielding to caprice or
impulse ; but with large mind and loving heart, devising
liberal things, that by hberal things you may stand.
But perhaps it is not yours to give. You may have
to say, with Peter at the Beautiful gate of the Temple,
" SUver and gold have I none :" and to say it, alas !
without having that to bestow which he had when he
added, " Such as I have give I thee." You may have

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 121
no alms or offerings, your own or the Church's, to dis
pense. But may you not lend a helping hand in
managing some one or other of her pious and charitable
undertakings? May you not assist in ruling, directing,
actively conducting and carrying out some one or other
of her practical plans and measures for glorifying God
and doing good to men ? Your " diligence " in any such
business will surely not be in vain.
And even if you are shut out both from the ministry
of giving and from the ministry of ruling ; even if you
can neither be an almoner nor a manager : if you have
no bounty in your hand for charitable distribution, and
no counsel in your head for the conduct of affairs, — you
have mercy, pity, love in your heart. And with a hand
empty of gifts, and a head incapable of ruling, ff only
you have a heart that is merciful, that pities, that loves,
you have a ministry which you may exercise " cheerfully."
CheerfuUy — oh ! how cheerfully ! For it is a ministry
void of risk, and void of care. He who giveth, let him
give ever so "simply," ever so disinterestedly, ever so
unselfishly, has yet an anxious task upon his hands.
He must be cautious, he must discriminate, he must
suspect, he must inquire, he must often pause and restrain
himself, and do violence to the best feelings of his nature,
if he would not be the instrument of evU rather than
good. He who rules, he who manages, he who takes a
responsible part in any work or business of the Church,
be he ever so "diligent," may have an anxious time of it
also. Many things occur to embarrass and disconcert
him. He is often perplexed, wearied, vexed, under a

122 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
sense of the load he has to bear, and the difficulties he
has to meet. But with light heart and open brow may
the merciful man pay his welcome visits of mere kind
ness and goodwiU among the famUies around his dweUing.
With a smile for the glad, a sigh and a tear for the
afflicted, a patient ear for the complaint of injury, an eye
of quick inteUigence for the mute glance of unutterable
woe, a hand to lift the faUen, feet swift to run to the
relief of the poor, and a word in season to aU that are
weary; — he goes about showing mercy, like his Master;
and like his Master also, he " showeth mercy with cheer
fulness." Now if this is the divine ideal of the Church as the
body of Christ; — ff the picture which this inspired apostle
draws, whether by description or by exhortation, is the
picture of a rightly organized Christian society; — what a
melancholy shortcoming must be noted in the actual
Christianity both of past and of present times !
.How influential might a congregation be if, in terms
of the Apostle's representation, aU its members were found
exercising their several gifts in appropriate offices of zeal
and love ! What a hive would it be of busy bees ! flying
aU abroad, over the waste wilderness as weU as the
garden enclosed ! kissing into life and pure love many a
wUd or wanton flower ! and bringing back to the central
hive, and for all its inmates, loads of sweetest blessings !
Such a flock would scarcely need pastor, or elders, or
deacons. It might almost dispense with office-bearers,
whether for teaching or for ruling, for prophesying or

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 123
for ministering. In point of fact it is the necessity, and
not the glory, of the Church on earth, that she must have
her office-bearers. The Friends, the Plymouth Brethren,
are so far in the right. That system of theirs which sets
aside official distinctions, were it only practicable, would
be the beau-ideal, the perfection, of Christian association
and organization. " I would that all the Lord's people
were prophets," must be the longing of every earnest
heart, as it was the longing of the heart of Moses. But
the Lord, as we believe, has not judged it safe to rely al
together on such a general and spontaneous alacrity and
ability as that arrangement would imply ; and we admire
his wisdom, as well as his grace and condescension, in the
setting apart of special functionaries, that so these neces
sary works may be laid as a special charge on parties
speciaUy responsible. In this very passage, accordingly,
we are accustomed to trace the outline of the directory
which the Lord would have his Church to observe in the
appointment of her officers, as well as in the distribution
or division of the labour among them.
Surely, however, it is an ungrateful abuse of this pro
vision, if the members leave aU to their officials. It was
not so of old. Paul speaks of " Phcebe, our sister, who
has been a succourer of many, and of myself also :" of
"PriscUla and AquUa, my helpers in Christ Jesus:" of
" Mary, who bestowed much labour upon us :" of "Ur
bane, our helper in Christ:" of "Tryphena and Tryphosa,
who labour in the Lord:" of "Persis, which laboured
much in the Lord : " and again, " of those women which
laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and

124 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
other my feUow-labourers, whose names are written in the
Lamb's book of Life." (Rom. xvi. ; PhU. iv.)
Why may it not now be as it has been ?
It is a step, at least, in the right direction, when a
conoTeo-ation throws itself heart and hand into some one
definite undertaking, — some enterprise having for its
object the social and Christian amelioration of a neigh
bourhood affording scope for its hberality and activity.
To a congregation so engaged, who would not heartUy
bid God-speed ? who would not rejoice in the opportunity
of giving, not merely encouraging words of sympathy, but
substantial aid ? Let its members be thus stirred up and
stimulated, one and all of them, to direct personal effort,
with prayer and pains, in the good work to which as a
congregation they stand pledged.
And now, in fine, let the honest language of every soul
be, '' Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do V
Art thou on the way to Damascus ? Art thou going
on in sin ? Art thou wounding Christ, in his cause, his
people, his gospel? Seest thou not that bright light from
heaven ? Hearest thou not that voice, — " Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me ? It is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks." Me thou canst not hurt : my pur
pose thou canst not hinder. But thyself — ah ! what ruin
is before thee ! At this sight, at this voice, be humbled.
Fall on thy face before Him whom thou art piercing,
and cry to him, " Lord, what wouldst thou have me to
do ?" And be sure to go where he bids thee ; to wait on
his guidance. Go, guided by his Word and Spirit ; follow

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES AND WORKS. 125
on to know him and his wUL Resist not. Delay not.
Be up and doing. " Now in the day of thy merciful
visitation, mind the things that belong to thy peace, ere
they be for ever hid from thine eyes." " Seek the Lord
while he may be found."
Art thou trembling like that Philippian gaoler of old !
Is there an earthquake, if not in thy prison-house, yet in
thy heart? Is thy sin finding thee out ? And as thou
hearest songs of praise rising from the ceU where some
saint of God is pining, does thy heart misgive thee lest
soon thou shouldst be hearing only weeping, and wailing,
and gnashing of teeth ? " Lord, what wouldst thou have
me to do ?" " What must I do to be saved ?" Let that
be thy cry, thine earnest cry, now. And hark ! Hear
the gracious, welcome response : " Beheve — only beheve
— on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
Hear this, thou anxious, sin-stricken soul ! Hear thy
Lord himself, — " If thou canst believe ; aU things are
possible to him that believeth." Hear ; and let thy
prompt and eager appropriation of this wonderful word
be, — " Lord, I beheve ; help thou mine unbelief."
Art thou hesitating, halting, miserably at fault and at
a loss for the way of peace and holiness and joy ? Art
thou iU at ease, not seeing thy signs, — before thee a
pathless ocean, behind thee a frowning foe ? StiU let thy
cry be, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do ?" And
hark, again I Listen to the stirring message which God
gives through Moses : " Speak unto the chUdren of Israel
that they go forward." On, on : " My grace is sufficient
for thee ; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

126 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
And thou, whosoever thou art, who hast found grace in
the Lord's sight, does thy warm heart move thee to long
for some way of proving thy love to Him who has first
loved thee ? Ask himself, and keep on asking himself,
" Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do ? " Confer not
with flesh and blood. Go always to himself. He, if
thou wilt hear his voice in his word, and see his hand in
providence — and if thou grieve not his Spirit moving
thee, — he wiU open to thee a door. He wUl show thee a
way ; he will prepare for thee a way. He who leadeth
the blind by a way that they know not, — he who went
before his people, as they marched through the wilderness,
guiding them by the glorious symbol of his presence, —
wiU make a plain path for thy feet. He will cause
thee to know when he would have thee to move and
when to rest. He wiU assign to thee thy task, thy toil,
thy work and warfare ; thy seasons also of stillness, and
intervals of repose ; and at last thy bright recompense of
reward in the land whither thou art going to possess it.

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. 127

IV.
LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE.
" Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil ; cleave to that
which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love ; in
nonour preferring one another." — Rom. xii. 9, 10.
Of the two virtues, or graces, spoken of in these verses,
love and brotherly love, the one, love, is more general,
having for its objects all sentient and inteUigent beings
within the range of our acquaintance; the other again,
brotherly love, is more limited, embracing those only who
are one with us in Christ. In the connection in which
they here stand, love, the wider affection, is to be con
sidered chiefly in its relation to the more particular
affection of brotherly love. It is brotherly love that
properly fits into the Apostle's line of thought. •
He is still, at this stage, addressing you as believers ;
organized into one body, having one common Head, but
differing from one another, in respect of gifts, offices and
functions, as the members of the natural body do. He is
speaking to you on the subject of your internal relations
to God and to one another. It is not tiU the thirteenth
verse that he comes to speak of your relations to them that
are without — outside of the Church or kingdom of Christ.

128 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Up to that point, his exhortations seem to be, aU of
them, meant to bear upon your standing and your duties
within its pale. It is, if we may so speak, the home
administration of the kingdom that is here discussed.
Its foreign policy does not come up tUl afterwards.
You have been marshalled, you have been endeavouring
to marshal yourselves, as officers and officials in the king
dom, according to the general order: — " Having then gifts
differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether
prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of
faith ; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering : or he
that teacheth, on teaching ; or he that exhorteth, on ex
hortation : he that giveth, let him do it with simphcity;
he that ruleth, with dUigence; he that sheweth mercy,
with cheerfulness." You are aU now, it is to be presumed,
in your proper places ; the right men, and the right
women too, in the right places. You have your several
works assigned to you. You go about your several caU-
ings, you separate to ply your several tasks, in the one
household of faith of which you are all members.
Is not the house then divided ? PracticaUy is not this
the upshot ? True, you teU us that, " as we have many
members in one body, and aU the members have not the
same office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another." And this ideal
of unity in diversity may be a fine theory. But in point
of fact, we find ourselves, in the actual business of the
church, in congregational arrangements — even in the
labours of love to which we are set, wide as the poles
asunder. We scarcely ever come in contact with one an-

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. J 29
other, or cross one another's path. Is not our oneness,
then, as a body, a mere name ? To aU intents and pur
poses, in our outer Christian walk and work, as weU as
in our inner Christian life, are we not isolated, indi
vidualized ; each doing the best he can for himself, feel
ing very much as if he were left alone, and must get on
as he best may alone ? Or if I am thrown into closer
fellowship with some one or two stray foUowers of Christ,
is it not, as I may say, by accident, by force of circum
stances, congeniality of temper, similarity of situation, or
some cause, at aU events, quite independent - of this fair
vision of the one body with the many members — the
many members in the one body?
It may be so. To a large extent perhaps it is so.
Alas ! that it should be so. The church-tie, the congre
gational-tie, the closer spiritual tie of a common interest
in Christ and a common call to work for Christ, — potent
as they are in theory, — are all apt at all times, and now
probably as much as ever, to be practically weak ; too
weak to resist the influences at work, even within their
range, to occasion separation and disunion. The moving
bodies around the central Sun are ever tending, in their
movements, to fly off from him and from one another.
The attractive power must be strong that is to resist and
overcome the tendency. And so it is. For it is love ;
and what is stronger than love, especially if it be true
and holy? " Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor
that which is evU; cleave to that which is good." Nay
more, it is not love in general merely, but brotherly
love ; and what closer bond of union can there be than
r

130 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
the genial and simple-hearted sympathy of a common
home ? " Be kindly affectioned one to another with
brotherly love ; in honour preferring one another."
Taking this view of the connection in which these
two verses stand, we may, in the first place, consider
generally the relation of love to brotherly love. And
then, secondly, we may examine the particular attributes
or features which they must have respectively, if they
are to serve the purpose contemplated : the purpose,
namely, of keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace. The love must be, on the one hand, unfeigned,
— " without dissimulation ;" and, on the other hand, dis
criminating, — " abhor that which is evU, cleave to that
which is good." The brotherly love again must be,
on the one hand, hearty, — " be kindly affectioned one to
another ;" and it must be, on the other hand, humble, —
" in honour preferring one another."
I. Let us consider generally, in view of the connection
in which they stand in the passage before us, the relation
of love to brotherly love.
Charity, or love, in its widest sense, has been defined
the love of being, of being as such, of all being. Or lest
that should seem too abstract and transcendental a notion,
it has been said to be the love of living, sentient, intelli
gences ; the love of beings possessed of proper personality.
In a believer's heart, this love is sympathy with God.
" Love is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of
God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth
not God ; for God is love " (1 John iv. 7, 8). The af-

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. 131
fection of love, as it exists in the mind or heart of God,
and is indeed the essential characteristic of his nature, ia
transferred or transplanted into your bosom, when you be
lieve. For your believing is your grasping this love of
God ; apprehending and appropriating it ; — not the fruit
or effect of this love, but the love itself. " We have
known and beheved the love that God hath to us" (1
John iv. 1 6); the love which is manifested in "the send
ing of his only-begotten Son into the world, that we
might live through him." " Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be
the propitiation for our sins." This love, this God who
thus is love, you lay hold of as your own, when you re
ceive his testimony concerning his Son. The Holy Spirit
gives you an eye to perceive and a heart to welcome this
very love, this very God who is love, as your own. And now
you love him because he first loved you. You love, be
cause you know and believe his love. His love to you
reproduces, as it were, itself in you. Hence there results
a certain harmony of sentiment, a certain union of nature,
very imperfect indeed, but yet real so far as it goes, in virtue
of which you see as God sees, and feel as God feels. Thus
love, known and believed, begets love, in its own hkeness.
Now this love, thus begotten in you, through your
knowing and believing the love that God has to you, is
not only an affection of a wider range, as to its objects,
than brotherly love ; — it is of a higher nature, a more
heavenly origin. It has its seat in the bosom of God,
where there is, where there can be, no room for the other.
Brotherly love is essentially the affection of a creature ;

132 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
it is an affection of which a creature alone is capable.
The Creator is incapable of it ; he cannot exercise or feel
it. There may be brotherly love among the angels.
There may be brotherly love among men. Ultimately,
there may be brotherly love among angels and men in
discriminately. But there can be no brotherly love in
God. For there can be no brotherhood between him and
any other. Love alone is of God. For God is love alone.
Hence love, divine love, because it is divine or God-like,
must take precedence, in your hearts, of brotherly love,
which is an affection simply human. And indeed, if it
is to be of the right sort, brotherly loye must itself be a
mode, or modification, of that higher love. It must be
founded on that love ; it must flow from it.
For, apart from love, brotherly love in itself and by
itself is not necessarily a virtue. Nay, it may be sin.
It degenerates into sectarianism, partisanship, and the
poor esprit de corps of a school, a class, a clan, a coterie.
It worships idols of the tribe, the palace, the theatre, the
cave. You love as brethren those who happen to agree
with you in holding certain opinions, cultivating certain
taste3, pursuing certain ends. You love them as brethren
merely on the ground of that agreement. You draw to
gether ; you club together ; you frequent one another's
company; you take pleasure in associating with one an
other, in helping one another, and in serving one another.
This is quite natural, and so far, all right. Congeniality
of disposition, similarity of pursuits, obviously tend to
create intimacy ; and within due limits, that tendency is
safe and good. But if that is aU — if the bond of

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. . 133
brotherhood is thus merely natural and human — if your
unity is simply the result of your unanimity — if it springs
out of yourselves, and, as it is almost sure to do, centres
in yourselves ; it may make you strong as an ecclesiasti
cal corporation ; it may make you proud and happy as a
more choice and select spiritual company, dwelling apart,
nearer the throne than many. But it does not enlarge
or elevate the heart. Nor does it free the soul from the
yoke of self. It is itself, in fact, little better than a sort
of enlarged selfishness. It does not ascend heavenward.
It draws down earthward what is heavenly. It is of the
earth, earthy. It breeds earthly passions, — censoriousness,
superciliousness, moroseness ; — the fanatic's heroic rage,
the bigot's mean intolerance. Such brotherly love has
been the bane and curse of the Church in all ages, the
scandal of Christianity, the fruitful mother of strife
among its professors, the world's too plausible apology
for not knowing and not believing the love which God
hath to us.
Very different was the brotherly love of Christ as it
was manifested when he lived among men. As God he
was capable of love alone. But as man, the man Christ
Jesus, he was capable of brotherly love as well
And oh ! what brotherly love was his ! He loved his
own which were in the world ; he loved them weU ; he
loved them to the end. Never heart beat, true and ten
der, with a brother's love, as did the heart of Jesus
towards his chosen friends. He had them always with
him. He told them aU that he was doing. He had no
reserve in talking to them. He was never weary of

134 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
talking with them. He could have talked on without
limit, without end, if only they could have foUowed him.
" I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot
bear them now." He would fain have said more and
more, but he wiU not speak to them too soon of what
could only vex and sadden, without really doing them good.
It is a brother's frank and open candour, only tempered
by a brother's tender concern. He was their Master and
Lord. But he was their brother too ; their elder brother.
They lived with him on terms of intimate brotherly
familiarity. He had a brother's patience for their way
wardness ; a brother's pity for their weakness ; a brother's
tears for their sorrow. It was on a brother's breast that
John leaned at supper (John xiii. 23). It was a brother's
eye that looked on Peter (Luke xxii. 61). It was a brother's
voice that so affectionately commended to the Father's love
the little ones whom the Father had given him, and whom
he was leaving desolate in a hostile world, (John xvii.)
And yet special and peculiar as was his brotherly love
to his own, how free, how entirely free, was it from any
element that could make it appear to be a love to them
merely because they were his own ; because they be
longed to him ; because they foUowed him ! It was with
no selfish love that he loved them ; no love of selfish
complacency, or as some might call it, just pride ; such
love as one might feel when he looked round on a circle
of devoted men whom he had won to be his sworn com
rades and his brethren in council or in arms. The
brotherly love of Jesus was of a higher tone ; it was of a
more heavenly tj'pe. It was brotherly love indeed, such

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. 135
as man feels. It was real human brotherly love ; the
brotherly love of a genuine human heart, true to all the
instincts and all the sympathies of humanity. But it
was welded into that other love which is of God. It
took the character of that love which is in God ; that
love, which God is.
Take as an instance the farewell prayer, and espe
cially the close of it : " Father, I wiU that they also whom
thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they
may behold my glory, which thou hast given me : for
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 0
righteous Father, the world hath not known thee : but
I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast
sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name,
and wiU declare it ; that the love wherewith thou hast
loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John xvii.
24-26). Here truly is brotherly love. The Elder Brother is
presenting to his Father and theirs, the chUdren, the little
ones, whom the Father hath given him to be his brethren.
But what a constant reference has he to the Father ! What
love to God the Father pervades, and animates, and ele
vates, this brotherly love of Jesus !
Why, let us ask, according to these wondrous words
of his, does the Lord Jesus speciaUy love his own ? Foi
what reasons, and on what grounds ? In the first place,
they are given to him by the Father. And, secondly,
they receive him as sent by the Father; and whUe
the world knows not the Father, they receive the know
ledge of the Father which the Son imparts, and the love

136 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHEIST.
•
of the Father which the Son convej^s. Then again,
let us further ask, for what end does the Elder Brother,
with such tender importunity of brotherly love, commend
his own to the Father ? That the Father may love them
as he loveth him, and glorify them as he glorifies him :
that he and they may be one in the Father.
Thus all this love is of God. Jesus, the Elder Brother,
regards the little ones whom he loves as brethren, from the
Father's point of view in heaven, as well as from his own
point of view on earth. The love of Jesus to his own is
sympathy with the Father in his love to them. It is
sympathy with them as the objects of the Father's love.
And so, in virtue of that twofold sympathy, it is welded
into the Father's love itself.
Thus brotherly love is lifted up, from being a human,
into becoming a divine affection. It is not now a self-
originated, closet combination ; as when men come to
gether, and finding themselves of one mind, resolve to
act together. It is an integral part and portion of that
great fountain of love which is in the bosom of God.
Absorbed into this higher love, purified and haUowed by
it, brotherly love issues forth anew. It selects its conge
nial company of believing friends. It finds itself at home
among them. Yet stUl always it retains its identity and
sympathy with that love in God, so wide, free, generous,
unselfish, which embodies and expresses itself in the gra
cious mission of his Son.
My love to the brethren is thus hke my Father's love
to them. He loves them with a peculiar affection. And
so do I. But it is an affection in him, and through his

LOVE AND BROTHERLY LOVE. 137
grace, in me also, altogether beyond the imputation or sus
picion of anything hke mere favouritism, or partiality, or
party spirit. It is not respect of persons. It is not mere
selfish reciprocity ; the owning of those who own me. It
is genuine love ; the love of the true, the good, for the
sake of their truth and goodness. My love to the breth
ren is thus, hke God's love to them, not merely the love of
natural, human fellow-feeling, — but the love of divine be
nevolence ; of that divine benevolence which looks on aU
out of itself with an equal eye, and has pity, mercy, com
placency, for aU ; — pity, mercy, on the one hand, for aU alike
of the lost family of man ; and on the other hand, holy
complacency for all alike who, in the Son, are created
anew unto holiness.
To love the brethren thus, is not to shut myself up
among a knot of devotees, in the cells and cloisters of an
exclusive monasticism. Nor is it to bind myself hand
and foot to a party organization like that of Loyola.
The brotherly love of the friar's convent, or of the Jesuit's
college, is not for me, if I am to be like-minded, like-
hearted, with Christ. No. Nor the brotherly love of
the sect, the party, the conclave, or the inner circle of
those who, hugging themselves in their own self-satisfac
tion, bid aU others stand aside. Let mine be the bro
therly love of Him who was meek and lowly in heart ;
who did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be
heard in the streets ; who did not break the bruised reed
nor quench the smoking flax ; — of Him whose advent
the angels hailed, when they sang, "Glory to God in the
highest, on earth peace, good-wUl toward men."

138 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
There, in that good-wiU toward men, is love ; the love
of God, wide, universal, free. It is goodwUl to men ; to
men as such ; to aU men. This is the love of Him who
woiUd have all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. Let this love be in your hearts,
as it was in the heart of Christ. Be ye phUanthropists
as he was. Be ye, like him, first and primarily, lovers
of men. This Christ-like, God-like phUanthropy, and
this alone, wiU make your brotherly love Christ-like and
God-hke too.
II. Such ' generaUy being the nature of love and of
brotherly love, and such their right relation to one
another, let us now inquire what are the particular
attributes or features which they must possess respec
tively, if they are to serve the purpose contemplated ; the
purpose, namely, of keeping the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace.
In the first place, Love, if it is to inspire brotherly love
of the right sort, must be of the right sort itself ; — " Let
love be without dissimulation ; abhor that which is evil ;
cleave to that which is good." And, secondly, Brotherly
love, if it is to claim kindred with such love as that, must
make good its claim by its character ; — " Be kindly affec
tioned one to another with brotherly love ; in honour pre
ferring one another." The love, and the brotherly love,
must be of genuine quality.
1. The love must be unfeigned; "without dissimu
lation." And it must be discriminating ; " abhor that
which is evil; cleave to that which is good." In fact

LOVE TRUE AND HOLY. 139
it must be discriminating that it may be unfeigned. The
love that does not discriminate, wUl invariably be found
to be a love that dissembles.
Look, for example, at the easy sort of good-nature
which passes current largely in the world for that good
wUl towards men which the angels welcomed in the
birth of Christ. It is not certainly very discriminating.
Is it very sincere ? Are those who practise it remarkable
for their freedom from dissimulation ? Do they say the
same things of one another that they say to one another 1
They are lax and easy enough in drawing the line be-
tweengood and evil There is notwith themany very indig
nant or very repugnant abhorrence of what is evil ; no very
keen resentment of wrong ; no vehement recoil from sin.
Nor is there much of a " cleaving to that which is good."
They may have good movements, and good impressions,
by fits and starts, as it were, or upon random impulses.
And if it comes to their hand naturaUy, and easily, they
may have no objection to do good. They wiU them
selves, however, be the first to confess that they are not
too scrupulous or sensitive on that head. They are sin
cere so far as they go, but they are not straitlaced.
But are they really sincere ? They say so. That is
their boast. And they venture to think that this their
sincerity may avail them before God as well as before
men. They may not be altogether such as they should
be ; abhorring as they ought that which is evil, and
cleaving as they ought to that which is good. They
acknowledge that they do not always draw the line very
carefully. But they are at any rate no dissemblers.

140 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Is it so ? Is it not on the contrary notorious, that
those who are the least fastidious in open intercourse
with doubtful company, are the most unscrupulous in
their comments and commentaries behind backs? It has
been happily and wittily said of those once famous Letters
in which a worldly-wise father1 sought to make his son
as perfect in the world's wisdom and in the world's
wickedness as himself, that whereas Paul's maxim is — Love
without dissimulation, in his hands it might be read the
reverse way — Dissimulation without love. This witness
is true. The peace, and decency, and good order, of
worldly society to a large extent depend on there being
a common understanding on aU sides, that what might
be unpleasant shall be coloured, or shaU be covered ; and
that many things bordering on vice or folly shah be al
lowed to pass under some plausible disguise.
Would that we could hmit this charge exclusively to
worldly men ! to those who make no profession of evan
gelical holiness or evangelical love ! But alas ! even
you who may be presumed to know something of that
love of God to which your love ought to be conformed,
are apt practically to lose sight of the unfeigned truth
and the uncompromising hohness that it demands.
When you go among your feUow-men, when you mingle
in society, you do not adopt the world's good-natured
fashion of toying with what is evU and making light of
what is good. You do not practise the world's conve
nient art of keeping up appearances with bright smiles
1 Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son.

LOVE TRUE AND HOLY. 141
and honeyed words of feigned courtesy, covering and
dissembling the real passions of the heart. In your
presence, what is evil may not be obtruded offensively ;
what is good may not be openly disparaged. So far your
love may seem to be, and may really be, discriminating.
Again, when you speak, you do not actually say what
you do not think ; you do not wilfully profess more than
you feel, or anything else than you feel. So far your love
may be allowed to be without dissimulation.
But as regards the first of these admissions, might
it not be sometimes asked — When you return home
from a social meeting, whether for business or for
pleasure, would those you have been dealing or con
versing with, gather from your demeanour whUe you
were with them, that you abhor that which is evil, and
cleave to that which is good ? Nay, might not their im
pression on the contrary be, that your abhorrence of
evil is not very vehement, and your cleaving to good
not very earnest ? There may be nothing tangible to
which they can point. They cannot charge you with any
one decided instance of compromise. They may even be
forced to own that your presence did impose a restraint
upon the company and the conversation ; that every ap
proach to impropriety was checked and frowned down ;
that much of what went on was even fitted to be useful.
Still somehow, from your whole way of conducting
yourself, they have taken up the idea, that wliile you
must, for consistency's sake, be somewhat strict and grave,
yet after aU, you do not take things quite so seriously as
they thought.

142 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Ah ! my Christian friends, beware of that facile and false
kindness which is apt to usurp the place of love in your
intercourse with the immortal beings around you. Yes; it
is a false kindness, if when you go among them, you suffer
them to get the notion that the difference between a state
of sin and a state of grace is not so very decided as you
would have them to believe ; that you do not think so
badly of their case ; that the ways of godliness are not
so very good, nor the ways of the ungodly world so very
evil, even in your judgment, as they once imagined.
You may disguise your weakness under many plausible
pleas. You would not take too much upon you. You
do not like to be always thrusting forward your own pecu
liar views. It is harsh and unfeeling to be for ever finding
fault. You must occasionally shut your eyes to some things,
ifyou would get through the world peaceably. You cannot
bear to be for ever damping gaiety and marring mirth.
You need not be always wearing a solemn face, and ut
tering weighty sentences of wisdom. You may surely
sometimes unbend, and be simply a man among your fel
low-men, not everlastingly on your guard, but as it were
standing at ease, and letting your Christian principles and
punctilios for a season take care of themselves.
But wiU these, and such poor platitudes and truisms
as these, avail to undo the evil influence that in a single
instance may flow from your trumpet giving an uncertain
sound? If your love is of such a sort as this, is it — let
me now further ask — is it indeed without dissimulation ?
Without dissimulation ! — Are you not dissembling
your Christianity ? Are you not dissembling your fixed

LOVE TRUE AND HOLY. 143
moral convictions, your deep religious faith ? Are you
not dissembling your belief that the wages of sin is
death ; that sin is an abomination in the sight of God ;
that the world heth in wickedness; that the wicked
shaU be turned into hell ; that men must be born again ;
that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature ; that
without holiness no man can see the Lord ; that every
unconverted man is on the way to inevitable and eternal
ruin ; that for every idle word that men speak they must
give an account ; that it is a fearful thing to faU into
the hands of the hving God ; — but that, on the other
hand, grace is sweet ; and God's favour is good ; and his
service is freedom ; and wisdom's ways alone are ways
of pleasantness, and her paths alone are peace ; — are
you not, I say, dissembling your belief of these things,
when you so hve with your fellow-men, as to lead them
to ask, Would you live so if you believed them ?
And is that love? If the tender mercies of the wicked
are cruel, what shaU we say of love like that in one cah-
ing himself a child of God ?
A child of God ! Is your Father's love of such a sort as
yours ? Can any one doubt what He thinks of evil ?
what He thinks of good? Can any one charge Him with
dissembling the truth, out of weak facility or false ten
derness to the objects of his love ? Ah ! His love is love
indeed, because it is so holy, and so true. A love indif
ferent to the interests of hohness, a love keeping back
or compromising truth, would not be love at all. God
is love, because God is hght. The light of inviolable
holiness, the hght of eternal truth, sheds its highest glory

144 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
on the love of God ; chiefly in that manifestation of
it through the faith of which you learn to love as
He loves. Behold the Father giving up his Son to die !
What abhorrence of evU is revealed in that act ! what
cleaving to that which is good ! How intolerable is sin
seen to be ! and how inflexible righteousness ! There is
no mincing of the matter in that Cross, no prophesying of
smooth things, no soft shading of reahties too stern. That
Cross speaks very plainly. It dissembles nothing. It tells
the whole truth. And if on that account it be an offence
it is not so intended. For it teUs the truth in love.
And you, brethren, have the same truth to teU; and in
the same love. This, which is the characteristic of the love
of God, must be the characteristic of your love too. Your
lips, your life, like that Cross, must reveal abhorrence of
evU, and a fast cleaving to that which is good. Your lips,
your hfe, hke that Cross, must vindicate the claims of
righteousness, and stamp with righteous reprobation the
dark malignity of sin. Your lips, your life, hke that Cross,
must be to aU men an open exhibition of the truth. Your
lips, your life, hke that Cross, must speak, and speak
plainly, of guilt and wrath, as weU as of peace and joy.
Otherwise your love is false and wicked. It is man's
love ; — such love as may visit the breast of faUen man,
who cares httle for truth, and less, if possible, for hoh
ness. It is not the love that dweUs in the bosom of the
true and holy God ; — of him who, when truth and hohness
seemed to be opposed to love, that he might blend the
three in one, spared not his only-begotten Son, but gave
him up to the death for us all !

BROTHERLY LOVE KIND AND LOWLY. 145
2. Love, a love thus undissembled and undissembling,
abhorring evU and cleaving to good, is the fit mother of a
brotherly love, at once affectionate and humble, kind to
others, lowly in its own esteem ; — " Be kindly affectioned
one to another with brotherly love ; in honour preferring
one another" (ver. 10).
Observe how such love as I have been attempting to
describe may be traced as it passes into brotherly
love. It goes forth, this love, honest and true, hating
evU, cleaving to good ; or you, possessed by this love, go
forth among your feUow-men. Your love embraces them
aU ; it longs for a response of sympathy from them all
But, alas ! too generaUy, it longs in vain. You come in
contact, however, with some whom that love possesses,
as it possesses you. They and you compare notes. You
exchange with one another your thoughts and feelings.
Anew emotion springs up within you; a new affection
is generated. It is not an emotion of admiration merely,
or of sudden surprise, as when a bright form of beauty
first meets the eye. It is hke that deep sense of home
which fills the hearts of the chUdren of one household,
when, after long years spent apart, they find themselves
together again in a foreign land. The thought of a home
of love, and of a loving father there, whose image they
all bear, whose love they all share, is freshly present to
their minds. They feel themselves at home once more.
This home-feeling, in a far country, among you who are
the chUdren of God, is brotherly love. The spirit of your
home of love, which is heaven; the spirit of your loving
Father, who dwells there ; is in you aU.
K

146 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Is it needful, let me ask in the first place, — is it not,
on the contrary, almost a work of supererogation to
exhort you, in such brotherly love as that, to be kindly
affectioned one to another?
The brethren of Joseph were in a conspiracy of evU, held
together by the tie, not of a common love, but of a common
hatred. There was nothing in the feeling which made
them one, fitted to soften or melt their hearts into any
genial flow of kindness. For jealousy or envy is a cold,
hard passion. It shuts up the bowels of compassion. To
those who have been thus united, the admonition is far from
being superfluous : " See that ye fall not out by the way."
And if your Christian brotherhood is of this sort; if
it is a union cemented rather by the spirit of human
rivalry or resentment, than by the spirit of divine love ;
the chances are that you wiU find yourselves agreeing
better in the feehngs which you indulge towards others,
than in the feelings which you cherish among your
selves. But your feUowship is not thus one of mahce or Ul-wUl,
or a harsh judging of your neighbours. It is a fellowship
of love in the Lord, And therefore you are caUed to put
on bowels of mercies and kindness to one another. For
the home feehng in a far country makes the chUdren's
hearts very tender ; so tender, that neither memory of
old grudges, nor apprehension of new offences, can be
suffered to part love again. It has a marveUous power
to puU out every old root of bitterness, and to keep out
every new one, — every new seed of irritation or estrange
ment. Cherish, then, ye children of your Father in

BROTHERLY LOVE KIND AND LOWLY. ] 47
heaven, this home feeling, that ye may be " kindly affec
tioned one to another in brotherly love."
And that you may make sure of this, let me say to
you further, in the second place, see to it that your
brotherly love be as humble as it is kindly affectioned.
With bowels of mercies and kindness to one another, put
on also meekness; "in honour preferring one another."
" Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory ; but, in
lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than him
self " (Phil. ii. 3).
There was strife once in the httle company of the
twelve as they followed Jesus on the earth. They
disputed among themselves who should be the greatest.
This was at the time when they knew and believed
comparatively little of the love of God ; when their
brotherly love, such as- it was, had httle or nothing in
common with that divine love ; but was, in fact, simply
earthly and human ; springing wholly out of the feeling
of their being pledged to a common Master and a common
cause; engaged in a common enterprise. So long as that
is their only bond of union, it is quite natural that, on
the one hand, they should rebuke those, however worthy.
who follow not with them ; and, on the other hand, that
they should dispute among themselves who should be the
greatest. Accordingly, it has been always found that aU
ecclesiastical combinations, whether churches, or sects, or
religious orders, formed upon this principle, have in them
the elements of these two sore evils, intolerance and am
bition. In any society of men, brought together and kept
together thus, as partisans, embodied to serve a purpose,

148 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
to gain an end, there must necessarUy be the feeling that
aU who are not with them are against them ; and the honour
of taking the lead wUl be coveted and grasped as a lawful
prize. It wUl not be so, when the Christian brotherhood is
felt to be, not an artificial organization of earth, but the
living spirit of love coming down from heaven ; the love
which dwells in the heart of God, reproduced in the heart
of a believing man, and recognising itself as reproduced
also in the hearts of other believers.
In a brotherhood thus created and born ; — for it is a
new creation, and a new birth ; a birth from above ; a
birth of the Spirit ; — in such a brotherhood there can be
no room, no place, for such merely human feelings as either
hostUe suspicion of aU who foUow not with us, or eager
egotistic questioning as to who shaU be the greatest. That
home feeling in the far country gives the death-blow to
self. We are aU one. Which of us is above the rest, or
which beneath, is a small matter. We love one another as
brethren, for our Father's love that is in us, and ¦ our
Father's hkeness that is upon us.
And for my part, each wUl say, I see more of that love
and of that hkeness in my brethren, in the very least of
them, than in my best state I can find in myself.
I care not what his place and function, in the body,
may be ; or what mine may be, as contrasted with his.
He may be the door-keeper; I the priest. He may serve,
and I may rule. He may be a mere minister ; L a
teacher and exhorter. StUl, if he is a chUd of God, and
if I am one ; conscious as I am of sad shortcomings and

BROTHERLY LOVE KIND AND LOWLY. 149
sins, I see my Father's love and my Father's hkeness in
him, more than in myself — As doubtless he, on the other
hand, having experience of his own infirmities, and not
of mine, giving me credit also — alas ! how often too
credulously — for aU that my office implies, thinks of me
far more highly than he ought ; and emptying himself, is
disposed to sit at my feet, who, alas ! have too good
reason to feel, that in respect of many a lesson of meek
ness and obedience, I ought rather to be learning of him.
Thus, being kindly affectioned one to another, with
brotherly love, in honour we prefer one another; each
esteeming others better than himself
Now, it is in this spirit of blended love and brotherly love ;
love, pure and true as is the love that dwells in the heart of
God ; brotherly love, kind and meek as that home feeling
which makes an unselfish household one ; that you are to
enter on the duties of your several caUings in the Church
of Christ, — to prophesy, to minister, to teach, to exhort, to
rule, to give, to show mercy ; full of love to all, of
brotherly love among yourselves. These are the elements
or component parts of that hving stream which is to set
in motion, and ever freshly keep in motion, aU the acti
vities of your Christian life ; the one element divine, the
other human ; together, by the electric spark of heavenly
grace, forming a pure river of the water of life, proceeding
from the throne of God, and of the Lamb. Whatever, as
members of the Church of Christ, you undertake and do,
it is thus that you are to undertake and do it ; loving aU
men, as God in Clirist loves them, with a love that like

150 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
his condemns aU sin, whUe it yearns to embrace every
sinner ; loving one another, as Christ loved his own, for
the Father's sake, who gave him them, and for their
sympathy with him as the Father's Son ; loving one
another, therefore, with a love, like his, of warmest fel
low-feeling and of lowliest self-abasement. Animated by
this double love, you wiU find every yoke easy, every
burden light. It wiU be your meat to do the will of Him
who sends you, to finish his work, — to go about doing
good. It wiU be your joy to aid in every good work.
It wUl be your special joy to aid in the good work of
sending everywhere, and among all men, the glorious
gospel of the grace of God, which proclaims the large
and free benevolence of the Everlasting Father, and by
means of which the Eternal Spirit is to gather into one
brotherhood, in Christ the Son, the great multitude of aU
nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues, who are
to stand together before the throne of God and of the
Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands,
and to cry together, with loud voice, " Salvation to our
God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 1 51

DILIGENCE— FERVOUR— SERVICE.
" Not slothful in business : fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord." — Rom. xii. 11.
There is no reference here to what men call the business
of life. The verse is misinterpreted and misapplied
when it is made, as it were, the priest or minister to
celebrate a marriage-union between secular duty and
spiritual devotion. Doubtless it is most desirable that
such an alliance should be effected. In the case of a
true Christian, there will be no divorce or separation
between the ordinary every-day work of his worldly caU-
ing, and the worship of his closet and his heart. He may
not, indeed, be wiUing to identify the two, or to speak as
if he could faU in with the favourite formula of some, that
work is Worship. But he will not forbid the banns when
it is proposed to join them in a holy and happy matri
mony. He will have the twain to be one spirit. That
diligence in the common business of life should be joined
to fervency of spirit in religion, is a proposition, there
fore, which he will admit and maintain. But if he is
intelhgent, he will look somewhere else than to this verse
for his proof-text in support of it.
The word "business" here, is the same in the original

152 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
as the word "diligence" in the eighth verse of the
chapter ; — " He that ruleth, with dUigence." So here :
" Not slothful as regards diligence." The term indicates,
not the kind of work to be done, but simply the manner
of doing it. It does not point to men's ordinary worldly
callings and occupations, as in contradistinction to their
spiritual exercises or spiritual frames. It is not the
Apostle's present object to harmonize, and reconcile, and
blend the two in one. The expression " business" charac
terizes, not the work, but the worker ; not the action, but
the agent. The real meaning is, that in respect of dUigence,
or activity, in the matter to which this whole passage
refers, you are to be not slothfuL It is very much the
wise man's maxim : " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might" (Eccles. ix. 10).
The Apostle is stUl, let it be remembered, speaking of the
different offices and functions which faU to be distributed
among believers, as the many members of one body. He
has in view, not what you have to do in your common char
acter and capacity, as members of society in general, but
what you have to do in your special calhng, as members of
the Christian society. No doubt, in a sense, the whole of
your work, in the ordinary business of hfe, may be com
prehended under that head. " Whether you eat or drink,
or whatever you do, you are to do aU to the glory of
God." " Whatever you do, in word or deed, you are to do
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks unto God,
even the Father, by him." Every occupation of yours,
like every creature of God, is to be " sanctified by the word
of God and by prayer." You are not to separate what you

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 153
do as men from what you do as Christians. You cannot
thus divide yourself. It is the life which you live in the
flesh that you are to hve by faith. All that is true.
But, on the other hand, it is no less true that your believ
ing, your becoming members of Christ and of his Church,
not only invests old works and duties with a new charac
ter, but imposes new ones. It caUs you to work for
yourselves and for society in a new spirit. It does more.
It calls you to work directly for Christ. You may say
that your working for yourselves and for society, in a new
spirit, is your working for Christ. It may be so. But
in any sense relevant to the Apostle's present appeal, it
can be so only when, in your so working for yourselves
and for society, you not merely cherish devout Christian
feelings in your own heart, but expressly aim at a
Christian object; the Christian object, namely, of com
mending Christ to others, and shutting them up into
him. It is in working with that aim, and for that
object, that you are to be, — I. Not slothful in business ;
II. Fervent in spirit ; III. Serving the Lord.
I. The word rendered " business," or " dUigence," —
denotes originaUy haste or speed. It conveys the idea of
eagerness, zeal, intense and earnest effort ; the doing of
what is to be done, as one would say, in a business-like
¦way, — with a wUl ; making a real business of it ; taking
it up in earnest, as a business that admits of no remiss
ness, no slackness, no sioth.1
' Under the explanation already given, the practical idea involved in our
English word "business," — that of real work as opposed to dilettante trifling— •

154 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
You aU know what this means in any worldly
caUing ; and you know also how in every worldly
caUing, it is an indispensable condition of eminence and
success. There must be industry; strenuous, unremitting,
untiring industry; wUling to forego the- luxury of ease, " to
scorn delights, and live laborious days." For the most
part, this is a faculty to be acquired ; a habit to be cul
tivated. It is a faculty which cannot be acquired too
early ; a habit that cannot be cultivated too assiduously.
It may cost you an effort ; nay, many an effort. Indo
lence is natural to you. Carelessness is natural to you.
To fix and sustain the attention, to persevere in irksome
toU, is a lesson which you must learn. You must learn
it patiently and with much pains.
It is good advice, and advice which cannot be too
often or too emphatically repeated, especially to the
young ; — Learn this lesson soon, and learn it well. Ac
custom yourself, train yourself to this " diligence in busi
ness." Do this systematically in whatever you undertake.

may be turned to good account in enforcing the Apostle's maxim. In further
confirmation of the view which I have adopted, it may be interesting to observe
the harmony of our English versions. I subjoin, accordingly, the entire verse as
it stands in the five translations preceding our present authorized one. Two of
them, it will be seen, prefer the various reading in the last clause, of to-lpy, time
or season, for Kupuo, the Lord. The others abide by the text as it stands, : —
" Not slowe in bisynesse, feruent in spirit, seruynge to the Lord." — Wiclif, 1388.
" Let not the busynes which ye have in honde be tedious to you. Be feruent
in the sprite. Applye youre selves to the tyme." — Tyndale, 1534. " Be not
slouthfull in the busynes whych ye haue in hande. Be feruent in the sprite.
Applye youre selues to the tyme." — Cranmer, 1539. "Not slothful to do
seruice. Feruent in sprite. Seruing the Lord." — Geneva, 1557. "In careful
ness not slouthful. In spirit feruent. Seruing our Lord."— Rheims, 1582.
" Not slothfull in busines : feruent in spirit. Seruing the Lord." — Authorised,
1611.

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. ] 55
Act upon the principle, that whatever it is worth while
to acquire, it is worthwhile to acquire thoroughly; what
ever it is worth while to do at all, it is worth whUe to
do weU. Let it not be your object merely to get through
your task or work with as little trouble to yourself as
possible. Beware of a perfunctory, or a desultory, dis
charge of duty. Whatever you have on hand, give your
mind to it as if it were the business of your life. It is
so for tbe time. Let it be felt by you to be so. Sloth
may raise difficulties ; " There is a lion in the way." Or
there may be whispered in your ear that most dispiriting
of all questions ; — Cui bono ? What is the use ? Resist that
devil. Whatever you are about, trouble not yourself by
asking what good may hereafter come of it. Give your
self to it wholly and heartily now. It is your calling
now. As such, look it fairly in the face, and go up to
it resolutely hke a man. This way of doing business,
and this alone, is worthy of your manhood. This is real
work, earnest life. And it is this that the Apostle desires
to see exemplified in the Church of Christ, and among
you who are its members. It is thus that he would have
you to undertake and prosecute the work of your Chris
tian caUing, to perforin the functions of whatever you
may find to be your oflice in the Church, the body of
Christ, of which you are members.
Here, let it be observed, there is a peculiar difficulty,
arising out of the nature of that work and these functions.
They are essentiaUy spiritual. Thej' make a demand upon
your spiritual tendencies and tastes. In any circumstances,
the faculty or habit which is desiderated is of difficult

156 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
acquisition. But the difficulty is less when the objects
about which it is to be occupied are congenial to your
temperament and inclinations. Nay, in such a case the
difficulty is often scarcely felt at all
Absorbed and wrapt in his favourite theme, the ripe
scholar, the enthusiastic student, fastens on it, as if instinc
tively, the whole energy of his soul The diligence, the
earnestness, the systematic and persevering industry, which
is such a forced effort to his less ardent comrade, is spon
taneous and almost unconscious with him. He knows not
what it is to grow weary of his work. In his way of doing
business there is no sloth. So, also, any ruling passion,
as the thirst of glory, or of riches, or of power, wUl keep
the man whom it possesses always eager and on the
stretch ; intent on what is his one great end in hfe. In
the pursuit of that end he knows weU what he is about.
Nothing diverts his eye ; nothing slackens his speed.
You need not preach attention and industry to him. No ! nor
need you preach it to that other man whom a higher motive
sways, whom a more generous impulse prompts. To him,
his patriotism, his phUanthropy, or whatever noble senti
ment inspires his breast, is business-habit enough, and
business-talent too. There is no risk of slovenliness or
supineness marring any enterprise of his. He is sure to
do his work, like a true workman, in thorough business
like style and fashion ; for it is the work which his heart
identifies with himself. His work is his hfe. Read the
biographies of scholars, of ambitious generals, of statesmen,
of phUanthropists; and see their manner of doing the work
of their several caUings ! What untiring assiduity and

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 157
perseverance, — what careful diligence, — is theirs! Truly
there is no slothfulness in business with them !
It is apt to be otherwise when the work you have on
hand is the Church's work ; the work of Christ, the
Church's Head. That work is not according to the
natural bent and bias of your minds. You do not take
naturally to it. Even when you are renewed and
quickened by the Spirit, and become spiritual men, it is
not a work in which you can trust to the spontaneous
working of your new affections, however warm, as if
these were of themselves sufficient to secure its due per
formance. This is a consideration of which you are all too apt
to lose sight. And from not attending to it, you are
liable to suffer loss and damage, as regards both the
work of your own personal sanctification, on the one
hand, and on the other, the work of whatever ministry
may be yours in the Church of God.
1. Thus, as to the first of these great concerns, how
often are you inclined, when serious impressions are made
upon you, to imagine that your spiritual life is to
go on, through all its stages of purification from evU
and ripening for glory, very much as a life of feeling,
and warm emotion, and strong affection ! You are
weary of routine. You have had enough of that. The
very custom of bowing the knee at night and in the
morning, famUiar from your earliest childhood, is felt to
be grievous, because it is so formal. You would now
dispense with aU forms and aU formality. You are to
be moved by an impulse from within, not regulated by

158 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
rules and restrictions from without. The new hfe in you
will work itself out freely, spontaneously, if left to itself
and its own natural development. To systematize or for
malize it again, is simply, as you imagine, to kiU it. To
bring it at aU under business rules, to turn it in any degree
into a matter of business ; — thus to treat that new, free,
fresh, living and loving faith, and living and loving feUow
ship, of which you have got some sense and taste ; — is to
bind the old, servile chains of constraint and ceremony
round your emancipated souL You will not make a mere
business of your religion any more. It is not to be a
martinet's drill or a field-day's parade. It is to be all,
at each successive moment, freshly and freely extemporized.
So you think and feel, under the impulse of a spiritual
awakening. You are impatient and intolerant of aU that
might give anything like a business air and aspect to your
Christian life. You would have it to be not a practical,
and perhaps painful, business-like realization, — but, as it
were, an elevating ideal, — of good.
But if you are in earnest, you soon find that this wiU
not do. You must, if you are to keep your ground and
make progress, be methodistic. You must lay down a
plan, you must adopt a method, and adhere to it. You
must adjust your arrangements, and methodize your
whole conduct, as you would do in a secular profession
in which your worldly interests were embarked and
your worldly all was at stake.
Do you at all know experimentally the power of that
slothfulness which is so apt to creep over you in your reli
gious experience ? How lifeless do you become, under its

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 159
influence, and how drowsy ! You cannot stir yourself up
to think or to feel. Neither sin's exceeding sinfulness,
nor the loving Saviour's exceeding beauty, moves you.
There is a strange insensibility creeping over you. And
it is the more distressing when you caU to mind the
livelier emotions of your first love. You were not then
so dull and dead. You had gracious impulses and
heavenly inspirations then, in which you thought you
could place a life-long confidence Your heart burned
within you. Oh ! but did you not make an idol of these
movements of the Spirit ? Did you not at all events
begin to reckon and rely on them ? You thought that they
would naturally, easily, spontaneously, without effort or
trouble on your part, work on tUl they worked out in
you the character that was to fit you for glory. It seemed
as if there was no occasion now for strict rules and severe
habits of application. Your new-born spiritual life would
unfold itself better untrammeUed, untutored and un
schooled. Alas! you forgot how slow and sluggish even
the renewed soul is in that new spiritual course on which
it enters, when it is awakened out of the sleep of death,
to receive the light of life ! You thought all would go
on weU, when once you came under Christian impressions
and Christian influences. It seemed as if you were trans
lated into a higher region, in which aU must be left to
free, spontaneous impulse ; in which pains-taking, busi
ness-like, hard-working, and plodding industry is out of
place. Thus you start in the race, anticipating only
accelerated speed as you rush on impetuously. But it is
an up-hiU race, as you soon discover. The old nature in

1 60 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
you, strained and thwarted, pleads for a little ease, a
little rest. You flag and faint. You feel as if your first
impressions were aU effaced, and your first love all gone.
It is a sad discovery. But count it not strange.
Rather learn from it the lesson, that even in the spiritual
life, free and fresh as it should ever be, you cannot
dispense with discipline and rule. Your sanctification
must be made a matter of business. It must be cared
for and prosecuted in a business-like way ; not indolently
and slothfuUy, as if it were a process that might be left
to itself, but industriously, sedulously, diligently, with
regularity and punctuality, as you would manage a
worldly concern, on the common principles of worldly
energy, and worldly care, and worldly zeal
Oh ! that in this work of your souls growth in grace
and preparation for glory you were thus "not slothful in
business !" Would that you brought to bear upon it the
same systematic industry and attention that you would
devote to the business of a secular calling on which your
welfare in this world depended ! You would not then, as
regards the best interests of your soul, live so loosely, —
so much at random, and, as it were, by chance, as you are
now but too apt to do. You would not be so ready as you
are now to dispense with stated times and fixed rules and
methods of devotion. You would task yourself, and have
your self-imposed and self-enforced discipline of study,
meditation and prayer. You would not disdain the help
of means, and methods, and arrangements by which you
might force yourself to take an interest in holy exercises
and duties, which, without such strict rule, sloth might

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 161
tempt you to evade. You would lay down the plan of
your spiritual life, and suffer no interruptions to inter
fere with it. You would make conscience of your daily
walk with God, in faith and love, being at least as
systematically and strenuously attended to as your daily
work in the world. You would methodize the one as
you methodize the other. In the one, as in the other,
you would be " not slothful in business."
2. In the work to which you are called, as it were
officially, in the Church of Christ, as well as in the work
of your personal growth in grace and in the knowledge
of Christ, this faculty or habit of business-like energy
and order is indispensable. Here, too, you are apt at
first to fancy that mere feehng will carry you through.
Under the impulse of your own fresh experience of the
grace of Christ, — your first love, — you are moved to enlist
under his banner. Yours is the fervour of new recruits,
of ardent volunteers. What place will you not occupy,
— what danger wUl you not face, — what wiU you not
do and dare, in the ranks you have so eagerly joined,
in the cause you have so warmly espoused? You spurn
the drUl and discipline of martinet routine. Your soul
is aU on fire for action. You wUl go forth at once on
your work and office of " teaching transgressors the ways
of the Lord, that sinners may be converted to him." You
are impetuous and impatient. It is not stern duty with
you, but strong excitement.
But, alas ! may not aU this be only, as it were, the
undisciplined valour of enthusiasts, taking up arms
hastily on the spur of the occasion ? And is that to be
L

162 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
preferred to the trained skUl and hardihood of the
regular soldiery, marshalled regularly for the battle ? Be
sure that it is this last kind of force that in the long run
wiU win the day. If you would fight for Christ, you must
fight deliberately, with cool head as well as warm heart ;
with fixed and resolute determination, upon principle
rather than upon impulse. If you would work for Christ,
you must work systematically, and you must work on
with patient and persevering energy, with firm purpose
not to give up or to give in.
There is the utmost danger of fitfulness and remissness
here. You take up your position, you enter on your office,
you begin your labour of love, whatever it may be, high
in hope, sanguine and confident in your bright anticipa
tions of success. There is even a sort of charm and halo
of romance about your undertaking. How delightful to
have something to do for Christ ; to be able, to be caUed,
to make yourself useful in some way in his Church and
for his cause ! Yes, you wiU be up and doing ; you wUl
run to and fro on errands of divine love and affectionate
brotherly kindness. You will instruct the ignorant ; you
wUl warn the unruly ; you wiU reclaim the backslider ;
you wiU train the young ; you will be a helper to the
old ; you wiU visit the sick ; you will minister to the
poor ; you wUl comfort the mourner ; you wiU speak a
word in season to the weary. It wiU be no drudgery,
no task. It wiU be your privilege, your pleasure, your
chief happiness and joy.
Do I speak to any beloved brother or sister, any
young Christian, whose bosom burns with such generous

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 163
sentiments, and such gracious feehngs as these? Far be it
from me to damp the glowing ardour of your soul It is
a right and good affection. Keep it, cherish it ; let it
grow and increase more and more. But let me remind
you that " you have need of patience if j'ou would so do
the wUl of God as to inherit the promise." For, alas !
who that has ever fairly tried the work; — to hve for Christ,
to speak for Christ, to come to close quarters with men,
or women, or children, on Christ's behalf, to discharge a
Christian's duty, and do a Christian's office, among the
families around his dwelling, or among the members even
of his own famUy; — wUl not tefl you that it is a work in
which pre-eminently you have need of patience ?
Ah ! my young friend, he wUl say, it looks aU very easy
and pleasant beforehand ; it presents a fascinating picture
of days of usefulness, rewarded by nights of calm rejoicing
over much good done and many grateful thanks received.
But once get immersed and involved in it. You wUl
soon find that the picture has its dark side. The labour
even of love is not aU hght. You witness disagreeable
scenes. You come in contact with uncongenial manners.
Rough usage often awaits you. You have to encounter
stubbornness, stupidity, perverseness ; the opposition of
anger; or the stiU more provoking opposition of stolid
insensibility. And then your spirit flags ; your nerves
give way ; you get discouraged, disheartened, weak, and
weary ; and it is often aU you can do to drag your aching
limbs along the walk of customary duty ; the very walk
which, as the walk of joyous love, your feet once trod so
lightly.

164 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Do I hear any advanced servant of the Lord complain
ing thus ? Ah, my brother ! you too I must remind
that you have need of patience. You especially I
must exhort to be " not slothful in business." Surely
you laid your account with such annoyances as these
when you consented to foUow Christ. He who caUed
you to foUow him bade you count the cost. He told
you what you had to expect when, as the Father sent
him into the world, so he sent you into the world. Is
the disciple above his Master? Is the servant above his
Lord ? Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving
against sin. Consider Him who endured such contradic
tion of sinners against himself, lest ye be weary and faint
in your mind. And that ye may not be weary, that ye
may not faint in your mind, consider how he endured it ; in
what spirit, and after what manner. "Wot ye not that I
must be about my Father's business?" — that was his motto
throughout. Let it be yours. I must be about my Father's
business. It is not my pleasure, but my Father's busi
ness. I must be about it as my Father's business, what
ever my own frames and feelings may be. It is my
Father's business, and it must be done, not for my grati
fication, but for his glory.
This then is the meaning of the Apostle's maxim, or
precept, in both the practical applications of which it is
susceptible. In the first place, make a business of your personal
Christianity ; the cultivation of your Christian char
acter ; your progressive sanctification ; your walk with
God ; your walk before God in the world. Make

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS. 165
this your business. Go about it ; keep at it ; in a
business-like way. Be diligent in it and about it as a
business ; as the business of your lives. Make it your
business to be holy, to sanctify yourselves. Read, pray,
study, meditate, not as idlers obeying an impulse, but as
earnest men, dUigently doing business. " Give diligence
to make your calling and election sure." " Giving all dili
gence, add to your faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ;
and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, patience ;
and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly-kind
ness; and to brotherly-kindness, charity. For if these
things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye
shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ " (2 Peter i. 5-8).
And do all this as earnest men, dUigently doing busi
ness. Force, yourselves often, when you are not inclined,
to engage in religious exercises and duties, or to perforin
acts of self-denial, even when it is, so to speak, against
the grain. Be regular, systematic, pains-taking, persever
ing ; fixed in your adherence to some well-considered and
well-ordered plan of self- discipline and godly study. No
matter though it may be sometimes irksome. Hold on,
as earnest men, not slothful in business. Your dihgence
wiU have its reward. The Lord will enlarge your hearts.
Your toil, even if it be a toU, wiU become a pleasure.
Your path being the path of the just, will be as the shin
ing light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect
day. And oh, how blessed, to be secured by such a habit
against the self-indulgence and self-seeking, against the
fitfulnesses and inconsistencies, that are so apt to charac-

166 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
terize an indolent and uncertain Christianity ; and so to be
enabled to " adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour by a
hfe and conversation in aU things becoming the gospel !"
And, secondly, as workers for Christ, having offices to
fUl and functions to discharge, in your capacity of members
of his body, make a business of whatever your hand findeth
to do, and be diligent in it and about it as a business.
Put yourselves as it were in harness. Set about doing
good, not upon impulse, but after a business-like fashion,
diligently. Lay your account with meeting what will
be but too likely to cool the ardour of your fitful enthu
siasm, if that be your only or your chief motive. The
business of doing good as you have opportunity may
often weary you. It sometimes wearied Christ. StiU he
remembered, and do you remember, that it is his Father's
business ; his Father's and your Father's. Regarding it
in that light, you wiU not suffer yourselves to " grow
weary in weU-doing." You will resist all such tendencies.
You wUl hold on ; and as you hold on, you will more
and more find your growing insight into the character of
him whose business it is, and your growing sympathy
with him in his business, turning all into a labour of love
indeed. You wUl become more and more engrossed in it,
as a labour of love. It will be to you, this business of
your Father, which is the doing of good and the saving
of souls, as little of a drudgery, and as much of a delight,
as ever the high toil of learning was to the most ardent
student, or the sleepless care of empire to ambition's most
aspiring votary. It wUl be your meat to do your Father's
wUl.

FERVENT IN SPIRIT. 167
II. As in respect of the diligence with which the Lord's
work is to be done, you are to be not slothful ; so in respect
of the spirit in which it is to be done, you are to be
" fervent." The idea suggested by the word "fervent," is that of water
heated to the boiling point. The figure is common in poetry
and rhetoric. We speak of a man boiling with resentment ;
boiling over with rage. And the more generous and gentle
affections, as weU as the fiercer passions, are represented
as working in this way. A patriot's soul boils over with
indignation at his country's wrongs. A kind heart boUs
over with compassion when it sees a brother's woe.
Warmth, enthusiasm, zeal; amounting even, if there be
occasion, to passionate grief, or pity, or anger; such is the
frame or temperament here commended or enjoined.
The fervency, however, is to be spiritual. It is not
animal excitement. It is not the natural fire or fer
vency of a hot and heady temper; or of keen, nervous
sensibUity and susceptibility; or of vehement personal
feeling, unaccustomed to self-control. Fervency of one or
other of these, or the like kinds, has often taken posses
sion of Christian men, in their devotions and their doings,
with little credit or profit to the cause of Christianity.
Many a season of revival has been thus marred; many
scandals, and even crimes, have had a sacred halo shed
in this way over the bad motives that prompted them.
The wrath of man has thus sought to work the righteous
ness of God. Worship has got to be a frenzy, and work
a riot or a fight, through nature's boilings and boUings
over being mistaken for those of grace and of the Spirit.

168 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
For it is in the Spirit that you are to be fervent. So
the clause may be understood: and probably so it ought
to be understood. The expression indeed must be ad
mitted to be ambiguous or doubtful. " Fervent in spirit,"
is a fair enough way of putting it. And the meaning may
be, that you are to be fervent in your spirit; fervent in
the spiritual part of your nature ; fervent in that new
spiritual life and being of yours into which, as members
of Christ and of his body, you enter. You are spiritual
men. It is as spiritual men, and not merely as busi
ness men, that you are called to undertake offices and
functions in the Church, — to work in, and with, and
for, Clirist. See that in your spirituality you are fervent.
Let yours be not a cold or lukewarm spirituality, but a
spirituality that is hot and boUing. On the other hand,
it may with at least equal propriety be maintained, that
it is the Holy Spirit, as personally dweUing in you, that
is meant. "Fervent in the Spirit" is an exact rendering
of the original. But in fact the two renderings are at one :
fervent in spirit; fervent in the Spirit. The fervency is,
in every view of it, spiritual. It is so, inasmuch as it is
fervency, not in the natural, but in the spiritual part of
you : fervency working in you, not as carnal, but as
spiritual. And it is so also because it is fervency wrought
in you by the Holy Spirit. The last clause of this triune
verse undoubtedly refers to Christ personaUy; — "serving
the Lord." There is a congruity or suitableness in there
being a reference also in the second clause to the Holy
Spirit personaUy. And the three clauses thus hang well
together. Do your work — or rather, be about your

FERVENT IN SPIRIT. 169
Father's business — diligently ; let there be no slackness
or sloth in your diligence. Do it as those who are warmed
by the Holy Ghost. Do it as those who serve the Lord
Christ. This fervency, then, is to be spiritual. It is to have its
seat in the heart's core of your spiritual hfe; it is to be
the direct fruit of the Spirit there.
1. Observe, in the first place, generaUy, that to be
fervent in spirit is something more than mere earnest
ness. Doing the work simply as a matter of business,
you may do it very earnestly; taking a real interest in
it, throwing your whole soul into it. But the interest
which you take in it may be such as you might take in
any employment that stimulated your activity and gave
scope for the exercise of your natural sensibility. You
may throw your soul into it, as into some heroic enter
prise or sentimental scheme, that had power to charm by
its novelty or fascinate by its romance. But the essential
element of real spirituality may be wanting; and with
much bustling stir and much boiling enthusiasm in what
you take to be rehgious work and duty, you may stUl
need to be affectionately warned, that "to be carnaUy-
minded is death, but to be spirituaUy-minded is hfe and
peace." For genuine spirituality is faith ; inteUigent and loving
faith; not feeling, but faith ; the faith which understands,
embraces, loves the Saviour Jesus Christ. It reposes on
a calm sense of the- love of God in his Son. It is the
peace of God which passeth understanding, keeping your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

170 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
2. Hence, let it be observed, in the second place, more
particularly, as to what it is to be fervent in spirit, — that
it is a frame or habit of mind opposed to that turbulence
which invariably marks, more or less, the religious striv
ings of those whose consciences are uneasy and unsettled
on the great question of their personal standing before
God; their acceptance in his sight. Look at such a one
as Paul, whUe he was yet a Pharisee. He was no tame,
self-righteous formalist. He was no duU plodder, pacing
with unflagging diligence the incessant round of pious
observances, working hard as any dray-horse at his
appointed task or self-imposed toU. There was fire in his
eye, and boiling passion in his bosom. He was zealous,
even to slaying. He would compass sea and land to
make proselytes. Fervent he was : and one would say
his fervency was surely spiritual It all related to
spiritual matters. It was aU expended on spiritual
movements and spiritual objects. But it bore the impress
of an unquiet conscience and a mind UI at ease. The
man was working, often in hot haste and with a sort of
fierce energy; lacerating himself, persecuting others.
But it was the haste and energy of one unhappy, and
struggling almost with despair. Or if in another mood
of mind, he came forth from his devotions in the temple
exulting, and went abroad on his service of duty, even
joyous, there might be seen in his conscious look and air
of complacency and defiance, the working of a soul rather
for the moment on good terms with itself, than per
manently reconcUed and habituaUy submissive to its God.
Thus to vibrate or alternate between the desperate vehe-

FERVENT IN SPIRIT. 171
mence of one who battles for his very life, and battles,
alas! in the dark, and the heady impetuosity of one
whom a fit of self-assurance has elated, — this is a state
or habit of soul not allied, but opposed, to that genial,
perennial glow of warm affection, which alone is worthy
to be called fervency of spirit, such fervency as the Holy
Spirit inspires. For that is a frame of mind peculiarly
and pre-eminently unselfish ; free alike from the feverish
agitation of selfish fear, and from the fitful excitement
of selfish confidence.
3. Hence again, let it be observed, stiU more particu
larly, in the third place, that the very first condition of this
spiritual fervency is that clear insight into the divine
method of peace, or that belief of the truth as it is in
Jesus, which casts out self -righteousness, self-seeking, and
self-esteem. " It is a good thing that the heart be estab
hshed with grace, not with meats, which have not profited
them that have been exercised therein" (Heb. xni. 9).
It is so on many accounts and for many reasons; among
others for this, that the grace which establishes the heart,
whUe it quenches one fire there, kindles another and a
better ; — brighter, purer, warmer by far.
The fire which it quenches is the fire of merely natural
feeling in rehgion : the natural feeling of selfish anxiety
and alarm on the one hand, or the natural feehng of
selfish elation on the other. That fire may burn very
strongly, causing the sweUing tide in your agitated
bosom to boU fiercely over. Your natural feehngs, stirred
and quickened by some spiritual movement, — some
work of the Spirit in you, — may raise a violent tumult in

172 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
your bosom. Remorse of conscience, an awful sense of
sin, a terrible fear of wrath, the horror as of an open
vision of heaven all but lost and hell already near, may
possess you; and under that impulse you may apply
yourselves hastily, and oh, how vehemently and warmly,
to whatever your hand findeth to do that may " the
tempest of your boiling blood becalm." Relieved per
haps by some desperate expedients of self-righteous zeal,
with a rebound from that dark agony, you rush to the
very opposite extreme. Your heated soul now swells
with latent pride ; the pride of conscious merit, disguising
itself under the mask of fervent and even passionate
devotion ; such devotion as might light the flame of a
new crusade, or send another Jesuit Zavier to convert the
Indies. These feelings, of either kind, are real and genuine.
They often prevail, more or less, wherever religious earnest
ness is revived. But they are simply natural. They
are occupied, no doubt, about spiritual things, conversant
with spiritual thoughts and experiences, occasioned and
caused by spiritual movements. It may even be a work
of the Holy Spirit in the inner man that gives rise to
them ; a work of conviction and awakening. Still they are
not the proper fruit of the Spirit. If His work is arrested
when such feelings merely are produced ; if from any cause
it stops short there; it is not saving: nor is the fervour
that may spring out of it spiritual fervour. It is, on the
contrary, essentially carnal. It is of the flesh. And the
works it does are works of the flesh. It is the fervour,
not of the Spirit, but of nature : of nature put in agita
tion by contact with the Spirit's fire, but stUl of nature

FERVENT IN SPIRIT. 173
only. It is nature, or the natural feelings, worked upon
by the things of the Spirit of God.
But now let grace prevail, the grace by which the heart
is established; the free, rich, sovereign grace, which the glo
rious gospel proclaims; the grace, gratuitous, unconditional,
unreserved, which the Father holds out to you in the Son,
and which the Spirit moves you to accept. Be ye under
grace ; let grace reign in you, through righteousness, unto
eternal life. Let the work of the Spirit in you be, not in
itial merely, but conclusive — not partial, but complete and
thorough. Let Him thoroughly and completely unite you
to Christ, and show you how thoroughly you are complete
in Christ. Let there be no more attempts on your part
to right yourselves with God, or even any wish to right
yourselves with God, by any painful discipline of self-
imposed penance, or any great doings, such as excited
feelings of contrition and fear might prompt you to aim
at. Nor let there be any more of the sort of high-wrought
complacency which the idea of your righting yourselves
with God is sure to foster. Let God put you right with
himself. Believe that he does so, and trust him accord
ingly. Receive his love as his own gift, his present gift,
absolutely and out and out his gift, his gift to you.
Accept at his hands free pardon and peace; full pardon,
perfect peace. Upon the credit of his own word, believe
and be sure, that " he hath given to us eternal hfe, and
that this life is in his Son," (1 John v. 11.)
Plainly now, in the first place, those old natural
fires, which, when fanned by winds from the spiritual
region, made the heart and bosom burn, are extin-

174 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
guished and die out. There is no room now for the feel
ings of keen self-torture, or hot and heady self-elation,
which once by turns inflamed the unsteadfast soul.
And then, secondly, new fires are kindled; feelings cf
an entirely new kind come in to occupy the place of the
expeUed. Ah ! how far more gentle are they, and how
far more calm! and withal, how warm, how steadUy and
uniformly warm ! Not spasmodic bursts of flame, but a
quiet and constant glow, now keeps the heart aboU.
They fluctuate, it is true, these feelings. Their new fire
too often flickers. Alas' the more the pity. There is
nothing in them or about them that should make them
fluctuate or flicker; nothing like the exciting and ex
hausting fury of those passions which may rend the
untamed and unsubdued spirit of a proud and guUty man
in pieces. The feelings which are to warm you for work,
and to keep you warm in working, are of a character to
continue with you; — and to continue with you substan
tially always the same. For the source of them continues
always the same. That source is Christ; Christ living
in you ; Christ in you, the hope of glory. Let his word
dweU in you richly. Let the love of God in Christ be shed
abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given
to you. Go to work now; keep at work now ; under the
influence of that love, known, believed, felt by you to be
aU freely yours. WiU not this make you not only dUi-
gent in business, but fervent in spirit, at your work ?
Oh, with what fervour should your bosom glow, ye who
are thus debtors to grace, when you go about your Father's
business, counting it your meat to do the wiU of Him that

FERVENT IN SPIRIT. 175
sends you, and to finish his work ! You go about it aU
as his children, accepted in the Beloved. Of every one of
you, as of him, the Father says, " This is my beloved son,
in whom I am well pleased." On every one of you, as
on him, the Holy Ghost descends hke a dove. In every
one of you, as in him, the Spirit, crying " Abba, Father,"
dweUs. How can you work coldly, hardly ; — as if it were
upon mere compulsion ; as if you were driven to it by
dire necessity, by the lash ; as if you could only make a
toU and drudgery of it ? How can you work thus at the
business of such a Father, of one who deals with you so
graciously, receives you so fondly, loves you so freely?
Surely, if at any time you find his business, any business
of his that he would have you to go about, hanging heavy
on your hearts; if ever, when he says, " Son, go work in
my vineyard," you are tempted to say, "I will not;" or
if you go, to go with a grudge and as to a task ; — surely it
is a sign that your faith is faUing. Surely, when you
love httle, you forget how much you are forgiven.
Is it so? Is it because you feel sin less than you once
did, — that you feel the love shown in its forgiveness less
than you once did also? Is that the reason why, in
your religious duties, in working the work of Him that
sends you, you are less fervent in spirit than you would
desire to be, — perhaps than you were wont to be?
Then read and ponder that wondrous passage in which
the prophet Isaiah records the manner of his preparation for
the office he was to fill, and the work he was to accomplish.1
» " In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the

176 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Let the Spirit carry you where he carried the prophet
of old. Let Him place you where he placed him ; within
the veU. Let Him show you what he showed him ;
the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, his
train fiUing the temple ; — seraphim standing above ; one
crying to another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts: the whole earth is fuU of his glory." Then, in
that awful presence, let the Spirit smite you, as he smote
the prophet, and lay you flat upon your face before the
Holy One. Let him bring your own sin, that you have
been ceasing to feel, and the world's sin, that you have
been beginning to tolerate, vividly before your startled eye.
Let him move you as he moved the prophet, under a new
discovery of the Lord's holiness and sin's exceeding sinful
ness, to exclaim, " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I
am a man of unclean hps, and I dwell among a people of
unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of hosts." Then let the Spirit minister to you, as he minis
tered to the prophet's prostrate, stricken soul. Let a live
coal from off the altar touch your mouth. Hark! what
words are these ? " Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Yes, if you
seraphims : each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face, and with
twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto
another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full
of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried,
and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am un
done ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then
flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off the altar : and he laid it upon my mouth, and said,
Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin
purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and
who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I ; send rae " (Isa. vi. 1-8).

SERVING THE LORD. 1 77
are forgetting your first love, repent and do the first
works. Get anew much forgiveness for your much sin.
Then, when you hear, as the prophet heard, the voice of
the Lord, saying, " Whom shall I send, and who wUl go
for us?" — it will be with no cold sense of irksome duty,
but with much love, springing out of much forgiveness,
that, fervent in spirit, you wUl join the prophet in his
prompt and eager reply, " Then said I, Here am I ; send me."
III. As in any and in every work you have to do, you
are to be dihgent in business and fervent in spirit, so you
are to do it always as " serving the Lord." You are to do
it, not as a work voluntarily undertaken, but as a service
imposed and required by a master.
It is true that, as in Isaiah's case, the Lord may seem
to put it to yourselves to come forward for his service of
your own accord. In great kindness and condescension,
he aUows you the satisfaction of offering yourselves as
volunteers. Your engagement with him is to have the
grace, or graceful aspect, of being not so much a stern
command on his part, leaving you no alternative but to
enlist ; but rather, in the first instance, a spontaneous act
on your part, hastening to place yourselves and your
services at his disposal.
Let it be observed, however, in the first place, that to
one exercised as the prophet has been exercised, to one
dealt with as he has been dealt with, the very hearing,
or as it were overhearing by accident, that voice of the
Lord, " Whom shaU I send, and who will go for us?" has
aU the force of a command. He must feel that the very
M

178 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
idea of that Holy One, by whom he has been so wonder
fully humbled first, and then lifted up, having work to
be done, errands to be executed, lays him under an obli
gation to say, " Here am I." He has absolutely no alterna
tive here, any more than if the most peremptory order had
been issued. He is very thankful for the generous con
sideration which allows him to have the pleasure of volun
teering ; but he cannot on that account for a moment
imagine that he has really any discretion in the matter,
or any right to hesitate or hang back.
And then, secondly, at aU events, when he is enlisted
and engaged; when his offer is accepted, and he is taken
at his word ; he is clearly now a servant under the yoke.
He is not at hberty to decline any work that may be
assigned to him, however difficult and laborious ; however
perilous and painful to flesh and blood. It may be dif
ferent from what he anticipated; not so pleasant, not so
honourable. But what of that? When he offered him
self, he asked no questions; he had no right to ask any.
He stipulated for no conditions; it would have been
unbehef to do so. Unreservedly he said, " Whatever be
the errand, here am I; send me." And he cannot qualify
his offer, or attempt to make terms, now. Nor is this all.
Not only must he undertake, as a servant, whatever work
the Lord appoints; but he must go through with it as a
servant. He must feel himself to be a servant, bound to
do the work, be it what it may. He must feel himself
to be a servant, from first to last, in the doing of it.
This is a most important point, a most material ele
ment, as regards the manner in which the Lord's work

SERVING THE LORD. 179
is to be done. It is essential to harmonize and temper
the other two qualities : dUigence in business, and fervency
in spirit. The three agree in one. You may do the
Lord's work with untiring business-like industry and
attention. You may do it with lively interest, with
warm, affectionate enthusiasm. You may be busy about
it, and fervent about it ; throwing into it your whole
heart, as weU as your whole mind and soul. And yet
there is a risk of it being ill done after aU, if you forget
that you are to do it as the Lord's servants, and as aU
throughout apprehending and realizing yourselves, in the
doing of it, to be the Lord's servants.
But is not this, you may ask, a lowering of the
whole tone and style of my intercourse with the Lord,
and my engagement for his work? After aU seemed to
be placed on the footing of a large and free commerce
of love and confidence ; — when the adjustment of the
whole question of my standing with God, and my re
lation to him, had been taken out of the hands of law,
and out of the category of legal bargaining, and trans
ferred to a higher region, in which grace and honour
reign ; — am I again to come down to the level of a menial
condition, and own myself to be a servant? Yes, brother ;
and if you please, a hired servant too. And why should
this offend you? It did not offend Christ when he was
doing his Father's work on earth. He did it as a servant ;
yes, even as a hired servant ; when, " for the joy that was
set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame."
Would you be better or higher than he? Nay, for that
matter, would you choose to be hke the ungodly? They

180 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
are impatient of the position of a servant. " Our hps are
our own ; who is lord over us V " Who is the Almighty,
that we should serve him 1" — that is the language of
their hearts. Let us be our own masters. By all
means let us show our respect and do our duty to our
Maker. But let it be at our own discretion. We shall
take our own time and our own way of doing it. That
such should be their feelings need not appear surprising ;
but that any of you who believe, and believing, are the
Lord's children, should in any measure sympathize with
them in such feelings, is surely passing strange and sad.
And yet you are sometimes tempted almost to wish
that you were left more to yourselves in your religion.
It seems a poor way of manifesting the fervency of love,
to be merely obedient servants, keeping the command
ments of a master. You would do some greater thing.
You would devise some more exceUent way. You would
work unbidden; you would run unsent. Trust us, you
are tempted inwardly to say to your Lord and Saviour ;
let us be put upon our honour. Instead of always
reminding us that we are thy servants, and thou our
Lord, confide in our good faith, and see if the generous
impulse of warm affection, seizing spontaneously on the
best means and methods of pleasing him who is its object,
wiU not go further than the most scrupulous sense of duty,
executing, as a servant, the orders even of the very best of
masters. So you may be apt to feel, when your soul boUs over
with love to Him who first loved you, and your heart
burns within you. But beware lest in all this there

SERVING THE LORD. 181
be something hke a lurking inchnation to evade the idea
of obligation and responsibility. That idea is not natu
raUy a welcome one ; — no, not even always to you who
are no more servants merely, but friends and sons as weU.
But why should it not be welcome? Obhgation and
responsibUity are not badges of degradation. On the
contrary, for intelligent creatures, on a right footing with
their Creator, they are elements and conditions of highest
glory and purest joy. Angels in heaven now work as
servants; nay, as hired servants; for He whom they
serve wiU never accept service unrequited. They work
as servants, under obligation; upon their responsibUity.
It is in that character and capacity that thej' are sum
moned to join in the universal song of praise ; — " Bless the
Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his
commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the Lord, aU ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that
do his pleasure" (Ps. ciii. 20, 21). Saints in heaven here
after wiU work in like manner ; in fact, one chief element
of heaven's blessedness and glory is this, that there " His
servants shaU serve him" (Rev. xxii. 3). And be sure
that as to aU your work here on earth, you wUl do it aU
the better ff you do it, not as at your own hand, but as
" serving the Lord." It is thus only that your dUigence in
business wUl be conscientious, and your fervency in sphit
constant and consistent. Your whole religion, personal
and official ; — personal, as bearing on your own sanctifi
cation and salvation ; and official, as it relates to the doing
of the Lord's wiU in the world, and the executing of
your mission from the Lord into the world; — your

182 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
whole rehgion wUl possess a strong and stable character ;
it wiU have all the stability and strength of a threefold
cord that is not quickly broken. It wiU be your life-
business, to which, as your life-business, you wiU not
slothfuUy, but sedulously and systematically, devote your
energy. It wUl be your hfe-joy, your labour of love,
in which your fervent soul delights to give scope and
vent to the grateful and gracious feelings that the Spirit
causes to rise up and boil over in your bosom. And it
wUl be your life-business and your life-joy, because it is
your life-service; — your life-service, of which you calmly
and steadily at aU times make conscience. For you work
and watch as servants, looking for the coming of Him
who is to caU you to account ; who is bountifully, liberally,
generously to recompense the very giving of a cup of cold
water in his name ; and from whose gracious hands they
who are faithful unto death are to receive the crown of
life.

REJOICING IN HOPE. 183

VI.
HOPE— PATIENCE— PRAYER.

"Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer."—
Rom. xii. 12.

These three features of character, or habits of the inner
life, are intimately connected. They are quahties most
important to all who work in the Church and in the
cause of Christ, as members of the one body of Christ ;
having different gifts and offices ; animated by a love
that is genuine and discriminating, true and pure, and a
brotherly love that is affectionate and humble ; diligent
in the work as a matter of business ; fervent and zealous
about it as a spiritual concern ; and conscientious in it
as the service of the Lord.
Beheving in Jesus, and caUed as believers to be feUow-
labourers with him, you have need of a temper or frame
of mind equal to either fortune; not insensible to the joy
of hope, yet capable of endurance when trouble comes ;
and finding at once the outlet of its joy, and the stay and
strength of its endurance, in that prayer of faith in which
it continues instant evermore. For it is this last habit
of the inner life that firmly binds and knits together the
other two ; and imparts to the feeblest member of

] 84 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
Christ's body, working with fear and trembling the
Lord's work, a character of serene inward equanimity,
whatever the outward aspect of affairs may be ; such a
character of equanimity as, in philosophic schools, is wont
to be considered the highest and rarest attainment of
human wisdom. To rise above the influence of things
without, — things over which the mind has no control ; to
steel the heart, in stern insensibihty, as in a panoply of
triple brass, against feelings of pleasure or pain, of weal or
woe ; is the idle boast of stoical virtue or stoical pride.
To be praying always; holding on and continuing instant
and incessant in prayer ; is your far better specific for
preserving an equal mind, whatever may befall you ;
preserving it, not at the cost of a warm, loving, feeling
heart, that may be moved to tears and gladness ; but by
means of that heart's communion, in its gladness and in its
tears, with its God. Your joy in hope, and your patience
in tribulation, are sustained and sanctified by your con
tinuing instant in prayer.
I. You are to be found at your appointed post, and in
your aUotted labour, " rejoicing in hope." This is not
your privUege merely, but your duty. It is the way in
which the Lord would have you to go about his work
whatever your department of that work may be. He
would have you to go about it hopefuUy, and therefore
joyfully ; — in a hopeful, and therefore a joyful, spirit ; —
1. In hope ; and, 2. Rejoicing in hope.
1. You work in hope. You ought to see, and feel, and
acknowledge that you do so.

REJOICING IN HOPE. 185
The word " hope," as here used, refers, it must be ad
mitted, not so much to the inward sentiment as to the
outward occasion of it. The idea is that of your rejoicing
when there is ground of hope — when matters look hope
ful ; just as the coiTesponding idea is that of your being
patient when there is cause of trouble. But you aU know
how much the state of things around you, — the crowd of
circumstances in the midst of which you are placed, — takes
its colour from the mood of the mind within. A sanguine
temperament wUl see brightest promise of dawning day
where, to one apt to despond, there is nothing but the
gloom of night. You are to rejoice in hope, in whatever
is hopeful, in connection with the work given you to do.
Plainly, if that is your duty, you must note what is hope
ful. You must look out for it and recognise it. To let
any hopeful sign or symptom escape your observation, is
not only foUy, but ingratitude and sin.
Almost aU things on this side of the grave have their
fair side as well as their fouL The blackest cloud has
some lining of sUvery white. " In everything give
thanks," says the Apostle ; " for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you." If that be the wiU of
God, he must be understood as undertaking for it, that
in everything you shaU have some cause of thanksgiving.
Let it be yours to seize thankfuUy some germ of hope,
in every work and in every way of the Lord.
For yourselves, never despair. WhUe there is life
there is hope. In the worst straits of temporal dis
tress ; steeped in poverty ; worn with sickness ; heart
broken under the pressure of famUy sorrow, or family

] 86 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
sin; threatened with the loss of aU earthly goods; ready
to say with Jacob, " All these things are against me ;" —
stUl search, be ever searching, for some gleam of hope.
Let your heart be cheered by the twUight of better
days that may be coming. And in spiritual trials;
when you see not your signs ; and there is none to teU
you how long ; when your sin finds you out, and you
feel as if you coiUd not find out your Saviour; still
never despair. Watch and wait for something hopeful.
Lay hold of what is hopeful in your most desperate plight.
For there is always something hopeful in your most
desperate plight here below. There is some word of God
borne in upon your mind. There is some stirring of soul
within you ; some moving of the Spirit upon its dark
and troubled waters. There is some memory of Christ,
the sinner's Friend. Lay hold of that. Be sure that
there is hope for you stiU. Catch, as a drowning man
would catch, at any straw. If you are in earnest ; if it
is really with you an affair of eternity, and of your soul's
salvation in eternity; what you catch at, in trembling
faith, wUl prove no straw, no shadow, but " a hope that
maketh not ashamed."
And in serving the Lord, as weU as in seeking the
Lord, never despair. It may be little that you can do for
him ; and what httle you can do, may seem to bear httle
fruit. What means have you, in your humble sphere, of
either glorifying God or doing good to men ? Situated as
you are, destitute of advantages which others have, —
wealth, leisure, talent, influence — what opportunities of
usefulness can you find ? Of what avaU would it be for

REJOICING IN HOPE. 187
you to offer yourself for any ministry in the Lord's cause,
or to take up any marked position on the Lord's side ?
What hope could you have of being hstened to, and at
tended to, in anything you might say 1 What hope of
anything you could do making any impression on Satan's
kingdom, or winning any trophy or triumph for the King
in Zion? Think not thus; feel not thus. It is a tempta
tion. It is the suggestion of sloth, of selfishness, of un
belief. It is not true humility, but false pride. Rather
learn to take a hopeful view of your position, and of the
facilities which it affords for labours of love, as weU as for
growth in grace. Think of what many, not so weU off
by far as you, with tenfold more discouragements than you
have to contend with, have been enabled to become, and
have been honoured to accomplish ; chUdren far younger
than you ; men far poorer than you ; women far weaker
than you ; merchants, artisans, lawyers, physicians, far
busier than any of you ; plain, simple Christians, of far
meaner capacity, and more slender endowments, than the
least gifted among you, in your most self-depreciating
mood, can pretend to be. Take courage then. Be decided.
Set about the work of hving, testifying, acting for the
Lord, in aU that you say and do. It is a hopeful work,
even for you. Set about it hopefully. Nor let the first
or second difficulty or disappointment you may meet
with — no, nor the hundredth, disconcert you, or drive
you to despair. Look out stiU always for hopeful
symptoms, hopeful signs. Do you stumble or fall?
Ask the Lord to raise you up again. Do you faU once,
or twice, or ten times? Ask the Lord to give you

188 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
grace that you may try again. Let the subject you
would operate upon be ever so impracticable, and let the
case you have to deal with be apparently ever so unman
ageable, do not give him up, do not give it up as desper
ate. Continue to operate upon the impracticable subject,
and to deal with the unmanageable case, "against hope,
believing in hope" (Rom. iv. 18).
Christian father, Christian mother, despair not of thy
poor prodigal child ! Thou hast laid hold of the covenant
for him ; thou hast dedicated him to the Lord when he
was but a babe. Thou hast sown good seed in his soul,
and sought a blessing from the Lord on thy sowing of it.
Hold on hopefuUy in faith. All is not lost. There are
promises on which thy faith may fasten. There is ground
of hope in the faithfulness and pity of Him whose promises
thy faith grasps. Plead, then, with the child of thy love ;
pray for him. Plead with him and pray for him, con
tinuing stiU hopeful. Child of God, httle chUd, forced in
that dreary home of thine to recognise, in sister, brother,
father, mother, one whom Satan is leading captive ; when
thy tender heart is aU but breaking ; pierced with many
a bitter pang ; as aU thy earnest, plaintive entreaties, re
monstrances and tears, are met only with rude and sinful
scoffing ; be not altogether cast down. The wretched victim
and slave of vice, — whom stUl thou lovest so dearly, —
for the welfare of whose soul and body thou art so affec
tionately anxious, — for whose salvation thou wouldest lay
down thy life, — sees thee bending thy knee to God: hears
thee singing thy simple, holy hymn, or pouring out thy
heart in cries and supplications for mercy to the lost.

REJOICING IN HOPE. 189
Be hopeful stiU. The meekness and gentleness of Christ
shown in thee may, — shaU I say, must? — by his own
gracious blessing, prevaU at last. Thy prayers and pains,
thou mayest hope, wiU in the end win the day.
In every walk of common life, as weU as in every
enterprise of piety or philanthropy, the behever does
well to cultivate a hopeful spirit, in serving the Lord.
Accustom yourself, in aU circumstances, to discover and
dweU upon what is fitted, not to dishearten, but to
cheer and encourage you, in fighting the good fight,
and persevering in the right way. If it is the Lord's
work that you are engaged in, — and whatever work you
do, doing it unto the Lord, and for the Lord, becomes
his, — it must be more or less hopeful The Lord must
see to it that in one way or another good shaU come
out of it. To think otherwise, would be ungrateful and
ungracious. Learn, therefore, more and more, the lesson
of anticipating good rather than evU, when you are doing
good. Remember that true charity, genuine love,
" hopeth all things."
2. Working thus in hope, you rejoice in the hope in
which you work. It is a hope in which you may rejoice.
For it is a hope " that maketh not ashamed."
It is of Christian hope alone that this can be said.
All other hope is proverbially faUacious, and puts to
shame those whom it misleads.
" Condemned to hope's delusive mine,
We onward toil from day to day ; "
— and still, as we toil on, thinking at every moment that
we have the precious ore of happiness and fuU contentment

190 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
in our grasp ; succeeding, and disappointed in our very
success ; the mine of hope in which we are condemned to
toil is felt, the longer we toU in it, to be more and more
delusive. The joy of such a hope as that is like the
" laughter of fools, which is as the crackling of thorns under
a pot." It is hke the joy of the belated wanderer in the
dark and dreary wilderness, when his eye catches the
dazzling meteor that is shining only to plunge him in
the fatal bog.
But your hope, behevers, is one in which you may
confidently rejoice.
For, in the first place, its object is sure and satisfying;
— sure of being attained ; satisfying when attained. For
yourselves personaUy, it is the glory of God ; the ap
proving smUe and gracious reward of your reconciled
Father, who is " not unrighteous to forget your work
and labour of love." And beyond yourselves, apart
from your own personal interest and concern, which
is your complete salvation, you have a great and
certain object of hope, in the final, glorious, and ever
lasting triumph of Christ and his righteous kingdom of
peace. It is upon nothing doubtful, either as regards
its being fulfilled at all, or as regards its giving con
tentment when fulfiUed, that your expectation is set.
Yours is a hope, sure of its object being got, — and sure
also of its object, when got, being found to yield full
and lasting bliss. For it is a hope bound up with the
hope held out to your Redeemer and Lord himself, in that
promise of the Father to him : " He shaU see of the travaU
of his soul, and shaU be satisfied."

REJOICING IN HOPE. 191
Then, secondly, the ground or warrant of your hope is
sure ; it is the divine faithfulness ; the faithfulness of the
divine word. You set your hope in God. Your hope i3
in the Lord your God.
And, in the third place, the source of this hope in you
may give you assurance of it. It is a hope wrought in you
by the Lord himself. It is the fruit of the Spirit. You
may appeal, therefore, to God and say, "Remember thy word
unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope"
(Ps. cxix. 49). He will not make void the word which
is his own. The hope which his own Spirit has caused
you to place upon that word wiU not make you ashamed.
You may well, therefore, in every view of it, rejoice
in hope, as you wait for the salvation of the Lord. And
not only with reference to what is the end of your faith,
as regards yourselves, which is the salvation of your souls ;
and with reference to what is the end of your desire and
expectation, as regards the kingdom of God, which is the
final overthrow of evil and the eternal victory of good ; —
not only with reference to these ultimate results, may
you rejoice in hope ; but with reference also to whatever
is promising and encouraging, in the meanwhile, in your
present experience ; — as, on the one hand, you work out
in detail your own salvation ; and as, on the other hand,
you are busy in the particular labour which the Lord,
from time to time, is giving you to do.
Whatever hopeful feature you discover in your own
character, as by the Spirit's help you are seeking to
mould and fashion it more and more according to the
image of Christ; or in the character of any sinner with

192 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
whom, relying on the Spirit's help, you are dealing to
convert him; or in the character of any brother in the
Lord whom you would fain lead further away from sin
and further on in holiness ; — whatever favourable indica
tion, — whatever hopeful appearance, — you discern in
yourselves or in others, of a change for the better, — of
progress, — of advancement ; — rejoice in it. Whatever
hopeful circumstance shows itself in any department of
the Lord's service in which you are engaged ; in any mis
sion-field, home or foreign, which has had enlisted on its
behalf your sympathies, your prayers, your abundant
liberalities, your scanty alms, or your personal ministra
tions of any kind ; — if anything hopeful meets your eye,
or reaches your ear, concerning the Sabbath class you
are teaching, or the families you are visiting, or the
society you are managing, or the tracts and Bibles you
are circulating, or whatever your labour of love may be; —
should there be any really hopeful promise of good,
among the hungry, the naked, the sick, the prisoners, to
whom in the Lord's name and for the Lord's sake you
minister ; — rejoice in it. Be sure that it is a legitimate
and trustworthy occasion of joy. Wherever, and in what
ever, there is good hope through grace, — there, and in
that, there is cause of joy. It may be a fearful jby that
you snatch. There may be too good reason why you
should rejoice with trembling. Experience may have made
you cautious. Your sadly acquired knowledge of human
nature, ahke in the young and in the old whom you have
been trying to guard or to reclaim; and the memory of
too many instances in which you have been mistaken or

REJOICING IN HOPE. 193
deceived, — when those who seemed to run well have
broken down, or turned aside ; may cause you to be
suspicious and incredulous when new cases of good done,
or of good got, come before you. Beware of such a
temper ; beware of such a tendency growing upon you.
It fits too well and too easily into your natural love of
ease, and your inclination to excuse yourself from self-
denying toil and trouble, by the plea of its being aU in vain.
Do not hesitate, — be not afraid, — freely and heartUy
to rejoice in hope. It is a miserable thing to have the
warm and living spirit of love chilled and deadened by
that sort of universal scepticism, which will believe
neither God nor man; which wUl give credit to no pre
mise of God, and no profession of man. Better far to
be the dupe of a whole host of hypocrites and impostors;
to trust and trust again ; and again and again to
have my trust belied and betrayed ; to be a very
proverb and byword for facility in believing all things,
and thinking evil of no man; than to settle down into a
universal questioner and doubter ; labouring to do good,
perhaps, out of a constraining sense of duty; but in utter
hopelessness of almost any good being done ; taking
always the worst view of things ; refusing to be cheered
by any tokens or any tidings of success. The service of
the Lord, the loving service of the God of love, is not
thus joyless and heartless. It is the service of the
heart ; of a heart that is hopeful ; of a heart that
rejoices in hope.
II. But while thus you work in hope, and rejoice
N

194 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
in the hope in which you work, you have need of
patience ; you are required and commanded to be " patient
in tribulation."
" You are saved by hope ; but hope that is seen is
not hope ; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope
for ? But if you hope for that you see not, then do you
with patience wait for it" (Rom. viii. 24, 25). And you
wait, prepared to be "patient in tribulation."
For however quick you are to discern, and sanguine
to grasp, whatever is hopeful in tbe Lord's dealings with
yourself, or with those whose good you seek, you are
not blind or insensible to what is of an opposite
character. Your rejoicing in hope is not the fond
conceit and fool's paradise of one who shuts his eyes
to the annoj^ances of his real position, and laps himself
in some dream of ideal conquest, and rest, and glory.
It is a sober habit of mind. It is the habit of a mind
accustoming itself to make the best of everything ;
to put the best construction possible on every promise
of good in any one's character and conduct ; to see every
object and every event in the best hght. But still, it is
the habit of a mind sensible and sensitive ; all the more
apt to be vexed and troubled by adverse circumstances
and influences, the more simple and confident it is in its
belief and anticipation of good ; and therefore aU the
more having need of patience.
Yes. Your sanguine man is often apt to be impatient.
He «eizes eagerly on whatever is hopeful. He is in
tolerant of what hurts or hinders the cause to which he
is committed, or the enterprise on which his heart is set.

PATIENT IN TRIBULATION. 195
Tribulation, therefore, is to him hard to bear ; harder
to him than to those who are less inchned, or less
accustomed, to rejoice in hope.
Is the tribulation a personal one ? Are you person
ally disabled for the work in which it has been your
joy hopefully to abound? Is it your sad lot to lie
wounded and helpless on your weary couch, while the
battle in which you love to have a part is raging
at your very door ? It is indeed a trial of your
patience ; a trial severe and sore, in proportion to the
joyous hope with which, were it possible, you would cast
yourself into the thickest of the fight. Paul, in his
Roman dungeon, had that trial to endure. Bonds and
imprisonment laid an arrest on his indefatigable activity
in preaching the gospel of Christ. To his ardent spirit,
it was a trial more severe than, to a colder soul, sickness,
loss of fortune, death of friends, or any other earthly
calamity, can well be. . For him to be patient in such a
tribulation is indeed a triumph of faith ; and a proof
that his sanguine zeal, his joyous hope, in serving the
Lord, is of the right sort. It is not the "rejoicing in hope,"
of successful ambition, or gratified vanity ; of self-glorifica
tion or self-aggrandizement. If it were, he could but iU
endure the evil chance that cuts his career short in the
hour of its brightest promise. But his "rejoicing in hope,"
while he is free to labour, is of a godly sort. It is
rejoicing in hope, not of his own glory, but of the Lord's.
And therefore he is patient in the tribulation that inter
rupts his labour, however prematurely and however pain-
fuUy. He is wUling that " Christ should be magnified in

196 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
his body, whether it be by life, or by death" (PhU.
i. 20). To be patient in tribulation ! — it is a great attainment !
Many are the afflictions of the righteous. He is in
trouble, not only hke other men, but more than other
men. As members of Christ's body ; having to bear your
part, according to the grace that is given to you, in the
offices and functions of the body ; you are liable to be
troubled on every side. The ordinary evils of life beset you ;
and other evils besides, to which your Christian calhng and
profession lay you open. Tribulation comes to you ; not
only in the form of personal suffering and domestic dis
tress, but in the form also of persecution for righteous
ness' sake. You share the common lot of man. You
sicken, or are hurt. Your family is smitten. You are
bereaved of your beloved. And you share also, more
over, the lot of Christ; for you are members of his
body. You are treated as he was treated. It should
be so ; it must be so, if you are his. And all this
may come upon you in the midst of most hopeful and
weU-grounded anticipations of good. It may look as
if the wettest of all blankets were thrown over your
burning zeal ; as if the cruelest of aU arrests were put,
— and that too in the very crisis of their success, — upon
your best and most benevolent undertakings. Truly,
in such circumstances, you have need of patience. The
tribulation in which you have to be patient, is not merely
sad and sorrowful in itself; as aU tribulation must be
whether to a selfish or to a sympathizing sufferer ; to "the
tender groaning for another's pain," or " to the unfeehng

PRAYER. 197
groaning for his own." It is aggravated, in your case, by
the interruption which it causes in your joy ; the joy of
your hopeful industry in the service of the Lord.
Physical, bodily, pain is hard to bear. Pain in the
affections, — the lacerating, not of material ligaments, but
of the tissues of the heart, — is harder stiU to bear. But
hardest to be borne of all, to a soul that in serving the
Lord rejoices in hope, is the pain of being laid aside, or
cut off, from that most loved and hopeful and joyous
service ; laid aside by God ; c;\t off by man ; doomed to
pine in helpless inactivity, when all within is on fire
for the Lord's glory and the salvation of souls. To be
patient in tribulation, thus viewed ; to combine patience
in tribulation with rejoicing in hope ; patient endurance
of what in agony hinders work, with the joyous buoyancy
of hope in work, when work is possible ; — this is the test
of godliness ; this is the function and the fruit of prayer.
III. For it is the habit of prayer which harmonizes
these two other habits of mind ; the cheerful joy of
hope in serving the Lord, and patience, meekness, sub
mission, in enduring tribulation.
It may not be the same sort of prayer in both instances;
when you have reason to rejoice in hope, and when you
are caUed to be patient in tribulation. Your prayer will
naturaUy and fitly assume different characters, according
to the varying circumstances of your outward position,
and the varying moods of your spirit within you. " Is
any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any afflicted?
Let him pray." In a bright day of hope, when the heart

198 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
is merry, your prayer may be very much thanksgiving ;
the offering of praise ; the singing of psalms. In the hour
of sorrow, when the heart is sad, it wUl be " supplications,
with strong crying and tears" (Heb. v. 7). It will be
" groanings which cannot be uttered " (Rom. viii. 2 6).
StiU praj^er of some sort will be always seasonable ;
and you, serving the Lord equaUy in sunshine and in
gloom, — whether rejoicing in hope, or patient in tribula
tion, — will be found always praying ; — continuing instant,
unwearied, without intermission, in prayer. So will your
joy in hope be chastened. So wiU your patience in tribu
lation be sustained.
Jesus, on one occasion, rejoiced. It was when the seventy
returned from their evangelistic mission with joy, saying,
" Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy
name." Yes! the Lord replies ; and you may hail that
as a sign of the serpent's overthrow ; — " I beheld Satan
as lightning faU from heaven." And therefore you may
expect triumphs more Ulustrious than the one in which
now you rejoice ; — -" Behold, I give unto you power to
tread on serpents and scorpions, and over aU the power
of the enemy; and nothing shaU by any means hurt you."
Does this give you new and additional joy: this prospect
of a safe and sure victory over the powers of darkness?
It is weU. "Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not;" in
this alone, in this chiefly, " that the spirits are subject
unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are
written in heaven" (Luke x. 17-20).
" In that hour Jesus " himself "rejoiced in spirit ! " The
Man of Sorrows for once appears rejoicing. He is rejoic-

PRAYER. 199
ing in hope. In the fall of Satan ; in the salvation of
these little ones ; a salvation secured by the recorded decree'
of Heaven ; he sees by anticipation " of the travail of his
soul, and is satisfied." Yes ! in spite of all delays, and
disappointments, and discouragements ; in spite of all the
contradiction of sinners against himself that he has to
endure; in spite of all the unbelief of earth, and aU the
rage and wrath of heU ; it is a hopeful enterprise in
which he is embarked. And he may rejoice in the hope
fulness of it. For his joy is not self-glorifying ; it is not
self-seeking. It is the joy of filial gratitude to the Father,
and filial submission to the Father ; — of filial acknowledg
ment of the Father's sovereignty, and filial acquiescence
in the Father's will. And accordingly, when he is seen
" rejoicing in hope," he is seen at the same time " continu
ing instant in prayer." He gives utterance to his hope
ful joy in prayer, — in a psalm of praise ; — " In that hour
Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, 0 Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight"
(Luke x. 21).
So let it be with you. When you rejoice in hope, let it
be the instinct, the impulse, the instant and urgent
passion of your soul, to give vent to your joy in thank
ful prayer. Carry your feelings to the bosom of the
Eternal " Father, Lord of heaven and earth." Link on any
success, or any prospect of success, that cheers you* to
the throne of his sovereignty; his sovereign will ; his
sovereign grace. Enter, as prayer alone can enable you

200 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
to enter, into the wide and vast sweep of his eternal
counsels. Recognise the tie that binds your httle hope,
in your hmited sphere, to the great hope of the Everlasting
Father, that ranges over heaven and earth, and embraces
the interests of his universal and everlasting empire.
Such prayer, unflagging and unwearied, wiU raise you
above aU the poor and low self-congratulations of that
self-complacency which might tempt you to feel as if your
small measure of good got, or of good gained, were worthy
of a world's gaze ; or as if "your own sword got the land,
and your own right hand wrought out the salvation."
Your prayer, your instant and unwearied prayer, wiU
be your giving to God aU the glory; owning your de
pendence on him for all, your submission to him in all.
It wiU merge also past and present satisfaction in new
aspirings for the future. It carries you on to new efforts ;
new labours ; new successes. Thus prayer, your con
tinuing instant and unwearied in prayer, will chasten, ele
vate, and hallow, your "rejoicing in hope."
Nor is it less effectual to sustain your " patience in
tribulation." It was through his " continuing instant
in prayer" that Jesus was able to be patient in his
tribulation. Prayer was his refuge amid the trials and
troubles of his active and working hfe, when he was
about his Father's business ; not slothful in it ; fervent
in spirit ; serving the Lord. Ever in the midst of his
laborious ministry, beset as it was with tribulation of
every sort, he continued instant in prayer. He spent
whole nights in prayer to God. He went often into a
mountain apart to pray. He was ever appeahng to his

PRAYER. 201
Father, caUing upon his Father, confiding in his Father,
in aU the experiences and exigencies of the troubled course
through which he had to pass, as he was doing his Father's
wiU and finishing his Father's work. And when the
time came for suffering, and not for doing ; when the
tribulation appointed for him was not that incident to,
his active service of the Father, but that connected with
his endurance of the chastisement of our peace ; the judg
ment of our sins, laid upon him by the Father's hand ;
oh ! how did he turn, in his distress, to that very Father
who was smiting him ; continuing still instant in prayer ;
in prayer under the agony of the garden ; "Father, if it
be possible, let the cup pass;" — in the threefold prayer, the
threefold cry, of desolation, of compassion, and of faith
upon the cross : " My God, my God, why hast thou for
saken me?" " Father, forgive them ; for they know not
what they do;" " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit." Be ye, like Christ, unwearied and persevering, always
" continuing instant in prayer;" that so, like him, you may
rejoice in spirit, in the assured hope of the things which
are hidden from the wise and prudent, being revealed unto
babes ; and that so, like him also, amid whatever tribu
lation you have to meet, in your active service of the
Lord, or in your suffering under his hand, you may possess
your souls in patience, waiting for his salvation. In all
things, whether as regards your own personal welfare
here and hereafter, or as regards your work and warfare
in the Church and cause of Christ, let prayer, your con
tinuing instant in prayer, sustain you in cheerful hope,

202 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
as you seize upon every hopeful sign, and make the most
of it. And let it sustain you in cheerful submission also,
as you accept every seemingly adverse token and make
the best of it. In a word, act always upon the maxim,
" Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God;" and appropriate the promise
that is annexed to that maxim, and associated with it :
" And the peace of God, which passeth aU understanding,
shaU keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"
(PhU. iv. 6, 7). This peace of God, thus keeping your
hearts and minds, is the source and perennial spring of
that joyous hope with which you throw yourselves, heart
and soul, into "whatever your hand findeth to do," for
the saving of your own soul and the advancement of the
good cause. The same inward peace imparts calmness
and serenity amid whatever tribulation tries and taxes
your power of patient endurance, your prmciple of patient
obedience. And it is a peace which only prayer can pre
serve and perpetuate, — your continuing instant in the
prayer and supplication by which, without carefulness and
with thankfulness, you make known your requests unto
God.

CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE. 203

VII.
MUTUAL BENEFICENCE AND HOSPITALITY.

" Distributing to the necessity of saints ; given to hospitality." —
Rom. xii. 13.

The two duties here enjoined are obviously of the same
nature. The members of Christ's Church, self-devoted to
the Lord ; separated from the world ; united in one body,
but having different offices and different functions ; fuU of
true and holy love, inspiring a brotherly love kind and
lowly ; working in their several spheres of Christian duty
and activity, with business-like diligence, with spiritual
fervour, with conscience towards the Lord whom they
serve ; working also hopefully, patiently, prayerfully ; are
called to consider the case of those among themselves who
may stand in need of special sympathy and help. These
may be either permanent residenters in any place, — tarriers
at home ; or they may be casual and occasional visitors,
— traveUers abroad. Both classes have claims on their
brethren, and each its own claim. Hence the double
precept : I. " Distributing to the necessity of saints ;
II. given to hospitality."
I. The case of suffering brethren generally is to be first

204 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
met. Apart from the peculiar title to assistance which
those of them have who journey — especially when they
journey in the Lord's cause, — the wants of all who love
the Lord anywhere, everywhere, demand relief. The
general duty, accordingly, of " distributing to the necessity
of saints," takes precedence of what is a particular in
stance of it, — the exercise of hospitality.
The " necessity " here meant is plainly of an outward
and temporal, not an inward and spiritual sort. It is
not the necessity of an awakened conscience, or an in
quiring spirit, or an anxious soul. With that necessity
also, — with that necessity pre-eminently, — you are bound,
as members of Christ's body, discharging offices of trust
and love in his Church, to be ever making common
cause. But it is another kind of necessity that is now
in view ; the necessity of distressed or straitened circum
stances ; the hard necessity of poverty, of pain, of perse
cution. And how is such " necessity " of saints to be treated ?
You are to make common cause with it ; to be joint par
takers of it ; to have the communion of it with them ; to
be communicants in it with them. Such is the real im
port of the word used by the Apostle, and somewhat
feebly and inadequately rendered in our translation. It
is not a mere distribution of alms from your purse, or
crumbs from your table. It is not a mere conveyance of
charitable gifts and offerings, on however large a scale.
It is that, no doubt ; it is that at the very least. But
it is something more than that, and something better.
It is communion ; feUowship; joint participation.

CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE. 205
The same expression is used elsewhere to denote sub
stantially the same idea.
Thus, writing to the Romans (xv. 25-27), and referring
to the commission which he had received from certain
Gentile churches, " to go to Jerusalem, to minister unto
the saints," the Apostle first speaks approvingly of their
liberality, — "It hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia
to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which
are at Jerusalem ;" and then he goes on at once to indi
cate the reasonableness, and to explain the nature, of this
liberality on the part of these GentUe churches : " It hath
pleased them verUy ; and their debtors they are. For
if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual
things, their duty is also to minister unto them in car
nal things." The ministry in carnal things must un
doubtedly be of the same sort with the communion in
spiritual things which it reciprocates and requites. It
implies, not the mere transference of a benefit from one
party to another, but the mutual association of one with
the other in the benefit. The GentUes are associated
with the Jews in the spiritual benefit ; and in a corre
sponding manner, the Jews are to be associated with the
Gentiles in the temporal benefit. So also, writing to the
Philippians (iv. 15-18), Paul gratefully acknowledges
their care of himself and mindfulness of his wants ;
theirs being the only church which, when he left Mace
donia, "communicated with him as concerning giving
and receiving." And he intimates that he values their
gift, not for itself, but chiefly as a proof and instance
of their making common cause with him, or having

206 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
communion and joint participation with him, in his
necessity. The practice of the early Christians, associated in the
Pentecostal church, realized the ideal of this communion.
Among them the stream of love and liberality flowed so
copiously, so freshly and so freely, from the warm source
and fountain of sympathizing hearts, that it was not
merely a distribution of needful things, on the part of
those who had them, among those who had them not, but
such an identification of the whole in one, as amounted
virtually and practicaUy to a community of goods (Acts
ii. 44 ; iv. 32-34). The brethren made common cause
with one another, as regarded the real use and usufruct of
aU their possessions.
The grace enjoined in the passage now before us is the
converse and the complement of that describedas charac
terizing the Pentecostal church. It is, in fact, the same
grace, only viewed, as it were, from the opposite side.
There, it is a communion, or community, of goods, between
him who has and him who has not. Here, it is a com
munion, or community, of necessity, between him who
needs and him who does not need. In either view, the
principle is the same. The saints, — "all that beheve,
being together,"— one in Clirist, have all things in
common. Their possessions and goods are common.
Their necessity is common. My possessions and goods
are common to my necessitous brother and myself.
His necessity is common to me and him. Thus,
reaUy and effectively, though not by express or formal
compact, he and I have aU things in common. My means,

CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE. 207
and his needs, are common to both. This is, so far as the
things of this world are concerned, the practical expression,
the substantial proof, of our oneness in Christ. It is our
making common cause with one another ; holding our
resources to be available for one another, as if they were
a common stock ; entering into one another's necessities,
as if they were a common calamity. The Christian
brotherhood, the fellowship of the saints, is thus practi
cally exemplified and proved.
In the department of the inner spiritual life, that com
munion is very close ; and the closeness of it is declared
and sealed in the sacrament of communion; — "The cup of
blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the
blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the
communion of the body of Christ ? For we, being many,
are one bread, and one body : for we are aU partakers of
that one bread" (1 Cor. x. 16, 17). We are joint par
takers of the one bread of life ; of the life of which He is
the bread. We are jointly incorporated into him ; being
" members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones"
(Eph. v. 30). As his mystical body, we, jointly as well
as severally, are consecrated by his sacrifice of atonement,
and consecrate ourselves, to be a sacrifice of praise to " his
Father and our Father, his God and our God." As being
" many members in one body, yet aU members not having
the same office," we have communion, or joint participation,
each according to the grace held to be given to him, upon
a sober estimate of himself, in the offices and works which
the Church, as Christ's body, has to discharge and do ; —
as weU as also in the spirit or frame of mind in which

208 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
they are to be discharged and done. And now it is inti
mated that we are to have communion, or joint participa
tion, in the varieties of outward fortune to which the body,
or its several members, may be exposed. The living body
is organized for originating action from within, and for
receiving impressions and meeting influences from with
out ; it works, and it is worked upon. And as in the
life, so also in both these forms or phases of the hfe — the
active and the receptive — the members have communion,
or joint participation. AU among them is in common.
It is, therefore, upon a very high and holy footing that
the duty of "distributing to the necessity of saints" maybe
seen to rest. The claim which the very least of Christ's
little ones has on all the members of his body, and on each
one in particular, is peculiarly sacred. You, my brother, as
a member of Clirist's body, are bound to see to it, so far
as in you lies, that no necessitous member of the same
body, within the reach of your means of discovery and of
deliverance, remains for a single hour unhelped and un
relieved. It is your part to visit him without delay; or
if that may not be, to make sure that he is visited, in
your name, and on your behalf. Nor let any light
hinderance interfere with your visit being paid in person.
Communion by proxy, or at second hand, is a cold affair
at the best. The obligation lies upon you personally.
Let it, if there be no insuperable obstacle, physical or
moral, be personally fulfilled. And that it may be ful
filled faithfuUy, be not content to sit at home and wait
tUl tidings of needy cases happen to reach your ears. Go
forth in search of poor or suffering saints of God, where-

CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE. 209
ever there is, I say not a likehhood, but a chance or pos-
sibUity, of any, of a single one, being found. Search, as
with a candle, the dark places near your dwelling. Cause
the dark places further off to be searched for you. Then,
when you are brought into contact with a chUd of God,
— born of the Spirit long ago, or it may be now, through
God's blessing on your very search for him, — make his
case your own. Lay yourself out to ascertain and to
understand his necessity. Your own insight often, if it
be the insight of genuine Christian and human sympathy,
wiU help you to see it, without your questioning him, or
his teUing you. What makes his lot hard and heavy to
bear, and his Christian profession very difficult to main
tain, you wiU be quick-sighted to discern. And you will
be prompt to succour him ; and in doing so, to make him
feel that he is not to consider himself a pensioner de
pendent on your bounty, or a mendicant accepting your
alms ; but that he and you, being one in Christ, have but
one common interest, — you in his necessity, and he in your
means of meeting it. Thus, whUe " as you have oppor
tunity, you do good unto ah men," you do good " espe
cially to them who are of the household of faith " (GaL
vi. 10). You recognise their special claim upon you, as
being feUow-members with you of the body of Christ. In
ministering to them you minister to Christ's body — nay,
rather, you minister to Christ himself. And you humbly
hope for his gracious acknowledgment of your ministry
in the day when he shall utter these wonderful words :
" Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my brethren,
ye did it unto me." For you thus most truly and fully
o

210 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
carry out the idea of his own parable : " When thou
makest a dinner or a supper, caU not thy friends, nor thy
brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours ;
lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made
thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the
maimed, the lame, the blind : and thou shalt be blessed ;
for they cannot recompense thee : for thou shalt be recom
pensed at the resurrection of the just" (Luke xiv. 1 2-14),
II. Under the general head of " distributing to the neces
sity of saints," the Apostle specifies one particular branch
of that virtue ; — " given to hospitality."
Now, the hospitahty here commended is not that of
promiscuous benevolence and general good-wUl, as if one
should throw open his house, and spread his table, and
prepare the couch of rest, for all and sundry to enter in,
and eat and sleep. Nor is it the hospitality of private
acquaintanceship, as when one entertains a single friend,
or a party of friends, on the ground of ties or relations in
ordinary life connecting them together and suggesting
social intercourse. Both of these kinds of hospitality are
lawful, and, within due bounds, commendable. To re
ceive strangers and traveUers, who are in need of accom
modation — to treat them kindly and minister to their
wants, whoever they may be, and whatever their creed or
calling or condition, — is an obvious duty of humanity. - To
share with those whom we esteem and love the temperate
repast and genial fireside fellowship of home, is a welcome
solace amid the carking cares of this working world. But
the hospitality which Paul is now speaking of is some-

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 211
thing different from both of these. It is hospitahty to
the chUdren of God. It is a particular branch or depart
ment of the general obligation to distribute to the neces
sity of saints. It contemplates the case of believers
away from their ordinary abodes ; speciaUy of behevers
in exUe, or on a journey. In this view, the grace or
virtue in question was more largely and constantly called
into exercise in the early Church than it ordinarily is now.
The circumstances then were pecuhar. Christians were
to a large extent literally "strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," — in fact
throughout all provinces and countries of the world. As
preachers of the truth, or as persecuted for the truth's
sake, they went abroad everywhere ; and wherever they
went they were dependent mainly on the hospitality of
their brethren in the common faith.
It was much the same in the patriarchal times. The
remnant of the godly, in the unsettled state of society
which then prevaUed, were often wanderers on the face of
the earth ; going hither and thither, bearing witness on
behalf of the primeval and traditionary rehgion amid the
growing degeneracy of mankind ; or seeking refuge, as
fugitives, from the rage and wrath which their testimony
provoked. Hence the pious practice was seasonable which
righteous men hke Abraham and Lot adopted, of sitting
at the door of their tents, at noonday or at eventide, to
arrest any passers-by who might seem to need their kind
offices, and bid them welcome to bed and board (Gen.
xviii. 1 ; xix 1).
The circumstances of the early Christians were such as

212 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
to recaU the memory of these old days, and give point to
the aUusion which Paul makes to them when he says,
" Be not forgetful to entertain strangers : for thereby
some have entertained angels unawares " (Heb. xiii. 2).
A still higher motive is suggested in anticipation by our
Lord ; — " He that receiveth you, receiveth me ; and he
that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. He that
receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shaU re
ceive a prophet's reward ; and he that receiveth a right
eous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a
righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give to
drink unto one of these httle ones a cup of cold water
only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he
shaU in no wise lose his reward" (Matt. x. 40-42).
Hence the practice in the early Church of sending let
ters of introduction, or of commendation, by the hands of
persons moving from one place to another. To this prac
tice Paul refers when he boasts, as it were, of his own in
dependence of such letters ; — " Do we begin again to com
mend ourselves ? or need we, as some others, epistles of
commendation to you, or letters of commendation from
you ? " (2 Cor. iii. 1). And we have instances of the
practice among the salutations with which the epistles
usuaUy close ; as in this Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 1, 2),
— " I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a ser
vant of the church which is at Cenchrea ; that ye receive
her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her
in whatsoever business she hath need of yoa : for she
hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also;" and
in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (xvi. 1 7, 1 8),  " I

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 213
am glad of the coming of Stephanas, and Fortunatus,
and Achaicus : for that which was lacking on your part
they have supphed. For they have refreshed my spirit
and yours : therefore acknowledge ye them that are such."
The Second and Third Epistles of the beloved Apostle
John seem to be such letters of introduction. At aU
events they treat of the subject of these letters. And, by
contrast with one another, they bring out the duty in its
twofold aspect ; as requiring true believers on the one
hand to abstain from exercising brotherly hospitahty to
wards false teachers; and as requiring them on the other
hand to exercise such hospitality towards aU true mem
bers of the body of Christ.
For the principle might be violated in two ways ;
either by hospitably entertaining, as a true brother, one
who was heretical, in doctrine or in practice ; or by
refusing to entertain hospitably, as a brother, one who
was sound in faith, — in that faith which worketh by love.
And these two epistles of John have respect to these two
ways of violating the principle. The second contains a
strong exhortation against receiving false professors ; — the
third, again, contains an equaUy strong approval of the re
ceiving of such as are true.
1. Thus in the former of these epistles (2 John), "the
elder," writing to " the elect lady and her chUdren," — after
warmly commending her own and her household's stead
fast adherence to the truth, and enforcing the new, and
yet old, commandment, that " we love one another," —
lays down the test or criterion of the genuineness of that

214 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
holy affection ; — " And this is love, that we walk after
his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as
ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it"
(ver. 6). For, as is here manifestly implied, that is not
real love, which, in its eagerness to enlarge the circle of
the Christian brotherhood, would relax the authority of
Christ, the head, over his body, the Church ; or wander
from the old paths in which the footsteps of the flock are
to be traced. All the rather i3 it needful to beware of
that plausible snare, because, as the Apostle testifies,
" many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a
deceiver and an antichrist" (ver. 7). For yourown sakes,
therefore, and for the truth's sake, be on your guard
against countenancing " transgressors who abide not in
the doctrine of Christ " (ver. 9). And especiaUy, in the
exercise of hospitahty towards those who roam over the
world in the character of the Lord's servants and wit
nesses, — persecuted, perhaps, and persecuted apparently
on account of their Christian profession, — use a careful
discrimination. "He," and he only, "that abideth in the
doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son"
(ver. 9). Therefore, "if there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God
speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (ver. 10, 11).
Such is the rule laid down by the Apostle of love to
regulate our treatment of aU whose testimony, or whose
teaching, is away from the truth. Hospitality to them,
as brethren, is expressly and very peremptorily forbidden.

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 215
I say, hospitality towards them as brethren. For it need
scarcely be remarked that the Apostle cannot be under
stood as condemning the benevolence which would open
its house as a house of refuge for the weary wanderer,
without question as to creed, or character, or colour, or
country, and provide shelter, food, and comfort for aU alike
and indiscriminately who are in want. Nay, he does not
and cannot mean to prohibit the extension of such sort
of hospitahty even to those whom he denounces so strongly
as deceivers. To entertain them kindly when they ap
peal to your generosity and pity, simply as your feUow-
men, in destitution and distress, is unquestionably lawful
and right. But let them not be owned by you as dis
ciples or apostles of the Lord. Let them not be welcomed
and embraced as your brethren in Christ. Let it not be
in that character that you receive them into your house
and speed them on their way. Let it never be forgotten
that, as Christian love is always based on Christian truth,
so every manifestation of mutual love, in the body of Christ,
must proceed avowedly and unequivocally upon the mutual
recognition of " the truth as it is in Jesus." Those whom
I love, after the model and example of John the beloved,
" I love in the truth : and not I only, but also all they
that have known the truth ; for the truth's sake, which
dweUeth in us, and shaU be with us for ever " (ver. 1).
2. In the other epistle (3 John) " the elder" manifests
the same anxiety that aU love among Christians should
be grounded on the truth. He salutes Gaius, "whom," he
adds, " I love in the truth " (ver. 1). He expresses the

216 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
joy he felt when he found the brethren who came from
Gaius aU testifying, as he writes to his friend, " of the
truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth"
(ver. 3). His cordial delight in those who hold by the
truth is quite equal to his holy dread and dislike of such
as wander themselves, and lead others to wander, into
error. " I have no greater joy," he exclaims with trans
port, " than to hear that my children walk in truth ! "
(ver. 4). And having no occasion, as it would seem, to
put his present correspondent on his guard against that
ultra-liberal stretch of Christian hospitahty of which it
had been necessary to bid the "elect lady" beware, — he
makes it very plain that it is no mere cold and cautious
negative concern to avoid the risk of countenancing evil
that wUl content his loving soul. For it is with no or
dinary fervour that he pronounces his commendation of
the open house and open heart of Gaius ; — " Beloved, thou
doest faithfuUy whatsoever thou doest to the brethren,
and to strangers ; which have borne witness of thy charity
before the church : whom if thou bring forward on their
journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do weU : because
that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing
of the GentUes. We therefore ought to receive such, that
we might be feUow-helpers to the truth " (ver. 5-8).
Thus the beloved Apostle, full of his own favouritetheme
of love in the truth, enforces in both aspects of it, the pro
hibitive and the enactive, the virtue of which Paul speaks
when he describes the members of Christ's body as " dis
tributing to the necessity of saints ; given to hospitahty."

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 217
It is a virtue, as I have already observed, specially
called into exercise in such times as cause exUe or flight
among the professed foUowers of Christ ; and in such
times, I would now add, it is peculiarly tried and tested.
Two instances occur for illustration here.
When the first French Revolution began to convulse
society, multitudes of priests, and other members of the
Church of Rome, sought and found refuge on our country's
hospitable shores. Their coming amongst us kindled an
enthusiasm of rehgious resentment against the cruel
oppression of which they were the victims. Everywhere,
and by aU classes, they were welcomed; — not merely as
men suffering wrongfuUy, and in that character entitled
to sympathy and help to the very uttermost ; — but as con
fessors, and aU but martyrs, in the cause of Christianity,
and on that account having a claim to be entertained on
the footing of a common brotherhood with us in our
common Lord. Now it might be so far true that they
were persecuted for their Christianity, such as it was.
It was their rehgion that made them odious in revolu
tionary eyes, and obnoxious to revolutionary fury ;
although, making due aUowance for the sincerity and
piety of not a few, it should never have been forgotten
that it was that very religion of theirs that had sowed
the seeds of the very anarchy and crime from which
they were now constrained to flee, — in the dissolution of
manners among the great, the oppression of the masses,
the universal corruption of morals, and the spread of
both a lettered and a vulgar infidehty among aU classes of
the community. StUl it was not unnatural, nor, to some

218 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
extent, unwarrantable, to regard with somewhat more than
ordinary interest these fugitives from the violence of law
less atheism. It cannot be denied, however, that this interest
led to a fraternization far too close with themselves, and
an estimation far too indulgent of their creed and their
confession. The autichristian character of their prin
ciples and their practices was lost sight of, in admiration
of the Christian meekness and magnanimity with which
so many of them bore their sufferings ; the hospitality
even of sound Protestants towards their Popish visitors
ceased to be the hospitality of Christian humanity, and be
came the hospitahty of Christian brotherhood; and hence,
at least in part, may have arisen that latitudinarian indif
ference to the distinction between Christ and Antichrist,
between truth and error, between a pure and an idola
trous worship of the hving God, which has since pre-
vaUed so largely and so disastrously in the councils of
statesmen and the opinions of society. Certainly the
caution addressed by " the elder " to the " elect lady "
would have been seasonable at that crisis, if the men of
that generation had had ears to hear.
Long before, in the history of the same great nation,
events of which the reign of terror may fairly be regarded
as the avenger, had sent the best of her children, by
hundreds, beyond her borders. The massacre of St.
Bartholomew, in one century, and stiU more, the revoca
tion of the Edict of Nantes in that which foUowed, —
fatal blunders as weU as crimes of Popery, — emptied
France of many of the Lord's faithful people. The Pro
testant states, and conspicuously among them our own

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 219
free country, welcomed the refugees. There could be no
hesitation, in that instance, as to the sort of hospitahty
that was due. These persecuted saints were to be enter
tained as brethren, in the Lord's name and for the Lord's
sake. That they were largely so entertained is matter of
history; and in so far as they were so entertained, our
Christian hospitahty was, even in a temporal point of
view, richly blessed and amply rewarded. But perhaps
a richer blessing stiU, and an ampler reward, might have
been ours, had the spirit which John commends in
Gaius been then, and always, more uniformly and un-
equivocaUy characteristic of that ready protection which
our country extends to exUes of aU sorts and from aU
quarters. It is our just boast that the homeless and
houseless wanderer finds a safe asylum within our borders;
no questions asked; no condition imposed, beyond that of
hving peaceably. But whUe all are thus free to seek
shelter under the shade of our constitutional hberty and
independence, let it never be lost sight of that the Lord's
own people, when" driven to our shores, have a sacred
right to far more than toleration and charitable help, at
the hands of aU who love the Lord himself, and are, in
his behalf, " given to hospitality."
And now, in fine, whether we view these virtues of
brotherly communion and hospitahty as more particularly
caUed into exercise in troublous times, such as often
already have made, and may yet again make, — sooner,
perhaps, than we think, — many preachers and professors
of the pure gospel of Christ impoverished sufferers and

220 CHRISTIANS ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
persecuted wanderers on the face of the earth ; or con
sider them as virtues which are ever more or less iu
demand; — let us make conscience of feeling and appre
hending fuhy our common brotherhood with all who are
feUow-members with us of the one body of Christ. Let
this gracious bond of union ever be considered paramount
over aU other distinctions, of whatever nature. Let us be
of one mind and of one heart, in our consecration of our
selves to God and our separation of ourselves from the
world ; in our earnest working for the Lord, according
to our different gifts and graces, and in our different
spheres and offices ; and in our generous and unselfish
wUhngness to make common cause with one another, alike
in weal and in woe. Let the exhortation of another
inspired Apostle be ever faithfuUy carried out in prac
tice; — "Above all things, have fervent charity among
yourselves : for charity shah cover the multitude of sins.
Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As
every man hath received the gift, even so minister the
same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold
grace of God" (1 Pet. iv. 8-10).

PART THIRD.

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO A HOSTILE
WORLD.

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS RELATION TO
A HOSTILE WORLD.

i.
THE ALTERNATIVE OF BLESSING OR CURSING.
*' Bless them which persecute you : bless, and curse not."— Rom. xii. 14.
This verse evidently has respect, — as indeed the entire
remainder of the chapter has respect, — to the position
which Christians occupy in the midst of an evil world.
Their position is one of liability and exposure to perse
cution. So the Lord himself taught them beforehand to
regard it. The law of his kingdom, — the normal state
of his Church, — according to his own faithful warning,
is that it is apt to be persecuted, nay, that it is sure to
be persecuted. It must be so. His foUowers, making
common cause with him, must lay their account with
having a common lot with him. " If the world hate
you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If
ye were of the world, the world would love his own : but
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you

224 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is
not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me,
they wiU also persecute you ; if they have kept my
saying, they wiU keep yours also" (John xv. 18-20).
The mode and measure of the persecution may vary.
There are different ways of persecuting, with different
degrees of intensity, in different ages of the world and
different conditions of society. But the ordinary prin
ciple and rule of the Christian profession, and the invari
able experience of those who truly adopt it is, that, in
one way or another, " all who wiU live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. iii. 12).
Hence the precept, " Bless them which persecute you,"
is always applicable ; and the practical illustration and
enforcement of it must be always seasonable.
Generally, the precept is identical with that of our
Lord in the sermon on the mount ; — " Ye have heard
that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour,
and hate thine enemy : but I say unto you, Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefuUy use you,
and persecute you." Thus the great Lawgiver interprets
his own law. And he enforces the command by an appeal
to the highest of aU examples, that of God himself; —
" That ye may be the children of your Father which is in
heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evU and on
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
.... Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. v. 43-45, 48).

BLESS THEM WHICH PERSECUTE YOU. 225
This is a high and animating motive. Cherishing and
manifesting the spirit that is enjoined, you prove your
selves, by your family likeness, to be the children of your
Father in heaven. To yourselves, in your own happy con
sciousness ; to others, through your gracious conduct and
demeanour ; your claim of filial relationship to God is
verified, attested, and made good. You feel yourselves,
and others see, that you are, in this matter, of the same
mind and character with your Father in heaven ; par
takers of his divine nature ; perfect as he is perfect, in
the divine accomplishment of loving your enemies, and
doing them good ; — his children, therefore, in nature as
well as in name ; not in word only, but in deed and in
truth. This motive is not expressly urged by the Apostle in
the verse now before us, — although doubtless he had it in
his mind. The command or exhortation, he may be under
stood to say, is not mine, but the Lord's. In the spirit
which he recommends, and after the pattern to which he
points, " Bless them which persecute you."
" Bless, and curse not," the Apostle adds. Why? To
what effect ? Is not the addition rather a weakening of
the sense and import of the precept ? What need of
telling you, who are bound to bless your persecutors,
that you are to take care not to curse them ? Is not that
something hke an anticlimax, a figure of the bathos ; — a
coming down from the enjoining of what is a noble
positive attainment of divine perfection, to a mere and
poor negative prohibition of what one animated by the
ambition of being thus godlike could never be supposed
r

226 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
to dream of? First you are exhorted to bless them
that persecute you ; and then not to curse them.
That is not the manner of Paul. He does not think
or write so inconsequentially and so loosely as such a tame
construction of his language would imply. There is a
special force and point in his words, " Bless, and curse not."
A vitaUy important principle of morahty is in them.
Bless, that you may not curse. Bless, if you would not
curse. As you would keep yourselves safe and free from
the risk of committing the great sin of cursing, see to it
that you are always blessing. Bless, be ever blessing,
lest you should curse. For you must be either blessing
or cursing. One or other of these attitudes you must
be adopting ; one or other of these frames of mind you
must be cherishing, at every moment. There is no in
termediate position or posture. " Bless, and curse not."
I. And here, let it be observed, in the first place, the
risk and danger of your being tempted to curse them that
persecute you is strong ; stronger than you might at first
be prepared to aUow. It is the tendency of human nature.
And it is a tendency which continues to exist, and is apt
to prevaU, even when nature is sanctified by grace. Nay,
there is in that case a new and peculiar temptation.
You identify yourselves, and rightly, with Christ and
his cause. The persecution which you have to encounter
is not merely a personal affront and injury to you. It
is opposition to the Lord and his Anointed. Your selfish
resentment of the wrong done to yourselves is, as it
might seem, merged in the generous indignation with

CURSE NOT. 227
which your bosom burns against the outrage offered to
your Master. It is the zeal of his house that hath eaten
you up. Ah ! what room is there here for self-deception ;
for the wrath of man, which worketh not the righteous
ness of God, putting on the guise of a holy and disin
terested concern for the kingdom of God and his right
eousness !
And the danger is the greater in proportion as your
Christianity is of a decided sort, and of an impulsive and
aggressive character, and is on that account calculated to
provoke and stimulate, among those with whom you come
in contact, the principle of hostility to the truth as it is in
Jesus, — the enmity of the carnal mind against God and
against his holy law.
There is, indeed, a kind of Christianity which leaves
those who profess and practise it sufficiently secure, in aU
conscience, as regards the danger now in question. There
is the quiescent piety, not insincere, in its way, so far as
it goes ; nay, deeply spiritual perhaps, after a fashion ;
which almost makes a merit of not obtruding itself, or
thrusting itself forward, so as materially to interfere with
the customary ungodliness of the world lying in wicked
ness. And, what is far more common, there is the
nominal and formal piety, which comes to a virtual
understanding that, if it is itself let alone, it wUl let the
world alone. If your religion is of such a nature as
either of these ; if you keep it, as you say, to yourselves,
as a matter entirely private, between you and your God;
if you keep it exclusively for the closet and the church —
for the hour of secret devotion and the day of social

228 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
worship ; if, when you go among your fellow-men, you
go to be very much what they are, and to live very much
as they hve, — not troubling them with any very high
testimony, any very holy example, any very close dealing
with their consciences and hearts ; — you can have httle or
no experience, either of the personal irritation which the
truth, when faithfully urged home by faithful witnesses,
causes in the minds of men who wiU not embrace it ; or
of the trial to which the witnesses of the truth are sub-
iected, when they have to overcome their proneness to
be personaUy irritated in their turn. Your Christianity
the world wUl tolerate, and not persecute. You have no
need to be warned against cherishing vindictive feelings
towards any persecutors. Yours is a very mild and
bland protest on the subject of the world's alienation
from God. The world's temper is not seriously ruffled
by it against you ; nor is there anything in the treat
ment you meet with at its hands to ruffle very seriously
your temper against the world.
It wUl be otherwise if you are more in earnest and
more decided in your separation from the world, and
your self-consecration to God ; more unsparing and
uncompromising in your condemnation of all unright
eousness ; more thoroughly under the influence of zeal
for the glory of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of
saving souls. You wUl not, indeed, even when such high
motives animate you, omit or neglect any fair method of
concihation. You will not needlessly, by any peculiarity
or any infirmity of yours, give offence, or cause vexation
and annoyance. You wUl be " wise as serpents and harm-

CURSE NOT. 229
less as doves." You wUl not court reproach, or obloquy,
or Ul-usage, as if that were to be the seal of your
fidelity, — the proof and evidence of pre-eminent sanctity
or of surpassing consistency. You wiU not be in haste
to ascribe to hatred of the gospel manifestations of feel
ing that, your humble esteem of yourselves may suggest,
are occasioned possibly by your imperfect or unworthy
manner of commending it. You will do all that in you
lies to disarm suspicion, and distrust, and jealous fear.
You will make all possible allowance for the natural
disposition of men to assert independence, and to dislike
any intermeddling with their notions and ways. You
wiU watch for, and be ready to welcome kindly, such relent-
ings, such tender softenings of heart, as your affectionate
and friendly dealings may be expected to caU forth
among not a few, even of the most obdurate, on whom
you bring the appliances of your Christian influence to
bear. Still, with aU that, you must lay your account, as
Christ's witnesses and Christ's workers, discharging offices
of love in his Church, with having persecution, real per
secution, to bear. You wUl meet with not a little that
will be real persecution to you ; persecution of the nature
that fell to the lot of Him who " endured such contradic
tion of sinners against himself."' You may not have to
" resist unto blood, striving against sin." You may not be
stoned, or imprisoned, or scourged. You may not suffer
loss of goods, or loss of standing. But there may be
those among the objects of your most earnest solicitude
who but ill requite your care and kindness. You come
in contact with coarse and hard minds, suspicious souls,

230 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
obdurate hearts. In proportion to the decision of your
protest and testimony, and the aggressiveness of your
Christian zeal and love, you meet with opposition in
quarters in which to meet with it is very trying. And
the kind of opposition may be hard to bear. Your good
is evU spoken of; your fraUties are exposed and mag
nified ; your motives are misconstrued ; your manners
ridiculed or criticised. Or, aU credit being given you for
good intentions, your weU-meant efforts are received with
the cold smile of politeness, or the suppressed sneer of
contempt. Your most faithful and affectionate advances
are repelled. And those for whose salvation your very
bowels are yearning are among the first to hint that you
are troublesome, or that you are mad.
Is there no temptation besetting you, in circumstances
like these, to let angry passions rise ? Is the old nature
not stirred within you? Do you not find that it
costs you an effort, often difficult and painful, to keep
down the deep feelings of disappointment and vexation
that are swelling your bosom to suffocation, and dimming
your eye with bitter tears ; yes ! and to suppress the
indignant remonstrance of self-defence, or the keen retort
of justly-merited defiance, that is already trembhng upon
your lips ?
Ah ! there is a struggle in your hearts. You take
yourselves to task. You search and try your ways ; your
ways of witnessing for God and seeking to win souls to
Christ. Alas! you discover that the iU success which
distresses you, and the opposition which vexes you, may
be partly owing to yourselves, to your own fault ; your

CURSE NOT. 231
faulty manner of testifying and working ; your want of
tact, or of temper, or of patience, or of prudence, or of for
bearance, or of kindness. Be it so. The discovery, or the
suspicion, humbles you ; but it does not aUay the fever or
stUl the tempest of your bosom. You feel as if, notwith
standing such shortcoming on your part, you were stiU
harshly judged and hardly used ; that allowances might be
made for you, in consideration of your good faith and
good wiU ; and that, after aU, it is too bad that you should,
on such slight grounds as these, be so cruelly misunder
stood, and " persecuted without a cause."
Yes ; and it may be that you fix upon some one or
two among your circle of acquaintance, or within the
range and round of your walks of Christian phUanthropy,
of whom you might have expected, and did once expect,
and had a good right and good reason to expect, better
things. That they too should turn against you, and, on
some frivolous pretence, or for some petty provocation, begin
to thwart you in your work of faith and labour of love;
taking part with those who reproach and suspect you ;
fomenting whatever hostility there may be in men's minds
toward you ; — that surely is intolerable. Can flesh and
blood stand it ? Can you abstain, in your hearts, from
venting what is but too near akin to a malediction or a
curse ? Can you help yourselves from partly giving way
to what may seem fuUy justifiable emotions of personal
resentment, and a personal sense of unprovoked and unde
served wrong ?
No ! not unless you make conscience of blessing those
whom you are thus tempted to curse. It is not a merely

232 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
negative exercise of moral principle, the putting of an
enforced restraint upon such natural tendencies, that will
suffice. They are not to be curbed, or checked, or kept
in, " by bit and bridle." The outward expression of them,
by word or sign, may be thus suppressed. But inwardly
they chafe and fret the more for being stifled and pent
up. The house wUl not long remain " empty, swept, and
garnished." A seven-fold worse possession than the first
may befall it. A vexed and soured temper, — a certain
dark brooding over inevitable evil, — a sort of universal
scepticism, that wiU do its duty doggedly, but always in
despair of any other return than ingratitude and misre
presentation, — these and such like brooding harpies prey
upon your spirits. " Woe is me that I dweU among such
people;" "Woe is unto them that I dweU among them in
vain ;" — is apt to become the secret burden of your pro
phesying and your ministering. If it is not a malignant
wishing of evil, it is at least a gloomy acquiescence in evil.
It lies in the direction of cursing, if it does not actually
reach so far. If I am to be safe from so sad a frame of
mind, I must have something more than a "curse not" for
my motto. My watchword, — or rather my Master's word of
command, — must ring true with an element, not of passive
suppression, but of active power. " Bless, and curse not,"
is my rallying cry. Let me bless ; let me be always
blessing, wherever there is the slightest risk of my being
tempted, — almost, if not altogether, — to curse. Let me
single out the parties whose iU-reception and ill-requital of
my kind Christian advances I find to be most irritating
and trying. Let me make them especially and by name

BLESS, AND CURSE NOT. 233
the objects of my special good- will. Let me be in heart
and soul blessing them ; blessing, and not cursing.
II. For now, in the second place, let it be noted, this
blending of the positive and negative in one command,
— " Bless, and curse not," — involves a principle of wide
application in the department of morals and religion, —
in the ethical and spiritual sphere of human sensibUity and
activity. The principle is this, that neutrality is impos
sible. When any object is presented soliciting regard, the
heart cannot remain in equipoise or in equilibrio. One
way or other it must be affected, and must decide. It
must either approve or disapprove, hke or dislike, love or
hate. It cannot occupy a position of indifference.
It is upon this principle that our Lord's two correlative
and corresponding maxims are based ; — " He that is not
against us is for us " (Luke ix. 50) ; and, " He that is not
with me is against me " (Matt. xii. 30). Every man
who comes in contact with Christ and his gospel, — every
man to whom Christ, in his gospel and by his Spirit, is
brought near, — must of necessity take a side, and, in point
of fact, does take a side. There can be no evasion or
compromise. Either Christ is precious to him, as " to
them that believe ; " or else he is a stumbling-block and
an offence, and is disesteemed and disliked. When at any
moment Christ is presented to me, I must, at that mo
ment, be either accepting or rejecting him ; I must in my
heart's affections be either a friend or a foe ; no inter
mediate frame of mind is, if I may so say, realizeable ; that
Ls the only alternative. And upon that, as the only possible

234 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
alternative, I am to proceed, in my judgment of charity,
as regards my neighbour ; and in my judgment of faithful
ness, as regards myself.
On the one hand, as regards my neighbour, do I see
in his character and conduct something that is plainly
irreconcilable with his being against Christ? Is there
enough, in the temper he manifests and the works he
does, to satisfy me, upon a fair view of it, that he cannot be
an enemy ? Does he show a spirit, and foUow a course,
that clearly cannot be explained in consistency with any
such supposition as that ? Then let me unhesitatingly re
cognise him as one who not merely is not against us, but is
for us. He cannot, I am sure, be the one ; and therefore
he must be the other. Difficulties may present themselves
to me in the way of coming to such a conclusion. From
my stand-point, or point of view, I may be at a loss to
account for sundry differences of opinion, and even of
practice, between him and me. " He follows not with
us." He has ways of his own. StiU, if he is casting
out devils in the name of Christ; ff even in some one' single
unequivocal instance he is found feehng and acting in a
manner that is incompatible with the very notion of his
being against Christ ; let me give him the fuU benefit of
that evidence. And on the strength of the principle, that
neutrality with regard to Christ and his cause is impos
sible, let me cheerfuUy acquiesce in the judgment of
charity, that since I cannot but be satisfied that he is
not against us, he must be, and must be held to be, vir-
tuaUy and truly on our side.
But on the other hand, as regards myself always, — and

BLESS, AND CURSE NOT. 235
sometimes, when necessary, as regards my neighbour also,
— let me wield in another and opposite direction this two-
edged sword. Let me not indulge, either a free and easy
laxity in judging of myself, or a mawkish, exaggerated,
and sentimental affectation of liberality in judging of my
neighbour. Let me be faithful as well as charitable.
And when I discover or detect a line of action, or habit
of thought, that no sophistry or casuistry can harmonize
with real attachment to my Lord and Saviour, — when I
see another doing, or find myself doing, or desiring to do,
anything palpably at variance with the essential character
of a disciple, — let me not for an instant entangle myself
in the meshes of special pleading. Let me at once boldly
face the actual state of the case. One who does such a
thing, or has pleasure in those who do it, cannot, by any
stretch of charitable construction, be believed to be on the
Lord's side. It is not possible that such a one can be for
Christ. He must therefore be against Christ. Let me
open my eyes to the truth. Let me hear the faithful
word of Peter to Simon Magus, and faithfuUy obey it ; —
" Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God,
if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven
thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gaU of
bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity" (Act3 viii.
22, 23).
The same principle is to be apphed as a rule of conduct
as well as a rule of judgment. You are to remember
that, since neutrality is impossible, your only security
against the risk of an evil affection prevailing over you,
is the strenuous cultivation and exercise of its opposite.

236 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
If you would make sure of not wishing or not doing evil
to any one, you must make conscience of wishing him well
and doing him good.
So the Apostle teaches, in this epistle, with reference to
the general duty of benevolence ; — " Love worketh no UI
to his neighbour : therefore love is the fulfilling of the
law" (Rom. xiii. 10). It may seem a poor commendation
of charity, or love, to say of it merely negatively that " it
worketh no iU to his neighbour ;" and to make that the
ground of the high place assigned to it, as " fulfilling the
law," may at first sight be felt to be somewhat strange.
Is it really so, — that the working of no iU to my neighbour
is the fulfilling of the law ? Is my simply abstaining from
inflicting injury, and doing actual harm, all that is required
to meet and satisfy the second of the two great command
ments, — which is like unto the first, — " Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself ? " No. But the Apostle would
enforce the lesson that there is no intermediate state of
mind or of heart between working iU to your neighbour
and loving him. The positive affection of love is the
source and the only safeguard of the negative virtue of
harmlessness. If love, active love, is absent from your
bosom, there must be present in it that " hating of one
another" which is characteristic of the natural man; — and
which, though in the absence of provocation it may seem
to lie dormant, is sure to manifest itself at any moment
when your path is crossed or your wish is thwarted.
Now if this be so when it is your neighbour generally
— any one of your feUow-men — with whom you have to
do, how much more must it be so when it is one who

BLESS, AND CURSE NOT. 237
" persecutes" you ! In that case, the alternative is to be
very stringently insisted upon. Either you must be
blessing or you must be cursing. Bless, therefore, that
you may not curse. Smarting under the sting of some
petty annoyance, some poor sarcasm against your faith,
some senseless taunt, or some cruel perversion of your
Christian offices of kindness, — pause and think, what are
the two states of feehng between which, and between
which alone, you have to choose.
The persecution, whatever it may be, and of whatever
sort, may be viewed in one or other of two lights. You may
fix your thoughts on those features of the persecutor's con
duct which make it peculiarly offensive. You may dweU on
aU the aggravating circumstances connected with it; — how
entirely and absolutely it is without cause on your part,
and therefore inexcusable on his part ; how sadly it dis
appoints your hopes and damps your zeal ; what insensi-
bUity and hard-hearted unthankfulness it indicates ; how
seriously it is fitted to mar your usefulness in the sphere
of influence in which you move. These and other elements
of all but intolerable bitterness you may so brood over as
to nurse into increasing strength your sense of ill-usage,
and make you feel as if you did weU to be angry. You
may put a restraint on yourself, and abstain from show
ing how deeply you are wounded. You may even secretly
take credit for continuing to treat the offender as if
nothing painful had occurred. But in heart, alas ! may
you not be in danger of cursing him? — giving him up, and
giving him over, almost contentedly and with compla
cency, as one upon whom your mort dutiful efforts are

238 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
lost, — who must be, and you are almost tempted to add
— who deserves to be, a castaway?
Yield not to this temptation. Rather when you
suffer wrong, caU to mind the considerations which should
bring the wrong-doer before you in a very different hght.
Look at his case rather than your own. Ah ! if you put
yourself in his place, you wiU see much, very much, that
should charm aU your resentment away, and turn it into
tenderest pity and concern. A thousand pleas wUl occur
to you, which, ff they do not excuse, at least explain, hi3
aversion to the truth and his dislike of its witness. You
picture to yourself his whole history, with its scanty means
of good and its myriad influences of evil ; you ask your
self what, if his history had been yours, you would have
been; — how you, if his lot were yours, — his training, his
habits, his companions, — would be inchned to think, and
feel, and act. You cease to wonder at his obtuseness
and his opposition. You are drawn, and not repeUed, by
that too easUy accounted for infatuation of his, which
reaUy hurts not you, but, alas ! is ruining his own
benighted soul No thought of self can find harbour
within you. AU your thought is of him. Your bowels
yearn over him the more for the very blindness and mad
ness which make him a persecutor. And so you bless,
and do not curse.

SYMPATHY AS A NATURAL PRINCIPLE. 239

II.
THE CHARM OF THE BLESSING— SYMPATHY.

" Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with thenrthat weep." —
Rom. xii. 15.

This precept I hold to be closely connected with the
preceding. Whatever wider application it may have, it
very speciaUy includes " them which persecute you." It
refers to your manner of dealing with the world, and
with those in the world whom you are apt, it may be
with too good reason, to regard as antagonistic and
hostile to your Lord and his cause ; — and to yourselves as
your Lord's witnesses, and the advocates and promoters
of his cause. What is enjoined is a certain genial " mUk
of human kindness," such as wUl move you to feel for,
and feel with, your feUow-men, simply as your feUow-
men, altogether apart from any more special or particular
relation in which they may stand to you, or you may
stand to them. The generous, wide, and unrestricted
tide of genuine human sympathy is to have its fuU and
free course, amid whatever lines of distinction and
demarcation other considerations may render necessary.
Christianity itself is not to supersede humanity. I am a
Christian ; and nothing that touches Christ and Christi-

240 CHRISTIAN treatment of the worlds enmity.
anity can be matter of indifference in my esteem. But I
am also a man, and nothing that touches man is of
foreign concern to me.
As a Christian, I must discriminate and divide men
into classes. I cannot look with equal eye on the friends
and foes of Him " whom having not seen I love ; and in
whom, though now I see him not, yet believing, I rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory." I love both ; —
but it is with a difference. Those who love Christ and
his cause and his people, I love with a brotherly affection
true and tender, kind and meek ; embracing them and
clasping them to my heart ; giving them all honour above
myself, for the Lord's sake. Those that are stUl opposing
themselves to my Lord, and to me his servant on his
account, I also love ; with a love that restrains every
bitter feehng which their opposition might awaken, and
moves me to bless them, to wish them weU, to do them
good. But just as that former particular affection of brotherly
love would be apt to become narrow, selfish, sectarian ; the
love merely of those who agree with me, because they
agree with me ; unless it were allied to the higher, wider,
universal and divine principle of love ; the love which is
of God ; — so, the particular modification of love called into
exercise when I contemplate them that persecute me as the
enemies of my Lord, and therefore mine ; prompting, as
it does, forbearance, forgiveness, the returning of good for
evil blessing for cursing ; would be apt to assume the
character of a sort of supercilious, patronizing pity, — to
give itself the air of a superior condescending to be

SYMPATHY as a natural principle. 241
benevolent to one beneath him, — were it not tempered by
the infusion of that natural human sympathy and fellow-
feeling, which inclines me, irrespectively of all other
thoughts, whenever I see a feUow-creature rejoicing, to
rejoice with him ; or weeping, to weep with him.
The precept, then, in this view, may be considered, —
I., generally ; and II., in its more particular connection
with your " blessing them which persecute you."
I. The general import of the precept is plain enough.
You are to make your neighbour's case your own, and
suffer what befaUs him to affect you, as it affects him.
Nor is it difficult to see how this special duty of sympathy
comes under, and forms part of, the great and broad law
of charity ; — " Thou shalt lcve thy neighbour as thyself."
As this law is originally given in the Old Testament
(Lev. xix. 18), it stands conspicuous among command
ments enforcing such mutual good offices as imply this
putting of yourself in your neighbour'", place and realizing
his joy or sorrow as your own ; while in the New Testa
ment that same law is iUustrated both by the teaching
and the example of the Lord ; — by his teaching, in such
parables as that of the good Samaritan ; and by his
example, in such scenes as those of Cana and of Bethany;
— and always in such a manner as to enforce the obliga
tion, not of feUow-helping only, if one may use such a
phrase, but of fellow-feeling also.
There is a foundation for this virtue in the constitution
of our nature. There is a natural instinct or principle of
sympathy, wnich moves us, by an irresistible impulse, to
Q

242 christian treatment of the world's enmity.
enter into the pathos or the passion of any scene that is
presented to us, or any tale that we are told. It is, in
the main, a genuine instinct and trustworthy principle,
fitted to be of much practical use, both as a motive to
right conduct, and as a help, at any rate, towards the
forming of right moral judgments.
But ff it is to be a safe guide, it must itself be guided ;
it must be trained and educated. If it is left undis
ciplined, and more especially if it is allowed to choose
its own objects, and set them in whatever hght it pleases,
— it becomes a dazzling and bewildering earthly meteor,
rather than a fixed heavenly star. For in that case this
natural sympathy is apt to create or to seek a world for
itself ; — a world, whose incidents of varied interest may
be moulded and fashioned to suit its own fastidiousness
or its own caprice.
Hence the zest with which it revels in story and
romance, and finds congenial food, delicious but dangerous,
in works of fancy and of fiction. Such works make their
appeal to your social and sympathetic sensibihty ; they
stir the deep fountains of emotion within you ; they cast
you by turns into aU those moods of mind which, in their
almost infinitely varied compass, only smiles and tears
can express. The excessive study of them, — and any
study of them, unless very carefuUy guarded, tends to
become excessive, — may cause such a strain on this
sensitive part of your nature as shall render it either
impotent or morbid. The faculty of self-control Ls lost,
and a sickly, soft, and sentimental tenderness relaxes and
unnerves the souL It must be so. For the sphere in

SYMPATHY AS A NATURAL PRINCIPLE. 243
which you are accustoming yourselves sympathizingly
to rejoice and to weep, is purely ideal ; its scenes and
incidents are altogether imaginary. They carry you
away from the stern realities of life, which call for sober
action as well as strong passion, into regions of fairyland
in which, with nothing practical to chasten or subdue
your spirits, the thrilling pathos of pity and fierce power
of terror may be intensified to any pitch to which
inventive genius can aspire ; and the burning tear and
the wUd laugh may alternate with each other, as the
vivid page presents the picture, by turns, of unheard of
woe and unnatural mirth, with which the heated and
fantastic brain is expected to throb in unison.
This may look like exaggeration ; or it may be
thought that I am putting an extreme case. Be that as
it may, the root and real source of the evil is in every
human bosom. It is that inveterate egotistic leaning
which is ever apt to turn sympathy from being a social,
into becoming a selfish, affection. I go forth into the
world, whether of fiction or of fact, in which I feel
myself most at home. Let it be a world of the latter sort ;
let it be real life, and not ideal. I mingle with my
fellow-men, and have my circle of interest and influence
among them. I come in contact with people of different
classes and different characters. I have my friendships
and companionships, my intimacies and familiarities,
among the households of my acquaintance. I take my
part in the incidents and ongoings of the caste to which
I belong, and the department of society in the midst of
which I move, as well as in the comments and conversa-

244 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD 'S ENMITY.
tions to which these give rise. I enter into the pursuits
and pleasures of the passing day. I am open to the
impression of its changes and chances. And in addition,
perhaps I have, outside of my own proper social sphere,
my chosen or appointed walk of duty among my fellow
men of another grade. I have my round of visits among
the poor, or at least I am accessible to applications on
their behalf. My ear is open to the complaints of want
and misery. I take an interest in what I see and hear,
and give the tribute of a sincere look, or word, or grasp
of sensibility when a suffering brother, or one exulting
in sudden relief from suffering, is before me.
Yes ; but aU the whUe it may be a merely natural
sensibility that I am indulging ; and I may be indulg
ing it after a merely natural and selfish fashion. It may
still be in a world of its own that my sympathy is really
exercising itself ; selecting its own congenial materials, or
investing with its own colour the materials presented to
it ; so as to suit them to its refinement and delicacy of
taste, and insure that nothing too coarse shaU come " be
twixt the wind and its nobihty." My " rejoicing with
them that rejoice, and weeping with them that weep,"
may thus, after aU, be little better than the sort of senti
mental susceptibility that is caUed forth by romantic re
presentations of interesting scenes and attractive objects
of regard ; — and therefore as unfit as that is, for standing
the wear and tear of actual contact and collision with
the stern realities which present themselves in the un
varnished experience of common hfe.
But now let the merely natural instinct of sympathy

SYMPATHY AS A CHRISTIAN DUTY. 245
become, through grace, a Christian virtue ; let it be the
discharge of a Christian duty; and what a change is
wrought ! Now, all is real. I deal with a real world,
and with real men and women in it. I have to do with
things as they are, and take people as I find them.
Ah ! how much am I sure to meet with, that, so far
from attracting my fellow-feeling, is fitted to disgust and
to repel ! The persons to whom that feUow-feeling is to
be extended are often those with whom I can have httle
or nothing in common; their characters being uncongenial ;
their manners distasteful ; their very air and appearance
perhaps intolerably offensive. And then, the places where
I have to seek them ; the circumstances with which they
are surrounded ; the companions with whom they are as
sociated, — all about them, in short, may be such as to
make a delicately nurtured mental and moral frame shrink
back in pain or horror.
To overcome obstacles hke these, or rather to cease
from regarding them as obstacles at aU ; to get through
the barrier which a coarse, forbidding derangement or
deformity may interpose ; to open the door which gives
vent only to sounds that shock the ear and odours loath
some and stifling to the breath ; to enter the sordid
hovel where, not the elegant refinement of reduced gen
tility, but the rudest, barest, and most squalid degradation
of poverty reigns ; to face disorder and disease, quarrel
ling and strife ; and in the midst of aU that, to sit down
beside the bed on which some poor sufferer is groaning,
or listen to the news which some gladdened soul is burn
ing to teU ; and, losing all thought of the disagreeable

246 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
features of the scene, and the distastefulness of the things
and persons belonging to it, — simply and naturaUy to
weep with the weeping, and rejoice with the rejoicing, —
that is an attainment, a habit, which nature never owned,
— which only grace can reach and sustain. Nor is it only
when you sound the lowest depths of the social fabric
that your sympathy, if it is of the right sort, wUl be tried.
Wherever you go on your errands of kindness and good
wiU, — in whatever circles you move and mingle, — you
wiU have to encounter influences most unfavourable to
the genial flow of feeling. The very forms and usages of
common-place routine and conventional etiquette are
chUling. You inhale an atmosphere of indifference and
frivolity ; or you are aU but stifled by the vapour of
mean jealousies and angry passions. The gladness and
the grief which appeal to your sensibility exhibit them
selves in a strange, uncouth guise, to which you cannot
get reconcUed. The scene, in spite of all its truth and
reahty, its actual power or pathos, has become so be
clouded with the mists of exaggeration and false senti
ment, — the din and clamour grow so confusing, — and
the parties most concerned seem so unamiable and unin
viting, — that you are fain to make your escape, as best
you may, from a circle in which you are so little at
home, and seek for more congenial feUowship elsewhere.
But no ! Your Christian faith and love forbid. You
caU to mind that it is not left to your own discretion
to say when and where, — in what circumstances and to
wards what persons, — you shaU exercise your sympathy.
It is not a matter of taste or of sentiment, but of con-

SYMPATHY TOWARDS PERSECUTORS. 247
science. The command is universal and unconditional ;
laying you under an obligation to get the better of all
obstacles and embarrassments, aU annoyances and dislikes ;
and requiring you, not for your own pleasure or relief, but
for your divine Master's sake, and after his example,
always and everywhere to be ready to " rejoice with
them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."
II. This conscientious and Christian exercise of sym
pathy is caUed for very speciaUy towards "them which
persecute you." Here, in addition to all the other general
difficulties with which the grace or virtue in question
may have to contend, there is the one particular con
sideration, that they who are to be its objects are your
enemies, because they are the enemies of your Lord.
That consideration, however, is to be lost sight of ; all
thought of it is to be extinguished. The very point of
the precept, indeed, is this ; — I must altogether cease to
regard these persons as my persecutors ; I must come to
regard them exclusively as my neighbours and my feUow-
men. The precept bids me recognise the essential man
hood, or humanity, of every individual with whom I have
anything to do, — his possession of a common nature
with myself ; it bids me recognise that alone ; it bids me
ignore, and mentaUy annihilate, everything else about
him. He is to me simply a man ; a human being ;
nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. I must strip
off from him aU adventitious trappings. I must puU
down his dwelling, whether it be a palace or a filthy hut.
I must disperse his companions, whether I like them or

248 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
not. Nay more. I must divest him of his habits, his
manners, his works and ways, — no matter what these are
or have been. I must extricate him out of the entangle
ments of events and circumstances. To me, he has no
llistory ; no character, I would almost say. He is before
me bare and naked as a man, that I may feel for him as
a man, — that I may feel with him as a man. In par
ticular, if he is known to me as my persecutor, I know
him in that character no more. I know him only as
a man. And knowing him only in the character of a
man, I, being myself a man, rejoice in his joy and mingle
my tears with his.
Hence the propriety and admirable grace of this com
mandment respecting sympathy being made immediately
to foUow the injunction, " Bless them which persecute
you" In obeying that injunction, you recognise the
persons in view as persecutors. The fact of their being
persecutors is before you ; and is, in truth, expressly and
consciously the ground of your treatment of them. It is
as persecutors that you refuse to curse them. It is as
persecutors that you resolve to bless them. But now
that fact is to be out of sight and out of mind. Now
they are not persecutors, but simply men ; men of like
passions and sensibUities with yourselves. You have
now no thought of the different positions which they and
you occupy with reference to one another. The nature
you have in common is all that is in your mind. As
man to man you draw near to visit every one of them ;
as man with man you commune with him in his joy and
in his sorrow; as fellow-men you laugh and weep together.

SYMPATHY TOWARDS PERSECUTORS. 249
This genuine, equal, human sympathy, is indispensable, if
you would so bless them who persecute you as not to vex
them but to win them. For there is a style and manner
of blessing " them which persecute you," — there is a way
of dealing with those who oppose themselves, — which,
while it looks like, and may pass for, a strict compliance
with the precept, is wholly at variance with its spirit ; — as
when one stands aloof and apart, and from some emi
nence of serene and unruffled equanimity, — some height
of transcendental spirituahty and heavenly-mindedness, —
seems to be ever saying, by look and gesture, — or to be
ever thinking in his heart, — Lo ! you there who, out of
the depths of your ungodhness and unbelief, try to shoot
at me for my attachment to my Lord, see how impotent
are aU your shafts ; they touch me not ; I stand un
scathed. And looking down upon your miserable infatua
tion, I can afford to dismiss from my mind every feeling
of resentment ; nay, I cannot find it in my heart to curse
you. Rather, as you see, I lift up my hands and bless
you. I pardon you, and pity you, and wish you weU.
And if you will aUow me, I will come among you to give
my benediction in the form of good offices and good ad
vices ; for, unmoved by your ingratitude, and having
patience with your perverseness, I am stiU ready to be
your benefactor and your friend.
Is it any wonder that even an honest desire to do
good, if it be clothed in the garb, and affect the airs, of
such supercUious condescension, should find doors and
hearts shut against it when it goes round among the
families of the working men of this working world? The

250 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
deep craving, the earnest yearning, for the equal inter
change of sympathy, that lies, as a sealed spring, in every
human bosom, however sunken, is not thus to be reached
and opened. But go, 0 child of God, among your neigh
bours round your dwelling. Show them, quite naturaUy,
that you care not what else they may be, knowing them
only as your feUow-men. Ah ! there is a charm, as you
wUl find, altogether resistless in its power to cause genial
streams to flow from flinty rocks, in your knowing how,
with artless and guileless fellow-feeling, to " rejoice
with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that
weep."

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 251

III.
THE CHARM OF SYMPATHY— MIND ACCOMMO
DATING ITSELF TO MIND.
" Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but conde
scend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits." — Rom. xii. 16.
The three clauses of this verse are more closely connected,
in point of phraseology, in the original than in our trans
lation. In them aU, some form or modification of the
word rendered "mind" occurs. And the word must be
understood as used in its old sense, to denote purpose or
inclination ; the bent and bias of one's character,
temperament, or will ; — as when it is said of him that he
is so and so minded ; thus minded and not otherwise.
In this view, three different faults, or faulty tendencies,
of the mind are here pointed out and condemned ; and
yet the three are so intimately associated that they may
almost be said to be really one. A perverse mind, prone
to differ ; a partial mind, preferring what is high, and
passing by the lowly ; a proud mind, self-confident and
self-conceited ; — these three characteristics ; first, wrong-
headedness or pertinacity; secondly, sycophancy or respect
of persons ; thirdly, vanity or self-complacency ; mark, or
make up, a spirit or habit of mind fatal to the genial
flow of natural human sympathy, and such as must

252 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
impart an air of stiffness, and artificial patronizing con
descension, to that grace in the exercise of which you
study, hke your Lord, amid whatever contradiction of
sinners against yourself you may have to endure, to
" rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with
them that weep." Thus the precepts in this sixteenth
verse fit into and supplement those of the fourteenth
and fifteenth.
For surely this is the connection in which the verse is
to be taken. The entire passage in the midst of which
it occurs refers, not to the sentiments and affections which
Christians are to cherish among themselves, or towards
one another as Christians, but to the way in which they
are to feel and act towards them that are without. We
cannot imagine that the Apostle means abruptly to return
to the former topic, which has been occupying the pre
ceding part of the chapter ; and that he does so merely
to thrust in for the use of believers an additional exhor
tation to brotherly unanimity and humUity, not certainty
in harmony or in keeping either with what goes before
or with what comes after. This is scarcely doing justice
to the Apostle's line of thought. And it is the less likely
that he should intend thus awkwardly to resume that
subject, because he has already sufficiently handled it, in
the verse in which he has been exhorting the members of
Christ's body to be " kindly affectioned one to another
with brotherly love ; in honour preferring one another ;':
and especially in that earnest appeal, " I say, through the
grace given unto me, to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 253
think ; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt
to every man the measure of faith." There the very
term upon which the precept in the text turns is used ; —
not to be high-minded ; to be soberly-minded.
Among yourselves, the Apostle has been saying, in
your church arrangements, in your Christian fellowship,
be not minded to exalt yourselves ; be not minded to
cause rivalry or jealousy among yourselves ; be minded
rather to form a sober estimate of your own gifts and
claims, and to do fuU justice to your brother's. And now
he widens and extends the range of the exhortation. He
applies it to the relation in which you stand to the world ;
even to the world at whose hands you may expect persecu
tion. With reference to that world he has been laying
down the law of charity and fellow-feeling ; — " Bless
them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice
with them that do rejoice, a,nd weep with them that
weep." And now, stUl with reference to these apparently
unworthy objects of your blessing and your sympathy, he
exhorts you to be minded rather to agree than to differ ;
— " Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind
not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits."
It is not easy, in any translation, to bring out the
verbal link of connection running through the three
clauses of this verse ; but a sort of expository comment
or paraphrase may be attempted.
" Be ye minding the same thing among one another ;
let there be a disposition, on your part, when you
come in contact with your feUow-men, in their gladness

254 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
and in their grief, so to identify yourselves with them,
that there shall be, between you and them, a common
mind, or a community of mind or sentiment, as regards
the matter which is agitating them. In order to this,
see to it, on the one hand, that you do not so exclu
sively mind, or regard, high things, — even the things of
highest moment to you as Christians, — but that you may
suffer yourselves to be led along the more humble walk
of ordinary human experience, so as to take an interest
in those lower matters about which your fellow-men,
simply as men, are occupied.1 And on the other hand,
see to it also that you are not selfishly-minded, — apt to
hug yourselves in your own opinion of your superior wis
dom, inteUigence, and spirituality, — as if you alone, or you
especially, were right-minded, and those around you were
to be looked down upon as mindless and aimless triflers.''
By some such explanatory rendering as this, the mean
ing which, so far as I can judge, ought to be attached
to this verse, may be in some measure indicated. And
so the way may be prepared for considering, — I. What
that community of mind is which is recommended in
the first clause ; — and, II. What are those two other
habits of mind which are condemned in the other two
clauses as being incompatible with what is recommended
in the first.

1 The clause, " Condescend to men of low degree," is of doubtful interpretation.
The word "men" is not in the original ; " things" may be equally well supplied.
And "condescend " is perhaps too strong a rendering. The idea seems to be that
which I have endeavoured to express in the paraphrase. Or it may be put thus :
" Mind not high things, but accommodate yourselves to the lowly. Be not in your
mind self-conceited, or self-sufficient."

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 255
I. " Be of the same mind one toward another." This
cannot mean, if the precept Ls of as wide an application
as I take it to be, agreement of opinion. Those with
reference to whom you are to cultivate the spirit here
enjoined, may be persons with whom you have little in
common ; from whom, indeed, you are wide as the
poles asunder, as regards the views which you and they
respectively hold on questions of most vital interest. It
must be so, if you are of God, as his little children, and they
are stiU of the world which heth in wickedness. The
rule, in that case, is clear; — " Be ye not unequaUy yoked
together with unbelievers : for what fellowship hath right
eousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath
light with darkness 1 and what concord hath Christ with
Belial? or what part hath he that beheveth with an
infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God
with idols ? for ye are the temple of the hving God ; as
God hath said, I wiU dweU in them, and walk in them :
and I will be their God, and they shaU be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye sepa
rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing;
and I will receive you, and wiU be a Father unto you,
and ye shaU be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty" (2 Cor. vi. 14-18).
But whUe you come out from among them, and are
separate from their worldly ways, touching not the unclean
thing ; you go among them, sent by your Lord into the
world, as he was sent by the Father into the world, — on
the same errand and mission of self-denying, seff-sacrificing
love. You are not taken out of the world, though you

256 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
are kept from the evU. You mix with your fellow-men,
on lawful occasions, simply as your feUow-men. You
visit them, and seek them out, and converse and deal
with them ; going about to do them good. You come
in contact with them. You see what the things are
about which they are engaged and interested. You learn
what causes their rejoicing, what occasions their weep
ing. Their cause of joy may not be such as you think
would win a smUe from you. The occasion of their grief
may seem to you unworthy of a tear. But what then 1
Do you check the flow of your genial feUow-feeling ?
No. You try to put yourselves in their place. You look
at the things which so affect them from their stand
point, or point of view, and not from your own. And so
you come to be, and they come to see that you are, of
the same mind with them ; minding these things as they
mind them ; noticing and appreciating them as they are
noticed and appreciated by them.
This is the heart of genuine human sympathy, its heart
of hearts. It is something more than "rejoicing with
them that do rejoice, and weeping with them that weep."
That may be, after all, as we have seen, a mere instinct
of sensibility ; scarcely anything else than an affection of
the nerves. Laughter is contagious, and so is weeping.
The simple sight of the outward manifestations or signs
of joy and grief, especiaUy when strongly indulged and
unrestrainedly and vehemently expressed, moves you who
are spectators beyond control. What may be the matter,
you do not know. Before you can hear the tale that is
to be told to account for what you see, your countenance

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 257
catches the look of his on whose face you gaze, and your
eyes are as full as his.
So far the man is pleased or soothed. But he wishes
to explain, to open up his mind. He would have you
to understand what it is that is agitating him so much.
You listen. But he perceives that you listen impatiently.
He becomes painfully sensible that things do not strike
you as they strike him. Your mind does not go along
with what he opens up to you of his mind. Embarrass
ment ensues, on both sides ; and disappointment. There
is an interruption, or an end, of sympathy. He is morti
fied when he discovers that you can so little enter into
the grounds of that emotion on his part of which the
outward sign, whether cheerful or sad, seemed to find so
prompt an echo in your bosom. And you are vexed,
ready to be angry with yourself as well as with him,
because you cannot see the matter in question in the
same light in which it presents itself to him.
What is it that is here wanting ? The very essence
and reality of sympathy. For sympathy is not merely
the irresistible impulse to laugh when you see laughter,
and to weep when you see tears. It is the communion of
mind with mind, alike in laughter and in tears.
I speak of mind, not in any high, transcendental and
spiritual sense of the word, — as if it were only in the
region of pure reason and divine intuition that sympathy
could exist. No doubt it is there only that it can exist
in fuU perfection ; when enlightened and holy souls
thoroughly comprehend and approve of one another. I
speak of mind in the oriinary and common-place use of
r,

258 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
the phrase, — the mind which, as regards the things that
touch you as sentient and social beings, you can have in
common with the whole, or with any one, of the human
family. Only this community of mind must be genume.
It cannot be either forced or feigned.
A good test or iUustration may be found in your inter
course with children. We may experiment with them,
because they are so natural. A laughing chUd, a crying
child, who can withstand ? The clear, bright ring of the
laugh ; the sad, wailing cry ; go straight to your heart. You
are irresistibly attracted. You draw near. The little one
notices your radiant face, or your clouded brow. He too is
irresistibly attracted. He welcomes your advances. He
runs to meet you. He seats himself on your knee and nestles
in your bosom. He is ready and eager to tell you all
his story. He has a budget of news to open up to you.
The triumph he has won ; or the dire mishap and griev
ance he has met with ; you must hear it all. On he goes
fluently and freely. But he watches your eye. He feels
your embrace. And soon, in your listless or averted
look ; in your slackened hold of him ; in your drowsy
apathy, or Ul-concealed weariness and disgust ; he catches
evidence enough that your mind is not with his mind.
The charm is speedily broken; the speU is dissolved. You
and he are soon strangers again ; strangers even more
than you ever were before. In vain you try to put a
constraint upon yourself, and compel yourself to feel or
show an interest in the little feUow's recital of his suc
cesses or his wrongs. He is a quick observer of the
countenance and shrewd reader of the heart ; too shrewd

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 259
to be easUy imposed upon. Anything artificial he soon
detects. If you would keep him after you have won
him, you must be natural. Spontaneously, in genuine
feUow-feehng, you must be moved to lay your mind
alongside of his mind.
Be it so. You enter into his chUdhood and are a
chUd with him. You enter with him into childhood's
way of viewing things, and feeling things, and talking
about things. In and with him, you speak as a chUd,
you understand as a child, you think as a child. And
you do so without an effort. It is your disposition and
your delight to do so. And doing so thus, you make
your prattling friend your own ; you get him to trust
and love you. Nay more, you get him to sympathize
with you, as you sympathize with him. You draw him
up to look at things from your stand-point, or point of
view, through your being so wUling and able to look at
them from his. And if he has had any grudge or sus
picion against you when you first began to deal with
him, your unaffected cordiality in overlooking his petty
offences, and provocations, and outbreaks of mischief; your
kindness to him in spite of them; your ready smUe and
tear when he is glad or sorry; and above aU, your
cheerful patience in listening to what he has to say, and
your prompt inteUigence in taking up and taking in
details and experiences which he cannot always get his
seniors to comprehend, — these manifestations of real good
wUl and a hearty good understanding may go far to
make a conquest of him for the only purpose you care to
have in view, — his learning to be of the same mind with

260 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
you, and being brought to sit as a meek and quiet dis
ciple at your feet and at your Master's.
That is the object, and the sole object, which you reaUy
contemplate in all your intercourse with " them which
persecute you." Your heart's desire and prayer is, that
they should be of the same mind with you, like-minded
with you as regards aU that concerns the glory of God
and the salvation of souls ; the divine honour and their
own true interests in time and for eternity. That is the
way in which you would have your " being of the same
mind," you and they together, "one toward another," ulti
mately brought about. With an eye to that you seek
them and their feUows, in the intercourse of ordinary
life, or in special endeavours to do them good.
But they thwart and oppose you. And their oppo
sition often takes a form and character peculiarly fitted
to irritate and annoy. You have some difficulty in
curbing your sorely-tried temper, and suppressing your
rising indignation. There is a swelling of righteous
anger in your bosom, if not even something almost
approaching to a half-smothered malediction on your
lips. But you curse not ; no, not in your bed-chamber,
not in your inmost soul. And that you may be sure
not to curse, — safe against the risk of the slightest
approach to cursing, even in a passing thought, you
make a point, you make conscience, of blessing. You
select and single out the very individual toward whom,
for his sore and ceaseless troublesomeness and pertinacity
of opposition, you might be most tempted to indulge a
slight feehng of vindictiveness. He is to be the special

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 261
object of your good wishes and good offices, your fervent
prayers and pious assiduities. Nor is it as if you were
a superior and isolated being, dropping a compliment or
an alms down from above to one far beneath and away
from you. Not thus supercilious and arrogantly con
descending, or cold and distant, is your benediction to be.
He is to you a man and a brother. Though not yet a
feUow-Christian, he is a feUow-man ; one who, like your
self, when tickled must laugh, and when smitten is fain
to cry. As a feUow-man, you feel for him and with
him. His rejoicing and his weeping may not be alto
gether such as yours now are. Your rejoicing in God,
your weeping for sin, he cannot understand or appreciate.
And his joy for some worldly success, his grief for some
worldly loss, may not be altogether such as your chastened
spirit in the like circumstances would feel But they are
human and natural, at aU events ; and as human and
natural, they make an appeal to that human and naiural
sensibihty in you, which your new Christian principle of
godlike phUanthropy, so far from quenching, only quickens
and refines and intensifies tenfold.
For you wUl not, you cannot, so separate yourself
from your worst enemy, or the worst enemy of your
Lord, as to be able to school your mind into the habit of
looking on unmoved while his whole frame is quivering
with rapture or with agony. The agents and servile
ministers of a cold and bloody superstition may be some
how trained to some such custom of insensibihty. When
the opposers of her proud Antichristian pretensions are
helplessly in her hands, as the victims of her lawless

262 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
power, Rome can get her priests and satellites to bless
those whom she teaches them to regard as offenders and
persecutors. Yes ! It is with a blessing pronounced
over their heads ; it is as their well-wishers, consulting
for their good ; that Rome's inquisitors consign her
enemies to the devouring fire ; — not certainly rejoicing
with them when they rejoice, or weeping with them when
they weep ; but heartlessly mocking their song of praise,
and exulting with fiendish delight over the cries and
groans which intolerable torture wrings reluctantly from
flesh and blood.
It is not so, however, that you have learned Christ.
It is not thus that you bless them which persecute you.
Nor is it stiffly and half contemptuously, as if from a
distance or from an eminence, standing upon a pinnacle
where you may exult in your independence of aU their
assaults. No. You are among them as men of like pas
sions, like susceptibUities and sensibilities, with themselves.
They see that you can smUe, and laugh, and weep, as
they do ; that you joy in their joy, and mix your tears
with theirs. Nor is this a mere transient, superficial
emotion on your part ; aU traces of it passing away when
their grief or gladness is out of sight, or when they try
to draw you into their confidence, and open to you their
minds. No. They find that you can readily enter into
their views and wishes ; sit beside them and listen to all
that they have to say, not only without weariness, but
with a quick apprehension of their meaning and a warm
interest in their tale.
Meet your feUow-men thus ; simply, unostentatiously,

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 263
naturally. Watch for opportunities of access to their
.homes and hearts in seasons when these hearts are
opened by some mercy, or softened by some sore stroke
of Providence. They may have been accustomed to
^conceive of you as censors and monitors, frowning on
their pleasures, fatiguing them with common-place
discourse. Let them see, in some hour of deep move
ment of soul, that, not as if you were making an effort,
or had a purpose to serve, but spontaneously, on the
impulse of genuine human feeling, you are with them on
the first tidings of their weal or woe ; to congratulate,
to condole, to be one of themselves ; — not thrusting upon
them some high-flown spiritual view of your own, which,
you think, they ought to be taking of their case ; but
unaffectedly ready to take simply their natural view of
it, and for the time to make it yours.
They thought, if you visited them at aU, it would be
to lecture them ; to reprove and scold them ; to find
fault with their way of looking at the matter, as nature
bids them look at it, in its aspect of natural joy or grief;
and to insist upon their looking at it through your eyes;
eyes so rapt in the contemplation of the supernatural and
the heavenly as to leave no room for the sight and sense
of homely household cares. But now they find that you
are reaUy one of themselves ; thinking, feeling, joying,
sorrowing, hke them.
May not their hearts be thus touched? Ah ! they
begin to be ashamed of the injustice they have been
doing you The roughest and hardest begin to under
stand and know you. They relent towards you As

264 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
they see how you enter, inteUigently as well as sympa
thizingly, into their joys and sorrows, they come to have
some idea of yours, and to think on their part of entering
into yours. They now can imagine how you feel, and
how you are minded, amid the opposition, the suspicion,
the reproach, which they have been inflicting on you. They
are seriously inclined to be of the same mind now with
you, and to sympathize with you. In spite of them
selves, almost, they are led to do so. For thus simply
meeting them, as men meeting men, you throw yourselves
upon them, when you throw yourselves among them.
Freely, frankly, unreservedly, you let them know your
case, as you show them that you know their case. They
learn to understand you, as they see that you can under
stand them. Suspicion of you gradually gives place to
sympathy with you. They were jealous of you as
intruders ; they perceive that you are friends, — that you
not only feel for them and with them, but are desirous
that thej' should feel for you and with you Win them
thus, in matters of common humanity, to apprehend how
much you and they have in common ; and you open up
a way for still further winning them, by divine grace, to
understand those higher matters of God and of eternity,
in respect of which ultimately your aim is that they and
you should be of the same mind, in the Lord.
II. Such being the import of the positive command,
"Be of the same mind one toward another," the propriety
of the two negative or prohibitive injunctions which follow
wiU readily appear.

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 265
1. " Mind not high things, but condescend to men" or
things " of low estate." That obviously is a necessary con
dition of your cultivating the sort of genial and natural com
munity of mind which is required. You have undoubtedly
high things to mind ; but jtou are not so to mind them
as to be above accommodating yourselves to men and
things that may seem to you to be of inferior moment.
For there is a temptation here. You may be apt to regard,
if not your fellow-men themselves, at least many of the
matters about which they are occupied, and about which,
for the most part, they rejoice and are sad, as frivolous
or mean ; unworthy of the serious regard of one whose
"conversation is in heaven." The importance which they
attach to such things, the work they make about them,
and the keenness of their feehngs, too often neither very
amiable nor very respectable, in connection with them, aU
tend to awaken in you a certain impatient and intolerant
sentiment of disgust. You see trifles exaggerated, moun
tains made of molehUls, — extravagant excitement for the
most flimsy cause, or no cause at aU ; — your sensitive soul
revolts and recoUs ; you cannot force yourselves to descend
into scenes so far beneath the usual height of the spiritual
atmosphere in which you live ; you cannot really bring
your mind to be on a level with what passes there.
But see ! whUe you are hesitating, yonder follower of
Jesus, — certainly, as you must own, as well entitled and as
much accustomed to mind high things as you can be. No
scruples trouble him ; no awkward reserve or false shame
embarrasses him. Away he goes, and down he plunges,
among the lowest concerns of the lowest class of his

266 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
neighbours. Without affectation, without an effort, with
out seeming to condescend or to stoop ; — naturally, simply,
spontaneously, he puts himself alongside of that rejoicing
or weeping household ; he sets his mind alongside of
theirs. He is one of them. Their interests are his. No
matter how much there may be of what is poor and base
about the people he is among, and about the things they
care for. He is at home with them ; he makes them
perceive that he is so ; he is with them on equal terms ;
and he can so understand and feel how they are minded,
and how in their circumstances they cannot but be minded,
as to become similarly minded himself. Thus, not arti
ficially, or to serve a purpose, but out of the genuine sim
plicity of an honest and good heart, he literal^, and in a
good sense, stoops to conquer. He thus, while your fas
tidious minding of high things may be keeping you aloof,
wins access into many a house and many a heart, — first
for his words of simple fellow-feeling, and then for words
of heavenly wisdom ; following the example of the Apostle,
who was wiUing to " become aU things to all men that he
might win some ;" walking in the steps of the Saviour,
who did not " break the bruised reed or quench the smok
ing flax ; " and earning for himself* a share in that blessed
promise, of which you maybe in danger of coming short;
— "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as
the stars for ever and ever" (Dan. xii. 3).
2. " Be not wise in your own conceits," is the other
warning given in connection with the precept, "Be of the
same mind one toward another." It is the fitting sup-

SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH MIND. 267
plement or counterpart of that previous warning, " Mind
not high things." Beware lest there be at the root of
your inabUity to unbend, something of the noxious ele
ment of spiritual pride or spiritual conceit. May it not
be the " high things" of self that you are minding, and
not the "high things" of God? And while you seem to
be repeUed by the contrast between the low and trivial
affairs of earth with which your neighbours are taken up,
and the heavenly pursuits in which you are engaged, —
may not the repeUing cause be in truth a contrast far
more personal ? In the judgment of your superior spiri
tual wisdom they may be fools ; and their works and
ways may be foolish. Self-esteem, after aU,- — or an undue
opinion or conceit of yourself in your own mind, — may
be the real hinderance to your having that genial and
frank community of mind which otherwise you might be
dehghted to have with your fellow-men, simply as your
feUow-men, whatever may be their character, whatever
their relation to you, and whatever the difference be
tween your ways and theirs. Therefore take this second
warning as a necessary addition to the former one. And
let neither the minding of high things, nor the minding
of self, come in the way of your accommodating your
mind to theirs, in the matters that interest them, —
always in the hope that you may thus, by God's blessing,
bring them in time to accommodate their minds to yours
in respect of the things which belong ahke to their peace
and to yours.
And now, in fine, let it be ever borne in mind, that

268 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
the sovereign remedy for aU such tendencies as those
against which the Apostle warns you, is a right appre
ciation of the worth and value of every human being, —
every member of the family of man. Be he who he
may, and what he may, — be he ever so degraded and
vile in your eyes and the eyes of others, — be he ever so
unamiable, ever so uncongenial, ever so unfriendly, — still
let him be to you what he is to God, and Christ, and the
Holy Spirit — and holy angels too. Look at him, not in
the hght of earth's partial distinctions, but in the light
of heaven's common and universal estimate ; — the esti
mate of Him who is "no respecter of persons " — before
whom all alike are " concluded under sin" (Gal. iii. 22),
and who " will have aU men to be saved and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. iL 4). Recog
nise the dignity of every man ; let man, simply as man,
be sacred in your eyes. Count no man beneath your
regard ; nor anything about which any man may be natu
raUy and honestly interested. Let him on whom Phari
sees in the church, and the vulgar proud in society, affect
to look down, see that you respect him, and that you
would have him to respect himself. Be foUowers, in this
way, of Him who was reproached as the " friend of pub
licans and sinners," and of whom it is testified that " the
common people heard him gladly."

GENEROSITY. 269

IV.
THE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS — GENEROSITY
AND HONOUR.
" Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight
of all men." — Rom. xii. 17.
These two precepts are to be viewed in the light of those
that go before (ver. 1 4-1 6). The Apostle is laying down
rules for your guidance as Christians, not in your special
brotherly intercourse with one another, but in your
general charitable intercourse with mankind.
You come in contact with the world ; and you meet
with persecution in the world. Instead of cursing them
which persecute you, it is your duty to bless them. That
you may be safe from the risk of cursing them, wishing
them ill, or cherishing a grudge against them, as you might
be tempted to do, when they thwart and hinder you in
your Master's work, you are to make them very particu
larly the objects of your solicitude, in your prayers and
pious efforts. Bless them. And see that you do so, and let
them see that you do so, not with that air of superiority,
that sort of supercilious, patronizing condescension, which
is sure to irritate rather than win them ; as if, separating
yourself from them, and looking at their impotent rage or
malice, or their stiff more provoking callousness and in-

270 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
difference, from a distance or from an eminence, you
graciously vouchsafed, not to curse, but to bless. Show
them that you have a real, hearty, human fellow-feeling
with them as your feUow-men ; that they have your
honest sympathy in their concerns (ver. I 5). Let this
sympathy, moreover, be inteUigent and patient. Let it
not be the mere fleeting tribute of a sentimental smile or
siarh ; the evanescent emotion of one who is so far touched
by the outward signs of grief or of gladness as to have
a kindly word, or look, or gift, to bestow in passing,
but who cares not to be troubled further about the case.
There are few things so disappointing and chiUing to a
warm heart ; so likely to widen the breach between you
and those to whom, in spite of their opposition to you and
to Christianity, you would fain extend your good offices
and good will ; as when they perceive, on their beginning
to open their mind to you about the joy or sorrow with
which you have seemed to be sympathizing, that you cannot
spare the time, or take the pains, or open your mind, to
let their story in. Let not this be the manner of your
sympathy. Show them, not artificially and stiffly, but
naturally, that you can lay your mind alongside of theirs,
and can be at the trouble to understand what they think
and feel ; that you do not " mock their useful toil, their
homely joys and destiny obscure," or " hear with a dis
dainful smile the short and simple annals of the poor ;"
that you are not so raised and elevated into a transcen
dental region of high and heavenly musing as to be above
taking a human interest in " those trifles which make the
sum of human bhss and woe;" and more than aU, that

GENEROSITY. 271
you are not so wrapt up in the notion of your own
spiritual superiority as to count it a degradation or an
effort to condescend to them and their affairs (ver. 1 6).
Be ye thus " gentle unto all, apt to teach, patient ; in
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves."
It is at this stage, and in this connection, that the two
precepts enjoining, — the one, forbearance or abstaining
from retaliation towards any man, and the other, honesty
or being upon honour with all men, — are introduced ;
and as thus introduced, they wiU be found to harmonize
well with the general lesson the Apostle is enforcing ; —
the lesson of what I would caU — Christianized humanity.
I. As to the first of these precepts, — one might be
inclined to ask, — is it needful, after aU that has been
already said, to add the warning, — "Recompense to no
man evU for evil?" What risk is there of your doing
so, if you go among your feUow-men in the spirit and
manner already described ? Is it not, at any rate, a kind
of work of supererogation, if it be not even hke casting
doubt on the simplicity and sincerity of that Christian
and human habit of sympathy which you may be sup
posed now to be cultivating, to bid you, who are thus
minded among yourselves and towards aU men, beware
of so obvious a fault, and one so manifestly and flagrantly
incompatible with your being thus minded, as that of
retaliation? To the inspired Apostle, to the inspiring
Spirit, it does not appear to be so.
Let it be remembered that the principle of retahation
has in it a certain element of righteousness. To a large

272 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
extent it commends itself to our natural sense of justice.
" With what measure ye mete, it shaU be measured to
you again," is a sort of treatment which men feel to be
fair. The law of Moses expressly recognised and sanc
tioned the principle of retaliation as the rule of punish
ment in public criminal procedure ; — although it gave
no countenance to the Pharisaic gloss, condemned by
our Lord, which extended the application of the prin
ciple to the intercourse of private life. Even there,
however, in a modified form, the principle may be apt to
solicit occasional approval, and to solicit too the approval
of men who are far from being destitute of Christian
charity and Christian sympathy.
For the question may be raised in some such way as
this : How am I to treat one who injures me ; and not
merely injures myself personally, but in and through me,
injures my Lord and his cause ? ' It may be put upon
grounds and considerations altogether apart from any
personal feeling of mine. And it may be put very
plausibly in an extreme case.
Thus, personally, and so far as my own feelings are con
cerned, I am conscious of no ill-wiU. I can truly say
that there is not in my bosom the slightest inclination to
curse. On the contrary, I am certain that I wish the
man weU. It is in my heart to bless him, to pray for
him, — to do him all the good in my power. But is it
right to let his injurious conduct pass as if I did not
notice it, or did not disapprove of it ? For the sake of
the great interests involved, for the sake of the offender
himself, should he not be made to feel to what he has

GENEROSITY. 273
justly exposed himself? It is not that I care for the
wrong done to me, however UI he may be using me.
All that I could bear ; I could consent to lose aU that I
have, — fortune, and character, and life itseff, if I alone
and mine were the sufferers. But the cruel shaft strikes
deeper and higher. Christ himself is wounded. The
reproach faUs on Him. And the assailant is very per
tinacious. He will listen to no reason. AU the re
sources of friendly and kindly dealing with him have
been tried, and tried in vain. The case is really despe
rate. What is to be done ? Of course, I would not for
a moment dream of retaliating, in the way of inflicting
upon him the very same kind of injury that he is in
flicting upon me. But does not justice require that he
should be made to suffer somehow ? Is it not right that
he should be visited with some recompense or requital for
the evil he is doing ? If it is in my power to expose
him in certain quarters in which he is rendering me and
my religion no good service ; to show what sort of person
he is, and how he is acting towards me and others like
me ; to vindicate and right myself, though at the expense
of letting some of the legitimate consequences of his
behaviour come down upon him ; — am I not warranted
in doing so 1 May it not be my duty to do so ? Do I
not owe it to myself and to him, to Christianity, to
common honesty and justice, to do so? I maybe instru
mental in doing him some evU. But what of that?
Can I help it ? Is it not deserved ?
Is there not room here for self-deception ? Is there
no danger of your gliding thus unconsciously into the
s

274 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
false position of those of old time who said, " An eye for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth V Insensibly you bring
a judicial maxim, which may be right and good when
punishment or retribution is to be awarded judiciaUy, in
terms of public law, to bear upon the regulation of your
pei-sonal and private conduct as an individual You
make yourself a judge, and a judge in your own case.
This is the very subtlety of the snare. The evil done
to you, as you dwell upon it with a natural tendency
to exaggeration, so swells, and graduaUy grows in your
estimate of it, that it comes to be lifted out of the class
or category of personal and private wrongs, and assumes
the aspect and character of a public offence, such as
requires to be dealt with according to the principles of
equity, and truth, and right. This is your danger. You
quit the floor and usurp the bench. You forget that
you are a party ; you assume to be the judge. Meeting
the evil-doer, as man meeting man, on the common arena
of ordinary hfe, you overlook the injury ; you have not
a word to say about it ; you treat him as if it had never
had an existence. But it has other than merely per
sonal bearings. These bulk in your eye. They seem to
you to demand consideration. How, in the view of these
other bearings, the matter is to be disposed of, is a
question that falls to be determined. Are you to deter
mine that question? Do you set yourself to determine
it ? Are you the fittest person to determine it ? May
it be safely left to you to say, in what so nearly concerns
yourself, how far reasons of a general nature, irrespective
of what is personal to you, may require that the evU

GENEROSITY. 275
should be noticed, even at the risk or to the effect of its
being recompensed with evU? Is not that really a
judicial question ? And are you a competent, or an im
partial judge ? Safer for you is the maxim of the text,
" Recompense to no man evil for evil."
Or, as I may now put it, safer for you is the maxim
of the Lord ; — " Judge not." For in part, at least, that
maxim corresponds with the maxim of the Apostle, as I
have been trying to explain it. And in that view the
whole force of the motive which the Lord suggests may
be brought to bear on the enforcing of it ; — " Judge not,
that ye be not judged." Consider the manner in which
you are now warranted to hope and believe that God
deals with you, as regards the evil which you do to Him ;
and deal ye in like manner with your feUow-men, in
regard to the evU which they do to you.
How does God deal with you now for the evil which
you have done to Him ? Does he recompense evil for
evil ? Does he judge ?
Assuredly, if he does judge, it must be to the effect of
recompensing evU for evil. That is the fixed, unchange
able law of his moral administration. And it is a law
founded, not on any consideration of the evU as affecting
himself personaUy, but on a view of it infinitely broader,
deeper, higher. Your evil, 0 sinner, extendeth not to
him personally, any more than does the goodness of the
holiest of his saints. But it tarnishes the glory of his
eternal name; it touches the foundation of his everlasting
throne ; it puts to hazard the well-being of his whole
inteUigent creation ; it saps the pillars of law and justice

276 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
which uphold the universe. On grounds like these must
he proceed when, as a judge, he deals with you for the
evil you have done ; and, proceeding upon such grounds,
he must needs, in a terrible sense and to a terrible effect,
recompense evil for eviL
Is it so that you now, 0 believing brethren, conceive
of God as dealing with you? Why is it not so? Has
God abdicated his functions as judge ? Has he aban
doned the seat of judgment ? Ah ! you weU know that
he has not. But one has been found, — the Judge himself
has found him, the very God against whom and in whose
sight your evU has been done ; one has been found,
able and wUling to stand for you, and to answer for you
in the judgment. With him God has dealt for your
evU ; judiciaUy he has dealt with him ; in the fullest
measure of justice, to the utmost extent of the require
ments of law, recompensing evil for evU. And you, led
by the Spirit, have been brought into such a relation of
oneness and identity with this chosen one, that, virtually
and truly, God's judicial dealing with him for your evil
has become a judicial dealing personally with you. For
you are crucified with Christ. With Christ for you,
with you in Christ, God has dealt, as judge ; recom
pensing evil for eviL This you have believed, realized
and felt, in your being ingrafted into Christ ; and so
ingrafted into him as to be partakers of his death ;
the death which he died when the recompense, or retri
bution, of your evil came upon him. And now, as
there is no more recompensing of evU for evil, — evil
deserved for evil done, — in his case, as your represen-

GENEROSITY. 277
tative ; so neither is there any more of that mode of
deahng on the part of God in your case, as represented
by Christ. The footing on which you now are with God
is such as to preclude, — as to any judicial application of
it, — the lex talionis, or prmciple of retaliation. There is
no more any judicial recompensing of evil for evil. That
is over and done, in Christ for you, and therefore to you
in Christ. It is not in that way, nor by that rule, that
God now deals with you. No. He does not in that sense
judge ; recompensing evil for eviL His treatment of you
now is altogether gracious ; good, and only good.
When you consider this ; and when you consider at
what a cost, and by what a sacrifice, your God and Father
has, if we may dare so to speak, freed himself from the
necessity of dealing with you judicially, and recompensing
to you personaUy evil for evil, — even at the cost, and by
the sacrifice, of his laying upon his own beloved Son the
inflicted evU, in recompense for your committed evil,
which otherwise must have come upon you, and crushed
you everlastingly; — how can you ever think of introducing
again into your treatment of your feUow-men anything
like that element of judicial retaliation which your God
has thus, so marveUously and graciously, provided for
and disposed of, in his treatment of you ? Ah ! wUl you
not rather lean to the side of being wUling almost,
yourself, hke Christ, to be the victim in a case hke this ?
He consented to suffer, the just for the unjust, that he
might bring you to God. When your evil, the evU of
your sin against his Father and himself, was upon him,
he had no thought of recompensing evU for evU to you.

278 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
Are you caUed to suffer in this respect with him ? Be
content to suffer as he did. Be willing to bear all the
scath. Let him who does you the evU escape ; and be
you, in a sense, the victim and the scapegoat, bearing the
evil, and not resenting it. So you manifest your oneness
of spirit with Christ, as he manifested his oneness of
spirit with the Father. And so you go forth into a
hostile world, as he did, meek and lowly in heart, never
aUowing any sense of wrong or apprehension of ill-usage
to interfere with the full flow of your warm and generous
humanity. The man who needs your blessing, whose joy
or sorrow calls for your sympathy, you learn to regard
simply as a man. You refuse to look at him in any
other hght. You cast out of view all considerations of
his position, or his associations, or his habits and ways.
And if he has done, or is doing you, evil, you cast out of
view that consideration also. He is human and you are
human. The sole bond between him and you is your
common human fellow-feeling ; — intensified and haUowed,
on your part, by your longing desire to have him as a
fellow-partaker with yourself in the divine fellow-feeling
of " the man Christ Jesus."
II. The positive command, " Provide things honest in
the sight of all men," is a fitting sequel or supplement of
the preceding prohibition, " Recompense to no man evU
for evil."
The meaning of the expression, "Provide things honest,"
is not at first sight very clear. It might seem to point
to the duty of Christians making an honest and honour-

HONOUR. 279
able provision for themselves and their households, by
such habits of industry and economy as men generaUy
approve of. No doubt that is a duty ; and it is urged
as such upon Christians elsewhere. But the introduc
tion of it here would not be to the purpose. Nor does
the language in the original require, — -some would say,
it does not even suggest, — that meaning. The phrase is
wide and general. " Keep an honourable look-out ;" or,
"Be honourably on your guard;" or simply, "Be upon
honour," before all men, as to the matter on hand ; — that
may fairly be said to be the import of the Apostle's re
commendation. But perhaps the meaning of the phrase generally, and
as it is used here, may be best gathered from a passage
in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.1
Paul is there speaking of the collection which was in
course of being made by the Gentile churches on behalf
of the poor and persecuted saints in Jerusalem and through
out Judea. Among other arguments which he urges to
encourage the liberality of the Corinthians, he adverts to
the security which they had for the right and faithful man
agement and administration of the fund to which they
were asked to contribute. And in doing so, he lets them
see, in a remarkable manner, his practical good sense, his
1 Having spoken of Titus as being forward to visit Corinth, on the business of
the collection, Paul adds; — "And we have sent with him the brother, whose
praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches ; and not that only, but who
was also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace, which is
administered by us to the glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready
mind : avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is
administered by us : providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the
Lord, but also in the sight of men " — (2 Cor. viii. 17-21).

280 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
business-like wisdom and sagacity. Surely, in so far as
the gathering in, and safe custody, and ultimate disposal of
this money were concerned, he might have asked a vote of
implicit confidence ; he might have stood upon his character
and credit. What need, with such a man as Paul, of
witnesses, and checks, and auditors ? Is not his word as
good as his bond ? Are not his hands as trustworthy as
the Imperial Treasury ? But no. See how careful he is
to guard against the risk of his good being evU spoken
of. He wUl have associated with himself in this business
persons whose concurrence and co-operation shaU prevent
the possibihty of suspicion. He is not content with one,
however unexceptionable. He must have two witnesses
at least. There must be joined to himself and Titus,
another accredited agent of undoubted and weh-known
reputation for trustworthiness. And the reason which
the Apostle gives for such precaution is, that, on the
one hand, he may not be liable to even a whisper
that might be prejudicial to his good name ; — " Avoid
ing this, that no man should blame us in this abundance
which is administered by us ;" — but that, on the contrary,
and on the other hand, his scrupulous integrity and cor
rectness may be clear before aU eyes ; — "Providing for
honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also
in the sight of men."
Thus even in a pecuniary transaction, in the keeping
of an account, Paul's sense of honour was keen. He was
sensitively alive to the maintenance of his character as a
man of honour in the opinion of his feUow-men. It was
not enough for him to have the testimony of his own

HONOUR. 281
conscience before God. He desires to stand weU, as an
honourable man, with his feUow-men. He takes pains
to secure that he shaU.
No doubt, with him, this regard for his own honour
was subservient to a higher end. He sought to turn
it to account for the greater glory of Him whose
servant he was, and for the higher good of those with
whom he desired to stand welL StUl the material fact
is, that he attaches value and importance to the opinion
which men may form of him and of his conduct. He
wUl see to it that, in any trust he may undertake, his
honour shaU not be open to question.
Now it is the same phraseology that the same Apostle
uses, in his exhortation here addressed to the Romans, as
in his protestation there to the Corinthians. He exhorts
the Romans, — he exhorts you, believers, to be as sensitive
on the point of honour as he teUs you, in his Epistle
to the Church at Corinth, that he was himself.
There is a difference as regards the matter at issue;
but it is a difference which makes the exhortation aU
the stronger. Paul himself was sensitive as to his own
honour, in a matter of mere pecuniary adjustment, in
which he might have defied aU assailants, and scorned to
lead proof, or refer to any witnesses as associated for
that purpose with himself. He would have you to be
as sensitive as he was ; but in a higher region or depart
ment of duty. For it is here not a special, and as one
might say, financial, question ; the auditing and setthng of
the accounts connected with a collection of alms. It is
a question of far higher Christian duty.

282 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
It is virtually the question, as put by aU men ; Are
you in good faith ; are you upon honour, in your inter
course with us ? — with the world in which you and we
meet ? Do you mean what you profess ? what you say ?
Do you really "recompense to no man evil for evil?"
It is a very searching question ; and a question of very
wide reach, — not to be restricted to one single particular,
but of general application. It is nothing short of this
question, addressed to Christians, as consecrated to God,
bound in a holy feUowship among themselves, and caUed to
exercise towards the world in which they hve, the forbear
ance, the toleration, the unresisting and uncomplaining
meekness of Christ himself ; Are you in earnest ? — in
good faith ? — upon honour ? And are you so in earnest
that you may appeal, not only as men of piety to God,
but as men of honour to the world itself ? Can you stand
confidently upon your honour, before the world, as you
stand confidently upon your consciousness and your con
science before God ?
That is the appeal. And it is a right and relevant
appeal, when the matter to which it relates is not your
intercourse with your God, — you alone with him alone,
— but your intercourse with your fellow-men.
Nor is the appeal, alas ! by any means, unnecessary.
For there certainly is an impression, even in quarters en
titled to some respect, that a high profession of Christianity,
— of Christian holiness or Christian meekness, — is some
times regarded by those who make it as somehow setting
them above, or setting them free from, some of the rules and
considerations of truth and courtesy upon which honour-

HONOUR. 283
able and high-minded men of the world consider them
selves bound to act. No doubt the impression is often
erroneous, the result of ignorance or prejudice. " The
natural man" cannot fuUy understand " the spiritual"
man. The spiritual man, being himself one of " the
things of the Spirit of God," can be only " spirituaUy dis
cerned" (1 Cor. ii. 14, 15). There may, therefore, be not
a little in his demeanour and walk fitted to perplex
onlookers, who have no insight into the character of his
inner life of faith, and no sympathy with its motives.
There may be anomahes of conduct, apparent deviations
from the line that approves itself to their eyes as the
straightest, which they may be at a loss to account for,
in such a one as he is ; and which he himself, if called
upon, would be at a loss to explain intelligibly to them.
Still, admitting aU that, it is to be feared that the blame
is not always on one side. Beyond all question, your
decided Christian and evangelical profession may so far, in
this particular, be a snare to you. You may be apt to feel
as if the higher and more heavenly principles upon which
you are caUed to act, did to some extent supersede the
ordinary and trite common-places of a lower and more
earthly code of morals. It is human nature ; the nature
of the human heart, which " is deceitful above ah things,
and desperately wicked."
You may not be conscious of this lurking antinomian
tendency. But beware of it. Much scandal to rehgion
may come of it ; and that in many ways.
Take, for instance, the case of a man of high religious
profession, on whose Christian integrity in aU his business

284 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
transactions, business men have been accustomed implicitly
to rely. Suddenly it is discovered that he has been pur
suing a course which common, vulgar, worldly honesty
condemns. Perhaps the man is not a wUful hypocrite ;
deliberately trading on his Christian character, and mak
ing a gain of godhness. Very probably his decline and
fall may be traced, as to their source or commencement, to
some sort of idea hke this getting secret entrance into his
mind ; — ' I am a Christian. I must, as a Christian, con
duct my business upon high Christian principles. I mean
to do so. My establishment is to be one that is sancti
fied by the word of God and by prayer. So far as in me
lies, its atmosphere is to be pure and pious, spiritual
and heavenly. I do not intend to be contented with the
mere conforming of my practice to the letter of the law,
and such a routine of plain deahng as may satisfy those
who know no higher standard than that of the world's
conventional morahty. I, for my part, aim at something
more. I draw my rules and motives from above.'
So far welL But as things move on, he comes into
contact with parties wUling to be his instruments and
agents ; themselves not over-scrupulous as regards ad
herence to the rules of fair trading and fair play, and
ready enough to cover their laxity under the cloak of an
appeal to a sort of transcendental spirituality. He gets
into difficulties. He needs and accepts the help of such
aUies. Insensibly he suUies his bright shield, and lets
mists gather on " the eye" which, " even turned on empty
space," should " beam keen with honour." His notions of
right and wrong are warped. He becomes a practical

HONOUR. 285
Jesuit, — a subtUe schoolman, — a sophist, — a casuist. Nice
points about the lawful and the expedient perplex him.
Vague purposes of restitution, dreamy prospects of extri
cation, lead him, like a meteor, deeper and deeper into
the bog. AU the while, shedding a general halo and
odour of sanctity over his whole proceedings, and merging
questions of detail in the one grand end contemplated,
there is his Christian desire and intention of making
all ultimately subservient to the glory of God, the cause
of Christ, and the good of souls. So he bewUders him
self in a spiritual ideal, whUe his real business life is be
coming one practicaUy of not only most unspiritual, but
most unrighteous management, and most unscrupulous
manoeuvring, — on which aU people of probity cry shame.
Oh ! to save himself from the yawning pit of fraud,
and from a bankruptcy worse than that of fortune ! And
what is needed to save him ? What, by God's help, wiU
save him ? Let him borrow for a moment the world's
eyes : yes ; the eyes of the unconverted, but yet unso
phisticated world. Let him look upright men in the face,
and judge after their upright judgment. Let him "pro
vide things honest in the sight of aU men."
As it stands in the passage now before us, this precept,
or warning, is given in connection with the course of con
duct which you are caUed to pursue, and the demeanour you
have to observe, as members of Christ's body, in your inter
course with the world, considered as a system of things and
state of society sure to be adverse, and apt to be persecut
ing. Here, too, there is room for the operating of the
temptation now in question. There is a risk,' — those of

286 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
you who best know yourselves, and have been most tried
by being brought into close personal contact with scenes
and persons uncongenial to you as spiritual men, will be
the first to acknowledge that there is a serious risk, — of
your becoming, if not spirituaUy proud, yet, at all events,
spiritually sensitive, and spiritually selfish. You practise
meekness, no doubt, and exercise forbearance ; you bless,
and curse not ; you do good, moreover, as you have op
portunity; you are not unkind ; you do not retaliate.
But somehow you draw off, and separate, and isolate
yourself. On the faith of that very patience and gentle
ness under evil treatment which you are enabled to exhibit,
you feel almost as if you were entitled to take your own
way, and pursue your own path, apart. Your fellows, with
whom you are associated, feel as if, while you bore with
them, you shunned them. You let them perceive how
much it costs you to bear with them, and how little you
and they have in common. They perceive that you are
determined to do your duty to them. But they perceive
also that it is to a large extent without the eye of honour,
and without the heart of sympathy and love.
To guard against so unhappy a result or tendency, the
Apostle would have you to recognise, not only your
fellow-men generally, but even those among them from
whom, on account of their opposition to you, or their
personal qualities, or any other cause, you may be most
inclined to keep your distance, as entitled nevertheless,
or rather all the more on that account, to your respect
and deference. It is an old maxim, that " the greatest
reverence is due to children," — (maxima debetur pueria

HONOUR. 287
reverentia). If you would win them and have influence
over them, you must respect them, and be upon honour with
them; they must be made, moreover, to feel that you do
respect them, and really are upon honour with them.
To treat them, however kindly, as if you were not
in any sense or to any extent amenable to their judg
ment, — as if you could set at nought their criticism, — ¦
as if it mattered not to you what they thought of you, —
as if they were incompetent to form any opinion of
you or of your proceedings at all deserving of regard, —
is to commit a fatal error, and to forfeit your moral
hold over them. There is, there must be, some measure
of awe in your conduct towards them. You must prac
tically show them that you wish them to understand
you, — that you value their approval, and desire to stand
well with them, — that you do justice to them, and would
have them to do justice to you, — if you would have them
to take in good part the advances which you make to
them in good faith, and to give to these advances a frank
and cordial response.
In the same way you must deal with those in the
world around you whose suspicious hostihty you would
disarm, and whose confidence you desire to concUiate.
They must not be to you, or imagine that they are to
you, a separate caste, — or a set of outcasts, — to whom
you may extend, as over a gulf, the hand of benevo
lence, and some sign also of a common sympathy, — while
between them and you there are no relations of equal
and mutual responsibUity recognised. Let them not
suppose that you undervalue either themselves or their

288 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
thoughts of you, — that, contented with the verdict of
your conscience and your God, you care little for what
their impression or their feeling may be, as to your actions
and dispositions towards them. Let it be in their sight,
as in the sight of aU men, that you " provide things
honest," — that you desire to be honourably approved.
Then thej'- wiU apprehend that they are treated by you
really as your feUow-men. Their just and reasonable
self-esteem will not be wounded, but satisfied and grati
fied. All painful sense of inferiority wiU be extin
guished. The scowling brow will unbend ; the closed
hand will relax and open ; the jealous spirit will relent ;
the cold heart wUl warm ; — and the man who may have
been accustomed to shut his door against the visitor who
came only to act the part of a benefactor, a weU-wisher,
a sympathizer, a patron, wiU welcome you who come to
him as man to man. Instinctively perceiving that you
respect his manhood and desire him to respect yours, he
wiU with open arms receive you as his own and his
children's friend, and lend a ready ear, — the Spirit
making him willing, — to aU that you have to say as
to that higher platform of divine as well as human
feUowship, on which you would fain find yourself in a
position honourably to respect his Christianity, as you
ask him honourably to respect yours.

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 289

V.
THE END SOUGHT— PEACE.
" If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." —
Rom. xii. 18.
The qualifications or conditions attached to the precept,
" Live peaceably with all men," instead of weakening its
force, render it aU the more emphatic. They are more
over, at all events, demanded by the nature of the case.
They are not deemed necessary when the precept occurs,
as it does occur, elsewhere in the New Testament, and in
a different connection from that of our present text ; —
as when the Lord says, " Salt is good ; but if the salt
have lost his saltness, wherewith wUl ye season it?
Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with
another" (Mark ix. 50); — or the Apostle Paul, " Finally,
brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be
of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and
peace shaU be with you" (2 Cor. xiii. 1 1) ; — or again,
" We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour
among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish
you ; and to esteem them very highly in love for their
work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves" (1
Thess. v. 1 2, 1 3). In these passages the command refers
T

290 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
to your intercourse and feUowship with one another aa
believers. The command, in that case, is absolute.
It must be so. To assume, or admit, that the main
tenance of peace within the Church may be impossible,
is out of the question. The Church is Christ's body.
Its constituents, however many and diverse in office
and function, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another. To provide beforehand for a
breach of the peace, as if it could be at any time, or in any
circumstances, inevitable, would plainly be a suicidal and
self-contradictory arrangement. It would be a surrender
of the very principle on which tlie doctrine of your union
and communion in Christ is based. The ideal of the one
body with manymembers, or of the many members making
up one body, implies that there always ought to be, and
that there always may be, peace among themselves.
Provision, indeed, is made for offences coming even into
the Church, or body of Christ. In an alternative way
this is done. Provision is made for the case in which I
am in faiUt ; — " If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against
thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy
way; first be reconcUed to thy brother, and then come
and offer thy gift" (Matt. v. 23, 24). Provision is
also made for the case of my brother being in fault,
walking disorderly, or giving just cause of offence to
a feUow-disciple. But in the very law laid down for
the treating of this, as of. the other case, the principle,
or ideal, of the Church's corporate unity is assumed. A
Church member gratuitously and wilfully breaks the peace,

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 291
and wiU not suffer himself to be amenable either to pri
vate remonstrance or to more formal dealing. In these
circumstances, his conduct is to be viewed as so incom
patible with his Christian character and standing, that to
the party offended, at least, — to me, if I am the party
offended, — he is to be "as an heathen man and a publican."
Henceforth my duty towards him, so far as his breach of
the peace is concerned, comes under the category of what
I owe, not to a Christian brother, but to one of the unbe
heving ; — with whom, as with aU men, I am commanded
indeed to live peaceably, — -with the proviso, however,
" if it be possible."
Clearly, then, on every ground of consistency and
common sense, when the rule is given for the internal
pacification of the Church, and the guidance of its
members in their mutual relations among themselves, it
must be given unconditionaUy. The notion of its being
ever impossible to comply with the rule to live peace
ably must be scouted as wholly inadmissible.
It is otherwise, however, when the precept is announced
universaUy, or with a more immediate and special refer
ence to your connection with them that are without, and
your conduct towards them. Now, that is the case here.
It is your way of feeling and acting as regards the world,
or mankind generaUy, — the very world in which you are
to lay your account with being persecuted and evil-en
treated, — that is to be regulated and ruled. The com
mand, as applicable here, and in such a case, must obviously
be qualified. They with whom you have now to do are
not, or at least may not be, your brethren in the Lord.

292 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
You and they are not at one, and may have little or
nothing in common. The principles and maxims which
you hold sacred they do not acknowledge; and, indeed,
cannot understand. Of the Spirit which worketh in you
" the peaceable fruit of righteousness," they have no expe
rience. Peace, which is, or ought to be, the element in
which your soul moves and dweUs, is a strange dream to
them ; for " there is no peace, saith my God, to the
wicked." " The peace of God " does not " keep their
hearts and minds." They are " hke the troubled sea,
when it cannot rest." With such unquiet neighbours
you cannot always, if you would, live peaceably. Rather,
you must be constrained often to bewaU your hard lot,
as did the Psalmist ; — " Woe is me, that I sojourn in
Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar ! My soul hath
long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace ;
but when I speak, they are for war" (Ps. cxx. 5-7).
Nor is this alL This earth, on which you are to hve
peaceably, is the very earth of which the Lord himself
so emphaticaUy said, — " Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a
sword " (Matt. x. 34).
To keep the peace, then, upon a field of battle ; to
live peaceably, sword in hand; peaceably to wage war,
and that a war which knows no truce or compro
mise; — such is the practical problem given you to solve.
That the solution of it should be ever possible, might
seem to be the wonder ; not that it should sometimes not
be so. You, moreover, are the aggressors in this contest.
You, as it were, give the challenge; you provoke the

"FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 293
hostilities. You disturb the world's peace, such as it is.
Your preaching of Christ, your witnessing for Christ, your
living for Christ, all tend to break up men's repose, and
make them uneasy, and therefore angry. "The more faith
ful you are to Christ, and to them, the more must you run
the risk of irritating their pride, and rousing their pas
sions. The spirit that worketh among them, as the chil
dren of disobedience, is the serpent; between whose seed
and the seed of the woman the Lord hath put irreconcU-
able enmity. You go among them as men that would
turn the world upside down. How can you expect them
to hve peaceably with you? How can you hope to be
aUowed to live peaceably with them?
How but by entering into the spirit of that " Christian
ized humanity" which the Apostle has been commending ?
Let aU men see that, underlying the spiritual and heavenly
brotherhood into which you enter with Christ and aU
that are his, and hallowed and intensified by it, there
beats strong in your bosom the pulse of a real human
brotherhood with all who bear the human name. You
and they may be on opposite sides in the great battle
between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial,
for which earth finds the arena, and heaven and heU fur
nish the witnesses and onlookers. In that battle, kind
ness to them, as well as fidelity to yourselves and to
the Captain of your salvation, wiU not suffer you to give
them any rest, or to give their principles any quarter.
You must be ever assailing them, and ever pursuing them.
Then, moreover, as to the whole of that inner hfe which
is the real life of a man, you and they are wide as the

294 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
poles asunder. You cannot enter into their secret, or
admit them into yours. They and you are, and must
be, in the hidden life of your souls and theirs, strangers
and adversaries; without common sympathies; dwelling
apart ; — as it were, in different worlds.
Ah ! but on that very account try aU the more to live
peaceably with them aU. And for that end, make it clear
and palpable to them, that whUe you have no common
sympathies with them as fellow-believers, you have all
common sympathies with them as fellow-men. You have,
and wiU have, no quarrel with them in that character.
You do not, on the ground of your Christianity and their
opposition to it, elevate yourselves above them ; keeping
them at a distance ; looking upon them with a sort of
stern, supercilious pity, and from the height of your own
serene composure, sending down your blessing in exchange
for that cursing of theirs which, as you take care to let
them know, does not reach you. They, for their part,
are very apt to conceive of you as occupying such a
position towards them ; and so conceiving of you, it is
not wonderful that they should imagine that the con
troversy between you and them is a personal one, and
that you hold them personaUy to be your enemies or
your inferiors, and the objects of your dishke or your
contempt accordingly. The imagination, you feel in
your inmost soul, is groundless. See that you so act
towards them as to make them also feel that it is ground
less. Disarm their suspicion of there being any other
sentiments in your bosom towards them than sentiments
of warm friendship and entire good-wilL You are not

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 295
their enemies because you teU them the truth. You re
cognise them as entitled not only to your good offices
but to your smiles when they rejoice, and your tears when
they weep. There is no such cold distance, or jealous
dread, or stern defiance on your side, as they think. You
love and would live peaceably with them all
StiU there is need of the precept being qualified by
the conditional clauses, — " If it be possible, as much as
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." You may not
succeed in disarming worldly men's hostihty of its bitter
ness, and conciliating their confidence in your personaUy
kind dispositions towards them. They may persist in
beheving, or affecting to believe, that you mean to treat
them as enemies ; and they may be bent on treating you as
enemies. They wiU not accept your advances in good part ;
beheving, or affecting to believe, that they are not made
in good faith. They wUl pick a quarrel with you if they
can ; and if they wiU, they can. They wiU misunderstand,
or misconstrue, something, no matter what, in whatever
you say or do. They will listen to no explanations. There
can and shaU be no mistake. They will not suffer you
to hve on even civU and courteous terms with them.
The fault then is not yours. You take the benefit of
the hmitations of the statute. They into whose house
you enter, bearing good tidings, will not receive you, or
so much as give you a cup of cold water. You shake
the dust of their threshold from off your feet, as you leave
them with the solemn warning, — " Notwithstanding be
ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh
unto you " (Luke x. 1 1).

296 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
But remember ; if these hmitations and qualifications
of the statute are, in one view, a necessary abatement of
its strictness ; in another view, they deepen the solem
nity of its obhgation, and they enhance and increase your
responsibUity under it. For the words are very strong ; —
" If it be possible, as much as heth in you." They make
a very urgent appeal to your conscience and good faith,
as in the sight, not of man, but of God. They throw
upon you the burden of saying, in every case in which
you would apply them, — I cannot keep the peace as my
Lord would have me keep it. It is absolutely impossible.
Will any of you venture lightly to say that, at any
time, or with reference to any man ? If you are forced
to say it, will you say it with a feehng of relief, or with
a deep pang of regret ; with a contented mind, or in
brokenness of spirit ? Ah ! is it a conclusion in which
you can easUy and calmly acquiesce, to find a single
human being resolutely determined to be on such terms
with you, that you cannot hope to be aUowed to do him
an office of kindness, or speak to him a word in season ?
Ah ! my friends, you will weigh the matter weU before
you rest in such a consummation as that. You wiU not
be in haste to give over your fellow-man as inaccessible
to your overtures of peace. And if things seem tending
in that direction, knowing your own heart, and its deceit
fulness, you wiU be in far less haste to acquit yourself
of responsibUity and throw all the blame on him.
Only think what your finding it impossible to hve
peaceably with any individual 'man implies. It shuts
you out, as far as that individual man is concerned, from

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 297
all hope of participation in that most gracious beatitude,
" Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called
the children of God" (Matt. v. 9).
For, why would you live peaceably with any man ?
What makes it worth whUe to try to live peaceably with
any man? Why should you bear injuries unavenged,
and confer kindness undeserved, and take an infinite deal
of trouble to have aU needless causes of offence removed,
with a view to your living peaceably with any man ? Is
it merely for his pleasure, or for your own pleasure ? Is
it because you feel it to be painful, and you think he
may feel it to be painful too, to be on bad terms with a
fehow-creature ? Is it because to hve peaceably with
your neighbour is decent and seemly, and to quarrel is
a shame and scandal ? Surely that is not aU.
No, you say, that is not aU ; nay, it is not that at all.
If that were aU, I would give myself little concern com
paratively about what he thinks of me, or how he feels
towards me. That there should be a decent measure of
good understanding between him and me, is so far weU.
But that is not the end I seek. I long to be a peace
maker, not only between him and me, but between him
and my God. Ah ! what matters it that he is willing to
accept my proposals of peace ? I would that through my
instrumentality he were made wUling, in the day of the
Lord's power, to accept the proposals of peace which come
from the Prince of Peace himself ! Why is it that I am
anxious, and take pains, to remove and obviate any pre
judice he has taken up against me ? Why do I go about
so earnestly to explain what has offended hira ? Why

298 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
am I so eager that everything personal between him and
me should be cleared up ? Is it that my peace may visit
his soul ? No. But that, — my peace, if it please God,
pioneering the way, — his soul may be visited by that
"peace of God, passing understanding, which keeps the
heart and mind, through Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 7).
Now if it be thus, in this spirit and for this end, that
you make it your business, as it is your duty, at least
honestly to attempt to hve peaceably with all men, can
you contemplate without grief the failure of your attempt,
even in a single instance ? Can you easily make up your
mind to say, or to think, There is a man, one man at
least, in regard to whom I must now give up the hope of
ever being useful to hLs soul ? The state of things between
us has now come to be such, that I can never expect him
to listen to my voice, or yield to my influence, or profit
by my example. He wiU regard me always with a
jaundiced eye. He wiU look askant at any approach I
make to him. He will judge unfavourably of everything
I say or do. He wiU give me no credit for a sincere
profession or a consistent walk. He wUl suspect me as
a self-seeker, and brand me as a hypocrite. Ah ! how
can I win the blessedness of a true peacemaker in con
nection with him ? That privUege I may have in con
nection with others ; and some other brother may have
it even in connection with him ; but oh ! it is sad to
lose even a single opportunity of winning so honourable a
privUege, so godlike a blessedness, — in connection even
with a single soul.
And then when I reflect how his dislike of me, or sua-

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." 299
picion of me, or prejudice against me, may prejudice him
against other witnesses for Christ, and even against
Christ himself ; and how his report of me, or the rumour
of our disagreement, may so work in the minds and
hearts of many as to set them in hostility to true rehgion
and its professors altogether ; — when I thus realize to my
self the evil which my not finding myself able to live
peaceably with that one man, may do to him and to
multitudes besides, and to the cause I love and the name
in which I glory ; I wiU pause, and re-try the cause, as
between him and me, in the secret chamber of my own
broken heart, and before the tribunal of my quickened
conscience. Yes, I wiU ask if I have really exhausted aU
the legitimate means of pacification ? Have I in very
truth done aU I could do for the preventing or the heal
ing of this breach ? Is there no concession which pride,
under the subtle guise of self-esteem, has hindered me
from making ? Is there no point which I have mistaken
for a principle ; no punctilio on which I have been stand
ing as if it were the very pillar of the truth ? WhUe
not neglecting the things that make for peace, has there
been no lack of peace and love in my bosom, no coldness,
no mere perfunctory performance of what I considered
my duty towards him, with a view rather to the exoner
ating of myself than to the winning of him ; no restrain
ing, for him and for myself, of the effectual fervent prayer
of uprightness, which availeth much ?
Is it not thus, my friends, that you wUl feel and act
in every case in which your efforts as peacemakers seem
to be hindered ? Is it not thus that you wUl deprecate

300 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
such a result as a sore evU, in which only after much
searching of heart, and deep communing with God, you
can ever bring yourselves sorrowfuUy to acquiesce ? Is it
not thus that, " if it be possible, as much as heth in you,
you wiU hve peaceably with aU men?"
The view which I have given of the import and
bearing of this precept about peace, may serve to show
how fitting a close and climax it is to those precepts
which go before. It is in the light of this last com
mandment that these are aU to be regarded. Your great
object and aim, in aU your dealings with " them which
persecute you," — with men generaUy in the world, — is
to be peace ; — peace, as far as possible, between you and
them,— and that in order to peace between them and
your God. This is the end which you seek, — the end
to which aU your good offices of blessing, and sympathy,
and a ready mind, and generosity, and honour, are but
means. And you are to seek this end hopefuUy. You
may with aU confidence seek it. For in seeking it you
may plead a special promise, and one which you may
now see to be invested with a special and very precious
significancy ; — " When a man's ways please the Lord, he
maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him"
(Prov. xvi. 7).
What a motive does this promise, in the connection in
which you must now take it, suggest ! How should it
inspire you with a determination to give good heed to it
that, by his grace helping you, your ways shaU please the
Lord ! You know what those ways are towards his

" FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN." .301
adversaries and yours that are sure to please him. They
are ways, not of compromise, indeed, but of concUiation ;
and of concUiation carried to the utmost length to which,
without compromise, it can be made to go. Let such be
your ways. You need have no apprehension of their
being ways of which you shaU ever have cause to be
ashamed ; for you adopt them and make them yours, not
in any mean and ignoble spirit of selfishness, — for the sake
of your own personal safety, or ease, or reputation ; but
with most honourable, high and heavenly aspirations ; —
first, that the Lord whom you love may be pleased ;
next, that, in token of his good pleasure, he may make
your enemies to be at peace with you ; and lastly, that
you, finding it possible, because the Lord makes it
possible, to live peaceably with them, may find it
possible ere long, — the Lord making that too possible, —
to persuade them to come along with you to your Father's
home of peace, and to taste with you the blessedness of
living peaceably with Him.

302 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.

VI.
REDRESS AND RETRIBUTION— ABDICATED BY
MAN AND LEFT TO GOD.
" Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath : for It
is written, Vengeance is mine : I will repay, saith the Lord."— Rom. xii. 19.
The affectionate appeal with which this verse opens—
" Dearly beloved " — is surely very significant as well as
very emphatic. Its full force and propriety may be
better seen when the command which it introduces, and
especiaUy the reason of the command, have been con
sidered, as brought out in the three closing verses of the
chapter. Evidently it points to something more than
ordinarily solemn, ff not awful, in the position which,
according to the representation about to be given, you
occupy, as Christians, in the face of a hostile and perse
cuting world. It marks the relation in which you now
stand to those who are your enemies, because they are
the enemies of the Lord, as a relation of very peculiar
delicacy and difficulty, in which you have need of aU the
aid and support that the most vivid sense of the love
of which you are the objects can afford.
It is assumed that you have exhausted aU the means
and measures of concUiation that are consistent with
fidehty. You have gone as far as you can in the way

REDRESS AND RETRIBUTION. 303
of manifesting forbearance, and sympathy, and genuine
human fellow-feeling, towards aU, even the most opposed,
to whom you have access. You have felt yourselves and
shown yourselves to be upon honour, and have done your
best to secure peace. But although some may have been
thus won, others continue obdurate. Their enmity is even
imbittered by coming in contact with that charity of
yours which faUs to charm it away. You must make up
your mind to this sad result, — that in spite of aU your
efforts to the contrary, there will be those who relentlessly
and remorselessly stand out against you, and do you
wrong. How are you to feel and act towards such
persons? What frame of mind are you to cherish?
What course of conduct are you to pursue ? That is the
question which, at this stage, is to be met.
It is met, in the first place, by an implied recognition
of the reality and the righteousness of the law or prin
ciple of retribution ; in the second place, by the inti
mation that it is a law or principle which you are not
yourselves to administer or apply ; and in the third
place, by the assurance that the Lord himself wUl give
effect to it.
I. The law or principle of retribution is recognised as
one which, in the last resort, must be brought into
operation. It is not obscurely indicated that neither you
who suffer wrong, nor He to whom you commit your
cause, could in the long run be otherwise satisfied.
There are three different expressions used in this verse
to denote the manner of dealing with offenders which is

304 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
intended. In the first clause it is, " Avenge not your
selves," — or more literaUy and exactly, " Right not your
selves." In the second, the word is " wrath," — " rather
give place unto wrath," — a word unequivocally expressing
the sentiment or passion of anger or indignation. In the
third, we have at the beginning, the same form of ex
pression as in the first clause, — "vengeance," or say
rather, the righting of the injured, "belongeth to me;" —
and then, we have a new idea, — " I will repay," or
retaliate, or give back to the wrong-doer what he has
done. In the first place, there would seem to be an
admission that you who suffer injury are entitled to
redress, — that you must be righted, — that a just venge
ance, or righteous retribution, must on your behalf be
executed upon your adversary, — that you must be vindi
cated by his being punished. But then you are told,
secondly, not to take the matter into your own hands and
seek to right yourselves, but rather to " give place unto
wrath." This may mean either that you are to yield and
allow your adversary's wrath to expend itself, — or that you
are to stand back and let an angry God take up the case.
The last is now generaUy held to be the most accurate
sense ; and it is both very relevant and very affecting.
You are wronged ; you feel that redress is due ; you are
inclined to be your own avenger, — the redresser of your
own wrong. Nay, but rather give place, — withdraw, —
be stiU. Know that there is One in whose bosom the
wrong done to you awakens holy anger, righteous indig
nation and wrath. When His anger is kindled on your
behalf, you may weU be dumb and sUent. To that wrath

REDRESS AND RETRIBUTION. 305
you may weU give place. For, in the third place, do you
not hear his voice, commanding you to leave aU to him ?
The righting of wrong, — the avenging of the injured upon
his adversary, — " belongeth to me." And be sure that in
his hands the redress, — the vengeance, — wiU be complete.
" I wUl repay." I wUl execute retributive and penal
judgment. I wUl reward and recompense the wrong
doer. And he, and you, and aU shaU know that " it is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
All throughout it is taken for granted that, if there
be no relenting on the part of the offender, retribution,
pure and simple, is at last inevitable ; — retribution, I say;
not salutary chastisement or corrective discipline, but mere
punishment — the penal infliction of suffering for sin.
And a threefold ground for such judicial and retributive
procedure is found to lie deep down in the essential
nature, not of man only, but even of God himself. A
sense of equity, a sentiment of irrepressible holy anger,
and the demand of legal justice, conspire to estabhsh its
necessity. Wrong must be redressed ; righteous anger
must be appeased ; and law must be vindicated, and
government by law. No inteUigent being, of whose
moral constitution it is characteristic that, in the first
place, he recognises the existence of personal rights ; that,
secondly, he has emotional sympathies which throb and
thriU in harmony with truth and justice ; and that, in
the third place, he owns the majesty of law, purely as
law, promulgated by sovereign authority and enforced
by absolute power ; — in other words, no rightly balanced
mind, true to its own ethical intuitions, — can dispense
u

306 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
with the principle of retributive judgment, as a vital
element in the administration of the universe.
Partial views, indeed, of benevolence, or of expediency,
may incline those who resolve all government into in
fluence, to frame a theory of both worlds, — the present
and the future, — that shaU have no dark cloud of penal
wrath hanging over it, but shall glow with the bright
ideal, or pleasing imagination, of evil being always dealt
with, now and hereafter, in the interest, as it were, of
the evil-doer himself; the very worst severities inflicted
on him, however deservedly, being in reality and in the
long run visitations for his benefit ; and the Divine rule
over responsible agents being thus nothing more than
the unfolding of a plan, or method, or agency, — adminis
tered by a Divine person, — which, by its own pressure
upon men and things, is gradually to work sin and misery
out of the system, so as ultimately to leave nothing but
pure and placid peace everywhere and evermore.
No countenance, however, is given by the Apostle to
such a vague and dreamy notion of law and government.
Nor is it a notion which commends itself to the unsophisti
cated moral instinct of mankind. There is in the human
bosom a stern and robust sense of justice, which, irre
spectively of aU calculations of consequences, — and, indeed,
of aU collateral considerations, of whatever sort, — wUl not
be satisfied unless, by a judicial procedure and in terms
of law, injured right is seen to triumph, and the inflicter
of wrong is doomed. It insists upon a trial and a
verdict. That sense of justice maybe deadened and per
verted by plausible sophLstries, while a man is living con-

REDRESS LEFT TO GOD. 307
tentedly in disregard of the authority and commandment
of God. But when the conscience is awakened and the
divine law asserts its supremacy, the innate and in
eradicable feeling, or rather faith, as to a righteous
government, is quickened into new life. And it is found
practically that no plan of saving mercy, and no precept
of new obedience, can win acquiescence and approval,
which does not recognise and satisfy that principle of
mere and simple retribution upon which all righteous
government must ultimately rest.
II. But whUe thus you are permitted and taught to hold
fast, — and to hold fast as applicable to your own case, —
that sense of wrong and craving for redress, — that con
viction of the reality and the righteousness of retribution, —
which is no sinful excrescence upon your human nature,
or sinful corruption of it, — but is of the essence of its
original constitution, being part and parcel of the very
image of God in which man was made ; you are at the
same time interdicted from administering or applying it
yourselves. You are not to avenge or right yourselves.
Rather you are to give place, and, so far as any move
ment of yours is concerned, simply to suffer the wrong.
And you are required to act thus, for this most relevant
and sufficient reason,' — because your case is taken up
by another, to whom you may safely leave it.
But for that reason, it might be almost too much to
expect that you should not avenge or vindicate yourselves.
In a rude and unsettled state of society, when the autho
rity of law is weak and the administration of it precari-

308 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
ous, men wiU not easily be persuaded to surrender the
rio-ht or privUege of private justice and personal revenge.
Individuals and families wiU hold themselves entitled to
take by force what they consider their due, and to inflict
violent retribution and retahation on any who hurt or
injure them. But when the ruler comes to be one whom
they can trust, and when he undertakes their cause, they
are willing to give place, and to resign the function of
executing judgment to him and to his ministers. On a
somewhat similar ground you are asked to abstain from
avenging yourselves ; — because you know that the Lord,
who is your God, reigneth in righteousness.
More particularly, you are commanded to "give place
unto wrath." Your wrath is to retire, and to make way for
his wrath. For in your righting or avenging yourselves,
there is apt to be wrath ; not merely a calm sense or desire
of justice, but an impulse of anger. It may be a holy
anger, a justifiable resentment, a feeling of righteous in
dignation. Still it is a passion which, even at the very
best, you must admit to be in you an unsafe motive and
guide of conduct. Restrain and regulate it as you may,
you cannot trust it, especially in your own cause. There
fore let it retire, and do you, instead of righting yourselves,
as your own anger might prompt, rather give place to the
anger or wrath of God. In his bosom, and there alone,
anger is perfectly pure. He, and he alone, in the strictest
and most literal sense, can be angry and not sin.
Therefore, leave anger and wrath to him.
Certainly there is something wonderfully fitted to arrest
the flow of angry feeling, in this brief and startling sum-

REDRESS LEFT TO GOD. 309
mons : — give place to the wrath of God. If his wrath is
kindled but a little against the men who hate you for the
love you bear to his Son, — what room can there be for
yours ? You may weU stand back,- — yourself, and all who
have a fellow-feeling with you, in your rising indignation
against the " workers of iniquity," who " eat up the Lord's
people as they eat bread." Do you look upon them as
deserving of your resentment ? Ah ! that is nothing. See !
they are exposed to the wrath of God ! Contemplate
them in that light ; and are you not irresistibly impelled
to give place, even with fear and trembling ? Is not aU
your wrath changed into solemn awe ?
Nay, when you contemplate these men in that light, if
you yourselves know " the power of that anger of God" to
which you leave them, wUl not a sort of terrible compassion
begin to possess your souls ? The wrath to which you give
place is the wrath of the Holy One, the Unchangeable,
the EternaL It is that same wrath which you have felt
to be lying upon you ; which you have seen to be laid on
Christ for you When you were made to know your
selves as sinners in the hands of an angry God, you were
consumed, and became as dead before him. Everything
else,— -your own anger, as in revenge of your guUt and
foUy, you were even ready to do execution upon yourselves,
— the anger of aU saints, and of all the world, — everything
gave place to that wrath of God. The one, solitary thought
in your spiritual consciousness was that of an angry God.
' Give place to wrath, real and righteous, inevitable and
inexorable ; ' that was stiU the cry. Then again, as you
heard that cry re-echoed, you looked and saw that it was

310 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
not now you that was pointed at, but another in your
stead. ' Give place,' is the voice from heaven, when men
and devils have done their worst, and vented aU their
rage against the Christ of God, — ' give place unto wrath.
Let wrath, — the holy judicial anger of offended Deity, —
have its way. Let all in heaven and earth and hell stand
apart. Room ! Room for wrath ! Room for the wrath
of the righteous Father to pour its full and fiery flood
upon the bleeding head of Him who beareth sin !'
Do I understand this? Do I really know the power
of the anger or wrath of God, in my own miserable case
as a sinner, and in the marveUous grace of my Saviour's
substitution in my stead ? And do I now hear that same
voice of awe and terror uttered concerning any poor fel
low-sinner who may have wronged me, but not more
than I have wronged my Lord, — who may have wronged
my Lord even less than I once did, — ' Give place unto
wrath, — leave him to the anger of God ?' Can that voice
reach my ear, quickened by the Spirit, without sending a
thriU of mingled fear and pity through my whole frame ?
All my longing for redress, — aU my resentment, — all
selfish passion, — is gone. The man is to me no longer
my adversary or my persecutor ; but simply what I once
was myself, and but for grace must stiU have been, — a
sinner in the hands of an angry God ! As such he is the
object of no other feeling on my part but that of earnest
sorrow of heart, and intense solicitude for his salvation.
III. The purpose for which the wrath of God is to
have place given to it, as it is brought out in the third

RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 3 1 1
and last portion of the verse, will be found to enforce the
practical lessons already suggested. That purpose is, that
the word which is written may be fulfilled ; — " Venge
ance is mine; I wUl repay, saith the Lord."
It is not needful to advert to the connection in which
this saying stands in the two passages of the Old Testa
ment, — two at least, — in which it occurs (Deut. xxxiL 35 ;
Ps. xciv. 1), or to compare the Apostle's present use of it
with his application of it in writing to the Hebrews
(x. 30). It is enough to consider it as assigning the ulti
mate reason of the command, "Avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath."
The Lord takes vengeance and recompense, — the right
ing of the injured and retribution upon the wrong-doer, —
into his own hands; and keeps it in his own hands. It
is a right or prerogative which he claims and chaUenge3
as exclusively his own, — to avenge and to repay; to
avenge wrong, and to repay, or requite, the wrong-doer.
He never delegates it to any creature. He may, indeed,
employ, and he does employ, the agency or instrument
ality of the creature in carrying his purpose of vengeance
into effect. He may ask and require the sympathy of
the creature in the carrying of his purpose of vengeance
into effect. But the vengeance itself he never delegates,
or hands over to another. He reserves it to himself, as
an incommunicable attribute of his divine nature and
sovereignty. That he should, when he sees fit, employ his people as
the executioners of his vengeance ; and that he should
expect them, when called to act in that capacity, not only

312 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
to obej', but to enter into his mind in obeying ; need not
surely startle or surprise any who know and believe that
the highest perfection of man's nature is to be of one
mind with his Maker. Whatever vengeance it may be
that is his, I must learn to make mine; as an onlooker,
approving and concurring; as an actor, if need be, zealous
even to slaying. Still, in the first instance, vengeance is
his. It is his vengeance that I must make mine; not
my vengeance that I dare ask him to make his.
This last, however, is my natural instinct. I suffer
injury in a righteous cause, and for my maintenance of
its righteousness. I am vexed, irritated, provoked. It
seems to me that I have a right to redress, even at the
expense of the injurious party suffering loss and punish
ment. I do not lift my hand ; but I would have God
to put forth his hand, and make my vengeance his.
Now there is doubtless a sense in which I may ask
and expect God to enter into my cause, and to take it up
as his own. The Lord Jesus in that sense " committed
himself to Him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter ii. 23).
In the same sense you are commanded to give place unto
wrath. But what is that sense ? What does it imply ?
Does it mean that you ask or expect God to be the
executioner of your wrath, or vengeance, or judgment ?
Taking "wrath" and "vengeance," as the terms here occur,
to denote, not angry passion, but a calm sense of wrong,
and of the necessity of redress, are you first to make up
your mind upon your own case ; and then, having come
to the conclusion that you ought to be righted and to
be avenged, to call a halt, and say within yourself: ' No!

RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 313
I wUl take no step, I wUl guard against even the desire
to take any step, in the way of righting or avenging
myself. I wUl leave aU to Him who says, " Vengeance
is mine?" ' Is it not plain that in so saying, or so feel
ing, I do not really hand over to God, and leave in God's
hands, the vengeance; but only the execution of it ? The
vengeance is still mine ; what is to be God's is simply
the fixing of the time when, and the manner how, the
vengeance is to be carried into effect.
Such an interpretation, or application, of the saying,
— "Vengeance is mine, I wUl repay,"- — is by no means
contrary to nature. It is rather, in truth, but too
natural, — by far too natural.
You may see it to be so, if you listen to the impreca
tions, the horrid and blasphemous curse3, in which the
madness of anger is too often vented. What is that
coarse and ribald malediction which, coming from these
infuriated lips, sends a thriU of horror through your
frame ? Is it not, on thy part, 0 thou wretched and
profane taker of God's name in vain, — in so far as it is
anything at aU, — is it not a prayer, a wish, that God
would foUow out thy vengeance, to the end and to the
extent which thou desirest ? The vengeance is thine.
Thou huggest it to thy bosom, aU burning as it is with
self-destroying venom. What thou askest God to do is
to act for thee, as thou wouldst act thyself, if, having a
devil's malignity, thou hadst a God's omnipotence to
work it out.
That, of course, is an extreme case. But it may serve
to iUustrate the distinction between these two states of

314 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
mind; the consenting, on the one hand, that the venge
ance itself should be the Lord's; and the mere desire,
on the other hand, that the Lord would make the
injured man's own vengeance practicaUy effectual, — or,
which perhaps he would like stUl better, give him the
means of making it practicaUy effectual himself.
In a much more subtle form, there is room for self-de
ception. When I am crossed and thwarted in my lawful
caUing ; when I am injured and insulted in my neigh
bourly and friendly approaches to my feUow-men; when
I am opposed and persecuted in my efforts to do good ; I
do not curse or swear ; I do not caU down fire from
heaven. No. I am silent. I keep my mouth with a
bridle. I am meek and uncomplaining. And yet behind,
or within, this quiet demeanour, there may lurk, almost
unconsciously, a sense or persuasion of my having a claim
on God for reparation and redress ; ay, aU the more on
account of my own forbearance. The vengeance is in me
stUl. It is mine. It may affect to be, — it may reaUy, in
some measure, be, — vengeance of the right, even of the
righteous sort ; not the mere animal instinct of revenge,
but the longing which eveiy rightly constituted mind has
to see justice done and injustice punished. I take it to
be so. And, taking it to be so, I cherish it aU the more
readUy. And stiU it is mine. It is my own judgment in
my own cause. I think that it is sound; that God will
ratify it, and will ere long show and give significant
proof that he ratifies it. But it is, after aU, my act,
my decision, my wish or will. God is to set his seal to
my verdict, and practicaUy carry out my vohtion. In his

RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 315
own way, and at his own time, no doubt, he is to do so.
Thus far I leave the matter to him. But really no .
further. As to the actual essence and inner spirit of the
transaction, the vengeance is not his, but mine.
Alas ! how readily do I deceive myself here ! How apt
am I, when I suffer wrong, and abstain from vindicating
my own cause, to take to myself a secret compensation and
reward in the thought that God wUl do me justice and
avenge me ! And how insidiously, under such a cover, do
feelings of self-righteous complacency in my own meek
ness and forbearance, — and feelings also of vindictiveness
or uncharitableness towards my offending neighbour, —
continue to find harbour in my bosom !
And if I can but advance a step beyond this, and
persuade myself that God, making my vengeance his,
means me to be the agent in giving effect to it, now
that it has become his, — am I not ripe and ready for the
holy office of the Inquisition? Could a Philip, or a
Dominic, desire a fitter instrument or tool?
It cannot surely be in any such spirit as this that the
souls under the altar cry, " How long, 0 Lord, holy and
true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dweU on the earth?" (Rev. vi. 10.) That cer
tainly is the complaint, the ejaculatory prayer, not of the
martyrs in the agony of their trial, asking the Lord to
make their natural and human vengeance his ; but of
the spirits of the martyrs, their trial being over, wait
ing and intensely desiring to know and see what that
vengeance is which the Lord says is his. No doubt
they are themselves personally concerned. It is with

3 1 6 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
immediate reference to themselves, and their own earthly
history, that they desire to know and see what that
vengeance is. But it is as the Lord's vengeance, and
not their own, that they desire to see and know it.
For themselves they have abdicated ; they have whoUy
surrendered and given over to God ; not the executing
merely of the vengeance, but the vengeance itself They
learned that lesson long before they came to be "souls
under the altar." They learned it in the fiery furnace ;
in the lions' den ; under the tyrant's sword; amid
the shower of stones; upon the rack, and at the stake.
AU their own vengeance went out of them. Not in
thought or in heart, any more than in act, did they
avenge themselves. Not for a moment did they dream
of ascribing to the Lord anything in the least analogous
to their own vengeance, — the vengeance natural to them
as faUen men. Nay, take vengeance in its highest and
purest sense; as it may dwell in the breast of men re
deemed and renewed ; purged of aU malice and personal
thirst for revenge ; become the holy instinct of a just
nature, that hates wrong in itself and on its own account,
and not selfishly, but in the interests of everlasting truth
and righteousness, demands redress. StiU I say, these
men, of whom the world was not worthy, did not dare or
venture, — they did not wish, — they absolutely refused, —
to make the Lord the executioner of their vengeance, even
in that view of this vengeance. They shrunk from the
very idea of judging for the Lord. He must judge for
himself. The whole of the vengeance is entirely and
exclusively his. It belongs to him alone to repay.

RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 317
Is there, then, no natural human feehng in that cry of
the souls under the altar ? Am I not to be honestly in
dignant when I read the Book of Martyrs ? May I not
espouse warmly the cause of injured innocence ? ShaU I
learn to be passive and unmoved when a brother beloved
of the Lord suffers wrong ; or when I myself even, because
I am a brother beloved of the Lord, suffer wrong ?
Not so. I would not empty my soul of that feeling
which the sight, or the sense, of wrong done is fitted to
awaken. Only, in the first place, I would have the feel
ing in my soul to be the same that it is in the bosom of
my God. And, secondly, instead of planning for myself,
even in idea, any way, in any instance, of giving the feel
ing vent, I would wait always to see how God wUl satisfy
it. Let me mark weU these two conditions : —
1. Vengeance in me is to be what it is in God. It is
not my vengeance that I am to ask God to make his ; it
is God's vengeance that is to become mine. I am to
ascend into heaven, and enter into the mind and heart of
the great Father, the righteous Judge of aU ; and there
and thus learn what, and of what sort, that vengeance
is which, as he says himself, belongeth to him.
Or if I may not ascend into heaven, I may betake my
self to Him who came down from heaven. I may ask that
patient sufferer, that bleeding Lamb of God, what this
vengeance is. I may get the answer in his cross !
It is real; it is terrible. It is real and terrible resent
ment of wrong. It is real and terrible judicial wrath,
against every one personaUy, against any one, upon whom
wrong is chargeable. Yes ! against every one ; against

318 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
any one. Even when it is his own beloved Son upon
whom the guilt of wrong-doing is chargeable, — vengeance
is even then real and terrible ; all the more so, because
he who is the object of it is so dear to him whose venge
ance it is. Personal vindictiveness it cannot be. No
element of selfish irritation or passion, — the irritation or
passion of wounded self-esteem, — can be in it. On that
very account it is unappeasable. Wounded self-esteem
may be soothed by concession, and the irritation or
passion which it causes may pass away. But the venge
ance of which Calvary witnessed the execution knows no
relenting. It is the unalterable demand of justice in the
bosom of the everlasting God, that wrong done in his
universe shaU be redressed; and that the doer of it shall,
either in his own person, or in the person of a worthy
substitute whom he voluntarUy accepts in that character,
give fuU and adequate satisfaction.
That is the vengeance which the Lord says is his.
And I must make it mine. I must be brought to
sympathize with him, and be of the same mind with him,
in that very vengeance of his.
First, for the saving of my own soul I must do so. I
must apprehend that vengeance, — that sort of vengeance,
— as directed against me, and lying upon me. I must
know and feel that the God with whom I have to do is
the God to whom, in that sense, vengeance belongeth.
To know and feel this, is very terrible. I might be far
more easy if I had to deal with a vindictive Deity ; with
one whose vengeance was of the nature of a sudden im
pulse, or even of a settled purpose of deliberate personal

RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 319
revenge. But it is law and justice, the Lawgiver and
the Judge, that I have to meet. That is the vengeance.
Can I face that ? Do I understand the nature of it 1 Am
I reconcUed to the necessity of it ? Am I saved, — do I
look for salvation, — not through any compromise or
surrender of it, which is impossible, but through the
great Atonement which has been made in terms of it ?
If not, let me fairly face the only other issue. Can I
" dwell with the devouring fire ? " Can I " dweU with
everlasting burnings ? " (Isa. xxxiii. 14.)
Then, secondly, if I am thus exercised, as regards my
own case ; my being exposed to this vengeance ; accepting
of it; accepting of it as, — in so wonderful and terrible a
way, — made to be consistent with my being saved even
in terms of it ; — can there be room in my mind for any
other sort of vengeance, towards any one, than I now see
that God chaUenges as his own? I must have sympathy
with him in that. I cannot be more tolerant of wrong,
or more indulgent to the wrong-doer, than He is who
says, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay." But I dare
not cherish a feeling in my breast that I would shrink
from ascribing to my God. No vengeance can be mine
that is not first his. I must needs learn to regard
offences as he regards them; and to regard also the
punishment of them as he regards it ; — ff I accept the
punishment of my offences in Christ suffering for me; —
and if I believe, further, that, when he sitteth in judg
ment, I am to sit on his throne along with him.
2. But there is a second condition that must be ful-
fiUed in order to my fuU acquiescence in the Lord's

320 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
saying, " Vengeance is mine." Even supposing that the
feehng or moral instinct of vengeance in me is now of
the same nature and character with the attribute of venge
ance which is in God, — I am to leave, not in act only,
but in wish or desire, the execution of it, or its practical
accomplishment, to him. Here, I would again say, is my
chief temptatiou I try to get into the mind of God. I
begin to think that I have got into it. I resent injury
as done, not to me, but to God. I am angry ; not be
cause I personaUy am wronged ; but because wrong is
done against him, and done in his sight. And this very
freedom of mine, real or supposed, from selfish passion,
may prove a snare to me. I am not now, as I think,
judging in my own cause, but in the interests of my
Master, when, in righteous indignation and holy wrath,
I would cah down fire upon the Samaritans, who wiU
not give him and me passage, on our journey of heavenly
love towards Jerusalem.
Alas ! I know not what spirit I am of. The vengeance
which makes my soul thus burn within me, and my hand
as if instinctively grasp the sword, is not reaUy of the same
sort as the vengeance which belongeth to God. For if it
were, I would be but too happy to leave the objects
of it altogether in his hands, and to let him determine
when and how he is to repay.
Ah ! let me repeat, — if I enter into the meaning of
that vengeance of God which hangs over the enemies of
his people and of himself; if with any measure of insight
and sympathy I grasp that truth, " God is angry with the
wicked every day ;" if from my own experience I know

, RETRIBUTION THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD. 321
the terror of the Lord ; if I have felt what it is to have
his anger kindled against me, — and then turned away
from me, because turned in upon the head of my gracious
Surety on the cross ;- — if I realize the fact that it is this
anger that is upon the crucifiers of the Lord of glory ;
how wiU my heart bleed, even when the sense of right
eousness within me most loudly calls for redress and
retribution ! " 0 Lord, how long ? How long, O Lord ?" I
may be constrained to cry, when I see wrong and tyranny,
and Antichristian falsehood and profane ungodhness, tri
umphant ; and the Lord's cause oppressed ; and his poor
ones trodden under foot. "Arise, 0 Lord; let not man pre-
vaU;" — " It is time, Lord, for thee to work ; for men have
made void thy law;" — so I must often, if I am on the
Lord's side, and on the side of his law, feel and pray.
Yes ! And my soul, if it is righteous, if it is in the
interests of righteousness, cannot but rest with com
placency on the prospect of that day when all the Lord's
ways shall be vindicated and justified, and it shall be
made clear that however long he waiteth to be gracious,
he is at the last a God who judges righteously. With
out that prospect, I could not reverence and fear, I could
not trust and love, the God of my salvation. I know
that vengeance belongeth unto him, and he wiU repay ;
and that knowledge stills my bosom when it swells with
indignation at the sight of wrong.
I wait thy time, 0 Lord ; most wUlingly I wait thy
time ; content meanwhile to be assured that there shall
not be impunity always ; that there shall not be impunity
long. And I ask thee, 0 Lord, to help me to be more
x

322 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
and more of one mind, of one heart, with thyself, who,
while the impunity of forbearance lasts, " wouldst have
all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of
the truth" (1 Tim. ii. 4).
Let me remember also, always, that as regards these
thine enemies and mine, a twofold vengeance belongeth
to thee : in a twofold sense thou canst repay. If they
wiU but look now on Him whom they are piercing, —
his blood is the vengeance ; in the answer to his prayer
on their behalf, " Father, forgive them ; for they know
not what they do," thou wilt repay. Lord, do thou thus
avenge me of my adversary. Let him be one of those on
whom thy vengeance falls innocuous ; falling upon him
in Christ ; upon Christ for him. Avenge me, by making
him who holds my clothes when I am stoned the very
chiefest of thine apostles.
Let me ever have this spirit within me as I mourn
for them that oppose themselves. And when I think
of the doom of the ungodly, let it be as Jesus beheld
the city, and wept over it, and cried, — " 0 Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that kiUest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings ; and ye would not ! "
(Matt, xxiii. 37.)

THE SOLEMN ISSUE. 323

VII.

GOOD OVERCOMING EVIL— THE SOLEMN ISSUE
OF WEAL OR WOE.
" Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give "him drink : for
in so doing thou shalt heap coals of tire on his head. Be not overcome of
evil, but overcome evil with good." — Rom. xii. 20, 21.
The precept here, — " If thine enemy hunger, feed him ;
if he thirst, give him drink," — is plain enough. It is the
opposite of " avenging yourselves." And it is a fair
inference from your not avenging yourselves, that you are
to do what is the reverse of avenging yourselves. You are
not to treat those who are opposed to you and to your
Lord as they deserve to be treated. " Therefore," you are
to treat them in a way exactly the contrary of that.
The precept has annexed to it first, a reason, — " For in
so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head ;" and
secondly, an explanation of the reason, in the form of a
higher and more generalized commandment, — " Be not
overcome of evil, but overcome evU with good."
As to the reason assigned for the precept, — there is an
ambiguity, giving room for a serious doubt or question.
The heaping of coals of fire upon any one's head may be
for one or other of two opposite ends, and may produce
one or other of two opposite effects. It may be meant

324 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
and fitted to melt, to subdue, to assimUate or incorporate;
as when, in the language of the poet, —
" — Artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
By heaping coals of fire upon its head."
Or it may be meant and fitted to burn and consume ; as
when wood or stubble is subjected to the process. Coals
of fire, heaped on the head of any object, will do one or
other of these two things ; they will either soften or
destroy. Which of these two results are you to have in
view, when you load your enemy with benefits? Are
you to be influenced, in showing him kindness, by the
hope that he may be moved to relent ? Or are you to
be reconcUed to your so treating him by the consideration
that, faUing to melt, your gifts will burn ; — that if not
in a way of grace, then in a way of judgment, it wUl
turn out in the long run that, in his history and expe
rience, your conduct has had fruit?
No right minded and right hearted follower of Christ
will for a moment hesitate as to his reply ; — it is solely
for the purpose of melting my poor feUow-sinner, if that
be possible, that I heap coals of fire upon his head. And he
will rejoice to find, that as it stands in that passage of the
Old Testament which the Apostle is quoting, the proverb,
or proverbial saying, naturally bears this interpretation; —
" If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; and
if he be thirsty, give him water to drink : for thou shalt
heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall
reward thee" (Prov. xxv. 21, 22). The addition there
of the promise, " And the Lord shaU reward thee," would
seem plainly enough to indicate that it can be with no

THE SOLEMN ISSUE. 325
ill design, — with no wish to aggravate your enemy's
guilt and doom, — no complacency in that being possibly
the effect of your generosity, — that you are to relieve
and feed him. Anything approaching to a vindictive
spirit, — the doing of good, as the misanthropist may
affect to do good, because he anticipates that they to
whom he does it wiU only abuse it, and be the worse for
it ; — such a temper never can meet with acceptance or
gracious recompense at the hands of the God of love.
At the same time, even as it occurs in the Book of Pro
verbs, the statement does not imply that in showing kind
ness to an evil-doer you exclude from your view what
may possibly be the result or issue of your doing so, —
its being ultimately not for his benefit, but for his hurt.
The promise is a general encouragement. Grudge not to
expend your resources on those who may prove them
selves to be not only undeserving of them, but incapable
of being affected by them to any good purpose. Suppose
even that aU your benefactions are apparently in vain,
and, instead of saving your enemy, only tend to his
destruction, — stiU you have no cause of regret. These
benefactions are not lost ; they wiU redound to your
advantage ; — " The Lord shall reward thee."
It would seem, therefore, that whUe, in heaping coals
of fire upon your enemy's head, your " heart's desire and
prayer" for him must be that they may melt him, you
are not to shut your eyes, — as indeed you cannot shut
your eyes, — to the other side of the alternative, — that so
far from melting, they may only tend to burn and to
consume him. You must face either issue, if you would

326 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY
be in a condition to comply with the comprehensive com
mandment which closes this high argument.
It is a fitting close. The commandment brings out a
vital principle, and one which, if rightly apprehended,
makes your " heaping of coals upon your enemy's head"
truly Godlike ; — " Be not overcome of evU, but over
come evil with good." Either evU overcomes you, or
3'ou overcome evil ; which you can do only with good ;
— for good alone can overcome evU. It is a great
antithesis ; an awful choice. You and evil ; — the evil
that thwarts and mars the good ; Satan's evil, as an
tagonistic to God's good ; you and this evU are close
grappled, in a hand-to-hand fight. It is a mortal strife,
- — a deadly duel. Either this evil overcomes you, or
you overcome it. How ? With good ; with the good ;
by becoming yourself one with the good ; with Him
whose is the good, — who is himself the good ; — for
" there is none good but God." Not otherwise can you
overcome the evU, or escape being overcome by it.
The position, therefore, which you are now seen to
occupy with reference to a hostUe world, — with special
reference to those who, in spite of all your earnest
advances of benevolence and sympathy, on the one hand,
and in spite of all your anxious and persevering endea
vours, on the other hand, to avoid or obviate offence
and live peaceably with them, stiU insist on being your
enemies, — is a very high and holy one. You are to
identify yourselves and make common cause with Him
whose good is pitted, if I may so say, against Satan's
eviL In this view, let us consider, in the first place,

GOD OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD. 327
what His procedure is, as here virtuaUy described ; and
then, secondly, what ought to be your procedure, as
moulded and directed after the model of his.
I. It is the prerogative of God to overcome evil. It
is the special prerogative of God in Christ to overcome
evil with good. God, absolutely considered, must over
come evil. He cannot be overcome of evil. So far from
that, evU cannot touch him. It cannot mar the pure
peace and joy of his holy nature. It cannot arrest the
flow of that stream of holy love which would diffuse
everywhere, and always, the joy of his own holy nature
among aU beings capable of holy feUowship with himself.
Evil, however it may be introduced into his created uni
verse, cannot frustrate the tendency of his nature and
the purpose of his wiU. Whatever may happen among
the different orders of free and responsible inteUigences
whom he caUs into being ; — and in whatever manner,
whether by spontaneous impulse from within, or by
temptation from without, evil, the evil of insubordina
tion and a refusal to be subject to his law, comes in
and unfolds itself ;— still he is master over it, not it over
him. He is not taken aback. He is not overtaken by
surprise. The evil, however it may come in, does not
reduce him to the necessity of any accommodation, on
his part, to its force or to its wiles. It does not dictate
to him any terms of surrender or of compromise. That
would be equivalent to a confession of defeat ; and
therefore it cannot be. He is not, and cannot be, as
regards either his character or his government, overcome

328 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
of evU. On the contrary, it is a necessity of his veiy
nature that he should, and that he must, overcome evU.
But a question occurs. Is it always with good?
Can evil be always overcome with good ? What is the
good meant ? Is it that indicated in the text, — "If thine
enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink?"
Is that the way in which, when the matter is in the
hands of God himself, evU is always overcome with good?
Nav, the overcoming of evU with such good as that,
on the part even of God himself, is a more serious, and,
if one may so say, a more difficult matter than may at
first sight appear.
For one thing, it implies the recognition of voluntary
choice. The evU to be overcome is, on the part of
those responsible for it, voluntary. It should seem,
therefore, that the overcoming of it with good must be
voluntary too. Hence the necessity of all plans for thus
overcoming this evU being based upon an appeal to the
free wUl of those who are under its influence. And
hence also the necessity of reckoning upon some reject
ing, whUe others comply with the appeaL Even on the
part of God, therefore, and as regards his dealings with
free inteUigences, this overcoming of evil with good
must be a movement of moral persuasion ; not merely of
physical power. It must, of necessity, contemplate the
possibility of faUure. EvU, after aU, may remain. Nay,
we are certainly taught to believe that, as one result of
such a movement, evil wUl remain. For there is a decree
of election ; there is a sovereign work of the Spirit. Were
there not both, nothing but evil after all would remain.

GOD OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD. 329
How the evU which remains is to be overcome, — how '
it is to be overcome with good, and with what sort of
good, — that is a dark and dismal problem. The good
now revealed and working, the good of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, overcomes evil, in terms of the election of
grace and by the sovereign agency of the Spirit of grace,
by making a people wUling in the day of the Lord's power.
But there is, alas ! a large remainder or remnant of evil
to be otherwise overcome. That it will be overcome, and
overcome with good, — that the final and everlasting over
coming of the evU that is not overcome by the means
and agencies of good now at work, wUl stUl be an over
coming of evil with good, — is most certain. It wUl be
the triumph of good over evil; the vindication of good
against evU. It wiU be good overcoming evU ; — in a dis
pensation, however, not of mercy, but of judgment.
Meanwhile the immediate practical question for us
is, How is God overcoming evil with good now ?
Even thus put, it must be observed, the question is still
too wide. For, even in this world, and in his present
dealings with this world, God is, at least upon some occa
sions, seen and felt to be overcoming evil with good
judiciaUy. His judgments are abroad on the earth. Nay,
it may be said that everywhere, and always, he is over
coming evU with good judiciaUy, by judgments more or
less apparent, — of which not a few signal instances are
recorded in history, both sacred and profane. And these
are only specimens. The great day will disclose many
more, and will make it plain that even the present
providence of God is, to a large extent, retributive.

330 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
But it is not in the retributive aspect of it that the
providence of God is a rule or an example of duty to us.
In that view, " vengeance belongeth to God ; — he wiU
repay." We are not judges ; we are ourselves obnoxious or
liable to judgment. We are not ministers or instruments
of justice, unless it be in the same sense in which all the
powers and elements of nature are so. As regards our
own free choice, our voluntary and spontaneous action,
we have nothing to do with the pronouncing, or with
the executing, of judicial sentences. The Lord alone is
judge. We may, indeed, and must, be called to look on
and acquiesce when God inflicts his righteous judgments,
— possibly through our agency. But the judgments are
his. We are simply asked to behold, and wonder, and
adore ; to " be stiU, and know that he is God."
Nevertheless, if our manner of overcoming evil with
good is to be analogous to that of God, it must have in
it the element, if not of judgment, at least of acquiescence
in judgment. I must have sympathy with God. I
must enter into his mind. And therefore I must clearly
understand and feel, that every act of kindness which I
do in his name carries in it a possible sting and curse for
him who is the object of it. I must do the act of
kindness under this terrible impression.
How, let me ask, with special reference to myself and
my own case, — how does God heap coals of fire on my
head, in order to overcome my evU with his good ?
That in any way, and in any sense, and to any effect
he may do so, he first, in more than a literal meaning of
these fiery words, heaps coals of fire on the head of his Son

GOD OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD. 331
as my surety. Thus far there is no room for any mUder
interpretation of the figure. The coals of fire to which
he must be subjected, for me, are of a burning heat, to
destroy, to consume. Into the thrice hotly heated
furnace of judicial wrath my Saviour is cast. Blessed
be God that thus it becomes possible for him, the just
and holy one, as the God of love, to heap coals of fire
on my head, with the other side of the alternative open ;
namely this, — that, in virtue of my union with Christ, aU
the scorching and scathing fierceness being exhausted on
the head of Christ, as my substitute, the melting, mollify
ing, moulding influence alone shall remain behind for me !
StUl it is but 'an alternative. It is coals of fire, after
all, that God heaps on my head. His mercies, which are
" new to me every morning, and fresh every moment of
my life ;" his benefits, with which " he loads me as the God
of my salvation ;" — all the means, and influences, and
opportunities of grace, — are coals of fire. They have a use
of terror as weU as a use of tenderness. If they fail to
subdue me in mercy now, they will silence and slay
me in judgment hereafter. So the Apostle emphaticaUy
testifies when he puts the solemn question, — " Despisest
thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and
long-suffering ; not knowing that the goodness of God
leadeth thee to repentance ? But, after thy hardness and
impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thy self wrath against
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judg
ment of God" (Rom. ii. 4, 5). So the Lord himself
taught in burning words when he " began to upbraid the
cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, be-

332 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
cause they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe
unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were
done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I
say unto you, It shah be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon
at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Caper
naum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought
down to heU : for if the mighty works, which have been
done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have
remained untU this day. But I say unto you, That it
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day
of judgment than for thee" (Matt. xi. 20-24). And so
again, with a most solemn and affecting reference to
his own evangehstic ministry, and its momentous issues,
the Apostle announces the law or principle upon which
the whole divine economy of forbearance and grace is
now conducted ; — " We are unto God a sweet savour of
Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
To the one we are the savour of death unto death ; and
to the other the savour of life unto life : and who is
sufficient for these things?" (2 Cor. iL 15, 16).
II. Now, for us to enter into this plan and purpose of
God, in his present dispensation of forbearance and of
grace, and in the full view of its alternative issue of life
or death eternal; for us to be, in this way, " heaping coals
of fire on the heads" of evil-doers, in order to the over
coming of evU with good, — not always, or necessarily, in
the turning of the evil-doers to good, — but often, alas !
in the aggravation of their guilt, and in their heavier

CHRISTIAN BENEFITS  COALS OF FIRE. 333
doom; — this, surely, is a very holy caUing. It is a very
awful caUing. We may weU ask, " Who is sufficient for
these things?" And we can be sustained only when we
are enabled to add, " Our sufficiency is of God ; " — of
that God who has so dealt with us as he would have us
to deal with our feUow-men and fellow-sinners.
We must therefore always remember that the good
with which we have to overcome evil consists of " coals
of fire." It is a solemn thought ; but we cannot, we
dare not, put it aside. We must keep it always before
us, when we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty.
Whatever office of courtesy or kindness we are discharging
towards any one of those who oppose themselves, not to us
merely, but to our Lord and his cause; — whether it be a
common household service; or, along with that, a more
direct and express Christian benefit, such as an attempt
to speak a word in season; — we must have full in view
the consideration that it is a new " heaping of coals of
fire upon his head."
What a consideration is this! In what a light does it
present to you the person, however hostUe, however
estranged, however vile, who is the object of your bene
volence and beneficence! In what a relation do you now
feel that you stand to him ! He is to you what you are
to God; nay more, — he is to you what he is to God. You
deal with him, in' a real and important sense, as God deals
with you ; as God deals with him. But that dealing is
of a very serious and critical nature. It is the " heaping
of coals of fire upon his head," under the inexorable con
dition of a most momentous alternative of life or death.

334 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
Bring your enemy, whoever he may be, and for what
ever cause your enemy, face to face, before you. Go
visit, or summon into your presence, any one of your
neighbours or acquaintances whom, with all your charity,
j'ou cannot but regard as unfriendly to your Lord. Let
him be one also at whose hands, when you would fain
be doing him good, and have been trying to do him
good, jrou have experienced cruel discouragement and dis
appointment ; perhaps, also, Ul-usage or contempt. You
cannot get rid of him ; j'ou cannot be neutral to him.
How are you to treat him ?
Harshly, severely, vindictively? In that case you heap
coals of fire, in no ambiguous or alternative sense, not on
his head, but on your own: for "with what judgment ye
judge, 3'e shall be judged; and with what measure ye
mete, it shaU be measured to you again" (Matt. vii. 2).
But it is not so that you deal with him. On the
contrary, you load him with benefits. You lavish
favours and kindnesses upon him. So far good. But
do yrou feel, all the while, that these favours and kind
nesses are coals of fire ? — that in lavishing them upon
him, and loading him with them, you are heaping coals of
fire upon his head ? Do you look on him as a patient
whom your physic must either kill or cure ? Do you lay
to heart the thought that your treatment of him must
teU, as God's treatment of him, as weU as of you, must
teU, either for his weal or for his woe, eternally ?
Ah ! there is room again for self-deception here ! I-
may practise forbearance and meekness ; forgiveness of
injuries, and a large and hberal bountifulness in returning

CHRISTIAN BENEFITS  COALS OF FIRE. 335
good for eviL But it may be altogether out of a sense
of what I owe to myself personaUy, and to the relation
in which I stand personaUy to my God. I feel that
it would be most unseemly and unbecoming in me, —
a monstrous and unnatural inconsistency, — to refuse to
show such mercy to my enemy as I trust God is show
ing to me. I count it unworthy of my prayer to be
forgiven, to withhold forgiveness from my adversary.
I consider myself bound, on the contrary, to prove
the sincerity of my forgiveness of him by doing him
all the good I cam StiU it may be to myself that I
am reaUy looking, aU the while; to my own character
and standing; to my own duty merely; to what may
be expected or required of me. The probable bearing
of my treatment of him upon the object of my forgive
ness and my liberality, may not be before my mind at
aU ; or it may be a very subordinate and inoperative
consideration. To acquit myself, to clear my own
conscience, to purge my soul of malice, may be with me
the main thing. To feed my enemy, if hungry ; to give
him drink, if thirsty; may thus be with me very much a
sort of opus operatum ; — a good work done and finished,
and complete in itself ; a duty discharged ; a load taken
off my mind ; and little if anything more.
But aU such insidious self-righteousness or self-com
placency, in reference to this great command of love to
my enemy, is whoUy shut out, when I am caUed to con
sider, not how my treatment of him may become me,
but how it may tell on him ! EspeciaUy when I am caUed
to face the terrible alternative of its teUing upon him,

336 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
either as coals of fire teU on the precious metal which they
melt, or as they teU on the stubble which they consume !
Ah ! when this alternative is before me ; when I see
my poor brother, — for he is my brother, be his suspicious
dislike of me ever so strong, and the offence he has given
me ever so aggravated ; when I see him going on to the
eternal world, as I cannot but fear, unprepared for its
eternal awards ; when I feel the ver3r wrong he has done
me, not so much as an injury or insult to me, but as a
sad, sore proof of his unbelief in God, and his unfitness
to die ; and when, with heart thus fuU of concern, not
for myself, but for him, I think how the word I speak to
him, or the bread with which I feed him, or the cup of
cold water I give him, may prove to him,- — nay, must
prove to him, — either a blessing or a curse ; there is in
deed an end of self, — of every selfish thought or feeling.
To me personaU}-, what I do is nothing. How it may
teU on him — that is everything.
Thus, and only thus, do 3-ou overcome evil with good
after the manner of God ; when, in dealing with an enemy,
you not merely return good for evil, but do so with a clear
and fuU recognition of the position which you are caUed
to occupy with regard to him, — the position, namely, of
one "heaping coals of fire upon his head." Otherwise the
evU overcomes you. For you may be overcome of evil
in more ways than one ; — not merely when the evil
moves you to resentment, retaliation, and revenge ; but
even when, your angry passions being restrained, policy,
or decency, or fear, or a sense of honour, or supercilious
indifference, or a sort of contemptuous pity and affecta-

CHRISTIAN BENEFITS  COALS OF FIRE. 337
tion of superior dignity, may prompt some measure of
forbearance and some offices of beneficence. The evU over
comes you when you feel and act under its influence at
aU, as bearing upon yourself ; when you suffer it to affect
you in any manner ; whether you give way to its pres
sure, or aim at rising above it.
You overcome the evU with good only when you cease
altogether from contemplating the evU in a personal
point of view ; when you shut out of your mind and
keep out of sight the personal offence and injury to
yourself; when the wrong-doer stands before you simply
as a feUow-immortal, on whom you are to bring to bear
a ministry of faithfulness, and kindness, and love ; — a
ministry which, as you have ever before your eyes, must
have issues for him, for weal or for woe, reaching through
out the ages of eternity.
Look at him in that hght. It is the hght in which
God looks at you, when he would overcome your evU
with his good. You are in his sight, not an enemy,
giving him personal offence, and affording him an oppor
tunity of displaying magnanimity and generosity by doing
you good notwithstanding. He sees in you a poor, lost,
sinful soul He deals with you most graciously, most
liberally, most bountifuUy. He plies you with aU
agencies and influences of good, and pleads with you to
let them move and melt you. And oh ! how earnestly
does he plead with you ! because he knows that they are
indeed " coals of fire " which he is " heaping on your
head ;" coals that, if they melt not, must burn ; for " even
our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. xn. 29).
Y

338 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
So God regards and treats you, who are his enemy.
So he would have you to regard and treat your enemy.
Every human being before you, every son and every
daughter of Adam, every member of the human family,
be his conduct to you what it may, is to you an immor
tal spirit, to whom you are caUed to apply a discipline of
Christian kindness, and gospel truth and love, that cannot
leave him as it finds him ; — that must either move and
melt, or consume and burn.
How solemn the thought ! With what a sacredness
does it invest every individual man ! How is it fitted
to empty your soul of every selfish consideration, either
of resentment or, if I may say so; of non-resentment!
How Godlike does your position become ! And what a
responsibility is yours !
Surely it is with good meaning and effect that the
Apostle thus sums up his teaching on the subject of your
intercourse with those who are the Lord's enemies and
yours ; — " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evU
with good." Even as the Lord himself closes his great
lesson on the same theme ; " Be ye therefore merciful,
as your Father also is merciful" (Luke vi. 36) ; "Be ye
therefore," as regards this whole matter of doing good,
as God does good, to the evU and the unthankful, — " Be
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect" (Matt. v. 48).

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED." 389

VIII.
FORCE OF THE APPEAL — " DEARLY BELOVED."
"Dearly beloved." — Rom. xii. 19.
This mode of address — " Beloved," or " Dearly be
loved," — may seem to have in it nothing very worthy of
note: It may be simphy a matter-of-course and common
place sort of interjection or invocation, such as a speaker
or writer is apt occasionally to use when he warms with
his subject, without any special meaning, for the most part,
beyond a kind and complimentary acknowledgment of
the " brethren " or " friends " whom he has in his e3re.
I am persuaded, however, that it is not thus at random,
and as a mere customary and formal usage, that the
expression occurs in the Apostolic Epistles. I find it
generally where some difficult duty, or high attainment,
or precious privilege, of Christian faith or Christian
fellowship, is the subject of discourse; and where, as I
think most readers will feel, so tender and affectionate
an appeUation is fitted to have a spirit-stirring and
heart-stirring effect.
' I speak to you,' the writer may be supposed to say,
' as " beloved " ones, " dearly beloved ;" — not beloved of
me only, or my beloved, as the phrase is sometimes

340 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
qualified; — but without any term of limitation, — be
loved j — I say not of whom beloved ; — you know that
right weU yourselves ; — you are conscious who they are
that dearly love you. I appeal to you as dearly beloved
ones ; I appeal to that dear love of which you are the
objects ; and by that love I beseech you to give heed
to what I say, as they who are the objects of such
dear love may be fairly asked and expected to do.'
Is there not a touching emphasis in a call like that ?
Is it not fitted powerfuUy to carry home any lesson to
which it refers to the best affections of the soul ?
In the present instance, the precise place at which it
is introduced in the series of precepts regulating your
treatment .of offenders, as weU as the nature of these
precepts themselves, may be regarded as contributing to
make the appeal at once seasonable and significant ; and
accordingly it wiU faU to be considered, for practical
purposes, in both of these points of view.
I. The address or appeal — " Dearly beloved " — breaks
in two the series of precepts in the midst of which it
stands; it separates the five preceding verses (14-18)
from the three which close the chapter (19-21). And
the division is a true and right one ; not forced or
fanciful, suggested by an incidental phrase, but sub
stantial and of real practical importance.
Run your eye over the successive commandments of
the first part, and observe how the first four, — to bless,
to sympathize, to lay mind alongside of mind, to be
generously forbearing, and tender of your neighbour's

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED." 341
honour and your own, — are all in the line of the fifth,
and fitted to make the keeping of it hopeful; — " If it be
possible, as much as lieth in you, hve peaceably with aU
men." If you fairly carry out the course of conduct
sketched, you may warrantably look for some consider
able success in your vocation of peacemakers. At aU
events, it is in that character that you are acting ; it is
peace, in the highest and best sense, that you keep
steadily in view as the end at which you aim in your
dealings with mankind. It is in the capacity of peace
makers that you go among the most hostile, seeking to
disarm their jealousy and conciliate their confidence, if
by any means they may be persuaded to accept, not only
your peace, but your Master's.
It is this consideration, indeed, which ennobles and
haUows the sort of treatment of your persecutors and
adversaries which is here recommended ; elevating it
immeasurably above the tame patience of a mean spirit,
and the plausible patience of a worldly spirit, both of
which are sometimes confounded with it. For mere
cowardice on the one hand, or policy on the other, may
move a man to go great lengths in the way of truckling
to pride and power, and so to study the arts of accom
modating flattery and feigned courtesy, as to become a
proficient in what may pass with many for Christian
meekness and good-wUl. But the genuine grace is to be
distinguished from aU spurious counterfeits by the stamp
upon it of Heaven's mint, — the divine seal of unselfish
ness and disinterestedness. If, as the Psalmist counsels
(xxxiv. I 4), " departing from evil and doing good, you

342 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
seek peace and pursue it," you make it plain that it is
not for your own sakes only or chiefly, but for the sake
of those, the unquiet restlessness of whose troubled spirits,
at universal war with you, and with themselves, and with
aU things in earth and heaven, you cannot contemplate
unmoved. It is the pacifying of the uproar of their
dark souls, over whose stormy waves you would fain
invoke the speU of the Divine word, " Peace, be still,"
that you desire and seek. It is with a view to that
result that you make advances to them ; and are willing
to concede and ready to be accommodating ; and careful
not to irritate any resentful, or wound any honourable,
feeling ; and with the reservation only of principle, which
you cannot compromise, anxious to be yourselves nothing,
and to consult simply for them, — if by any means you
may so hve peaceably with them as not to hinder, but to
help, their coming to have peace with God.
Thus far the task or work assigned to you should be
felt to be in itself not unpleasant ; and, as regards the en
couragement you have to look for success, not unpromising.
They with whom you have to do are persecutors, no
doubt, more or less ; opposed to the truth, and not slow
to injure its champions. But as yet you are not required
to regard the case of any of them as desperate. You are
at liberty to look, not upon the dark and gloomy, but
upon the bright and hopeful side of the picture. Nay, it
Ls your duty to do so. You do not exaggerate their
perverseness. Rather you make aUowances, and search
for what may be pleaded in paUiation, and what may be
turned to account for good. What they do they do

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED." 343
ignorantly, misled by prejudice, or blinded by unbelief.
But they are not utterly hardened, or given over by the
Spirit as reprobate. You may, therefore, go about the
business of dealing with them cheerfully ; not anticipating
faUure or defeat, but rather cherishing a good assurance
that, with a goodly number, your foUowing after peace
wiU, by God's blessing on your prayers and pains, not be
in vain. It is in this buoyant and sanguine frame of
mind that you are to bless, and not curse ; that you are
to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them
that weep ; that, being neither high-minded nor selfishly-
minded, you are to let your mind frankly meet with
other minds ; that, not rendering evU for evil to any, you
are to feel and show yourselves to be upon honour with
aU ; and that, finaUy, you are to live with all men as
peaceably as they will let you. Such a temperament of
charity, thinking no evil, hoping aU things, is the only
habit of soul that is in harmony with those broad and
genial sentiments of natural humanity, genuine human
kindness, the simple kindness of man to man, which
alone, divesting your benevolence of whatever might give
it a stiff or studied air of artificial condescension, wUl win
for it confidential access into the warm recesses of many
a thankful and many a broken heart.
But there comes to be a point, — a stage, — in the
course of your deahngs with your fellow-men, at which
you cannot but apprehend that your position is changed.
You are forced to look the sad fact of failure in the face,
and see too many upon whom aU your charity is ex
pended in vain. Your concihatory efforts are exhausted

344 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
upon them, and, as it would appear, to no purpose ; you
are for peace, but they are for war. You are forced,
therefore, now to contemplate an issue or result of your
kindly dealing less favourable than that the prospect
of which has hitherto cheered 3'ou.
It is not that even yet you abandon all hope, and
acquiesce in the conclusion that aU of those with whom,
in spite of aU your endeavours, you have found it im
possible to live peaceably, must be given over as im
practicable subjects, on whom no gracious impression can
be made. So far from that, you continue to ply them
with aU Christian and gentle influences, and will rather
redouble your exertions than contentedly abandon them
to their fate. You remember well how, in the Lord's
dealings with yourself, there was a crisis, — nay, more
than one, — at which, according to aU ordinary calcula
tions of probability, your case might have been pronounced
irremediable, and the Spirit might have ceased to strive
with you, and the awful sentence might have gone forth
against you, "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone."
But instead of that, the Lord's language concerning you was
the language, not only of most patient long-suffering, but
of most affectionate relenting ; — " How shall I give thee
up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? HowshaU
I make thee as Admah ? how shaU I set thee as Zeboim?
Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are
kindled together. I wiU not execute the fierceness of
mine anger, I wUl not return to destroy Ephraim ; for I
am God, and not man" (Hos. xi. 8, 9). So the Lord
persevered in loading you with his benefits, and bringing

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED." 345
to bear upon you the means, and overtures, and influences
of his grace, even when your carnal enmity of mind and
evU heart of unbelief, having resisted advances fitted to
break in pieces the very stones, might have been held to
be beyond the reach of cure. In the same long-suffering
spirit 37ou wiU persist, in the face of aU discouragements,
in discharging the blessed office of peacemaker, even
towards those who are most obstinately and inveterately
set against your good offices.
Nevertheless, you cannot help feeling that you occupy
a position towards them very considerably different from
that in which you were when you began the work of recon-
cUement. You cannot shut your eyes now to the dread
alternative under the pressure of which you labour. You
are forced to face the law which is the inexorable con
dition of whatever kindness you show to an enemy; —
that it must either melt or burn.
Doubtless that law is in fuU force all along, as a law
universaUy applicable. Your blessing them which perse
cute you; sympathizing with them when they rejoice or
weep; being of one mind with them ; demeaning yourself
courteously and honourably towards them ; seeking peace
and pursuing it; — all these methods of amiable and
friendly approach faU under the same stern and inexorable
rule. In every instance of your acting according to any
of these methods, your concUiatory conduct teUs for evU
on the object of it, if it does not work him good ; you
are to him either " a savour of hfe unto life or of death
unto death." That is a responsibUity of which you
cannot get rid. StUl, it is when the limit is reached of

346 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
that conditional command, " If it be possible, as much
as lieth in you, live peaceably with aU men ; " — it is
when you apprehend and realize the failure of your
attempts to make peace ; — it is then chiefly, — then for
the first time fully, — that you apprehend and realize also
the nature of the weapon which you are wielding ; the
double power of the coals of fire which you are heaping
on the enemy's head. Then it is that you are called to
quit the merely human platform from which you have
been moving towards him, and to plant your foot on one
that is divine. Hitherto, you have felt yourself to be
dealing with him simply as man with man ; now you
feel that you deal with him even as God himself does.
Hitherto, jtou have been holding out to him the olive
branch, just as one who has himself found safety in the
Ark would desire to have a feUow-sinner and fellow-
sufferer brought into the same blessed refuge ; — now jtou
sit with God who is over aU, as the Avenger as weU as
the Deliverer ; and there is present to your mind, what is
ever present to his, the solemn and awful truth, that
what you are doing, — that the holding out of the olive-
branch, — may kiU as weU as cure ; may destroy, as well
as save ; nay, in the long-run, must destroy and kill, ff it
do not save and cure.
Now it is at the precise point, or stage, at which you
pass from the simple doing of good with a view to peace,
to the clear and vivid reahzation of the terrible fact that
if it does not make for peace, the good you do is as a
consuming fire ; it is when, renouncing aU idea of righting
or avenging yourself, you stand back, and give way

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED. " 347
before the burning wrath of God, — and are caUed to feed
your enemy with this dread issue fuU in view, that, by
the judgment of that God of vengeance, the food you
give, if it does not heal him, must prove his bane and
poison ; — it is at such a crisis that the affectionate ap
peal comes in so very opportunely, — "Dearly beloved."
Yes ! it is most opportune, and you wUl own it to be so,
if you have any sympathy with the Apostle in the cry
that was wrung from him, under an overwhelming sense
of his preaching being, to every one of his hearers, a
savour either of death or of life, — " Who is sufficient for
these things ? " You would need to be as God himself,
to be able calmly to contemplate this alternative issue of
whatever good he does to his enemy, and whatever good
he moves you to do to yours. That doing of good now
becomes, in your eye, an infinitely more serious and awful
affair than you may have been apt to imagine, when you
knew not thoroughly the terror of the Lord and the power
of his anger. You see your enemy, — one who is your
enemy for Christ's sake, — not in your own hands, in which
case you might have some discretion as to what should
come of your kind treatment of him and his iU requital
of it ; but you see him in the hands of an angry God, —
to whose wrath you give place ; and you have to feed
him and give him drink with this awful handwriting of
God himself on the wall before you, — that, not by your
choice, but by his ordinance, the food and the drink are
coals of fire heaped on the man's unsheltered head, either
to melt his heart or to scath and slay his souL Surely for
such a momentous ministry as that, — if you reaUy take in

348 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLDS ENMITY.
the great fact on which it rests, and the meaning of it, —
you need to be nerved and braced with no common
strength ; 3rou must have some firm and yet tender stay
on which you may faU back and lean. And have you
not such a stay in the deepby-rooted memory, or sense, of
aU the divine affection, and all the intimate, endearing,
and confidential divine feUowship, to which the Apostle,
or rather the Lord himself, emphatically appeals, when he
haUs you and salutes you with the simple address of
home-fainiharity — " Beloved," — " Dearly beloved ?"
II. What there is in the address itself, as coming in at
this stage and in this connection, to give it point and
power, is to be felt rather than described. If one does
not, as by a sort of spiritual and yet natural instinct, dis
cern and grasp the charm of it, there is great difficulty
in making it plain and palpable. Perhaps an illustration
may best bring out what I take to be the charm of it, —
the speU lying in this one httle word of endearment,
" Dearly beloved."
Let me suppose that I go out from a loving household,
of which I have been a loved and cherished member.
My home is aU perfect harmony and pure peace ; and I
have been a favourite at home. Father, mother, brothers,
sisters, friends, companions, all have loved me dearly.
From such a quiet nest I suddenly pass into a very
different world. Sin and strife are rampant all around
me. Idleness, frivohty, jealousy, and envy, — or else sordid
covetousness, selfishness, and mean ambition, — reign
everywhere paramount. The men and women I meet

CONCLUSION  "DEARLY BELOVED." 349
are wearying themselves and one another with their vain
rivalries and angry passions. And yet my business is
with them. I am sent to teU them of my home, and my
Father, and my Elder Brother, and all the inmates who
conspire to make it happy, — if by any means these men
and women may be persuaded to come with me that I
may show them good. Alas ! they will not understand
or give heed to what I say. They are irritated, and
resolved to pick a quarrel with me. They study how
they may best wound and vex me, by maligning the Head
and members of the family I belong to, and treating all
that I have to testify concerning it with indifference, or
incredulity, or scorn. I find it hard to keep my temper,
and to persevere in treating them courteously and kindly.
And when I see that all my courtesy and kindness is not
only lost upon so many of them, but is, in fact, only
putting them so much more in the wrong, and inten
sifying the bitterness of their opposition, and increasing
their hard-heartedness, and aggravating their guilt ; —
ah ! I exclaim, why must I continue to be buffeted by so
perverse a crew, to whom my weU-intended good offices
are at least as likely to prove a curse as a blessing ; or
rather, indeed, far more so ? It is a position too trying
for me ; I cannot stand it.
But what is that sound which I hear ; wafted as on the
wings of some soft spice-laden gale ; " redolent of joy and
youth;" fresh from my Father's dwelling ; — "Beloved;
dearly beloved ! " It "gives me pause." What! shaU I,
the child of love, and of such love as is mine in my
Father's dwelling, shrink from the post at which that

350 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD S ENMITY.
Father has placed me ! Is it for me, who bask in the
sunshine of a home full of love, to dream of leaving these
unloved and unloving ones alone ? Rather let my heart
yearn over them the more, the more their sad enmity
frets and rages. Let the thought of what they are,
forlorn and lost, and of the risk of their case becoming
daily worse, under the daily ministry of kindness with
which they are plied, stir in me a new intensity of deep
concern for their distress and keen desire for their deliver
ance. And let the very love of which I am the object,
brought so vividly to mind by that startling word of
awakening appeal as weU as of endearing tenderness, —
Dearly beloved one, — put me once more on the alert, as
I feel n^self adjured by aU the love that is mine so
richly, to be true to my loving Father, and true to those
poor outcasts whom, if they wUl but be persuaded, even
at the eleventh hour, my loving Father would fain have
to be partakers of that very love of his which he
dehghts to lavish upon me.
Some such force and emphasis, I apprehend, you are
to recognise and appreciate when, in the midst of your
close conflict with evU, and your earnest striving to
overcome it with good, you hear yourselves affectionately
saluted, as by a famUiar voice from home, — " Dearly
beloved." It is a voice that not only faUs gently and
sweetly, hke an evening hymn, on your soul disquieted
with vexing thoughts, but rings, hke a trumpet caU sum
moning you to work and war. And aU the more is it
thus powerful, because it reminds you of aU that your
being thus saluted implies. It carries your thoughts back

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED. " 351
to what your sad case was, when you were yourselves
wanderers and outcasts in that far country, in which so
many are stUl wasting their substance in riotous hving,
or else perishing with hunger. Who has made you to
differ now ? In what manner, and by what means ? Ye,
believers, were but yesterday what they are to-day.
Now you are beloved, dearly beloved. Love, divine
love, is the air you breathe. You dweU in love, because
you dweU in God. How has this blessedness become
yours ? It is not that you have loved ; but that you
have been and are beloved. The love which is of God,
the love wherewith the Father loveth the Son, has, by
the power of the Spirit, reached you. The Father loveth
you even as he loveth the Son. You are weU-beloved,
as the Son is weU-beloved. And you are the beloved of
aU of whom the Son is the beloved. You therefore are in
the world as the Son was in the world. The voice which
haUs you from heaven, — for it is a voice from heaven com
ing through the mouth or pen of one moved by the Holy
Ghost, — the voice hailing you as "beloved," is the very
voice which haUed him when he was in Jordan's stream ;
— " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am weU pleased ! "
It is as hearing stUl evermore that voice from heaven,
that you now, like Him who heard it then, " go about
doing good " on the earth. It is the echo of that voice
in your bosom that not only stiUs the rising sense of Ul-
usage when the good you do is Ul-requited, but enables
you to accept, as he did, the solemn alternative and condi
tion on which alone good can be done to any one here be
low, — that it is the "heaping of coals of fire upon his head."

352 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
For, let me be aUowed to say, in drawing the dis
cussion of this whole subject to a close, nothing can be
more mistaken than the view on which a certain class of
writers delight to expatiate, — grave theologians some
of them, as weU as authors of light literature catching
and spreading the strain, — as to the frame of spirit in
which, they think, one humbly confident of his own sal
vation by grace, must look abroad upon a world, of
whose inhabitants, alas ! but too many may be doomed
ultimately to perish. Of course, every fair reasoner will
protest against such a consideration being allowed any
weight whatever, in the argument respecting the future
and eternal condition of mankind. Whether all the
race, or only a portion, is to be ultimately rescued
from perdition, is a question to be determined upon its
own proper evidence, by an appeal to Scriptural state
ments and representations. It is Ulogical to infer, from
the supposed effect upon certain minds of a particular
doctrine concerning the future state, that the doctrine
must be false. And it is alike unfair and uncharitable
to impute odious sentiments to those who conscientiously
hold that a particular doctrine on this subject is a part
of revelation, merely because one who denies or doubts
it chooses to think that, if he believed the doctrine,
it would awaken such sentiments in him. Let the truth
be sought and ascertained, without regard at aU to
considerations such as these. Let the inquiry be
impartially prosecuted, upon this issue ; — Does God so
deal with men as absolutely to insure that aU shall in
the end be saved ? — or does he deal with them in such

CONCLUSION  "DEARLY BELOVED." 353
a way as to raise the dread alternative, that either they
are saved, or are, by his very method of dealing with
them, the more irretrievably lost ? If this last idea of
the divine government shaU appear to be the only one
warranted either by the providence or by the word of
God ; — if it shall turn out to be a great and awful fact,
that light having come into the world, men may still to
the last persevere in loving darkness rather than the
light, and that they who do so' must on that account
fall under the heavier condemnation ; — of what avaU is
it to say that this may tempt me, as one of the saved, to
exult over my perishing neighbour, — hugging myself in
my own security, and cooUy consigning him to his doom ?
Rebuke my pride and mahce by aU means. But let God
be true ; charge not him foolishly.
I protest, however, for my part, — so wiU every chUd
of God most energetically say, having in him the Spirit
of Christ, — I protest against the imputation. With one
voice we all unite in protesting against the imputation.
You who make it httle understand us. Because we
realize, as it is our duty to do, our own blessed position
as the Lord's friends, on the one hand ; and the precarious
and perUous position of aU who are not his friends, on
the other hand ; you imagine that we must be ever
dwelling on the contrast with mingled emotions of self-
complacent exultation and either gratified vindictiveness
or contemptuous pity. In the first place, you do our faith
more than justice when you conceive of it as so easy a
thing for us, or so much a matter of course, to take in
the fact of so many of the men and women around U3
7,

354 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
•who are hving without God, being so miserably without
hope as they are. We have acquaintances and friends
among them, of whom and of whose prospects we would
fain think favourably ; and even strangers and enemies,
our indolence is ever prompting us to fancy, may not be
in such danger that we must put ourselves very much
about to help them. Tlie real and actual difficulty with
us is aU on the side of our being sufficiently alive to the
terrible risk which they among whom we dwell are
running. And then you do less than justice to the love
by which faith works. For we can confidently assure
you, that just in proportion as our faith is strong and
vivid in Him who " is set for the fall and rising again of
many in Israel" (Luke ii. 34) ; who "unto them which
beheve is precious, but unto the disobedient a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offence" (1 Peter ii. 7, 8) ; — in
the same proportion does our love burn ; both as a love
of most self-abasing gratitude to Him who makes us to
differ; and as a love also of such self-sacrificing anxiety
as that which breaks out in these utterances of Paul ; —
" I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I
could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for
my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Rom.
ix. 1-3) ; " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to
God for Israel is, that they might be saved" (Rom. x. 1).
" We know that we are of God, and the whole world
lieth in wickedness;" — such assured faith, apprehending
the sharp line which severs us in Christ from our feUow-

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED. " 355
sinners who are out of Christ, the beloved Apostle John
would have us to cherish ; — " We know that we are of
God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness " (1 John
v. 19). He is not speaking of the world to come, — the
state in which the line is unchangeably determined.
How the blessed ones who, hke Lazarus in Abraham's
bosom, behold the torments of the condemned in heU,
between whom and them there is a great gulf fixed, im
passable, everlasting ; how they behold the terrible sight
and give glory to God whUe beholding it, we may not
now inquire. It is to this present world that John is
pointing. And in this present world the line is not de
termined, the gulf is not fixed.
This, indeed, is the very consideration that stamps
upon our treatment of those we meet with in the world
a character of deepest interest. They are " lying in
wickedness ; " — not, however, hopelessly ; for there is
brought to bear upon them, on the part of God, a
ministry of forbearance, and kindness, and mercy, that is
designed and fitted to deliver them. In that ministry
we are caUed to be fellow-workers with God. Our acts
and expressions of good-wiU form a part of that ministry
of his. We regard our acts and expressions of good
will in that light, and therefore we seek to abound in
them. But we know the condition which is attached
to the ministry as a whole, and to every particular in
stance of it. If not graciously effectual to save, it is
infallibly powerful to destroy.
And who am I, each one of us is ready to exclaim, that
I should be in this way, in any sense and to any extent,

356 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
instrumental, however unintentionally, and even uncon
sciously, in influencing or determining another's destiny,
not in time merely, but perhaps for eternity? And who
is he ? Let me isolate myself and him together. Here
am I, like Daniel — shaU I say? — "a man greatly
beloved." There is he, — a man who, as I cannot but
apprehend, is stiU " in the gaU of bitterness and the
bond of iniquity." My home, how blessed ! His exUe,
how dreary ! And why is my case not his, and his case
not mine ; his the blessed home, mine the dreary exUe ?
Can I regard him with cold indifference, can I ever dream
of avenging any wrong he may do me in his blindness,
with that question ringing in my ears continuaUy ? Can
I nestle in my own warm nest, under affection's wing,
when he is starving outside ? When I am haUed by a
whole chorus of harmonious, heavenly voices, — " Beloved,"
" Dearly beloved," — is he to be left shivering in the cold
blast of earth's unkindness, and on the verge of the
fathomless pit of despair? I must be ministering to
him. I do minister to him. It is an anxious service.
My neighbour, my friend, whom I would fain have for
my brother, is in a critical position. It is, as I may
say, life or death with him ; now or never. I see his
fate trembling in the balance. How is he taking my
advances and assiduities ? What impression is my word or
deed of Christian sohcitude making ; my word in season,'
my weU-intended deed of kindness and good-wUl? I watch
with intense concern. Is he relenting ? Are there signs
of jealousy aUayed, suspicion lulled, some spark of con
fidence kindled ? Is there some faint indication of the

CONCLUSION  " DEARLY BELOVED." 357
hard heart becoming soft, and the sealed fountain of
gracious tears being opened ? Is there anything like the
bruised reed, or the smoking flax ? Or, alas ! is there only
increasing suUenness and gloom ; the impatience that wiU
not let its wound be probed, the anger that wiU not have
its misery interfered with? How eagerly do I note
every sign ! Now, it seems as if my dealing were doing
him good. Again, I shudder to see that it is only irri
tating and vexing him. All the whUe I have fuU in
view the issue that may be more or less dependent on
my movement. I am handhng coals of fire. I cannot
help it. Through me, through my agency and instrumen
tality, he is undergoing a process that cannot leave him
as it finds him. He is the better or the worse for it.
And it is I who am at this moment practically shutting
the question up to this issue. I cannot be calm, as if I
were conducting a common experiment upon unconscious
matter. If I know anything of Heaven's love, and of
Heaven's wrath, — the love of which I, once a chUd of
wrath, am now the object, — the wrath hanging in sus
pense over him ; — so hanging over him that the very next
step he takes, in consequence of my interposition, may,
for anything I can teU, decide whether its winged and
fiery thunderbolt is to give place to the same love that
has Reached me, or to faU on his head for ever ; — if, I
repeat, I know anything of Heaven's love, and of
Heaven's wrath ; — then by aU that love, — the love with
which Christ dying for me loveth me ; the love with
which the Holy Ghost, shutting me up into Christ, loveth
-me ; the love with which the Father, giving me his dear

358 CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE WORLD'S ENMITY.
Son and aU things else in him, loveth me ; the love with
which all saints and holy angels love me ; — by the dear
love of my Father's house where now I dwell ; — I
cannot but be moved with most thrUling intensity, as I
hang over yonder yawning gulf, — and hold out my hand
to catch, to feed, to rescue, my poor famished brother
sinking in the pit, — and with tearful eagerness strain my
eyes to see if he wUl let me help him ; — since, if he wiU
not, full weU I know, and it is full terrible to know, that
all that I am doing on his behalf must make his case the
worse ! Knowing this, — feeling that it may be for him
salvation or destruction, — I dare not draw back ; I must
hold on and persevere. No ingratitude can cool me ;
no injury provoke me ; no obstinacy weary me. Tasting
for m3'self the free and fuU love of my Father in heaven,
and of all his heavenly household, I cannot but persist
in heaping coals of fire on the head of every foe, if by
any means, — I would it were not in a way of judgment,
but in a way of grace, — I may have a share in my
Father's great and glorious work of " overcoming evil
with good."

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