[Greek: Epea Aptera]

 UNSPOKEN SERMONS

 BY GEORGE MACDONALD

 SERIES I, II, III IN ONE VOLUME

 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people

 CONTENTS

UNSPOKEN SERMONS SERIES ONE

THE CHILD IN THE MIDSTTHE CONSUMING FIRETHE HIGHER FAITHIT SHALL NOT BE FORGIVENTHE NEW NAMETHE HEART WITH THE TREASURETHE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESSTHE ELOITHE HANDS OF THE FATHERLOVE THY NEIGHBOURLOVE THINE ENEMYTHE GOD OF THE LIVING

UNSPOKEN SERMONS SERIES TWO

THE WAYTHE HARDNESS OF THE WAYTHE CAUSE OF SPIRITUAL STUPIDITYTHE WORD OF JESUS ON PRAYERMAN'S DIFFICULTY CONCERNING PRAYERTHE LAST FARTHINGABBA, FATHER!LIFETHE FEAR OF GODTHE VOICE OF JOBSELF-DENIALTHE TRUTH IN JESUS

UNSPOKEN SERMONS SERIES THREE

THE CREATION IN CHRISTTHE KNOWING OF THE SONTHE MIRRORS OF THE LORDTHE TRUTHFREEDOMKINGSHIPJUSTICELIGHTTHE DISPLEASURE OF JESUSRIGHTEOUSNESSTHE FINAL UNMASKINGTHE INHERITANCE

UNSPOKEN SERMONS FIRST SERIES

_These Ears of Corn. Gathered and rubbed in my hands upon broken Sabbaths, I offer first to my Wife, and then to my other Friends. _

 THE CHILD IN THE MIDST. 

_And he came to Capernaum: and, being in the house, he asked them, Whatwas it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they heldtheir peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves whoshould be the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve, andsaith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be lastof all, and servant of all. And he took a child, and set him in themidst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said untothem, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but himthat sent me. _----MARK ix. 33-37. 

Of this passage in the life of our Lord, the account given by St Markis the more complete. But it may be enriched and its lesson renderedyet more evident from the record of St Matthew. 

"Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as littlechildren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoevershall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in thekingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in myname receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones thatbelieve in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hangedabout his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. "

These passages record a lesson our Lord gave his disciples againstambition, against emulation. It is not for the sake of setting forththis lesson that I write about these words of our Lord, but for thesake of a truth, a revelation about God, in which his great argumentreaches its height. 

He took a little child--possibly a child of Peter; for St Mark saysthat the incident fell at Capernaum, and "in the house, "--a childtherefore with some of the characteristics of Peter, whose very faultswere those of a childish nature. We might expect the child of such afather to possess the childlike countenance and bearing essential tothe conveyance of the lesson which I now desire to set forth ascontained in the passage. 

For it must be confessed that there are children who are not childlike. One of the saddest and not least common sights in the world is the faceof a child whose mind is so brimful of worldly wisdom that the humanchildishness has vanished from it, as well as the divine childlikeness. For the _childlike_ is the divine, and the very word "marshals me theway that I was going. " But I must delay my ascent to the final argumentin order to remove a possible difficulty, which, in turning us towardsone of the grandest truths, turns us away from the truth which the Lordhad in view here. 

The difficulty is this: Is it like the _Son of man_ to pick out thebeautiful child, and leave the common child unnoticed? What thank wouldhe have in that? Do not even the publicans as much as that? And do notour hearts revolt against the thought of it? Shall the mother's heartcleave closest to the deformed of her little ones? and shall "Christ aswe believe him" choose according to the sight of the eye? Would he turnaway from the child born in sin and taught iniquity, on whose pinchedface hunger and courage and love of praise have combined to stamp thecunning of avaricious age, and take to his arms the child of honestparents, such as Peter and his wife, who could not help looking moregood than the other? That were not he who came to seek and to save thatwhich was lost. Let the man who loves his brother say which, in hishighest moments of love to God, which, when he is nearest to that idealhumanity whereby _a man_ shall be a hiding-place from the wind, hewould clasp to his bosom of refuge. Would it not be the evil-facedchild, because he needed it most? Yes; in God's name, yes. For is notthat the divine way? Who that has read of the lost sheep, or the foundprodigal, even if he had no spirit bearing witness with his spirit, will dare to say that it is not the divine way? Often, no doubt, itwill _appear_ otherwise, for the childlike child is easier to save thanthe other, and may _come_ first. But the rejoicing in heaven isgreatest over the sheep that has wandered the farthest--perhaps wasborn on the wild hill-side, and not in the fold at all. For such aprodigal, the elder brother in heaven prays thus--"Lord, think about mypoor brother more than about me, for I know thee, and am at rest inthee. I am with thee always. "

Why, then, do I think it necessary to say that this child was probablyPeter's child, and certainly a child that looked childlike because itwas childlike? No amount of evil can _be_ the child. No amount of evil, not to say in the face, but in the habits, or even in the heart of thechild, can make it cease to be a child, can annihilate the divine ideaof childhood which moved in the heart of God when he made that childafter his own image. It is the essential of which God speaks, the realby which he judges, the undying of which he is the God. 

Heartily I grant this. And if the object of our Lord in taking thechild in his arms had been to teach love to our neighbour, love tohumanity, the ugliest child he could have found, would, perhaps, haveserved his purpose best. The man who receives any, and more plainly hewho receives the repulsive child, because he is the offspring of God, because he is his own brother born, must receive the Father in thusreceiving the child. Whosoever gives a cup of cold water to a littleone, refreshes the heart of the Father. To do as God does, is toreceive God; to do a service to one of his children is to receive theFather. Hence, any human being, especially if wretched and woe-begoneand outcast, would do as well as a child for the purpose of settingforth this love of God to the human being. Therefore something more isprobably intended here. The lesson will be found to lie not in the_humanity_, but in the _childhood_ of the child. 

Again, if the disciples could have seen that the essential childhoodwas meant, and not a blurred and half-obliterated childhood, the mostselfish child might have done as well, but could have done no betterthan the one we have supposed in whom the true childhood is moreevident. But when the child was employed as a manifestation, utterance, and sign of the truth that lay in his childhood, in order that the eyesas well as the ears should be channels to the heart, it was essential--not that the child should be beautiful but--that the child should bechildlike; that those qualities which wake in our hearts, at sight, thelove peculiarly belonging to childhood, which is, indeed, but theperception of the childhood, should at least glimmer out upon the faceof the _chosen type_. Would such an unchildlike child as we seesometimes, now in a great house, clothed in purple and lace, now in asqualid close, clothed in dirt and rags, have been fit for our Lord'spurpose, when he had to say that his listeners must become like thischild? when the lesson he had to present to them was that of the divinenature of the child, that of childlikeness? Would there not have been acontrast between the child and our Lord's words, ludicrous except forits horror, especially seeing he set forth the individuality of thechild by saying, "this little child, " "one of such children, " and"these little ones that believe in me?" Even the feelings of pity andof love that would arise in a good heart upon further contemplation ofsuch a child, would have turned it quite away from the lesson our Lordintended to give. 

That this lesson did lie, not in the humanity, but in the childhood ofthe child, let me now show more fully. The disciples had been disputingwho should be the greatest, and the Lord wanted to show them that sucha dispute had nothing whatever to do with the way things went in hiskingdom. Therefore, as a specimen of his subjects, he took a child andset him before them. It was not, it could not be, in virtue of hishumanity, it was in virtue of his childhood that this child was thuspresented as representing a subject of the kingdom. It was not to showthe scope but the nature of the kingdom. He told them they could notenter into the kingdom save by becoming little children--by humblingthemselves. For the idea of ruling was excluded where childlikeness wasthe one essential quality. It was to be no more who should rule, butwho should serve; no more who should look down upon his fellows fromthe conquered heights of authority--even of sacred authority, but whoshould look up honouring humanity, and ministering unto it, so thathumanity itself might at length be persuaded of its own honour as atemple of the living God. It was to impress this lesson upon them thathe showed them the child. Therefore, I repeat, the lesson lay in the_childhood_ of the child. 

But I now approach my especial object; for this lesson led to theenunciation of a yet higher truth, upon which it was founded, and fromwhich indeed it sprung. Nothing is required of man that is not first inGod. It is because God is perfect that we are required to be perfect. And it is for the revelation of God to all the human souls, that theymay be saved by knowing him, and so becoming like him, that this childis thus chosen and set before them in the gospel. He who, in giving thecup of water or the embrace, comes into contact with the essentialchildhood of the child--that is, embraces the _childish_ humanity ofit, (not he who embraces it out of love to humanity, or even love toGod as the Father of it)--is partaker of the meaning, that is, theblessing, of this passage. It is the recognition of the childhood asdivine that will show the disciple how vain the strife after relativeplace or honour in the great kingdom. 

For it is _In my name_. This means _as representing me_; and, therefore, _as being like me_. Our Lord could not commission any one tobe received in his name who could not more or less represent him; forthere would be untruth and unreason. Moreover, he had just been tellingthe disciples that they must become like this child; and now, when hetells them to receive _such_ a little child in his name, it must surelyimply something in common between them all--something in which thechild and Jesus meet--something in which the child and the disciplesmeet. What else can that be than the spiritual childhood? _In my name_does not mean _because I will it_. An arbitrary utterance of the willof our Lord would certainly find ten thousand to obey it, even tosuffering, for one that will be able to receive such a vital truth ofhis character as is contained in the words; but it is not obediencealone that our Lord will have, but obedience to the _truth_, that is, to the Light of the World, truth beheld and known. _In my name_, if wetake all we can find in it, the full meaning which alone will harmonizeand make the passage a whole, involves a revelation from resemblance, from fitness to represent and so reveal. He who receives a child, then, in the name of Jesus, does so, perceiving wherein Jesus and the childare one, what is common to them. He must not only see the _ideal_ childin the child he receives--that reality of loveliness which constitutestrue childhood, but must perceive that the child is like Jesus, orrather, that the Lord is like the child, and may be embraced, yea, isembraced, by every heart childlike enough to embrace a child for thesake of his childness. I do not therefore say that none but those whoare thus conscious in the act partake of the blessing. But a specialsense, a lofty knowledge of blessedness, belongs to the act ofembracing a child as the visible likeness of the Lord himself. For theblessedness is the perceiving of the truth--the blessing is the truthitself--the God-known truth, that the Lord has the heart of a child. The man who perceives this knows in himself that he is blessed--blessedbecause that is true. 

But the argument as to the meaning of our Lord's words, _in my name_, is incomplete, until we follow our Lord's enunciation to its second andhigher stage: "He that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. " Itwill be allowed that the connection between the first and second linkof the chain will probably be the same as the connection between thesecond and third. I do not say it is necessarily so; for I aim at nological certainty. I aim at showing, rather than at proving, to myreader, by means of my sequences, the idea to which I am approaching. For if, once he beholds it, he cannot receive it, if it does not shewitself to him to be true, there would not only be little use inconvincing him by logic, but I allow that he can easily suggest otherpossible connections in the chain, though, I assert, none sosymmetrical. What, then, is the connection between the second andthird? How is it that he who receives the Son receives the Father?Because the Son is as the Father; and he whose heart can perceive theessential in Christ, has the essence of the Father--that is, sees andholds to it by that recognition, and is one therewith by recognitionand worship. What, then, next, is the connection between the first andsecond? I think the same. "He that sees the essential in this child, the pure childhood, sees that which is the essence of me, " grace andtruth--in a word, childlikeness. It follows not that the former isperfect as the latter, but it is the same in kind, and therefore, manifest in the child, reveals that which is in Jesus. 

Then to receive a child in the name of Jesus is to receive Jesus; toreceive Jesus is to receive God; therefore to receive the child is toreceive God himself. 

That such is the feeling of the words, and that such was the feeling inthe heart of our Lord when he spoke them, I may show from anothergolden thread that may be traced through the shining web of his goldenwords. 

What is the kingdom of Christ? A rule of love, of truth--a rule ofservice. The king is the chief servant in it. "The kings of the earthhave dominion: it shall not be so among you. " "The Son of Man came tominister. " "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. " The great Workmanis the great King, labouring for his own. So he that would be greatestamong them, and come nearest to the King himself, must be the servantof all. It is _like king like subject_ in the kingdom of heaven. Norule of force, as of one kind over another kind. It is the rule of_kind_, of _nature_, of deepest nature--of _God_. If, then, to enterinto this kingdom, we must become children, the spirit of children mustbe its pervading spirit throughout, from lowly subject to lowliestking. The lesson added by St Luke to the presentation of the child is:"For he that is least among you all, the same shall be great. " And StMatthew says: "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, thesame is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. " Hence the sign that passesbetween king and subject. The subject kneels in homage to the kings ofthe earth: the heavenly king takes his subject in his arms. This is thesign of the kingdom between them. This is the all-pervading relation ofthe kingdom. 

To give one glance backward, then:

To receive the child because God receives it, or for its humanity, isone thing; to receive it because it is like God, or for its childhood, is another. The former will do little to destroy ambition. Alone itmight argue only a wider scope to it, because it admits all men to thearena of the strife. But the latter strikes at the very root ofemulation. As soon as even service is done for the honour and not forthe service-sake, the doer is that moment outside the kingdom. But whenwe receive the child in the name of Christ, the very childhood that wereceive to our arms is humanity. We love its humanity in its childhood, for childhood is the deepest heart of humanity--its divine heart; andso in the name of the child we receive all humanity. Therefore, although the lesson is not about humanity, but about childhood, itreturns upon our race, and we receive our race with wider arms anddeeper heart. There is, then, no other lesson lost by receiving this;no heartlessness shown in insisting that the child was a lovable--achildlike child. 

If there is in heaven a picture of that wonderful teaching, doubtlesswe shall see represented in it a dim childhood shining from the facesof all that group of disciples of which the centre is the Son of Godwith a child in his arms. The childhood, dim in the faces of the men, must be shining trustfully clear in the face of the child. But in theface of the Lord himself, the childhood will be triumphant--all hiswisdom, all his truth upholding that radiant serenity of faith in hisfather. Verily, O Lord, this childhood is life. Verily, O Lord, whenthy tenderness shall have made the world great, then, children likethee, will all men smile in the face of the great God. 

But to advance now to the highest point of this teaching of our Lord:"He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. " To receive a childin the name of God is to receive God himself. How to receive him? Asalone he can be received, --by knowing him as he is. To know him is tohave him in us. And that we may know him, let us now receive thisrevelation of him, in the words of our Lord himself. Here is theargument of highest import founded upon the teaching of our master inthe utterance before us. 

God is represented in Jesus, for that God is like Jesus: Jesus isrepresented in the child, for that Jesus is like the child. ThereforeGod is represented in the child, for that he is like the child. God ischild-like. In the true vision of this fact lies the receiving of Godin the child. 

Having reached this point, I have nothing more to do with the argument;for if the Lord meant this--that is, if this be a truth, he that isable to receive it will receive it: he that hath ears to hear it willhear it. For our Lord's arguments are for the presentation of thetruth, and the truth carries its own conviction to him who is able toreceive it. 

But the word of one who has seen this truth may help the dawn of a likeperception in those who keep their faces turned towards the east andits aurora; for men may have eyes, and, seeing dimly, want to see more. Therefore let us brood a little over the idea itself, and see whetherit will not come forth so as to commend itself to that spirit, which, one with the human spirit where it dwells, searches the deep things ofGod. For, although the true heart may at first be shocked at the truth, as Peter was shocked when he said, "That be far from thee, Lord, " yetwill it, after a season, receive it and rejoice in it. 

Let me then ask, do you believe in the Incarnation? And if you do, letme ask further, Was Jesus ever less divine than God? I answer for you, Never. He was lower, but never less divine. Was he not a child then?You answer, "Yes, but not like other children. " I ask, "Did he not looklike other children?" If he looked like them and was not like them, thewhole was a deception, a masquerade at best. I say he was a child, whatever more he might be. God is man, and infinitely more. Our Lordbecame flesh, but did not _become_ man. He took on him the form of man:he was man already. And he was, is, and ever shall be divinelychildlike. He could never have been a child if he would ever haveceased to be a child, for in him the transient found nothing. Childhoodbelongs to the divine nature. Obedience, then, is as divine as Will, Service as divine as Rule. How? Because they are one in their nature;they are both a doing of the truth. The love in them is the same. TheFatherhood and the Sonship are one, save that the Fatherhood looks downlovingly, and the Sonship looks up lovingly. Love is all. And God isall in all. He is ever seeking to get down to us--to be the divine manto us. And we are ever saying, "That be far from thee, Lord!" We arecareful, in our unbelief, over the divine dignity, of which he is toogrand to think. Better pleasing to God, it needs little daring to say, is the audacity of Job, who, rushing into his presence, and flingingthe door of his presence-chamber to the wall, like a troubled, it maybe angry, but yet faithful child, calls aloud in the ear of him whoseperfect Fatherhood he has yet to learn: "Am I a sea or a whale, thatthou settest a watch over me?"

Let us dare, then, to climb the height of divine truth to which thisutterance of our Lord would lead us. 

Does it not lead us up hither: that the devotion of God to hiscreatures is perfect? that he does not think about himself but aboutthem? that he wants nothing for himself, but finds his blessedness inthe outgoing of blessedness. 

Ah! it is a terrible--shall it be a lonely glory this? We will drawnear with our human response, our abandonment of self in the faith ofJesus. He gives himself to us--shall not we give ourselves to him?Shall we not give ourselves to each other whom he loves?

For when is the child the ideal child in our eyes and to our hearts? Isit not when with gentle hand he takes his father by the beard, andturns that father's face up to his brothers and sisters to kiss? wheneven the lovely selfishness of love-seeking has vanished, and the heartis absorbed in loving?

In this, then, is God like the child: that he is simply and altogetherour friend, our father--our more than friend, father, and mother--ourinfinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that humanimagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he isdelicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband orwife, homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father ormother. He has not two thoughts about us. With him all is simplicity ofpurpose and meaning and effort and end--namely, that we should be as heis, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the sameblessedness. It is so plain that any one may see it, every one ought tosee it, every one shall see it. It must be so. He is utterly true andgood to us, nor shall anything withstand his will. 

How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God in themeasures of the low and showy, not the lofty and simple humanities!Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being andthe end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of aJupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not allowthis, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this. Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little childrenand saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of afisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplestpeasant who loves his children and his sheep were--no, not a truer, forthe other is false, but--a true type of our God beside that monstrosityof a monarch. 

The God who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions ofnature; who takes millions of years to form a soul that shallunderstand him and be blessed; who never needs to be, and never is, inhaste; who welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as thereturn for seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity, whorejoices in the response of a faltering moment to the age-long cry ofhis wisdom in the streets; the God of music, of painting, of building, the Lord of Hosts, the God of mountains and oceans; whose laws go forthfrom one unseen point of wisdom, and thither return without an atom ofloss; the God of history working in time unto christianity; this God isthe God of little children, and he alone can be perfectly, abandonedlysimple and devoted. The deepest, purest love of a woman has itswell-spring in him. Our longing desires can no more exhaust the fulnessof the treasures of the Godhead, than our imagination can touch theirmeasure. Of him not a thought, not a joy, not a hope of one of hiscreatures can pass unseen; and while one of them remains unsatisfied, he is not Lord over all. 

Therefore, with angels and with archangels, with the spirits of thejust made perfect, with the little children of the kingdom, yea, withthe Lord himself, and for all them that know him not, we praise andmagnify and laud his name in itself, saying _Our Father_. We do notdraw back for that we are unworthy, nor even for that we arehard-hearted and care not for the good. For it is his childlikenessthat makes him our God and Father. The perfection of his relation to usswallows up all our imperfections, all our defects, all our evils; forour childhood is born of his fatherhood. That man is perfect in faithwho can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and hisdesires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of lowthoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say tohim, "Thou art my refuge, because thou art my home. "

Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such aprayer will know better than another, that God is not mocked; that heis not a man that he should repent; that tears and entreaties will notwork on him to the breach of one of his laws; that for God to give aman because he asked for it that which was not in harmony with his lawsof truth and right, would be to damn him--to cast him into the outerdarkness. And he knows that out of that prison the childlike, imperturbable God will let no man come till he has paid the uttermostfarthing. 

And if he should forget this, the God to whom he belongs does notforget it, does not forget him. Life is no series of chances with a fewprovidences sprinkled between to keep up a justly failing belief, butone providence of God; and the man shall not live long before lifeitself shall remind him, it may be in agony of soul, of that which hehas forgotten. When he prays for comfort, the answer may come in dismayand terror and the turning aside of the Father's countenance; for loveitself will, for love's sake, turn the countenance away from that whichis not lovely; and he will have to read, written upon the dark wall ofhis imprisoned conscience, the words, awful and glorious, _Our God is aconsuming fire_. 

 THE CONSUMING FIRE. 

 _Our God is a consuming fire_. --HEBREWS xii. 29

Nothing is inexorable but love. Love which will yield to prayer isimperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that yields, but its alloy. For if at the voice of entreaty love conquers displeasure, it is loveasserting itself, not love yielding its claims. It is not love thatgrants a boon unwillingly; still less is it love that answers a prayerto the wrong and hurt of him who prays. Love is one, and love ischangeless. 

For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absoluteloveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make morelovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even thatitself may be perfected--not in itself, but in the object. As it waslove that first created humanity, so even human love, in proportion toits divinity, will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring. There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, andlove is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be theuniverse, imperishable, divine. 

Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comesbetween and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. 

And our God is a consuming fire. 

If this be hard to understand, it is as the simple, absolute truth ishard to understand. It may be centuries of ages before a man comes tosee a truth--ages of strife, of effort, of aspiration. But when once hedoes see it, it is so plain that he wonders he could have lived withoutseeing it. That he did not understand it sooner was simply and onlythat he did not see it. To see a truth, to know what it is, tounderstand it, and to love it, are all one. There is many a motiontowards it, many a misery for want of it, many a cry of the conscienceagainst the neglect of it, many a dim longing for it as an unknown needbefore at length the eyes come awake, and the darkness of the dreamfulnight yields to the light of the sun of truth. But once beheld it isfor ever. To see one divine fact is to stand face to face withessential eternal life. 

For this vision of truth God has been working for ages of ages. Forthis simple condition, this apex of life, upon which a man wonders likea child that he cannot make other men see as he sees, the whole labourof God's science, history, poetry--from the time when the earthgathered itself into a lonely drop of fire from the red rim of thedriving sun-wheel to the time when Alexander John Scott worshipped himfrom its face--was evolving truth upon truth in lovely vision, intorturing law, never lying, never repenting; and for this will thepatience of God labour while there is yet a human soul whose eyes havenot been opened, whose child-heart has not yet been born in him. Forthis one condition of humanity, this simple beholding, has all theoutthinking of God flowed in forms innumerable and changeful from thefoundation of the world; and for this, too, has the divine destructionbeen going forth; that his life might be our life, that in us, too, might dwell that same consuming fire which is essential love. 

Let us look at the utterance of the apostle which is crowned with thislovely terror: "Our God is a consuming fire. "

"Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us havegrace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godlyfear, for our God is a consuming fire. "--We have received a kingdomthat cannot be moved--whose nature is immovable: let us have grace toserve the Consuming Fire, our God, with divine fear; not with the fearthat cringes and craves, but with the bowing down of all thoughts, alldelights, all loves before him who is the life of them all, and willhave them all pure. The kingdom he has given us cannot be moved, because it has nothing weak in it: it is of the eternal world, theworld of being, of truth. We, therefore, must worship him with a fearpure as the kingdom is unshakeable. He will shake heaven and earth, that only the unshakeable may remain, (_verse_ 27): he is a consumingfire, that only that which cannot be consumed may stand forth eternal. It is the nature of God, so terribly pure that it destroys all that isnot pure as fire, which demands like purity in our worship. He willhave purity. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worshipthus; but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, willgo on burning within us after all that is foreign to it has yielded toits force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highestconsciousness of life, the presence of God. When evil, which alone isconsumable, shall have passed away in his fire from the dwellers in theimmovable kingdom, the nature of man shall look the nature of God inthe face, and his fear shall then be pure; for an eternal, that is aholy fear, must spring from a knowledge of the nature, not from a senseof the power. But that which cannot be consumed must be one withinitself, a simple existence; therefore in such a soul the fear towardsGod will be one with the homeliest love. Yea, the fear of God willcause a man to flee, not from him, but from himself; not from him, butto him, the Father of himself, in terror lest he should do Him wrong orhis neighbour wrong. And the first words which follow for the settingforth of that grace whereby we may serve God acceptably are these--"Letbrotherly love continue. " To love our brother is to worship theConsuming Fire. 

The symbol of _the consuming fire_ would seem to have been suggested tothe writer by the fire that burned on the mountain of the old law. Thatfire was part of the revelation of God there made to the Israelites. Nor was it the first instance of such a revelation. The symbol of God'spresence, before which Moses had to put off his shoes, and to which itwas not safe for him to draw near, was a fire that _did not consume thebush in which it burned_. Both revelations were of terror. But the samesymbol employed by a writer of the New Testament should mean more, notthan it meant before, but than it was before employed to express; forit could not have been employed to express more than it was possiblefor them to perceive. What else than terror could a nation of slaves, into whose very souls the rust of their chains had eaten, in whosememory lingered the smoke of the flesh-pots of Egypt, who, rather thannot eat of the food they liked best, would have gone back to the houseof their bondage--what else could such a nation see in that fire thanterror and destruction? How should they think of purification by fire?They had yet no such condition of mind as could generate such athought. And if they had had the thought, the notion of the sufferinginvolved would soon have overwhelmed the notion of purification. Norwould such a nation have listened to any teaching that was notsupported by terror. Fear was that for which they were fit. They had noworship for any being of whom they had not to be afraid. 

Was then this show upon Mount Sinai a device to move obedience, such asbad nurses employ with children? a hint of vague and false horror? Wasit not a true revelation of God?

If it was not a true revelation, it was none at all, and the story iseither false, or the whole display was a political trick of Moses. Those who can read the mind of Moses will not easily believe thelatter, and those who understand the scope of the pretended revelation, will see no reason for supposing the former. That which would bepolitic, were it a deception, is not therefore excluded from thepossibility of another source. Some people believe so little in acosmos or ordered world, that the very argument of fitness is a reasonfor unbelief. 

At all events, if God showed them these things, God showed them whatwas true. It was a revelation of himself. He will not put on a mask. Heputs on a face. He will not speak out of flaming fire if that flamingfire is alien to him, if there is nothing in him for that flaming fireto reveal. Be his children ever so brutish, he will not terrify themwith a lie. 

It was a revelation, but a partial one; a true symbol, not a finalvision. 

No revelation can be other than partial. If for true revelation a manmust be told all the truth, then farewell to revelation; yea, farewellto the sonship. For what revelation, other than a partial, can thehighest spiritual condition receive of the infinite God? But it is nottherefore untrue because it is partial. Relatively to a lower conditionof the receiver, a more partial revelation might be truer than thatwould be which constituted a fuller revelation to one in a highercondition; for the former might reveal much to him, the latter mightreveal nothing. Only, whatever it might reveal, if its nature were suchas to preclude development and growth, thus chaining the man to itsincompleteness, it would be but a false revelation fighting against allthe divine laws of human existence. The true revelation rouses thedesire to know more by the truth of its incompleteness. 

Here was a nation at its lowest: could it receive anything but apartial revelation, a revelation of fear? How should the Hebrews beother than terrified at that which was opposed to all they knew ofthemselves, beings judging it good to honour a golden calf? Such asthey were, they did well to be afraid. They were in a better condition, acknowledging if only a terror _above_ them, flaming on that unknownmountain height, than stooping to worship the idol below them. Fear isnobler than sensuality. Fear is better than no God, better than a godmade with hands. In that fear lay deep hidden the sense of theinfinite. The worship of fear is true, although very low; and thoughnot acceptable to God in itself, for only the worship of spirit and oftruth is acceptable to him, yet even in his sight it is precious. Forhe regards men not as they are merely, but as they shall be; not asthey shall be merely, but as they are now growing, or capable ofgrowing, towards that image after which he made them that they mightgrow to it. Therefore a thousand stages, each in itself all butvalueless, are of inestimable worth as the necessary and connectedgradations of an infinite progress. A condition which of declensionwould indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint. So far then therevelation, not being final any more than complete, and calling forththe best of which they were now capable, so making future and higherrevelation possible, may have been a true one. 

But we shall find that this very revelation of fire is itself, in ahigher sense, true to the mind of the rejoicing saint as to the mind ofthe trembling sinner. For the former sees farther into the meaning ofthe fire, and knows better what it will do to him. It is a symbol whichneeded not to be superseded, only unfolded. While men take part _with_their sins, while they feel as if, separated from their sins, theywould be no longer themselves, how can they understand that thelightning word is a Saviour--that word which pierces to the dividingbetween the man and the evil, which will slay the sin and give life tothe sinner? Can it be any comfort to them to be told that God lovesthem so that he will burn them clean. Can the cleansing of the fireappear to them anything beyond what it must always, more or less, be--aprocess of torture? They do not want to be clean, and they cannot bearto be tortured. Can they then do other, or can we desire that theyshould do other, than fear God, even with the fear of the wicked, untilthey learn to love him with the love of the holy. To them Mount Sinaiis crowned with the signs of vengeance. And is not God ready to do untothem even as they fear, though with another feeling and a different endfrom any which they are capable of supposing? He is against sin: in sofar as, and while, they and sin are one, he is against them--againsttheir desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus he isaltogether and always _for them_. That thunder and lightning andtempest, that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet, that visiblehorror billowed with the voice of words, was all but a faint image tothe senses of the slaves of what God thinks and feels against vilenessand selfishness, of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which heregards such conditions; that so the stupid people, fearing somewhat todo as they would, might leave a little room for that grace to grow inthem, which would at length make them see that evil, and not fire, isthe fearful thing; yea, so transform them that they would gladly rushup into the trumpet-blast of Sinai to escape the flutes around thegolden calf. Could they have understood this, they would have needed noMount Sinai. It was a true, and of necessity a partial revelation--partial in order to be true. 

Even Moses, the man of God, was not ready to receive the revelation instore; not ready, although from love to his people he prayed that Godwould even blot him out of his book of life. If this means that heoffered to give himself as a sacrifice _instead_ of them, it would showreason enough why he could not be glorified with the vision of theRedeemer. For so he would think to appease God, not seeing that God wasas tender as himself, not seeing that God is the Reconciler, theRedeemer, not seeing that the sacrifice of the heart is the atonementfor which alone he cares. He would be blotted out, that their namesmight be kept in. Certainly when God told him that he that had sinnedshould suffer for it, Moses could not see that this was the kindestthing that God could do. But I doubt if that was what Moses meant. Itseems rather the utterance of a divine despair:--he would not survivethe children of his people. He did not care for a love that would savehim alone, and send to the dust those thousands of calf-worshippingbrothers and sisters. But in either case, how much could Moses haveunderstood, if he had seen the face instead of the back of that formthat passed the clift of the rock amidst the thunderous vapours ofSinai? Had that form turned and that face looked upon him, the face ofhim who was more man than any man; the face through which the divineemotion would, in the ages to come, manifest itself to the eyes of men, bowed, it might well be, at such a moment, in anticipation of the crownwith which the children of the people for whom Moses pleaded with hislife, would one day crown him; the face of him who was bearing and wasyet to bear their griefs and carry their sorrows, who is now bearingour griefs and carrying our sorrows; the face of the Son of God, who, instead of accepting the sacrifice of one of his creatures to satisfyhis justice or support his dignity, gave himself utterly unto them, andtherein to the Father by doing his lovely will; who suffered unto thedeath, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might belike his, and lead them up to his perfection; if that face, I say, hadturned and looked upon Moses, would Moses have lived? Would he not havedied, not of splendour, not of sorrow, (terror was not there, ) but ofthe actual sight of the incomprehensible? If infinite mystery had notslain him, would he not have gone about dazed, doing nothing, having nomore any business that he could do in the world, seeing God was to himaltogether unknown? For thus a full revelation would not only be norevelation, but the destruction of all revelation. 

"May it not then hurt to say that God is Love, all love, and nothingother than love? It is not enough to answer that such is the truth, even granted that it is. Upon your own showing, too much revelation mayhurt by dazzling and blinding. "

There is a great difference between a mystery of God that no manunderstands, and a mystery of God laid hold of, let it be but by onesingle man. The latter is already a revelation; and, passing throughthat man's mind, will be so presented, it may be so _feebly_ presented, that it will not hurt his fellows. Let God conceal as he will:(although I believe he is ever destroying concealment, ever giving allthat he can, all that men can receive at his hands, that he does notwant to conceal anything, but to reveal everything, ) the light whichany man has received is not to be put under a bushel; it is for him andhis fellows. In sowing the seed he will not withhold his hand becausethere are thorns and stony places and waysides. He will think that insome cases even a bird of the air may carry the matter, that the goodseed may be too much for the thorns, that that which withers away uponthe stony place may yet leave there, by its own decay, a deeper soilfor the next seed to root itself in. Besides, they only can receive thedoctrine who have ears to hear. If the selfish man could believe it, hewould misinterpret it; but he cannot believe it. It is not possiblethat he should. But the loving soul, oppressed by wrong teaching, orpartial truth claiming to be the whole, will hear, understand, rejoice. 

For, when we say that God is Love, do we teach men that their fear ofhim is groundless? No. As much as they fear will come upon them, possibly far more. But there is something beyond their fear, --a divinefate which they cannot withstand, because it works along with the humanindividuality which the divine individuality has created in them. Thewrath will consume what they _call_ themselves; so that the selves Godmade shall appear, coming out with tenfold consciousness of being, andbringing with them all that made the blessedness of the life the mentried to lead without God. They will know that now first are they fullythemselves. The avaricious, weary, selfish, suspicious old man shallhave passed away. The young, ever young self, will remain. That whichthey _thought_ themselves shall have vanished: that which they _felt_themselves, though they misjudged their own feelings, shall remain--remain glorified in repentant hope. For that which cannot be shakenshall remain. That which is immortal in God shall remain in man. Thedeath that is in them shall be consumed. 

It is the law of Nature--that is, the law of God--that all that isdestructible shall be destroyed. When that which is immortal buriesitself in the destructible--when it receives all the messages fromwithout, through the surrounding region of decadence, and none fromwithin, from the eternal doors--it cannot, though immortal still, knowits own immortality. The destructible must be burned out of it, orbegin to be burned out of it, before it can _partake_ of eternal life. When that is all burnt away and gone, then it has eternal life. Orrather, when the fire of eternal life has possessed a man, then thedestructible is gone utterly, and he is pure. Many a man's work must beburned, that by that very burning he may be saved--"so as by fire. "Away in smoke go the lordships, the Rabbi-hoods of the world, and theman who acquiesces in the burning is saved by the fire; for it hasdestroyed the destructible, which is the vantage point of the deathly, which would destroy both body and soul in hell. If still he cling tothat which can be burned, the burning goes on deeper and deeper intohis bosom, till it reaches the roots of the falsehood that enslaveshim--possibly by looking like the truth. 

The man who loves God, and is not yet pure, courts the burning of God. Nor is it always torture. The fire shows itself sometimes only aslight--still it will be fire of purifying. The consuming fire is justthe original, the active form of Purity, --that which makes pure, thatwhich is indeed Love, the creative energy of God. Without purity therecan be as no creation so no persistence. That which is not pure iscorruptible, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. 

The man whose deeds are evil, fears the burning. But the burning willnot come the less that he fears it or denies it. Escape is hopeless. For Love is inexorable. Our God is a consuming fire. He shall not comeout till he has paid the uttermost farthing. 

If the man resists the burning of God, the consuming fire of Love, aterrible doom awaits him, and its day will come. He shall be cast intothe outer darkness who hates the fire of God. What sick dismay shallthen seize upon him! For let a man think and care ever so little aboutGod, he does not therefore exist without God. God is here with him, upholding, warming, delighting, teaching him--making life a good thingto him. God gives him himself, though he knows it not. But when Godwithdraws from a man as far as that can be without the man's ceasing tobe; when the man feels himself abandoned, hanging in a ceaselessvertigo of existence upon the verge of the gulf of his being, withoutsupport, without refuge, without aim, without end--for the soul has noweapons wherewith to destroy herself--with no inbreathing of joy, withnothing to make life good;--then will he listen in agony for thefaintest sound of life from the closed door; then, if the moan ofsuffering humanity ever reaches the ear of the outcast of darkness, hewill be ready to rush into the very heart of the Consuming Fire to knowlife once more, to change this terror of sick negation, of unspeakabledeath, for that region of painful hope. Imagination cannot mislead usinto too much horror of being without God--that one living death. Isnot this

 to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling?

But with this divine difference: that the outer darkness is but themost dreadful form of the consuming fire--the fire without light--thedarkness visible, the black flame. God hath withdrawn himself, but notlost his hold. His face is turned away, but his hand is laid upon himstill. His heart has ceased to beat into the man's heart, but he keepshim alive by his fire. And that fire will go searching and burning onin him, as in the highest saint who is not yet pure as he is pure. 

But at length, O God, wilt thou not cast Death and Hell into the lakeof Fire--even into thine own consuming self? Death shall then dieeverlastingly, And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. 

Then indeed wilt thou be all in all. For then our poor brothers andsisters, every one--O God, we trust in thee, the Consuming Fire--shallhave been burnt clean and brought home. For if their moans, myriads ofages away, would turn heaven for us into hell--shall a man be moremerciful than God? Shall, of all his glories, his mercy alone not beinfinite? Shall a brother love a brother more than The Father loves ason?--more than The Brother Christ loves his brother? Would he not dieyet again to save one brother more?

As for us, now will we come to thee, our Consuming Fire. And thou wiltnot burn us more than we can bear. But thou wilt burn us. And althoughthou seem to slay us, yet will we trust in thee even for that whichthou hast not spoken, if by any means at length we may attain unto theblessedness of those _who have not seen and yet have believed_. 

 THE HIGHER FAITH. 

_Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thouhast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet havebelieved. _--JOHN xx. 29. 

The aspiring child is often checked by the dull disciple who haslearned his lessons so imperfectly that he has never got beyond hisschool-books. Full of fragmentary rules, he has perceived the principleof none of them. The child draws near to him with some outburst ofunusual feeling, some scintillation of a lively hope, somewide-reaching imagination that draws into the circle of religioustheory the world of nature, and the yet wider world of humanity, for tothe child the doings of the Father fill the spaces; he has not yetlearned to divide between God and nature, between Providence and grace, between love and benevolence;--the child comes, I say, with his heartfull, and the answer he receives from the dull disciple is--"God hassaid nothing about that in his word, therefore we have no right tobelieve anything about it. It is better not to speculate on suchmatters. However desirable it may seem to us, we have nothing to dowith it. It is not revealed. " For such a man is incapable ofsuspecting, that what has remained hidden from him may have beenrevealed to the babe. With the authority, therefore, of years andignorance, he forbids the child, for he believes in no revelation butthe Bible, and in the word of that alone. For him all revelation hasceased with and been buried in the Bible, to be with difficultyexhumed, and, with much questioning of the decayed form, re-united intoa rigid skeleton of metaphysical and legal contrivance for letting thelove of God have its way unchecked by the other perfections of hisbeing. 

But to the man who would live throughout the whole divine form of hisbeing, not confining himself to one broken corner of his kingdom, andleaving the rest to the demons that haunt such deserts, a thousandquestions will arise to which the Bible does not even allude. Has heindeed nothing to do with such? Do they lie beyond the sphere of hisresponsibility? "Leave them, " says the dull disciple. "I cannot, "returns the man. "Not only does that degree of peace of mind withoutwhich action is impossible, depend upon the answers to these questions, but my conduct itself must correspond to these answers. " "Leave them atleast till God chooses to explain, if he ever will. " "No. Questionsimply answers. He has put the questions in my heart; he holds theanswers in his. I will seek them from him. I will wait, but not till Ihave knocked. I will be patient, but not till I have asked. I will seekuntil I find. He has something for me. My prayer shall go up unto theGod of my life. "

Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us_everything_ God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itselfgreatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as _the_ Word, _the_ Way, _the_ Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid allthe treasures of wisdom and knowledge, " not the Bible, save as leadingto him. And why are we told that these treasures are _hid_ in him whois the _Revelation_ of God? Is it that we should despair of findingthem and cease to seek them? Are they not hid in him that they may berevealed to us in due time--that is, when we are in need of them? Isnot their hiding in him the mediatorial step towards their unfolding inus? Is he not the Truth?--the Truth to men? Is he not the High Priestof his brethren, to answer all the troubled questionings that arise intheir dim humanity? For it is his heart which

 Contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape. 

Didymus answers, "No doubt, what we know not now, we shall knowhereafter. " Certainly there may be things which the mere passing intoanother stage of existence will illuminate; but the questions that comehere, must be inquired into here, and if not answered here, then theretoo until they be answered. There is more hid in Christ than we shallever learn, here or there either; but they that begin first to inquirewill soonest be gladdened with revelation; and with them he will bebest pleased, for the slowness of his disciples troubled him of old. Tosay that we must wait for the other world, to know the mind of him whocame to this world to give himself to us, seems to me the foolishnessof a worldly and lazy spirit. The Son of God _is_ the Teacher of men, giving to them of his Spirit--that Spirit which manifests the deepthings of God, being to a man the mind of Christ. The great heresy ofthe Church of the present day is unbelief in this Spirit. The mass ofthe Church does not believe that the Spirit has a revelation for everyman individually--a revelation as different from the revelation of theBible, as the food in the moment of passing into living brain and nervediffers from the bread and meat. If we were once filled with the mindof Christ, we should know that the Bible had done its work, wasfulfilled, and had for us passed away, that thereby the Word of our Godmight abide for ever. The one use of the Bible is to make us look atJesus, that through him we might know his Father and our Father, hisGod and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear asthe moon of our darkness, by which we travel towards the east; not dearas the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that, walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror thatreflected his absent brightness. 

But this doctrine of the Spirit is not my end now, although, were itnot true, all our religion would be vain, that of St Paul and that ofSocrates. What I want to say and show, if I may, is, that a man willplease God better by believing some things that are not told him, thanby confining his faith to those things that are expressly said--said toarouse in us the truth-seeing faculty, the spiritual desire, the prayerfor the good things which God will give to them that ask him. 

"But is not this dangerous doctrine? Will not a man be taught thus tobelieve the things he likes best, even to pray for that which he likesbest? And will he not grow arrogant in his confidence?"

If it be true that the Spirit strives with our spirit; if it be truethat God teaches men, we may safely leave those dreaded results to him. If the man is of the Lord's company, he is safer with him than withthose who would secure their safety by hanging on the outskirts anddaring nothing. If he is not taught of God in that which he hopes for, God will let him know it. He will receive, something else than he praysfor. If he can pray to God for anything not good, the answer will comein the flames of that consuming fire. These will soon bring him to someof his spiritual senses. But it will be far better for him to be thussharply tutored, than to go on a snail's pace in the journey of thespiritual life. And for arrogance, I have seen nothing breed it fasteror in more offensive forms than the worship of the letter. 

And to whom shall a man, whom the blessed God has made, look for whathe likes best, but to that blessed God? If we have been indeed enabledto see that God is our Father, as the Lord taught us, let us advancefrom that truth to understand that he is far more than father--thathis nearness to us is beyond the embodiment of the highest idea offather; that the fatherhood of God is but a step towards the Godhoodfor them that can receive it. What a man likes best _may_ be God'swill, may be the voice of the Spirit striving _with_ his spirit, notagainst it; and if, as I have said, it be not so--if the thing he asksis not according to his will--there is that consuming fire. The dangerlies, not in asking from God what is not good, nor even in hoping toreceive it from him, but in not asking him, in not having him of ourcouncil. Nor will the fact that we dare not inquire his will, preserveus from the necessity of acting in some such matter as we callunrevealed, and where shall we find ourselves then? Nor, once more, forsuch a disposition of mind is it likely that the book itself willcontain much of a revelation. 

The whole matter may safely be left to God. 

But I doubt if a man _can_ ask anything from God that is bad. Surelyone who has begun to pray to him is child enough to know the bad fromthe good when it has come so near him, and dares not pray for _that_. If you refer me to David praying such fearful prayers against hisenemies, I answer, you must read them by your knowledge of the manhimself and his history. Remember that this is he who, with the burningheart of an eastern, yet, when his greatest enemy was given into hishands, instead of taking the vengeance of an eastern, contented himselfwith cutting off the skirt of his garment. It was justice and rightthat he craved in his soul, although his prayers took a wild form ofwords. God heard him, and gave him what contented him. In a good man atleast, "revenge is, " as Lord Bacon says, "a kind of wild justice, " andis easily satisfied. The hearts desire upon such a one's enemies isbest met and granted when the hate is changed into love and compassion. 

But it is about hopes rather than prayers that I wish to write. 

What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faithin me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter! Thefaith that limits itself to the promises of God, seems to me to partakeof the paltry character of such a faith in my child--good enough for aPagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith. Those whorest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had God'sbond instead of his word, which they regard not as the outcome of hischaracter, but as a pledge of his honour. They try to believe in thetruth of his word, but the truth of his Being, they understand not. Inhis oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence: in_himself_ they do not believe, for they know him not. Therefore it islittle wonder that they distrust those swellings of the heart which arehis drawings of the man towards him, as sun and moon heave the oceanmass heavenward. Brother, sister, if such is your faith, you will not, must not stop there. You must come out of this bondage of the law towhich you give the name of grace, for there is little that is graciousin it. You will yet know the dignity of your high calling, and the loveof God that passeth knowledge. He is not afraid of your presumptuousapproach to him. It is you who are afraid to come near him. He is notwatching over his dignity. It is you who fear to be sent away as thedisciples would have sent away the little children. It is you who thinkso much about your souls and are so afraid of losing your life, thatyou dare not draw near to the Life of life, lest it should consume you. 

Our God, we will trust thee. Shall we not find thee equal to our faith?One day, we shall laugh ourselves to scorn that we looked for so littlefrom thee; for thy giving will not be limited by our hoping. 

O thou of little faith! "in everything, "--I am quoting your own Bible;nay, more, I am quoting a divine soul that knew his master Christ, andin his strength opposed apostles, not to say christians, to theirfaces, because they could not believe more than a little in God; couldbelieve only for themselves and not for their fellows; could believefor the few of the chosen nation, for whom they had God's ancient_word_, but could not believe for the multitude of the nations, for themillions of hearts that God had made to search after him and findhim;--"In everything, " says St Paul, "In everything, by prayer andsupplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known untoGod. " For this _everything_, nothing is too small. That it shouldtrouble us is enough. There is some principle involved in it worth thenotice even of God himself, for did he not make us so that the thingdoes trouble us? And surely for this _everything_, nothing can be toogreat. When the Son of man cometh and findeth too much faith on theearth--may God in his mercy slay us. Meantime, we will hope and trust. 

Do you count it a great faith to believe what God has said? It seems tome, I repeat, a little faith, and, if alone, worthy of reproach. Tobelieve what he has not said is faith indeed, and blessed. For thatcomes of believing in HIM. Can you not believe in God himself? Or, confess, --do you not find it so hard to believe what he has said, thateven that is almost more than you can do? If I ask you why, will notthe true answer be--"Because we are not quite sure that he did sayit"? If you believed in God you would find it easy to believe the word. You would not even need to inquire whether he had _said_ it: you wouldknow that he meant it. 

Let us then dare something. Let us not always be unbelieving children. Let us keep in mind that the Lord, not forbidding those who insist onseeing before they will believe, blesses those who have not seen andyet have believed--those who trust in him more than that--who believewithout the sight of the eyes, without the hearing of the ears. Theyare blessed to whom a wonder is not a fable, to whom a mystery is not amockery, to whom a glory is not an unreality--who are content to ask, "Is it like Him?" It is a dull-hearted, unchildlike people that will bealways putting God in mind of his promises. Those promises are good toreveal what God is; if they think them good as binding God, let themhave it so for the hardness of their hearts. They prefer the Word tothe Spirit: it is theirs. 

Even such will leave us--some of them will, if not all--to the"uncovenanted mercies of God. " We desire no less; we hope for nobetter. Those are the mercies beyond our height, beyond our depth, beyond our reach. We know in whom we have believed, and we look forthat which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. ShallGod's thoughts be surpassed by man's thoughts? God's giving by man'sasking? God's creation by man's imagination? No. Let us climb to theheight of our Alpine desires; let us leave them behind us and ascendthe spear-pointed Himmalays of our aspirations; still shall we find thedepth of God's sapphire above us; still shall we find the heavenshigher than the earth, and his thoughts and his ways higher than ourthoughts and our ways. 

Ah Lord! be thou in all our being; as not in the Sundays of our timealone, so not in the chambers of our hearts alone. We dare not thinkthat thou canst not, carest not; that some things are not for thybeholding, some questions not to be asked of thee. For are we not allthine--utterly thine? That which a man speaks not to his fellow, wespeak to thee. Our very passions we hold up to thee, and say, "Behold, Lord! Think about us; for thus thou hast made us. " We would not escapefrom our history by fleeing into the wilderness, by hiding our heads inthe sands of forgetfulness, or the repentance that comes of pain, orthe lethargy of hopelessness. We take it, as our very life, in ourhand, and flee with it unto thee. Triumphant is the answer which thouboldest for every doubt. It may be we could not understand it yet, evenif thou didst speak it "with most miraculous organ. " But thou shalt atleast find faith in the earth, O Lord, if thou comest to look for itnow--the faith of ignorant but hoping children, who know that they donot know, and believe that thou knowest. 

And for our brothers and sisters, who cleave to what they call thyword, thinking to please thee so, they are in thy holy safe hands, whohast taught us that _whosoever shall speak a word against the Son ofman, it shall be forgiven him_; though unto him that blasphemes againstthe Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven_. 

 IT SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN. 

_And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall beforgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, itshall not be forgiven. --LUKE xi. 18. 

Whatever belonging to the region of thought and feeling is uttered inwords, is of necessity uttered imperfectly. For thought and feeling areinfinite, and human speech, although far-reaching in scope, andmarvellous in delicacy, can embody them after all but approximately andsuggestively. Spirit and Truth are like the Lady Una and the Red CrossKnight; Speech like the dwarf that lags behind with the lady's "bag ofneedments. "

Our Lord had no design of constructing a system of truth inintellectual forms. The truth of the moment in its relation to him, TheTruth, was what he spoke. He spoke out of a region of realities whichhe knew could only be suggested--not represented--in the forms ofintellect and speech. With vivid flashes of life and truth his wordsinvade our darkness, rousing us with sharp stings of light to will ourawaking, to arise from the dead and cry for the light which he cangive, not in the lightning of words only, but in indwelling presenceand power. 

How, then, must the truth fare with those who, having neither glow norinsight, will build intellectual systems upon the words of our Lord, orof his disciples? A little child would better understand Plato thanthey St Paul. The meaning in those great hearts who knew our Lord istoo great to enter theirs. The sense they find in the words must be asense small enough to pass through their narrow doors. And if merewords, without the interpreting sympathy, may mean, as they may, almostanything the receiver will or can attribute to them, how shall the man, bent at best on the salvation of his own soul, understand, forinstance, the meaning of that apostle who was ready to encounterbanishment itself from the presence of Christ, that the belovedbrethren of his nation might enter in? To men who are not simple, simple words are the most inexplicable of riddles. 

If we are bound to search after what our Lord means--and he speaks thatwe may understand--we are at least equally bound to refuse anyinterpretation which seems to us unlike him, unworthy of him. Hehimself says, "Why do ye not of your own selves judge what is right?"In thus refusing, it may happen that, from ignorance ormisunderstanding, we refuse the verbal form of its true interpretation, but we cannot thus refuse the spirit and the truth of it, for those wecould not have seen without being in the condition to recognize them asthe mind of Christ. Some misapprehension, I say, some obliquity, orsome slavish adherence to old prejudices, may thus cause us to refusethe true interpretation, but we are none the less bound to refuse andwait for more light. To accept that as the will of our Lord which to usis inconsistent with what we have learned to worship in him already, isto introduce discord into that harmony whose end is to unite ourhearts, and make them whole. 

"Is it for us, " says the objector who, by some sleight of will, believes in the word apart from the meaning for which it stands, "tojudge of the character of our Lord?" I answer, "This very thing herequires of us. " He requires of us that we should do him no injustice. He would come and dwell with us, if we would but open our chambers toreceive him. How shall we receive him if, avoiding judgment, we holdthis or that daub of authority or tradition hanging upon our walls tobe the real likeness of our Lord? Is it not possible at least that, judging unrighteous judgment by such while we flatter ourselves that weare refusing to judge, we may close our doors against the Masterhimself as an impostor, not finding him like the picture that hangs inour oratory. And if we do not judge--humbly and lovingly--who is tojudge for us? Better to refuse even the truth for a time, than, byaccepting into our intellectual creed that which our heart cannotreceive, not seeing its real form, to introduce hesitation into ourprayers, a jar into our praises, and a misery into our love. If it bethe truth, we shall one day see it another thing than it appears now, and love it because we see it lovely; for all truth is lovely. "Not tothe unregenerate mind. " But at least, I answer, to the mind which canlove that Man, Christ Jesus; and that part of us which loves him let usfollow, and in its judgements let us trust; hoping, beyond all thingselse, for its growth and enlightenment by the Lord, who is that Spirit. Better, I say again, to refuse the right _form_, than, by accepting itin misapprehension of what it really is, to refuse the spirit, thetruth that dwells therein. Which of these, I pray, is liker to the sinagainst the Holy Ghost? To mistake the meaning of the Son of man maywell fill a man with sadness. But to care so little for him as toreceive as his what the noblest part of our nature rejects as low andpoor, or selfish and wrong, that surely is more like the sin againstthe Holy Ghost that can never be forgiven; for it is a sin against thetruth itself, not the embodiment of it in him. 

Words for their full meaning depend upon their source, the person whospeaks them. An utterance may even seem commonplace, till you are toldthat thus spoke one whom you know to be always thinking, alwaysfeeling, always acting. Recognizing the mind whence the words proceed, you know the scale by which they are to be understood. So the words ofGod cannot mean just the same as the words of man. "Can we not, then, understand them?" Yes, we can understand them--we can understand them_more_ than the words of men. Whatever a good word means, as used by agood man, it means just infinitely more as used by God. And the feelingor thought expressed by that word takes higher and higher forms in usas we become capable of understanding him, --that is, as we become likehim. 

I am far less anxious to show what the sin against the Holy Ghostmeans, than to show what the nonforgiveness means; though I think wemay arrive at some understanding of both. I cannot admit for a momentthat there is anything in the Bible too mysterious to be looked into;for the Bible is a _revelation_, an unveiling. True, into many thingsuttered there I can see only a little way. But that little way is theway of life; for the depth of their mystery is God. And even settingaside the duty of the matter, and seeking for justification as if theduty were doubtful, it is reason enough for inquiring into suchpassages as this before me, that they are often torture to human minds, chiefly those of holy women and children. I knew a child who believedshe had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, because she had, inher toilette, made an improper use of a pin. Dare not to rebuke me foradducing the diseased fancy of a child in a weighty matter of theology. "Despise not one of these little ones. " Would the theologians were asnear the truth in such matters as the children. _Diseased fancy!_ Thechild knew, _and was conscious that she knew, _ that she was doing wrongbecause she had been forbidden. _There was rational ground for herfear_. How would Jesus have received the confession of the darling?_He_ would not have told her she was silly, and "never to mind. " Childas she was, might he not have said to her, "I do not condemn thee: goand sin no more"?

To reach the first position necessary for the final attainment of ourend, I will inquire what the divine forgiveness means. And in order toarrive at this naturally, I will begin by asking what the humanforgiveness means; for, if there be any meaning in the Incarnation, itis through the Human that we must climb up to the Divine. 

I do not know that it is of much use to go back to the Greek or theEnglish word for any primary idea of the act--the one meaning _asending away_, the other, _a giving away_. It will be enough if we lookat the feelings associated with the exercise of what is called_forgiveness_. 

A man will say: "_I_ forgive, but I cannot forget. Let the fellow nevercome in my sight again. " To what does such a forgiveness reach? To theremission or sending away of the penalties which the wronged believeshe can claim from the wrong-doer. 

_But there is no sending away of the wrong itself from between them_. 

Again, a man will say: "He has done a very mean action, but he has theworst of it himself in that he is capable of doing so. I despise himtoo much to desire revenge. I will take no notice of it. I forgive him. I don't care. "

Here, again, there is no sending away of the wrong from between them--no _remission_ of the sin. 

A third will say: "I suppose I must forgive him; for if I do notforgive him, God will not forgive me. "

This man is a _little_ nearer the truth, inasmuch as a ground ofsympathy, though only that of common sin, is recognized as between theoffender and himself. 

One more will say: "He has wronged me grievously. It is a dreadfulthing to me, and more dreadful still to him, that he should have doneit. He has hurt me, but he has nearly killed himself. He shall have nomore injury from it that I can save him. I cannot feel the same towardshim yet; but I will try to make him acknowledge the wrong he has doneme, and so put it away from him. Then, perhaps, I shall be able to feeltowards him as I used to feel. For this end I will show him all thekindness I can, not forcing it upon him, but seizing every fitopportunity; not, I hope, from a wish to make myself great throughbounty to him, but because I love him so much that I want to love himmore in reconciling him to his true self. I would destroy this evildeed that has come between us. I send it away. And I would have himdestroy it from between us too, by abjuring it utterly. "

Which comes nearest to the divine idea of forgiveness? nearest, thoughwith the gulf between, wherewith the heavens are higher than the earth?

For the Divine creates the Human, has the creative power in excess ofthe Human. It is the Divine forgiveness that, originating itself, creates our forgiveness, and therefore can do so much more. It can takeup all our wrongs, small and great, with their righteous attendance ofgriefs and sorrows, and carry them away from between our God and us. 

Christ is God's Forgiveness. 

Before we approach a little nearer to this great sight, let us considerthe human forgiveness in a more definite embodiment--as between afather and a son. For although God is so much more to us, and comes somuch nearer to us than a father can be or come, yet the fatherhood isthe last height of the human stair whence our understandings can seehim afar off, and where our hearts can first know that he is nigh, evenin them. 

There are various kinds and degrees of wrongdoing, which need varyingkinds and degrees of forgiveness. An outburst of anger in a child, forinstance, scarcely wants forgiveness. The wrong in it may be so small, that the parent has only to influence the child for self-restraint, andthe rousing of the will against the wrong. The father will not feelthat such a fault has built up any wall between him and his child. Butsuppose that he discovered in him a habit of sly cruelty towards hisyounger brothers, or the animals of the house, how differently would hefeel! Could his forgiveness be the same as in the former case? Wouldnot the different evil require a different _form_ of forgiveness? Imean, would not the forgiveness have to take the form of that kind ofpunishment fittest for restraining, in the hope of finally rooting out, the wickedness? Could there be true love in any other kind offorgiveness than this? A passing-by of the offence might spring from apoor human kindness, but never from divine love. It would not be_remission_. Forgiveness can never be indifference. Forgiveness is lovetowards the unlovely. 

Let us look a little closer at the way a father might feel, and expresshis feelings. One child, the moment the fault was committed, the fatherwould clasp to his bosom, knowing that very love in its own naturalmanifestation would destroy the fault in him, and that, the nextmoment, he would be weeping. The father's hatred of the sin would burstforth in his pitiful tenderness towards the child who was so wretchedas to have done the sin, and so destroy it. The fault of such a childwould then cause no interruption of the interchange of sweetaffections. The child is forgiven at once. But the treatment of anotherupon the same principle would be altogether different. If he had beenguilty of baseness, meanness, selfishness, deceit, self-gratulation inthe evil brought upon others, the father might _say_ to himself: "Icannot forgive him. This is beyond forgiveness. " He might _say_ so, andkeep saying so, while all the time he was striving to let forgivenessfind its way that it might lift him from the gulf into which he hadfallen. His love might grow yet greater because of the wandering andloss of his son. For love is divine, and then most divine when it lovesaccording to _needs_ and not according to _merits_. But the forgivenesswould be but in the process of making, as it were, or of drawing nighto the sinner. Not till his opening heart received the divine flood ofdestroying affection, and his own affection burst forth to meet it andsweep the evil away, could it be said to be finished, to have arrived, could the son be said to _be_ forgiven. 

God is forgiving us every day--sending from between him and us our sinsand their fogs and darkness. Witness the shining of his sun and thefalling of his rain, the filling of their hearts with food andgladness, that he loves them that love him not. When some sin that wehave committed has clouded all our horizon, and hidden him from oureyes, he, forgiving us, ere we are, and that we may be, forgiven, sweeps away a path for this his forgiveness to reach our hearts, thatit may by causing our repentance destroy the wrong, and make us ableeven to forgive ourselves. For some are too proud to forgivethemselves, till the forgiveness of God has had its way with them, hasdrowned their pride in the tears of repentance, and made their heartcome again like the heart of a little child. 

But, looking upon forgiveness, then, as the perfecting of a work evergoing on, as the contact of God's heart and ours, in spite and indestruction of the intervening wrong, we may say that God's love isever in front of his forgiveness. God's love is the prime mover, everseeking to perfect his forgiveness, which latter needs the humancondition for its consummation. The love is perfect, working out theforgiveness. God loves where he cannot yet forgive--where forgivenessin the full sense is as yet simply impossible, because no contact ofhearts is possible, because that which lies between has not even begunto yield to the besom of his holy destruction. 

Some things, then, between the Father and his children, as between afather and his child, may comparatively, and in a sense, be made lightof--I do not mean made light of in themselves: away they must go--inasmuch as, evils or sins though they be, they yet leave room for thedwelling of God's Spirit in the heart, forgiving and cleansing away theevil. When a man's evil is thus fading out of him, and he is growingbetter and better, that is the forgiveness coming into him more andmore. Perfect in God's will, it is having its perfect work in the mindof the man. When the man hath, with his whole nature, cast away hissin, there is no room for forgiveness any more, for God dwells in him, and he in God. With the voice of Nathan, "Thou art the man, " theforgiveness of God laid hold of David, the heart of the king washumbled to the dust; and when he thus awoke from the moral lethargythat had fallen upon him, he found that he was still with God. "When Iawake, " he said, "I am still with thee. "

But there are two sins, not of individual deed, but of spiritualcondition, which _cannot be forgiven_; that is, as it seems to me, which cannot be excused, passed by, made little of by the tendernesseven of God, inasmuch as they will allow no forgiveness to come intothe soul, they will permit no good influence to go on working alongsideof them; they shut God out altogether. Therefore the man guilty ofthese can never receive into himself the holy renewing savinginfluences of God's forgiveness. God is outside of him in every sense, save that which springs from his creating relation to him, by which, thanks be to God, he yet keeps a hold of him, although against the willof the man who will not be forgiven. The one of these sins is againstman; the other against God. 

The former is unforgivingness to our neighbour; the shutting of him outfrom our mercies, from our love--so from the universe, as far as we area portion of it--the murdering therefore of our neighbour. It may be aninfinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. Theformer may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart'schoice. It is _spiritual_ murder, the worst, to hate, to brood over thefeeling that excludes, that, in our microcosm, kills the image, theidea of the hated. We listen to the voice of our own hurt pride or hurtaffection (only the latter without the suggestion of the former, thinketh no evil) to the injury of the evil-doer. In as far as we can, we quench the relations of life between us; we close up the passages ofpossible return. This is to shut out God, the Life, the One. For howare we to receive the forgiving presence while we shut out our brotherfrom our portion of the universal forgiveness, the final restoration, thus refusing to let God be All in all? If God appeared to us, howcould he say, "I forgive you, " while we remained unforgiving to ourneighbour? Suppose it possible that he should say so, his forgivenesswould be no good to us while we were uncured of our unforgivingness. Itwould not touch us. It would not come near us. Nay, it would hurt us, for we should think ourselves safe and well, while the horror ofdisease was eating the heart out of us. Tenfold the forgiveness lies inthe words, "If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will yourheavenly Father forgive your trespasses. " Those words are kindnessindeed. God holds the unforgiving man with his hand, but turns his faceaway from him. If, in his desire to see the face of his Father, heturns his own towards his brother, then the face of God turns round andseeks his, for then the man may look upon God and not die. With ourforgiveness to our neighbour, in flows the Consciousness of God'sforgiveness to us; or even with the effort, we become capable ofbelieving that God can forgive us. No man who will not forgive hisneighbour, can believe that God is willing, yea, wanting to forgivehim, can believe that the dove of God's peace is hovering over achaotic heart, fain to alight, but finding no rest for the sole of itsfoot. For God to say to such a man, "I cannot forgive you, " is love aswell as necessity. If God said, "I forgive you, " to a man who hated hisbrother, and if (as is impossible) that voice of forgiveness shouldreach the man, what would it mean to him? How would the man interpretit? Would it not mean to him, "You may go on hating. I do not mind it. You have had great provocation, and are justified in your hate"? Nodoubt God takes what wrong there is, and what provocation there is, into the account; but the more provocation, the more excuse that can beurged for the hate, the more reason, if possible, that the hater shouldbe delivered from the hell of his hate, that God's child should be madethe loving child that he meant him to be. The man would think, not thatGod loved the sinner, but that he forgave the sin, which God neverdoes. Every sin meets with its due fate--inexorable expulsion from theparadise of God's Humanity. He loves the sinner so much that he cannotforgive him in any other way than by banishing from his bosom the demonthat possesses him, by lifting him out of that mire of his iniquity. 

No one, however, supposes for a moment that a man who has once refusedto forgive his brother, shall therefore be condemned to endlessunforgiveness and unforgivingness. What is meant is, that while a mancontinues in such a mood, God cannot be with him as his friend; notthat he will not be his friend, but the friendship being all on oneside--that of God--must take forms such as the man will not be able torecognize as friendship. Forgiveness, as I have said, is not lovemerely, but love _conveyed as love_ to the erring, so establishingpeace towards God, and forgiveness towards our neighbour. 

To return then to our immediate text: Is the refusal of forgivenesscontained in it a condemnation to irrecoverable impenitence? Strangerighteousness would be the decree, that because a man has done wrong--let us say has done wrong so often and so much that he _is_ wrong--heshall for ever remain wrong! Do not tell me the condemnation is onlynegative--a leaving of the man to the consequences of his own will, orat most a withdrawing from him of the Spirit which he has despised. Godwill not take shelter behind such a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in heaven. Heknows that that in him would be the same unforgivingness for which herefuses to forgive man. The only tenable ground for supporting such adoctrine is, that God _cannot_ do more; that Satan has overcome; andthat Jesus, amongst his own brothers and sisters in the image of God, has been less strong than the adversary, the destroyer. What then shallI say of such a doctrine of devils as that, even if a man did repent, God would not or could not forgive him?

Let us look at "_the_ unpardonable sin, " as this mystery is commonlycalled, and see what we can find to understand about it. 

All sin is unpardonable. There is no compromise to be made with it. Weshall not come out except clean, except having paid the uttermostfarthing. But the special unpardonableness of those sins, the one ofwhich I have spoken and that which we are now considering, lies intheir shutting out God from his _genial_, his especially spiritual, influences upon the man. Possibly in the case of the former sin, I mayhave said this too strongly; possibly the love of God may have somepart even in the man who will not forgive his brother, although, if hecontinues unforgiving, that part must decrease and die away; possiblyresentment against our brother, might yet for a time leave room forsome divine influences by its side, although either the one or theother must speedily yield; but the man who denies truth, whoconsciously resists duty, who says there is no truth, or that the truthhe sees is not true, who says that which is good is of Satan, or thatwhich is bad is of God, supposing him to know that it is good or isbad, denies the Spirit, shuts out the Spirit, and therefore cannot beforgiven. For without the Spirit no forgiveness can enter the man tocast out the satan. Without the Spirit to witness with his spirit, noman could know himself forgiven, even if God appeared to him and saidso. The full forgiveness is, as I have said, when a man feels that Godis forgiving him; and this cannot be while he opposes himself to thevery essence of God's will. 

As far as we can see, the men of whom this was spoken were men whoresisted the truth with some amount of perception that it was thetruth; men neither led astray by passion, nor altogether blinded bytheir abounding prejudice; men who were not excited to condemn one formof truth by the love which they bore to another form of it; but men soset, from selfishness and love of influence, against one whom they sawto be a good man, that they denied the goodness of what they knew to begood, in order to put down the man whom they knew to be good, becauseHe had spoken against them, and was ruining their influence andauthority with the people by declaring them to be no better than theyknew themselves to be. Is not this to be Satan? to be in hell? to becorruption? to be that which is damned? Was not this their _condition_unpardonable? How, through all this mass of falsehood, could the pardonof God reach the essential humanity within it? Crying as it was forGod's forgiveness, these men had almost separated their humanity fromthemselves, had taken their part with the powers of darkness. Forgiveness while they were such was an impossibility. No. Out of thatthey must come, else there was no word of God for them. But the veryword that told them of the unpardonable state in which they were, wasjust the one form the voice of mercy could take in calling on them torepent. They must hear and be afraid. I dare not, cannot think thatthey refused the truth, knowing all that it was; but I think theyrefused the truth, knowing that it was true--not carried away, as Ihave said, by wild passion, but by cold self-love, and envy, andavarice, and ambition; not merely doing wrong knowingly, but settingtheir whole natures knowingly against the light. Of this nature mustthe sin against the Holy Ghost surely be. "This is the condemnation, "(not the sins that men have committed, but the condition of mind inwhich they choose to remain, ) "that light is come into the world, andmen loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. "In this sin against the Holy Ghost, I see no single act alone, althoughit must find expression in many acts, but a wilful condition of mind, As far removed from God and light of heaven, As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole. 

For this there could be no such excuse made as that even a little lightmight work beside it; for there light could find no entrance and noroom; light was just what such a mind was set against, almost becauseit was what it was. The condition was utterly bad. 

But can a man really fall into such a condition of spiritual depravity?

That is my chief difficulty. But I think it may be. And wiser peoplethan I, have thought so. I have difficulty in believing it, I say; yetI think it must be so. But I do not believe that it is a fixed, a finalcondition. I do not see why it should be such any more than that of theman who does not forgive his neighbour. If you say it is a worseoffence, I say, Is it too bad for the forgiveness of God?

But is God able to do anything more with the man? Or how is the manever to get out of this condition? If the Spirit of God is shut outfrom his heart, how is he to become better?

The Spirit of God is the Spirit whose influence is known by itswitnessing with our spirit. But may there not be other powers and meansof the Spirit preparatory to this its highest office with man? God whohas made us can never be far from any man who draws the breath oflife--nay, must be in him; not necessarily in his heart, as we say, butstill in him. May not then one day some terrible convulsion from thecentre of his being, some fearful earthquake from the hidden gulfs ofhis nature, shake such a man so that through all the deafness of hisdeath, the voice of the Spirit may be faintly heard, the still smallvoice that comes after the tempest and the earthquake? May there not bea fire that even such can feel? Who shall set bounds to the consumingof the fire of our God, and the purifying that dwells therein?

The only argument that I can think of, which would with me have weightagainst this conclusion, is, that the revulsion of feeling in any onewho had thus sinned against the truth, when once brought to acknowledgehis sin, would be so terrible that life would never more be endurable, and the kindest thing God could do would be to put such a man out ofbeing, because it had been a better thing for him never to have beenborn. But he who could make such a man repent, could make him sosorrowful and lowly, and so glad that he had repented, that he wouldwish to live ever that he might ever repent and ever worship the gloryhe now beheld. When a man gives up self, his past sins will no longeroppress him. It is enough for the good of life that God lives, that theAll-perfect exists, and that we can behold him. 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, " said theDivine, making excuse for his murderers, not after it was all over, butat the very moment when he was dying by their hands. Then Jesus hadforgiven them already. His prayer the Father must have heard, for heand the Son are one. When the Father succeeded in answering his prayer, then his forgiveness in the hearts of the murderers broke out insorrow, repentance, and faith. Here was a sin dreadful enough surely--but easy for our Lord to forgive. All that excuse for the misledpopulace! Lord Christ be thanked for that! That was like thee! But mustwe believe that Judas, who repented even to agony, who repented so thathis high-prized life, self, soul, became worthless in his eyes and metwith no mercy at his own hand, --must we believe that he could find nomercy in such a God? I think, when Judas fled from his hanged andfallen body, he fled to the tender help of Jesus, and found it--I saynot how. He was in a more hopeful condition now than during any momentof his past life, for he had never repented before. But I believe thatJesus loved Judas even when he was kissing him with the traitor's kiss;and I believe that he was his Saviour still. And if any man remind meof his words, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born, "I had not forgotten them, though I know that I now offer nothing beyonda conjectural explanation of them when I say: Judas had got none of thegood of the world into which he had been born. He had not inherited theearth. He had lived an evil life, out of harmony with the world and itsGod. Its love had been lost upon him. He had been brought to the verySon of God, and had lived with him as his own familiar friend; and hehad not loved him more, but less than himself. Therefore it had beenall useless. "It had been good for that man if he had not been born;"for it was all to try over again, in some other way--inferior perhaps, in some other world, in a lower school. He had to be sent down thescale of creation which is ever ascending towards its Maker. But I willnot, cannot believe, O my Lord, that thou wouldst not forgive thyenemy, even when he repented, and did thee right. Nor will I believethat thy holy death was powerless to save thy foe--that it could notreach to Judas. Have we not heard of those, thine own, taught of thee, who could easily forgive their betrayers in thy name? And if thouforgivest, will not thy forgiveness find its way at last in redemptionand purification?

Look for a moment at the clause preceding my text: "He that denieth mebefore men shall be denied before the angels of God. " What does itmean? Does it mean--"Ah! you are mine, but not of my sort. You deniedme. Away to the outer darkness"? Not so. "It shall be forgiven to himthat speaketh against the Son of man;" for He may be but the truthrevealed _without_ him. Only he must have shame before the universe ofthe loving God, and may need the fire that burneth and consumeth not. 

But for him that speaketh against the Spirit of Truth, against the Sonof God revealed _within_ him, he is beyond the teaching of that Spiritnow. For how shall he be forgiven? The forgiveness would touch him nomore than a wall of stone. Let him know what it is to be without theGod he hath denied. Away with him to the Outer Darkness! Perhaps _that_will make him repent. 

My friends, I offer this as only a contribution towards theunderstanding of our Lord's words. But if we ask him, he will lead usinto all truth. And let us not be afraid to think, for he will not takeit ill. 

But what I have said must be at least a part of the truth. 

No amount of discovery in his words can tell us more than _we_ havediscovered, more than we have seen and known to be true. For all thehelp the best of his disciples can give us is only to discover, to seefor ourselves. And beyond all our discoveries in his words and being, there lie depths within depths of truth that we cannot understand, andyet shall be ever going on to understand. Yea, even now sometimes weseem to have dim glimpses into regions from which we receive no word tobring away. 

The fact that some things have become to us so much more simple thanthey were, and that great truths have come out of what once lookedcommon, is ground enough for hope that such will go on to be ourexperience through the ages to come. Our advance from our formerignorance can measure but a small portion of the distance that lies, and must ever lie, between our childishness and his manhood, betweenour love and his love, between our dimness and his mighty vision. Tohim ere long may we all come, all children, still children, morechildren than ever, to receive from his hand the _white stone, and inthe stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he thatreceiveth it_. 

 THE NEW NAME. 

_To him that overcometh, I will give a white stone, and in the stone anew name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. --REV. Ii. 17. _

Whether the Book of the Revelation be written by the same man who wrotethe Gospel according to St John or not, there is, at least, one elementcommon to the two--the mysticism. 

I use the word _mysticism_ as representing a certain mode of embodyingtruth, common, in various degrees, to almost all, if not all, thewriters of the New Testament. The attempt to define it thoroughly wouldrequire an essay. I will hazard but one suggestion towards it: Amystical mind is one which, having perceived that the highestexpression of which the truth admits, lies in the symbolism of natureand the human customs that result from human necessities, prosecutesthought about truth so embodied by dealing with the symbols themselvesafter logical forms. This is the highest mode of conveying the deepesttruth; and the Lord himself often employed it, as, for instance, in thewhole passage ending with the words, "If therefore the light that is inthee be darkness, how great is the darkness!"

The mysticism in the Gospel of St John is of the simplest, and, therefore, noblest nature. No dweller in this planet can imagine amethod of embodying truth that shall be purer, loftier, truer to thetruth embodied. There may be higher modes in other worlds, or there maynot--I cannot tell; but of all our modes these forms are bestillustrations of the highest. Apparently the mysticism of St John's ownnature enabled him to remember and report with sufficient accuracy thewords of our Lord, always, it seems to me, of a recognizably differentkind from those of any of the writers of the New Testament--chiefly, perhaps, in the simplicity of their poetical mysticism. 

But the mysticism in the Book of the Revelation is more complicated, more gorgeous, less poetic, and occasionally, I think, perhapsarbitrary, or approaching the arbitrary; _reminding_ one, in a word, ofthe mysticism of Swedenborg. Putting aside both historical and literarycriticism, in neither of which with regard to the authorship of thesetwo books have I a right even to an opinion, I would venture to suggestthat possibly their difference in tone is just what one might expectwhen the historian of a mystical teacher and the recorder of hismystical sayings, proceeds to embody his own thoughts, feelings, andinspirations; that is, when the revelation flows no longer from thelips of the Master, but through the disciple's own heart, soul, andbrain. For surely not the most idolatrous of our Bible-worshippingbrothers and sisters will venture to assert that the Spirit of Godcould speak as freely by the lips of the wind-swayed, reed-like, rebukable Peter, or of the Thomas who could believe his own eyes, butneither the word of his brethren, nor the nature of his Master, as bythe lips of Him who was blind and deaf to everything but the will ofhim that sent him. 

Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam. But, in itsdeepest sense, _the truth_ is a condition of heart, soul, mind, andstrength towards God and towards our fellow--not an utterance, not evena _right_ form of words; and therefore such truth coming forth in wordsis, in a sense, the person that speaks. And many of the utterances oftruth in the Revelation, commonly called of St John, are not merelylofty in form, but carry with them the conviction that the writer wasno mere "trumpet of a prophecy, " but spoke that he did know, andtestified that he had seen. 

In this passage about the gift of the white stone, I think we find theessence of religion. 

What the notion in the mind of the writer with regard to the whitestone was, is, I think, of comparatively little moment. I take thestone to belong more to the arbitrary and fanciful than to the truemystical imagery, although for the bringing out of the mystical thoughtin which it is concerned, it is of high and honourable dignity. Forfancy itself will subserve the true imagination of the mystic, and sobe glorified. I doubt if the writer himself associated any essentialmeaning with it. Certainly I will not allow that he had such a poornotion in it as that of a voting pebble--white, because the man whoreceives it is accepted or chosen. The word is used likewise for aprecious stone set as a jewel. And the writer thought of it mystically, a mode far more likely to involve a reference to nature than to apolitical custom. What his mystic meaning may be, must be takendifferently by different minds. _I_ think he sees in its whitenesspurity, and in its substance indestructibility. But I care chiefly toregard the stone as the vehicle of the name, --as the form whereby thename is represented as passing from God to the man, and what isinvolved in this communication is what I wish to show. If my readerwill not acknowledge my representation as St John's meaning, I yet hopeso to set it forth that he shall see the representation to be true initself, and then I shall willingly leave the interpretation to itsfate. 

I say, in brief, the giving of the white stone with the new name is thecommunication of what God thinks about the man to the man. It is thedivine judgment, the solemn holy doom of the righteous man, the "Come, thou blessed, " spoken to the individual. 

In order to see this, we must first understand what is the idea of aname, --that is, what is the perfect notion of a name. For, seeing themystical energy of a holy mind here speaks of God as giving something, we must understand that the essential thing, and not any of itsaccidents or imitations, is intended. 

_A name of the ordinary kind in this world, has nothing_ essential init. It is but a label by which one man and a scrap of his externalhistory may be known from another man and a scrap of his history. Theonly names which have significance are those which the popular judgmentor prejudice or humour bestows, either for ridicule or honour, upon afew out of the many. Each of these is founded upon some externalcharacteristic of the man, upon some predominant peculiarity of temper, some excellence or the reverse of character, or something which he doesor has done well or ill enough, or at least, singularly enough, torender him, in the eyes of the people, worthy of such distinction fromother men. As far as they go, these are real names, for, in some poormeasure, they express individuality. 

The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, thebeing, the _meaning_ of the person who bears it. It is the man's ownsymbol, --his soul's picture, in a word, --the sign which belongs to himand to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what he sees. Towhom is this name given? To him that overcometh. When is it given? Whenhe has overcome. Does God then not know what a man is going to become?As surely as he sees the oak which he put there lying in the heart ofthe acorn. Why then does he wait till the man has become by overcomingere he settles what his name shall be? He does not wait; he knows hisname from the first. But as--although repentance comes because Godpardons--yet the man becomes aware of the pardon only in therepentance; so it is only when the man has become his name that Godgives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can heunderstand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completion, that determines the name; and God foresees that fromthe first, because he made it so; but the tree of the soul, before itsblossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear, and couldnot know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unarrivedcompleteness, named itself. Such a name cannot be given until the man_is_ the name. 

God's name for a man must then be the expression in a mystical word--aword of that language which all who have overcome understand--of hisown idea of the man, that being whom he had in his thought when hebegan to make the child, and whom he kept in his thought through thelong process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell thename is to seal the success--to say, "In thee also I am well pleased. "

But we are still in the region of symbol. For supposing that such aform were actually observed between God and him that overcometh, itwould be no less a symbol--only an acted one. We must therefore lookdeeper still for the fulness of its meaning. Up to this point littlehas been said to justify our expectations of discovery in the text. Letus, I say, look deeper. We shall not look long before we find that themystic symbol has for its centre of significance the fact of thepersonal individual relation of every man to his God. That every manhas affairs, and those his first affairs, with God, stands to thereason of every man who associates any meaning or feeling with thewords, Maker, Father, God. Were we but children of a day, with theunderstanding that some one had given us that one holiday, there wouldbe something to be thought, to be felt, to be done, because we knew it. For then our nature would be according to our fate, and we couldworship and die. But it would be only the praise of the dead, not thepraise of the living, for death would be the deepest, the lasting, theovercoming. We should have come out of nothingness, not out of God. Hecould only be our Maker, not our Father, our Origin. But now we knowthat God cannot be the God of the dead--must be the God of the living;inasmuch as to know that we died, would freeze the heart of worship, and we could not say Our God, or feel him worthy of such worth-ship aswe could render. To him who offers unto this God of the living his ownself of sacrifice, to him that overcometh, him who has brought hisindividual life back to its source, who knows that he is _one_ of God'schildren, _this_ one of the Father's making, he giveth the white stone. To him who climbs on the stair of all his God-born efforts andGod-given victories up to the height of his being--that of looking faceto face upon his ideal self in the bosom of the Father--God's _him_, realized in him through the Father's love in the Elder Brother'sdevotion--to him God gives the new name written. 

But I leave this, because that which follows embraces and intensifiesthis individuality of relation in a fuller development of the truth. For the name is one "which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. "Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each manhas his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, madeafter his own fashion, and that of no one else; for when he isperfected he shall receive the new name which no one else canunderstand. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship him, --can understand God as no man else can understand him. This or that manmay understand God more, may understand God better than he, but noother man can understand God as he understands him. God give me graceto be humble before thee, my brother, that I drag not my simulacrum ofthee before the judgment-seat of the unjust judge, but look up tothyself for what revelation of God thou and no one else canst give. Asthe fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need ofthe palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up adifferent humanity to the common Father. And for each God has adifferent response. With every man he has a secret--the secret of thenew name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber ofpeculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is _theinnermost chamber_--but a chamber into which no brother, nay, no sistercan come. 

From this it follows that there is a chamber also--(O God, humble andaccept my speech)--a chamber in God himself, into which none can enterbut the one, the individual, the peculiar man, --out of which chamberthat man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This isthat for which he was made--to reveal the secret things of the Father. 

By his creation, then, each man is isolated with God; each, in respectof his peculiar making, can say, "_my_ God;" each can come to himalone, and speak with him face to face, as a man speaketh with hisfriend. There is no _massing_ of men with God. When he speaks ofgathered men, it is as a spiritual _body_, not a _mass_. For in a bodyevery smallest portion is individual, and therefore capable of forminga part of the body. 

See, now, what a significance the symbolism of our text assumes. Eachof us is a distinct flower or tree in the spiritual garden of God, --precious, each for his own sake, in the eyes of him who is even nowmaking us, --each of us watered and shone upon and filled with life, forthe sake of his flower, his completed being, which will blossom out ofhim at last to the glory and pleasure of the great gardener. For eachhas within him a secret of the Divinity; each is growing towards therevelation of that secret to himself, and so to the full reception, according to his measure, of the divine. Every moment that he is trueto his true self, some new shine of the white stone breaks on hisinward eye, some fresh channel is opened upward for the coming glory ofthe flower, the conscious offering of his whole being in beauty to theMaker. Each man, then, is in God's sight worth. Life and action, thought and intent, are sacred. And what an end lies before us! To havea consciousness of our own ideal being flashed into us from the thoughtof God! Surely for this may well give way all our paltryself-consciousnesses, our self-admirations and self-worships! Surely toknow what he thinks about us will pale out of our souls all ourthoughts about ourselves! and we may well hold them loosely now, and beready to let them go. Towards this result St Paul had already drawnnear, when he who had begun the race with a bitter cry for deliverancefrom the body of his death, was able to say that he judged his own selfno longer. 

"But is there not the worst of all dangers involved in such teaching--the danger of spiritual pride?" If there be, are we to refuse thespirit for fear of the pride? Or is there any other deliverance frompride except the spirit? Pride springs from supposed success in thehigh aim: with attainment itself comes humility. But here there is noroom for ambition. Ambition is the desire to be above one's neighbour;and here there is no possibility of comparison with one's neighbour: noone knows what the white stone contains except the man who receives it. Here is room for endless aspiration towards the unseen ideal; none forambition. Ambition would only be higher than others; aspiration wouldbe high. Relative worth is not only unknown--to the children of thekingdom it is unknowable. Each esteems the other better than himself. How shall the rose, the glowing heart of the summer heats, rejoiceagainst the snowdrop risen with hanging head from the white bosom ofthe snow? Both are God's thoughts; both are dear to him; both areneedful to the completeness of his earth and the revelation of himself. "God has cared to make me for himself, " says the victor with the whitestone, "and has called me that which I like best; for my own name mustbe what I would have it, seeing it is myself. What matter whether I becalled a grass of the field, or an eagle of the air? a stone to buildinto his temple, or a Boanerges to wield his thunder? I am his; hisidea, his making; perfect in my kind, yea, perfect in his sight; fullof him, revealing him, alone with him. Let him call me what he will. The name shall be precious as my life. I seek no more. "

Gone then will be all anxiety as to what his neighbour may think abouthim. It is enough that God thinks about him. To be something to God--isnot that praise enough? To be a thing that God cares for and would havecomplete for himself, because it is worth caring for--is not that lifeenough?

Neither will he thus be isolated from his fellows. For that we say ofone, we say of all. It is as _one_ that the man has claims amongst hisfellows. Each will feel the sacredness and awe of his neighbour's darkand silent speech with his God. Each will regard the other as aprophet, and look to him for what the Lord hath spoken. Each, as a highpriest returning from his Holy of Holies, will bring from his communionsome glad tidings, some gospel of truth, which, when spoken, hisneighbours shall receive and understand. Each will behold in the othera marvel of revelation, a present son or daughter of the Most High, come forth from him to reveal him afresh. In God each will draw nigh toeach. 

Yes, there will be danger--danger as everywhere; but he giveth moregrace. And if the man who has striven up the heights should yet fallfrom them into the deeps, is there not that fire of God, the consumingfire, which burneth and destroyeth not?

To no one who has not already had some speech with God, or who has notat least felt some aspiration towards the fount of his being, can allthis appear other than foolishness. So be it. 

But, Lord, help them and us, and make our being grow into thy likeness. If through ages of strife and ages of growth, yet let us at last seethy face, and receive the white stone from thy hand. That thus we maygrow, give us day by day our daily bread. Fill us with the words thatproceed out of thy mouth. Help us to lay up _treasures in heaven, whereneither moth nor rust doth corrupt_. 

 THE HEART WITH THE TREASURE. 

_Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rustdoth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up foryourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust dothcorrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For whereyour treasure is, there will your heart be also_. --MATT. Vi. 19, 20, 21. 

To understand the words of our Lord is the business of life. For it isthe main road to the understanding of The Word himself. And to receivehim is to receive the Father, and so to have Life in ourselves. AndLife, the higher, the deeper, the simpler, the original, is thebusiness of life. 

The Word is that by which we live, namely, Jesus himself; and his wordsrepresent, in part, in shadow, in suggestion, himself. Any utteranceworthy of being called _a truth_, is human food: how much more _TheWord_, presenting no abstract laws of our being, but the vital relationof soul and body, heart and will, strength and rejoicing, beauty andlight, to Him who first gave birth to them all! The Son came forth to_be_, before our eyes and in our hearts, that which he had made us for, that we might behold _the truth_ in him, and cry out for the livingGod, who, in the highest sense of all is The Truth, not as understood, but as understanding, living, and being, doing and creating the truth. "I am the truth, " said our Lord; and by those who are in some measurelike him in being the truth, the Word can be understood. Let us try tounderstand him. 

Sometimes, no doubt, the Saviour would have spoken after a different_fashion_ of speech, if he had come to Englishmen, instead of to Jews. But the lessons he gave would have been the same; for even whenquestioned about a matter for its passing import, his reply containedthe enunciation of the great human principle which lay in it, and_that_ lies changeless in every variation of changeful circumstance. With the light of added ages of Christian experience, it ought to beeasier for us to understand his words than it was for those who heardhim. 

What, I ask now, is here the power of his word _For: For where yourtreasure is, there will your heart be also_? The meaning of the reasonthus added is not obvious upon its surface. It has to be sought forbecause of its depth at once and its simplicity. But it is so complete, so imaginatively comprehensive, so immediately operative on theconscience through its poetic suggestiveness, that when it is onceunderstood, there is nothing more to be said, but everything to bedone. 

"Why not lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth?"

"Because there the moth and rust and the thief come. "

"And so we should lose those treasures!"

"Yes; by the moth and the rust and the thief. "

"Does the Lord then mean that the _reason_ for not laying up suchtreasures is their transitory and corruptible nature?"

"No. He adds a _For_: 'For where your treasure is, there will yourheart be also. '"

"Of course the heart will be where the treasure is; but what has thatto do with the argument?"

This: that what is with the treasure must fare as the treasure; thatthe heart which haunts the treasure-house where the moth and rustcorrupt, will be exposed to the same ravages as the treasure, willitself be rusted and moth-eaten. 

Many a man, many a woman, fair and flourishing to see, is going aboutwith a rusty moth-eaten heart within that form of strength or beauty. 

"But this is only a figure. "

True. But is the reality intended, less or more than the figure? Doesnot _the rust and the moth_ mean more than disease? And does not _theheart_ mean more than the heart? Does it not mean a deeper heart, theheart of your own self, not of your body? of the _self_ that suffers, not pain, but misery? of the self whose end is not comfort, orenjoyment, but blessedness, yea, ecstasy? a heart which is the inmostchamber wherein springs the divine fountain of your being? a heartwhich God regards, though you may never have known its existence, noteven when its writhings under the gnawing of the moth and the slow fireof the rust have communicated a dull pain to that outer heart whichsends the blood to its appointed course through your body? If God seesthat heart corroded with the rust of cares, riddled into caverns andfilms by the worms of ambition and greed, then your heart is as Godsees it, for God sees things as they are. And one day you will becompelled to see, nay, to _feel_ your heart as God sees it; and to knowthat the cankered thing which you have within you, a prey to the vilestof diseases, is indeed the centre of your being, your very heart. 

Nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship Mammon, who givetheir lives, their best energies to the accumulation of wealth: itapplies to those equally who in any way worship the transitory; whoseek the praise of men more than the praise of God; who would make ashow in the world by wealth, by taste, by intellect, by power, by art, by genius of any kind, and so would gather golden opinions to betreasured in a storehouse of earth. 

Nor to such only, but surely to those as well whose pleasures are of amore evidently transitory nature still, such as the pleasures of thesenses in every direction--whether lawfully or unlawfully indulged, ifthe joy of being is centred in them--do these words bear terriblewarning. For the hurt lies not in this--that these pleasures are falselike the deceptions of magic, for such they are not: pleasures theyare; nor yet in this--that they pass away, and leave a fiercedisappointment behind: that is only so much the better; but the hurtlies in this--that the immortal, the infinite, created in the image ofthe everlasting God, is housed with the fading and the corrupting, andclings to them as its good--clings to them till it is infected andinterpenetrated with their proper diseases, which assume in it a formmore terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind, that whichis mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other, thatwhich fits the one for the dunghill casting the other into the outerdarkness; creeps, that it may share with them, into a burrow in theearth, where its budded wings wither and damp and drop away from itsshoulders, instead of haunting the open plains and the high-upliftedtable-lands, spreading abroad its young pinions to the sun and the air, and strengthening them in further and further flights, till at lastthey should become strong to bear the God-born into the presence of itsFather in Heaven. Therein lies the hurt. 

He whose heart is sound because it haunts the treasure-house of heavenmay _be tempted of the devil_, but will be first _led up of the Spiritinto the wilderness_. 

 THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 

_Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be temptedof the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, hewas afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Buthe answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then thedevil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacleof the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, castthyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels chargeconcerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest atany time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It iswritten again, thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the deviltaketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all thekingdoms of the world, and the glory of them: and saith unto him, Allthese things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him; and, behold, angels came and ministeredunto him_. --MATT. Iv. 1-11. 

This narrative must have one of two origins. Either it is an invention, such as many tales told of our Lord in the earlier periods ofChristianity; or it came from our Lord himself, for, according to thestory, except the wild beasts, of earthly presence there was none athis Temptation. 

As to the former of the two origins: The story bears upon it no sign ofhuman invention. The man who could see such things as are hereembodied, dared not invent such an embodiment for them. To one in doubtabout the matter it will be helpful, I think, to compare this storywith the best of those for which one or other of the apocryphal gospelsis our only authority--say the grand account of the Descent into Hellin the Gospel according to Nicodemus. 

If it have not this origin, there is but the other that it can have--Our Lord himself. To this I will return presently. 

And now, let us approach the subject from another side. 

With this in view, I ask you to think how much God must know of whichwe know nothing. Think what an abyss of truth was our Lord, out ofwhose divine darkness, through that revealing countenance, thatuplifting voice, those hands whose tenderness has made us great, brokeall holy radiations of human significance. Think of his understanding, imagination, heart, in which lay the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Must he not have known, felt, imagined, rejoiced in things that wouldnot be told in human words, could not be understood by human hearts?Was he not always bringing forth out of the light inaccessible? Was nothis very human form a veil hung over the face of the truth that, evenin part by dimming the effulgence of the glory, it might reveal? Whatcould be conveyed must be thus conveyed: an infinite More must liebehind. And even of those things that might be partially revealed tomen, could he talk to his Father and talk to his disciples inaltogether the same forms, in altogether the same words? Would what hesaid to God on the mountain-tops, in the dim twilight or the gray dawn, never be such that his disciples could have understood it no more thanthe people, when the voice of God spoke to him from heaven, coulddistinguish that voice from the inarticulate thunderings of theelement?

There is no attempt made to convey to us even the substance of thebattle of those forty days. Such a conflict of spirit as for forty daysabsorbed all the human necessities of _The Man_ in the cares of theGodhead could not be rendered into forms intelligible to us, or rather, could not be in itself intelligible to us, and therefore could not takeany form of which we could lay hold. It is not till the end of thoseforty days that the divine event begins to dawn out from the sacreddepths of the eternal thought, becomes human enough to be made toappear, admits of utterance, becomes capable of being spoken in humanforms to the ears of men, though yet only in a dark saying, which hethat hath ears to hear may hear, and he that hath a heart to understandmay understand. For the mystery is not left behind, nor can the speechbe yet clear unto men. 

At the same moment when the approaching event comes within human ken, may from afar be dimly descried by the God-upheld intelligence, thesame humanity seizes on the Master, and he is an hungered. The firstsign that he has come back to us, that the strife is approaching itshuman result, is his hunger. On what a sea of endless life do we float, are our poor necessities sustained--not the poorest of them dissociatedfrom the divine! Emerging from the storms of the ocean of divinethought and feeling into the shallower waters that lave the humanshore, bearing with him the treasures won in the strife, our Lord isstraightway an hungered; and from this moment the temptation is human, and can be in some measure understood by us. 

But could it even then have been conveyed to the human mind in merelyintellectual forms? Or, granting that it might, could it be so conveyedto those who were only beginning to have the vaguest, mosterror-mingled and confused notions about our Lord and what he came todo? No. The inward experiences of our Lord, such as could be conveyedto them at all, could be conveyed to them only in a parable. For farplainer things than these, our Lord chose this form. The form of theparable is the first in which truth will admit of being embodied. Noris this all: it is likewise the fullest; and to the parable will theteacher of the truth ever return. Is he who asserts that the passagecontains a simple narrative of actual events, prepared to believe, asthe story, so interpreted, indubitably gives us to understand, that avisible demon came to our Lord and, himself the prince of worldlywisdom, thought, by quoting Scripture after the manner of the priests, to persuade a good man to tempt God; thought, by the promise of power, to prevail upon him to cast aside every claim he had upon the humanrace, in falling down and worshipping one whom he knew to be theadversary of Truth, of Humanity, of God? How could Satan be so foolish?or, if Satan might be so foolish, wherein could such temptation sopresented have tempted our Lord? and wherein would a victory over suchbe a victory for the race?

Told as a parable, it is as full of meaning as it would be bare ifreceived as a narrative. 

Our Lord spake then this parable unto them, and so conveyed more of thetruth with regard to his temptation in the wilderness, than could havebeen conveyed by any other form in which the truth he wanted to givethem might have been embodied. Still I do not think it follows that wehave it exactly as he told it to his disciples. A man will hear butwhat he can hear, will see but what he can see, and, telling the storyagain, can tell but what he laid hold of, what he seemed to himself tounderstand. His effort to reproduce the impression made upon his mindwill, as well as the impression itself, be liable to numberlessaltering, modifying, even, in a measure, discomposing influences. Butit does not, therefore, follow that the reproduction is false. Themighty hosts of life-bearing worlds, requiring for the freedom of theircourses, and the glory of their changes, such awful abysses of space, dwindle in the human eye to seeds of light sown upon a blue plain. Howfaint in the ears of man is the voice of their sphere-born thunder ofadoration! Yet are they lovely indeed, uttering speech and teachingknowledge. So this story may not be just as the Lord told it, and yetmay contain in its mirror as much of the truth as we are able toreceive, and as will afford us sufficient scope for a life's discovery. The modifying influences of the human channels may be essential toGod's revealing mode. It is only by seeing them first from afar that welearn the laws of the heavens. 

And now arises the question upon the right answer to which depends thewhole elucidation of the story: _How could the Son of God be tempted_?

If any one say that he was not moved by those temptations, he must betold that then they were no temptations to him, and he was not tempted;nor was his victory of more significance than that of the man who, tempted to bear false witness against his neighbour, abstains fromrobbing him of his goods. For human need, struggle, and hope, it bearsno meaning; and we must reject the whole as a fantastic folly of crudeinvention; a mere stage-show; a lie for the poor sake of the fanciedtruth; a doing of evil that good might come; and, with how manyfragments soever of truth its mud may be filled, not in any way to bereceived as a divine message. 

But asserting that these were real temptations if the story is to bereceived at all, am I not involving myself in a greater difficultystill? For how could the Son of God be tempted with evil--with thatwhich must to him appear in its true colours of discord, its trueshapes of deformity? Or how could he then be the Son of his Father whocannot be tempted with evil?

In the answer to this lies the centre, the essential germ of the wholeinterpretation: He was not tempted with Evil but with Good; withinferior forms of good, that is, pressing in upon him, while the higherforms of good held themselves aloof, biding their time, that is, God'stime. I do not believe that the Son of God could be tempted with evil, but I do believe that he could be tempted with good--to yield to whichtemptation would have been evil in him--ruin to the universe. But doesnot all evil come from good?

Yes; but it has come _from_ it. It is no longer good. A good corruptedis no longer a good. Such could not tempt our Lord. Revenge mayoriginate in a sense of justice, but it is revenge not justice; an evilthing, for it would be fearfully unjust. Evil is evil whatever it mayhave come from. The Lord could not have felt tempted to take vengeanceupon his enemies, but he might have felt tempted to destroy the wickedfrom the face of the earth--to destroy them from the face of the earth, I say, not to destroy them for ever. To that I do not think he couldhave felt tempted. 

But we shall find illustration enough of what I mean in the matteritself. Let us look at the individual temptations represented in theparable. 

The informing idea which led to St Matthew's arrangement seems to mesuperior to that showing itself in St Luke's. In the two accounts, thecloses, while each is profoundly significant, are remarkably different. 

Now let us follow St Matthew's record. 

And we shall see how the devil tempted him _to_ evil, but not _with_evil. 

First, He was hungry, and the devil said, _Make bread of this stone_. 

The Lord had been fasting for forty days--a fast impossible exceptduring intense mental absorption. Let no one think to glorify this fastby calling it miraculous. Wonderful such fasts are on record on thepart of holy men; and inasmuch as the Lord was more of a man than hisbrethren, insomuch might he be farther withdrawn in the depths of hisspiritual humanity from the outer region of his physical nature. Somuch the slower would be the goings on of that nature; and fasting inhis case might thus be extended beyond the utmost limits of similarfasts in others. This, I believe, was all--and this all infinite in itsrelations. This is the grandest, simplest, and most significant, and, therefore, the divinest way of regarding his fast. Hence, at the end ofthe forty days, it was not hunger alone that made food tempting to him, but that exhaustion of the whole system, wasting itself all the time itwas forgotten, which, reacting on the mind when the mind was alreadyworn out with its own tension, must have deadened it so, that(speaking after the experience of his brethren, which alone willexplain his, ) it could for the time see or feel nothing of thespiritual, and could only _believe in_ the unfelt, the unseen. What atemptation was here! There is no sin in wishing to eat; no sin inprocuring food honestly that one may eat. But it rises even into anawful duty, when a man knows that to eat will restore the lost visionof the eternal; will, operating on the brain, and thence on the mind, render the man capable of hope as well as of faith, of gladness as wellas of confidence, of praise as well as of patience. Why then should henot eat? Why should he not put forth the power that was in him that hemight eat? Because such power was his, not to take care of himself, butto work the work of him that sent him. Such power was his not even tohonour his Father save as his Father chose to be honoured, who is farmore honoured in the ordinary way of common wonders, than in theextraordinary way of miracles. Because it was God's business to takecare of him, his to do what the Father told him to do. To make thatstone bread would be to take the care out of the Father's hands, andturn the divinest thing in the universe into the merest commonplace ofself-preservation. 

And in nothing was he to be beyond his brethren, save in faith. Norefuge for him, any more than for them, save in the love and care ofthe Father. Other refuge, let it be miraculous power or what you will, would be but hell to him. God is refuge. God is life. "Was he not toeat when it came in his way? And did not the bread come in his way, when his power met that which could be changed into it?"

Regard that word _changed_. The whole matter lies in that. Changed fromwhat? From what God had made it. Changed into what? Into what he didnot make it. Why changed? Because the Son was hungry, and the Fatherwould not feed him with food convenient for him! The Father did notgive him a stone when he asked for bread. It was Satan that brought thestone and told him to provide for himself. The Father said, That is astone. The Son would not say, That is a loaf. No one creative _fiat_shall contradict another. The Father and the Son are of one mind. TheLord could hunger, could starve, but would not change into anotherthing what his Father had made one thing. [Footnote: There was no suchchange in the feeding of the multitudes. The fish and the bread werefish and bread before. I think this is significant as regards the truenature of a miracle, and its relation to the ordinary ways of God. There was in these miracles, and I think in all, only a hastening ofappearances; the doing of that in a day, which may ordinarily take athousand years, for with God time is not what it is with us. He makesit. And the hastening of a process does not interfere in the least withcause and effect in the process, nor does it render the process onewhit more miraculous. In deed, the wonder of the growing corn is to megreater than the wonder of feeding the thousands. It is easier tounderstand the creative power going forth at once--immediately--thanthrough the countless, the lovely, the seemingly forsaken wonders ofthe corn-field. To the merely scientific man all this is pure nonsense, or at best belongs to the region of the fancy. The time will come, Ithink, when he will see that there is more in it, namely, a higherreason, a loftier science, how incorrectly soever herein indicated. ]

If we regard the answer he gave the devil, we shall see the root of thematter at once: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every wordthat proceedeth out of the mouth of God. " Yea even by the word whichmade that stone that stone. Everything is all right. It is life indeedfor him to leave that a stone, which the Father had made a stone. Itwould be death to him to alter one word that He had spoken. 

"Man shall not live by bread alone. " There are other ways of livingbesides that which comes by bread. A man will live by the word of God, by what God says to him, by what God means between Him and him, by thetruths of being which the Father alone can reveal to his child, by thecommunion of love between them. Without the bread he will die, as mensay; but he will not find that he dies. He will only find that the tentwhich hid the stars from him is gone, and that he can see the heavens;or rather, the earthly house will melt away from around him, and hewill find that he has a palace-home about him, another and loftier wordof God clothing upon him. So the man lives by the word of God even inrefusing the bread which God does not give him, for, instead of dyingbecause he does not eat, he rises into a higher life even of the samekind. 

For I have been speaking of the consciousness of existence, and not ofthat higher spiritual life on which all other life depends. That ofcourse can for no one moment exist save from the heart of God. When aman tries to live by bread and not by the word that comes out of thatheart of God, he may think he lives, but he begins to die or is dead. Our Lord says, "I can do without the life that comes of bread: withoutthe life that comes of the word of my Father, I die indeed. " Thereforehe does not think twice about the matter. That God's will be done isall his care. That done, all will be right, and all right with him, whether he thinks about himself or not. For the Father does not forgetthe child who is so busy trusting in him, that he cares not even topray for himself. 

In the higher aspect of this first temptation, arising from the factthat a man cannot feel the things he believes except under certainconditions of physical well-being dependent upon food, the answer isthe same: A man does not live by his feelings any more than by bread, but by the Truth, that is, the Word, the Will, the uttered Being ofGod. 

I am even ashamed to yield here to the necessity of writing what is butas milk for babes, when I would gladly utter, if I might, only thatwhich would be as bread for men and women. What I must say is this:that, by _the Word of God_, I do not understand _The Bible_. The Bibleis _a_ Word of God, the chief of his written words, because it tells usof The Word, the Christ; but everything God has done and given man toknow is a word of his, a will of his; and inasmuch as it is a will ofhis, it is a necessity to man, without which he cannot live: thereception of it is man's life. For inasmuch as God's utterances are awhole, every smallest is essential: he speaks no foolishness--there arewith him no vain repetitions. But by _the word_ of the God and notMaker only, who is God just because he _speaks_ to men, I mustunderstand, in the deepest sense, every revelation of Himself in theheart and consciousness of man, so that the man knows that God isthere, nay, rather, that he is here. Even Christ himself is not TheWord of God in the deepest sense _to a man_, until he is thisRevelation of God to the man, --until the Spirit that is the meaning inthe Word has come to him, --until the speech is not a sound as ofthunder, but the voice of words; for a word is more than an utterance--it is a sound to be understood. No word, I say, is fully a Word _of_God until it is a Word _to_ man, until the man therein recognizes God. This is that for which the word is spoken. The words of God are as thesands and the stars, --they cannot be numbered; but the end of all andeach is this--to reveal God. Nor, moreover, can the man know that anyone of them is the word of God, save as it comes thus to him, is arevelation of God in him. It is _to_ him that it may be _in_ him; buttill it is _in_ him he cannot _know_ that it was _to_ him. God must beGod _in_ man before man can know that he is God, or that he hasreceived aright, and for that for which it was spoken, any one of hiswords. [Footnote: No doubt the humble spirit will receive the testimonyof every one whom he reveres, and look in the direction indicated for aword from the Father; but till he thus receives it in his heart, hecannot know what the word spoken of is. ]

If, by any will of God--that is, any truth in him--we live, we live byit tenfold when that will has become a word to us. When we receive it, his will becomes our will, and so we live by God. But the word of Godonce understood, a man must live by the faith of what God is, and notby his own feelings even in regard to God. It is the Truth itself, thatwhich God is, known by what goeth out of his mouth, that man lives by. And when he can no longer _feel_ the truth, he shall not therefore die. He lives because God is true; and he is able to know that he livesbecause he knows, having once understood the word, that God is truth. He believes in the God of former vision, lives by that word therefore, when all is dark and there is no vision. 

We now come to the second attempt of the Enemy. "Then if God is to beso trusted, try him. Fain would I see the result. Shew thyself hisdarling. Here is the word itself for it: He shall give his angelscharge concerning thee; not a stone shall hurt thee. Take him at hisword. Throw thyself down, and strike the conviction into me that thouart the Son of God. For thou knowest thou dost not look like what thousayest thou art. "

Again, with a written word, in return, the Lord meets him. And he doesnot quote the scripture for logical purposes--to confute Satanintellectually, but as giving even Satan the reason of his conduct. Satan quotes Scripture as a verbal authority; our Lord meets him with aScripture by the truth in which he regulates his conduct. 

If we examine it, we shall find that this answer contains the sameprinciple as the former, namely this, that to the Son of God the willof God is Life. It was a temptation to shew the powers of the worldthat he was the Son of God; that to him the elements were subject; thathe was above the laws of Nature, because he was the Eternal Son; andthus stop the raging of the heathen, and the vain imaginations of thepeople. It would be but to shew them the truth. But he was the _Son_ ofGod: what was his _Father's_ will? Such was not the divine way ofconvincing the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment. If theFather told him to cast himself down, that moment the pinnacle pointednaked to the sky. If the devil threw him down, let God send his angels;or, if better, allow him to be dashed to pieces in the valley below. But never will he forestall the divine will. The Father shall orderwhat comes next. The Son will obey. In the path of his work he willturn aside for no stone. There let the angels bear him in their handsif need be. But he will not choose the path because there is a stone init. He will not choose at all. He will go where the Spirit leads him. 

I think this will throw some light upon the words of our Lord, "If yehave faith and doubt not, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thouremoved, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. " Good people, amongst them John Bunyan, have been tempted to tempt the Lord their Godupon the strength of this saying, just as Satan sought to tempt ourLord on the strength of the passage he quoted from the Psalms. Happilyfor such, the assurance to which they would give the name of faithgenerally fails them in time. Faith is that which, knowing the Lord'swill, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stands and waits, contentin ignorance as in knowledge, because God wills; neither pressing intothe hidden future, nor careless of the knowledge which opens the pathof action. It is its noblest exercise to act with uncertainty of theresult, when the duty itself is certain, or even when a course seemswith strong probability to be duty. [Footnote: In the latter case a manmay be mistaken, and his work will be burned, but by that very fire hewill be saved. Nothing saves a man more than the burning of his work, except the doing of work that can stand the fire. ] But to put God tothe question in any other way than by saying, What wilt thou have me todo? is an attempt to compel God to declare himself, or to hasten hiswork. This probably was the sin of Judas. It is presumption of a kindsimilar to the making of a stone into bread. It is, as it were, eithera forcing of God to act where he has created no need for action, or themaking of a case wherein he shall seem to have forfeited his word if hedoes not act. The man is therein dissociating himself from God so farthat, instead of acting by the divine will from within, he acts inGod's face, as it were, to see what he will do. Man's first businessis, "What does God want me to do?" not "What will God do if I do so andso?" To tempt a parent after the flesh in such a manner would beimpertinence: to tempt God so is the same vice in its highest form--anatural result of that condition of mind which is worse than all theso-called cardinal sins, namely, spiritual pride, which attributes thetenderness and love of God not to man's being and man's need, but tosome distinguishing excellence in the individual himself, which causesthe Father to love him better than his fellows, and so pass by hisfaults with a smile. Not thus did the Son of God regard his relation tohis Father. The faith which will remove mountains is that confidence inGod which comes from seeking nothing but his will. A man who was thusfaithful would die of hunger sooner than say to the stone, _Be bread_;would meet the scoffs of the unbelieving without reply and withapparent defeat, sooner than say to the mountain, _Be thou cast intothe sea_, even if he knew that it would be torn from its foundations atthe word, except he knew first that God would have it so. 

And thus I am naturally brought to consider more fully how this shouldbe a real temptation to the Son of Man. It would be good to confoundhis adversaries; to force conviction upon them that he was theGod-supported messenger he declared himself. Why should he haveAdversaries a moment longer to interfere between him and the willinghearts which would believe if they could? The answer to all this wasplain to our Lord, and is plain to us now: It was not the way of theFather's will. It would not fall in with that gradual development oflife and history by which the Father works, and which must be the wayto breed free, God-loving wills. It would be violent, theatrical, therefore poor in nature and in result, --not God-like in any way. Everything in God's doing comes harmoniously with and from all therest. Son of Man, his history shall be a man's history, shall be TheMan's history. Shall that begin with an exception? Yet it might well bea temptation to Him who longed to do all he could for men. He was theSon of God: why should not the sons of God know it?

But as this temptation in the wilderness was an epitome and type of thetemptations to come, against which for forty days he had been makinghimself strong, revolving truth beyond our reach, in whose light everycommonest duty was awful and divine, a vision fit almost to oppress aGod in his humiliation, so we shall understand the whole better if welook at his life in relation to it. As he refused to make stones bread, so throughout that life he never wrought a miracle to help himself; ashe refused to cast himself from the temple to convince Satan or gloryvisibly in his Sonship, so he steadily refused to give the sign whichthe human Satans demanded, notwithstanding the offer of convictionwhich they held forth to bribe him to the grant. How easy it seems tohave confounded them, and strengthened his followers! But suchconviction would stand in the way of a better conviction in hisdisciples, and would do his adversaries only harm. For neither couldnot in any true sense be convinced by such a show: it could but provehis power. It might prove so far the presence of a God; but would itprove that God? Would it bring him nearer to them, who could not seehim in the face of his Son? To say _Thou art God_, without knowing whatthe _Thou_ means--of what use is it? God is a name only, except we know_God_. Our Lord did not care to be so acknowledged. 

On the same principle, the very miracles which from their character didpartially reveal his character to those who already had faith in him, he would not do where unbelief predominated. He often avoided citiesand crowds, and declined mighty works because of unbelief. Except forthe loving help they gave the distressed, revealing him to their heartsas the Redeemer from evil, I doubt if he would have wrought a singlemiracle. I do not think he cared much about them. Certainly, asregarded the onlookers, he did not expect much to result from thosemighty deeds. A mere marvel is practically soon forgotten, and longbefore it is forgotten, many minds have begun to doubt the senses, their own even, which communicated it. Inward sight alone can convinceof truth; signs and wonders never. No number of signs can do more thanconvey a probability that he who shews them knows that of which hespeaks. They cannot convey the truth. But the vision of the truthitself, in the knowledge of itself, a something altogether beyond theregion of signs and wonders, is the power of God, is salvation. Thisvision was in the Lord's face and form to the pure in heart who wereable to see God; but not in his signs and wonders to those who soughtafter such. Yet it is easy to see how the temptation might for a momentwork upon a mind that longed to enter upon its labours with thecredentials of its truth. How the true heart longs to be received byits brethren--to be known in its truth! But no. The truth must showitself in God's time, in and by the labour. The kingdom must come inGod's holy human way. Not by a stroke of grandeur, but by years oflove, yea, by centuries of seeming bafflement, by aeons of labour, musthe grow into the hearts of the sons and daughters of his Father inheaven. The Lord himself _will_ be bound by the changeless laws whichare the harmony of the Fathers being and utterance. He will _be_, notseem. He will be, and thereby, not therefore, seem. Yet, once more, even on him, the idea of asserting the truth in holy power such as hecould have put forth, must have dawned in grandeur. The thought wasgood: to have yielded to it would have been the loss of the world; nay, far worse--ill inconceivable to the human mind--the God of obediencehad fallen from his throne, and--all is blackness. 

But let us not forget that the whole is a faint parable--faint I meanin relation to the grandeur of the reality, as the ring and the shoesare poor types (yet how dear!) of the absolute love of the Father tohis prodigal children. 

We shall now look at the third temptation. The first was to helphimself in his need; the second, perhaps, to assert the Father; thethird to deliver his brethren. 

To deliver them, that is, after the fashion of men--from the outsidestill. Indeed, the whole Temptation may be regarded as the contest ofthe seen and the unseen, of the outer and inner, of the likely and thetrue, of the show and the reality. And as in the others, the evil inthis last lay in that it was a temptation to save his brethren, insteadof doing the Will of his Father. 

Could it be other than a temptation to think that he might, if hewould, lay a righteous grasp upon the reins of government, leap intothe chariot of power, and ride forth conquering and to conquer? Gladvisions arose before him of the prisoner breaking jubilant from thecell of injustice; of the widow lifting up the bowed head before thedevouring Pharisee; of weeping children bursting into shouts at thesound of the wheels of the chariot before which oppression and wrongshrunk and withered, behind which sprung the fir-tree instead of thethorn, and the myrtle instead of the brier. What glowing visions ofholy vengeance, what rosy dreams of human blessedness--and all from hishand--would crowd such a brain as his!--not like the castles-in-the-airof the aspiring youth, for he builds at random, because he knows thathe cannot realize; but consistent and harmonious as well as grand, because he knew them within his reach. Could he not mould the people athis will? Could he not, transfigured in his snowy garments, call aloudin the streets of Jerusalem, "Behold your King?" And the fiercewarriors of his nation would start at the sound; the ploughshare wouldbe beaten into the sword, and the pruning-hook into the spear; and thenation, rushing to his call, learn war yet again indeed, --a grand, holywar--a crusade--no; we should not have had _that_ word; but a waragainst the tyrants of the race--the best, as they called themselves--who trod upon their brethren, and would not suffer them even to look tothe heavens. --Ah! but when were his garments white as snow? When, through them, glorifying them as it passed, did the light stream fromhis glorified body? Not when he looked to such a conquest; but when, ona mount like this, he "spake of the decease that he should _accomplish_at Jerusalem"! Why should this be "the sad end of the war"? "Thou shaltworship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. " Not eventhine own visions of love and truth, O Saviour of the world, shall bethy guides to thy goal, but the will of thy Father in heaven. 

But how would he, thus conquering, be a servant of Satan? Wherein wouldthis be a falling-down and a worshipping of him (that is, anacknowledging of the worth of him) who was the lord of misrule and itspain?

I will not inquire whether such an enterprise could be accomplishedwithout the worship of Satan, --whether men could be managed for such anend without more or less of the trickery practised by every ambitiousleader, every self-serving conqueror--without double-dealing, tact, flattery, finesse. I will not inquire into this, because, on the mostdistant supposition of our Lord being the leader of his country'sarmies, these things drop out of sight as impossibilities. If thesewere necessary, such a career for him refuses to be for a momentimagined. But I will ask whether to know better and do not so well, isnot a serving of Satan;--whether to lead men on in the name of God astowards the best when the end is not the best, is not a serving ofSatan;--whether to flatter their pride by making them conquerors of theenemies of their nation instead of their own evils, is not a serving ofSatan;--in a word, whether, to desert the mission of God, who knew thatmen could not be set free in that way, and sent him to be a man, a trueman, the one man, among them, that his life might become their life, and that so they might be as free in prison or on the cross, as upon ahill-side or on a throne, --whether, so deserting the truth, to give menover to the lie of believing other than spirit and truth to be theworship of the Father, other than love the fulfilling of the law, otherthan the offering of their best selves the service of God, other thanobedient harmony with the primal love and truth and law, freedom, --whether, to desert God thus, and give men over thus, would not havebeen to fall down and worship the devil. Not all the sovereignty ofGod, as the theologians call it, delegated to the Son, and administeredby the wisdom of the Spirit that was given to him without measure, could have wrought the kingdom of heaven in one corner of our earth. Nothing but the obedience of the Son, the obedience unto the death, theabsolute _doing_ of the will of God because it was the truth, couldredeem the prisoner, the widow, the orphan. But it would redeem them byredeeming the conquest-ridden conqueror too, the stripe-giving jailer, the unjust judge, the devouring Pharisee himself with the insatiablemoth-eaten heart. The earth should be free because Love was strongerthan Death. Therefore should fierceness and wrong and hypocrisy andGod-service play out their weary play. He would not pluck the spreadingbranches of the tree; he would lay the axe to its root. It would taketime; but the tree would be dead at last--dead, and cast into the lakeof fire. It would take time; but his Father had time enough and tospare. It would take courage and strength and self-denial andendurance; but his Father could give him all. It would cost pain ofbody and mind, yea, agony and torture; but those he was ready to takeon himself. It would cost him the vision of many sad and, to all buthim, hopeless sights; he must see tears without wiping them, hear sighswithout changing them into laughter, see the dead lie, and let themlie; see Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted;he must look on his brothers and sisters crying as children over theirbroken toys, and must not mend them; he must go on to the grave, andthey not know that thus he was setting all things right for them. Hiswork must be one with and completing God's Creation and God's History. The disappointment and sorrow and fear he could, he would bear. Thewill of God should be done. Man should be free, --not merely man as hethinks of himself, but man as God thinks of him. The divine idea shallbe set free in the divine bosom; the man on earth shall see his angelface to face. He shall grow into the likeness of the divine thought, free not in his own fancy, but in absolute divine fact of being, as inGod's idea. The great and beautiful and perfect will of God _must_ bedone. 

"Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lordthy God, and him only shalt thou serve. "

It was when Peter would have withstood him as he set his facesteadfastly to meet this death at Jerusalem, that he gave him the samekind of answer that he now gave to Satan, calling him Satan too. 

"Then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and ministered untohim. "

So saith St Matthew. They brought him the food he had waited for, walking in the strength of the word. He would have died if it had notcome now. 

"And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from himfor a season. "

So saith St Luke. 

Then Satan ventured once more. When?

Was it then, when at the last moment, in the agony of the last faint, the Lord cried out, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" when, having done thegreat work, having laid it aside clean and pure as the linen cloth thatwas ready now to infold him, another cloud than that on the mountovershadowed his soul, and out of it came a voiceless persuasion that, after all was done, God did not care for his work or for him?

Even in those words the adversary was foiled--and for ever. For when heseemed to be forsaken, his cry was still, "_My God! my God!_"

 THE ELOI. 

_"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"_--ST MATTHEW xxvii. 46. 

I do not know that I should dare to approach this, of all utterancesinto which human breath has ever been moulded, most awful in import, did I not feel that, containing both germ and blossom of the finaldevotion, it contains therefore the deepest practical lesson the humanheart has to learn. The Lord, the Revealer, hides nothing that can berevealed, and will not warn away the foot that treads in naked humilityeven upon the ground of that terrible conflict between him and Evil, when the smoke of the battle that was fought not only with garmentsrolled in blood but with burning and fuel of fire, rose up between himand his Father, and for the one terrible moment ere he broke the bondsof life, and walked weary and triumphant into his arms, hid God fromthe eyes of his Son. He will give us even to meditate the one thoughtthat slew him at last, when he could bear no more, and fled to theFather to know that he loved him, and was well-pleased with him. ForSatan had come at length yet again, to urge him with his lasttemptation; to tell him that although he had done his part, God hadforgotten his; that although he had lived by the word of his mouth, that mouth had no word more to speak to him; that although he hadrefused to tempt him, God had left him to be tempted more than he couldbear; that although he had worshipped none other, for that worship Goddid not care. The Lord hides not his sacred sufferings, for truth islight, and would be light in the minds of men. The Holy Child, the Sonof the Father, has nothing to conceal, but all the Godhead to reveal. Let us then put off our shoes, and draw near, and bow the head, andkiss those feet that bear for ever the scars of our victory. In thosefeet we clasp the safety of our suffering, our sinning brotherhood. 

It is with the holiest fear that we should approach the terrible factof the sufferings of our Lord. Let no one think that those were lessbecause he was more. The more delicate the nature, the more alive toall that is lovely and true, lawful and right, the more does it feelthe antagonism of pain, the inroad of death upon life; the moredreadful is that breach of the harmony of things whose sound istorture. He felt more than man could feel, because he had a largerfeeling. He was even therefore worn out sooner than another man wouldhave been. These sufferings were awful indeed when they began to invadethe region about the will; when the struggle to keep consciouslytrusting in God began to sink in darkness; when the Will of The Man putforth its last determined effort in that cry after the vanishing visionof the Father: _My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ Never hadit been so with him before. Never before had he been unable to see Godbeside him. Yet never was God nearer him than now. For never was Jesusmore divine. He could not see, could not feel him near; and yet it is"_My_ God" that he cries. 

Thus the Will of Jesus, in the very moment when his faith seems aboutto yield, is finally triumphant. It has no _feeling_ now to support it, no beatific vision to absorb it. It stands naked in his soul andtortured, as he stood naked and scourged before Pilate. Pure and simpleand surrounded by fire, it declares for God. The sacrifice ascends inthe cry, _My God_. The cry comes not out of happiness, out of peace, out of hope. Not even out of suffering comes that cry. It was a cry_in_ desolation, but it came out of Faith. It is the last voice ofTruth, speaking when it can but cry. The divine horror of that momentis unfathomable by human soul. It was blackness of darkness. And yet hewould believe. Yet he would hold fast. God was his God yet. _My God_--and in the cry came forth the Victory, and all was over soon. Of thepeace that followed that cry, the peace of a perfect soul, large as theuniverse, pure as light, ardent as life, victorious for God and hisbrethren, he himself alone can ever know the breadth and length, anddepth and height. 

Without this last trial of all, the temptations of our Master had notbeen so full as the human cup could hold; there would have been oneregion through which we had to pass wherein we might call aloud uponour Captain-Brother, and there would be no voice or hearing: he hadavoided the fatal spot! The temptations of the desert came to theyoung, strong man with his road before him and the presence of his Godaround him; nay, gathered their very force from the exuberance of hisconscious faith. "Dare and do, for God is with thee, " said the devil. "I know it, and therefore I will wait, " returned the king of hisbrothers. And now, after three years of divine action, when his courseis run, when the old age of finished work is come, when the whole frameis tortured until the regnant brain falls whirling down the blue gulfof fainting, and the giving up of the ghost is at hand, when thefriends have forsaken him and fled, comes the voice of the enemy againat his ear: "Despair and die, for God is not with thee. All is in vain. Death, not Life, is thy refuge. Make haste to Hades, where thy torturewill be over. Thou hast deceived thyself. He never was with thee. Hewas the God of Abraham. Abraham is dead. Whom makest thou thyself?" "MyGod, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" the Master cries. For God washis God still, although he had forsaken him--forsaken _his vision_ thathis faith might glow out triumphant; forsaken _himself_? no; comenearer to him than ever; come nearer, even as--but with a yet deeper, more awful pregnancy of import--even as the Lord himself withdrew fromthe bodily eyes of his friends, that he might dwell in theirprofoundest being. 

I do not think it was our Lord's deepest trial when in the garden heprayed that the cup might pass from him, and prayed yet again that thewill of the Father might be done. For that will was then present withhim. He was living and acting in that will. But now the foreseen horrorhas come. He is drinking the dread cup, and the Will has vanished fromhis eyes. Were that Will visible in his suffering, his will could bowwith tearful gladness under the shelter of its grandeur. But now hiswill is left alone to drink the cup of The Will in torture. In thesickness of this agony, the Will of Jesus arises perfect at last; andof itself, unsupported now, declares--a naked consciousness of miseryhung in the waste darkness of the universe--declares for God, indefiance of pain, of death, of apathy, of self, of negation, of theblackness within and around it; calls aloud upon the vanished God. 

This is the Faith of the Son of God. God withdrew, as it were, that theperfect Will of the Son might arise and go forth to find the Will ofthe Father. 

Is it possible that even then he thought of the lost sheep who couldnot believe that God was their Father; and for them, too, in all theirloss and blindness and unlove, cried, saying the word they might say, knowing for them that _God_ means _Father_ and more, and knowing now, as he had never known till now, what a fearful thing it is to bewithout God and without hope? I dare not answer the question I put. 

But wherein or what can this Alpine apex of faith have to do with thecreatures who call themselves Christians, creeping about in thevalleys, hardly knowing that there are mountains above them, save thatthey take offence at and stumble over the pebbles washed across theirpath by the glacier streams? I will tell you. We are and remain suchcreeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ;because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail ofour own defiled garments, instead of up at the snows of purity, whitherthe soul of Christ clomb. Each, putting his foot in the footprint ofthe Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far hisneighbour's footprint corresponds with that which he still calls theMaster's, although it is but his own. Or, having committed a pettyfault, I mean a fault such as only a petty creature could commit, wemourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before ourfriends, children, or servants, instead of hastening to make the dueconfession and amends to our fellow, and then, forgetting our paltryself with its well-earned disgrace, lift up our eyes to the glory whichalone will quicken the true man in us, and kill the peddling creaturewe so wrongly call our _self_. The true self is that which can lookJesus in the face, and say _My Lord_. 

When the inward sun is shining, and the wind of thought, blowing whereit lists amid the flowers and leaves of fancy and imagination, rousesglad forms and feelings, it is easy to look upwards, and say _My God_. It is easy when the frosts of external failure have braced the mentalnerves to healthy endurance and fresh effort after labour, it is easythen to turn to God and trust in him, in whom all honest exertion givesan ability as well as a right to trust. It is easy in pain, so long asit does not pass certain undefinable bounds, to hope in God fordeliverance, or pray for strength to endure. But what is to be donewhen all feeling is gone? when a man does not know whether he believesor not, whether he loves or not? when art, poetry, religion are nothingto him, so swallowed up is he in pain, or mental depression, ordisappointment, or temptation, or he knows not what? It seems to himthen that God does not care for him, and certainly he does not care forGod. If he is still humble, he thinks that he is so bad that God cannotcare for him. And he then believes for the time that God loves us onlybecause and when and while we love him; instead of believing that Godloves us always because he is our God, and that we live only by hislove. Or he does not believe in a God at all, which is better. 

So long as we have nothing to say to God, nothing to do with him, savein the sunshine of the mind when we feel him near us, we are poorcreatures, willed upon, not willing; reeds, flowering reeds, it may be, and pleasant to behold, but only reeds blown about of the wind; notbad, but poor creatures. 

And how in such a condition do we generally act? Do we not sit mourningover the loss of our feelings? or worse, make frantic efforts to rousethem? or, ten times worse, relapse into a state of temporary atheism, and yield to the pressing temptation? or, being heartless, consent toremain careless, conscious of evil thoughts and low feelings alone, buttoo lazy, too content to rouse ourselves against them? We know we mustget rid of them some day, but meantime--never mind; we do not _feel_them bad, we do not feel anything else good; we are asleep and we knowit, and we cannot be troubled to wake. No impulse comes to arouse us, and so we remain as we are. 

God does not, by the instant gift of his Spirit, make us always feelright, desire good, love purity, aspire after him and his will. Therefore either he will not, or he cannot. If he will not, it must bebecause it would not be well to do so. If he cannot, then he would notif he could; else a better condition than God's is conceivable to themind of God--a condition in which he could save the creatures whom hehas made, better than he can save them. The truth is this: He wants tomake us in his own image, _choosing the good_, _refusing_ the evil. Howshould he effect this if he were _always_ moving us from within, as hedoes at divine intervals, towards the beauty of holiness? God gives usroom _to be_; does not oppress us with his will; "stands away from us, "that we may act from ourselves, that we may exercise the pure will forgood. Do not, therefore, imagine me to mean that we can do anything ofourselves without God. If we choose the right at last, it is all God'sdoing, and only the more his that it is ours, only in a far moremarvellous way his than if he had kept us filled with all holy impulsesprecluding the need of choice. For up to this very point, for this verypoint, he has been educating us, leading us, pushing us, driving us, enticing us, that we may choose him and his will, and so be tenfoldmore his children, of his own best making, in the freedom of the willfound our own first in its loving sacrifice to him, for which in hisgrand fatherhood he has been thus working from the foundations of theearth, than we could be in the most ecstatic worship flowing from thedivinest impulse, without this _willing_ sacrifice. For God made ourindividuality as well as, and a greater marvel than, our dependence;made our _apartness_ from himself, that freedom should bind us divinelydearer to himself, with a new and inscrutable marvel of love; for theGodhead is still at the root, is the making root of our individuality, and the freer the man, the stronger the bond that binds him to him whomade his freedom. He made our wills, and is striving to make them free;for only in the perfection of our individuality and the freedom of ourwills call we be altogether his children. This is full of mystery, butcan we not see enough in it to make us very glad and very peaceful?

Not in any other act than one which, in spite of impulse or ofweakness, declares for the Truth, for God, does the will spring intoabsolute freedom, into true life. 

See, then, what lies within our reach every time that we are thus laptin the folds of night. The highest condition of the human will is insight, is attainable. I say not the highest condition of the HumanBeing; that surely lies in the Beatific Vision, in the sight of God. But the highest condition of the Human Will, as distinct, not asseparated from God, is when, not seeing God, not seeming to itself tograsp him at all, it yet holds him fast. It cannot continue in thiscondition, for, not finding, not seeing God, the man would die; but thewill thus asserting itself, the man has passed from death into life, and the vision is nigh at hand. Then first, thus free, in thusasserting its freedom, is the individual will one with the Will of God;the child is finally restored to the father; the childhood and thefatherhood meet in one; the brotherhood of the race arises from thedust; and the prayer of our Lord is answered, "I in them and thou inme, that they may be made perfect in one. " Let us then arise inGod-born strength every time that we feel the darkness closing, orBecome aware that it has closed around us, and say, "I am of the Lightand not of the Darkness. "

Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not. Thou canst not love whenthou wilt, but thou art bound to fight the hatred in thee to the last. Try not to feel good when thou art not good, but cry to Him who isgood. He changes not because thou changest. Nay, he has an especialtenderness of love towards thee for that thou art in the dark and hastno light, and his heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, "I willgo to my Father. " For he sees thee through all the gloom through whichthou canst not see him. Will thou his will. Say to him: "My God, I amvery dull and low and hard; but thou art wise and high and tender, andthou art my God. I am thy child. Forsake me not. " Then fold the arms ofthy faith, and wait in quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink theeof something that thou oughtest to do, and go and do it, if it be butthe sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to afriend. Heed not thy feelings: Do thy work. 

As God lives by his own will, and we live in him, so has he given to uspower to will in ourselves. How much better should we not fare if, finding that we are standing with our heads bowed away from the good, finding that we have no feeble inclination to seek the source of ourlife, we should yet _will_ upwards toward God, rousing that essence oflife in us, which he has given us from his own heart, to call againupon him who is our Life, who can fill the emptiest heart, rouse thedeadest conscience, quicken the dullest feeling, and strengthen thefeeblest will!

Then, if ever the time should come, as perhaps it must come to each ofus, when all consciousness of well-being shall have vanished, when theearth shall be but a sterile promontory, and the heavens a dull andpestilent congregation of vapours, when man nor woman shall delight usmore, nay, when God himself shall be but a name, and Jesus an oldstory, then, even then, when a Death far worse than "that phantom ofgrisly bone" is griping at our hearts, and having slain love, hope, faith, forces existence upon us only in agony, then, even then, weshall be able to cry out with our Lord, "My God, my God, why hast thouforsaken me?" Nor shall we die then, I think, without being able totake up his last words as well, and say, "_Father, into thy hands Icommend my spirit. _"

 THE HANDS OF THE FATHER. 

 "_Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit_. "--St Luke xxiii. 46. 

Neither St Matthew nor St Mark tells us of any words uttered by ourLord after the _Eloi_. They both, along with St Luke, tell us of a crywith a loud voice, and the giving up of the ghost; between which cryand the giving up, St Luke records the words, "Father, into thy hands Icommend my spirit. " St Luke says nothing of the Eloi prayer ofdesolation. St John records neither the _Eloi_, nor the _Father intothy hands_, nor the loud cry. He tells us only that after Jesus hadreceived the vinegar, he said, "_It is finished_, " and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. 

Will the Lord ever tell us why he cried so? Was it the cry of relief atthe touch of death? Was it the cry of victory? Was it the cry ofgladness that he had endured to the end? Or did the Father look outupon him in answer to his _My God_, and the blessedness of it make himcry aloud because he could not smile? Was such his condition now thatthe greatest gladness of the universe could express itself only in aloud cry? Or was it but the last wrench of pain ere the final reposebegan? It may have been all in one. But never surely in all books, inall words of thinking men, can there be so much expressed as layunarticulated in that cry of the Son of God. Now had he made his FatherLord no longer in the might of making and loving alone, but Lord inright of devotion and deed of love. Now should inward sonship and thespirit of glad sacrifice be born in the hearts of men; for the divineobedience was perfected by suffering. He had been amongst his brethrenwhat he would have his brethren be. He had done for them what he wouldhave them do for God and for each other. God was henceforth inside andbeneath them, as well as around and above them, suffering with them andfor them, giving them all he had, his very life-being, his essence ofexistence, what best he loved, what best he was. He had been amongthem, their God-brother. And the mighty story ends with a cry. 

Then the cry meant, _It is finished_; the cry meant, _Father, into thyhands I commend my spirit_. Every highest human act is just a givingback to God of that which he first gave to us. "Thou God hast given me:here again is thy gift. I send my spirit home. " Every act of worship isa holding up to God of what God hath made us. "Here, Lord, look what Ihave got: feel with me in what thou hast made me, in this thy ownbounty, my being. I am thy child, and know not how to thank thee saveby uplifting the heave-offering of the overflowing of thy life, andcalling aloud, 'It is thine: it is mine. I am thine, and therefore I ammine. '" The vast operations of the spiritual as of the physical world, are simply a turning again to the source. 

The last act of our Lord in thus commending his spirit at the close ofhis life, was only a summing up of what he had been doing all his life. He had been offering this sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself, all theyears, and in thus sacrificing he had lived the divine life. Everymorning when he went out ere it was day, every evening when he lingeredon the night-lapt mountain after his friends were gone, he was offeringhimself to his Father in the communion of loving words, of highthoughts, of speechless feelings; and, between, he turned to do thesame thing in deed, namely, in loving word, in helping thought, inhealing action towards his fellows; for the way to worship God whilethe daylight lasts is to work; the service of God, the only "divineservice, " is the helping of our fellows. 

I do not seek to point out this commending of our spirits to the Fatheras a duty: that is to turn the highest privilege we possess into aburden grievous to be borne. But I want to shew that it is the simplestblessedest thing in the human world. 

For the Human Being may say thus with himself: "Am I going to sleep--tolose consciousness--to be helpless for a time--thoughtless--dead? Or, more awful consideration, in the dreams that may come may I not be weakof will and scant of conscience?--Father, into thy hands I commend myspirit. I give myself back to thee. Take me, soothe me, refresh me, 'make me over again. ' Am I going out into the business and turmoil ofthe day, where so many temptations may come to do less honourably, lessfaithfully, less kindly, less diligently than the Ideal Man would haveme do?--Father, into thy hands. Am I going to do a good deed? Then, ofall times, --Father, into thy hands; lest the enemy should have me now. Am I going to do a hard duty, from which I would gladly be turnedaside, --to refuse a friend's request, to urge a neighbour'sconscience?--Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Am I in pain?Is illness coming upon me to shut out the glad visions of a healthybrain, and bring me such as are troubled and untrue?--Take my spirit, Lord, and see, as thou art wont, that it has no more to bear than itcan bear. Am I going to die? Thou knowest, if only from the cry of thySon, how terrible that is; and if it comes not to me in so terrible ashape as that in which it came to him, think how poor to bear I ambeside him. I do not know what the struggle means; for, of thethousands who pass through it every day, not one enlightens hisneighbour left behind; but shall I not long with agony for one breathof thy air, and not receive it? shall I not be torn asunder withdying?--I will question no more: Father, into thy hands I commend myspirit. For it is thy business, not mine. Thou wilt know every shade ofmy suffering; thou wilt care for me with thy perfect fatherhood; forthat makes my sonship, and inwraps and infolds it. As a child I couldbear great pain when my father was leaning over me, or had his armabout me: how much nearer my soul cannot thy hands come!--yea, with acomfort, father of me, that I have never yet even imagined; for howshall my imagination overtake thy swift heart? I care not for the pain, so long as my spirit is strong, and into thy hands I commend thatspirit. If thy love, which is better than life, receive it, then surelythy tenderness will make it great. "

Thus may the Human Being say with himself. 

Think, brothers, think, sisters, we walk in the air of an eternalfatherhood. Every uplifting of the heart is a looking up to The Father. Graciousness and truth are around, above, beneath us, yea, _in_ us. When we are least worthy, then, most tempted, hardest, unkindest, letus yet commend our spirits into his hands. Whither else dare we sendthem? How the earthly father would love a child who would creep intohis room with angry, troubled face, and sit down at his feet, sayingwhen asked what he wanted: "I feel so naughty, papa, and I want to getgood"! Would he say to his child: "How dare you! Go away, and be good, and then come to me?" And shall we dare to think God would send us awayif we came thus, and would not be pleased that we came, even if we wereangry as Jonah? Would we not let all the tenderness of our nature flowforth upon such a child? And shall we dare to think that if we beingevil know how to give good gifts to our children, God will not give ushis own spirit when we come to ask him? Will not some heavenly dewdescend cool upon the hot anger? some genial rain-drop on the dryselfishness? some glance of sunlight on the cloudy hopelessness? Bread, at least, will be given, and not a stone; water, at least, will besure, and not vinegar mingled with gall. 

Nor is there anything we can ask for ourselves that we may not ask foranother. We may commend any brother, any sister, to the commonfatherhood. And there will be moments when, filled with that spiritwhich is the Lord, nothing will ease our hearts of their love but thecommending of all men, all our brothers, all our sisters, to the oneFather. Nor shall we ever know that repose in the Father's hands, thatrest of the Holy Sepulchre, which the Lord knew when the agony of deathwas over, when the storm of the world died away behind his retiringspirit, and he entered the regions where there is only life, andtherefore all that is not music is silence, (for all noise comes of theconflict of Life and Death)--we shall never be able, I say, to rest inthe bosom of the Father, till the fatherhood is fully revealed to us inthe love of the brothers. For he cannot be our father save as he istheir father; and if we do not see him and feel him as their father, wecannot know him as ours. Never shall we know him aright until werejoice and exult for our race that he is _the_ Father. He that lovethnot his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath notseen? To rest, I say, at last, even in those hands into which the Lordcommended his spirit, we must have learned already to love ourneighbour as ourselves. 

 LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

 _Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. _--ST MATTHEW xxii. 39. 

The original here quoted by our Lord is to be found in the words of Godto Moses, (_Leviticus_ xix. 18:) _"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear anygrudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thyneighbour as thyself: I am the Lord"_ Our Lord never thought of beingoriginal. The older the saying the better, if it utters the truth hewants to utter. In him it becomes fact: The _Word_ was made _flesh_. And so, in the wondrous meeting of extremes, the words he spoke were nomore words, but spirit and life. 

The same words are twice quoted by St Paul, and once by St James, always in a similar mode: Love they represent as the fulfilling of thelaw. 

Is the converse true then? Is the fulfilling of the law love? Theapostle Paul says: "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, thereforelove is the fulfilling of the law. " Does it follow that _working noill_ is love? Love will fulfil the law: will the law fulfil love? No, verily. If a man keeps the law, I know he is a lover of his neighbour. But he is not a lover because he keeps the law: he keeps the lawbecause he is a lover. No heart will be content with the law for love. The law cannot fulfil love. 

"But, at least, the law will be able to fulfil itself, though itreaches not to love. "

I do not believe it. I am certain that it is impossible to keep the lawtowards one's neighbour except one loves him. The law itself isinfinite, reaching to such delicacies of action, that the man who triesmost will be the man most aware of defeat. We are not made for law, butfor love. Love is law, because it is infinitely more than law. It is ofan altogether higher region than law--is, in fact, the creator of law. Had it not been for love, not one of the _shall-nots_ of the law wouldhave been uttered. True, once uttered, they shew themselves in the formof justice, yea, even in the inferior and worldly forms of prudence andself-preservation; but it was love that spoke them first. Were there nolove in us, what sense of justice could we have? Would not each befilled with the sense of his own wants, and be for ever tearing tohimself? I do not say it is _conscious_ love that breeds justice, but Ido say that without love in our nature justice would never be born. ForI do not call that justice which consists only in a sense of _our own_rights. True, there are poor and withered forms of love which areimmeasurably below justice now; but even now they are of speechlessworth, for they will grow into that which will supersede, because itwill necessitate, justice. 

Of what use then is the law? To lead us to Christ, the Truth, --to wakenin our minds a sense of what our deepest nature, the presence, namely, of God _in_ us, requires of us, --to let us know, in part by failure, that the purest effort of will of which we are capable cannot lift usup even to the abstaining from wrong to our neighbour. What man, forinstance, who loves not his neighbour and yet wishes to keep the law, will dare be confident that never by word, look, tone, gesture, silence, will he bear false witness against that neighbour? What mancan judge his neighbour aright save him whose love makes him refuse tojudge him? Therefore are we told to love, and not judge. It is the solejustice of which we are capable, and that perfected will comprise alljustice. Nay more, to refuse our neighbour love, is to do him thegreatest wrong. But of this afterwards. In order to fulfil thecommonest law, I repeat, we must rise into a loftier region altogether, a region that is above law, because it is spirit and life and makes thelaw: in order to keep the law towards our neighbour, we must love ourneighbour. We are not made for law, but for grace--or for faith, to useanother word so much misused. We are made on too large a scalealtogether to have any pure relation to mere justice, if indeed we cansay there is such a thing. It is but an abstract idea which, inreality, will not be abstracted. The law comes to make us long for theneedful grace, --that is, for the divine condition, in which love isall, for God is Love. 

Though the fulfilling of the law is the practical form love will take, and the neglect of it is the conviction of lovelessness; though it isthe mode in which a man's _will_ must begin at once to be love to hisneighbour, yet, that our Lord meant by the love of our neighbour; notthe fulfilling of the law towards him, but that condition of beingwhich results in the fulfilling of the law and more, is sufficientlyclear from his story of the good Samaritan. "Who is my neighbour?" saidthe lawyer. And the Lord taught him that every one to whom he could beor for whom he could do anything was his neighbour, therefore, thateach of the race, as he comes within the touch of one tentacle of ournature, is our neighbour. Which of the inhibitions of the law isillustrated in the tale? Not one. The love that is more than law, andrenders its breach impossible, lives in the endless story, coming outin active kindness, that is, the recognition of kin, of _kind_, ofnighness, of _neighbourhood_; yea, in tenderness and loving-kindness--the Samaritan-heart akin to the Jew-heart, the Samaritan handsneighbours to the Jewish wounds. 

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 

So direct and complete is this parable of our Lord, that one becomesalmost ashamed of further talk about it. Suppose a man of the companyhad put the same question to our Lord that we have been considering, had said, "But I may keep the law and yet not love my neighbour, " wouldhe not have returned: "Keep thou the law thus, not in the letter, butin the spirit, that is, in the truth of action, and thou wilt soonfind, O Jew, that thou lovest thy Samaritan"? And yet, when thoughtsand questions arise in our minds, he desires that we should followthem. He will not check us with a word of heavenly wisdom scornfullyuttered. He knows that not even his words will apply to every questionof the willing soul; and we know that his spirit will reply. When wewant to know more, that more will be there for us. Not every man, forinstance, finds his neighbour in need of help, and he would gladlyhasten the slow results of opportunity by true thinking. Thus would webe ready for further teaching from that Spirit who is the Lord. 

"But how, " says a man, who is willing to recognize the universalneighbourhead, but finds himself unable to fulfil the bare law towardsthe woman even whom he loves best, --"How am I then to rise into thathigher region, that empyrean of love?" And, beginning straightway totry to love his neighbour, he finds that the empyrean of which he spokeis no more to be reached in itself than the law was to be reached initself. As he cannot keep the law without first rising into the love ofhis neighbour, so he cannot love his neighbour without first risinghigher still. The whole system of the universe works upon this law--thedriving of things upward towards the centre. The man who will love hisneighbour can do so by no immediately operative exercise of the will. It is the man fulfilled of God from whom he came and by whom he is, whoalone can as himself love his neighbour who came from God too and is byGod too. The mystery of individuality and consequent relation is deepas the beginnings of humanity, and the questions thence arising can besolved only by him who has, practically, at least, solved the holynecessities resulting from his origin. In God alone can man meet man. In him alone the converging lines of existence touch and cross not. When the mind of Christ, the life of the Head, courses through thatatom which the man is of the slowly revivifying body, when he is alivetoo, then the love of the brothers is there as conscious life. FromChrist through the neighbours comes the life that makes him a part ofthe body. 

It _is_ possible to love our neighbour as ourselves. Our Lord _never_spoke hyperbolically, although, indeed, that is the supposition onwhich many unconsciously interpret his words, in order to be able topersuade themselves that they believe them. We may see that it ispossible before we attain to it; for our perceptions of truth arealways in advance of our condition. True, no man can see it perfectlyuntil he is it; but we must see it, that we may be it. A man who knowsthat he does not yet love his neighbour as himself may believe in sucha condition, may even see that there is no other goal of humanperfection, nothing else to which the universe is speeding, propelledby the Father's will. Let him labour on, and not faint at the thoughtthat God's day is a thousand years: his millennium is likewise oneday--yea, this day, for we have him, The Love, in us, working even nowthe far end. 

But while it is true that only when a man loves God with all his heart, will he love his neighbour as himself, yet there are mingled processesin the attainment of this final result. Let us try to aid suchoperation of truth by looking farther. Let us suppose that the man whobelieves our Lord both meant what he said, and knew the truth of thematter, proceeds to endeavour obedience in this of loving his neighbouras himself. He begins to think about his neighbours generally, and hetries to feel love towards them. He finds at once that they begin toclassify themselves. With some he feels no difficulty, for he lovesthem already, not indeed because they _are_, but because they have, byfriendly qualities, by showing themselves lovable, that is loving, already, moved his feelings as the wind moves the waters, that iswithout any self-generated action on his part. And he feels that thisis nothing much to the point; though, of course, he would be fartherfrom the desired end if he had none such to love, and farther still ifhe loved none such. He recalls the words of our Lord, "If ye love themwhich love you, what reward have ye?" and his mind fixes upon--let ussay--one of a second class, and he tries to love him. The man is noenemy--we have not come to that class of neighbours yet--but he isdull, uninteresting--in a negative way, he thinks, unlovable. What ishe to do with him? With all his effort, he finds the goal as far off asever. 

Naturally, in his failure, the question arises, "Is it my duty to lovehim who is unlovable?"

Certainly not, if he is unlovable. But that is a begging of thequestion. 

Thereupon the man falls back on the primary foundation of things, andasks--

"How, then, is the man to be loved by me? Why should I love myneighbour as myself?"

We must not answer "Because the Lord says so. " It is because the Lordsays so that the man is inquiring after some help to obey. No man canlove his neighbour merely because the Lord says so. The Lord says sobecause it is right and necessary and natural, and the man wants tofeel it thus right and necessary and natural. Although the Lord wouldbe pleased with any man for doing a thing because he said it, he wouldshow his pleasure by making the man more and more dissatisfied until heknew why the Lord had said it. He would make him see that he could notin the deepest sense--in the way the Lord loves--obey any command untilhe saw the reasonableness of it. Observe I do not say the man ought toput off obeying the command until he see its reasonableness: that isanother thing quite, and does not lie in the scope of my presentsupposition. It is a beautiful thing to obey the rightful source of acommand: it is a more beautiful thing to worship the radiant source ofour light, and it is for the sake of obedient vision that our Lordcommands us. For then our heart meets his: we see God. 

Let me represent in the form of a conversation what might pass in theman's mind on the opposing sides of the question. --"Why should I lovemy neighbour?"

"He is the same as I, and therefore I ought to love him. "

"Why? I am I. He is he. "

"He has the same thoughts, feelings, hopes, sorrows, joys, as I. "

"Yes; but why should I love him for that? He must mind his, I can onlydo with mine. "

"He has the same consciousness as I have. As things look to me, sothings look to him. "

"Yes; but I cannot get into his consciousness, nor he into mine. I feelmyself, I do not feel him. My life flows through my veins, not throughhis. The world shines into my consciousness, and I am not conscious ofhis consciousness. I wish I could love him, but I do not see why. I aman individual; he is an individual. My self must be closer to me thanhe can be. Two bodies keep me apart from his self. I am isolated withmyself. "

Now, here lies the mistake at last. While the thinker supposes aduality in himself which does not exist, he falsely judges theindividuality a separation. On the contrary, it is the sole possibilityand very bond of love. _Otherness_ is the essential ground ofaffection. But in spiritual things, such a unity is pre-supposed in thevery contemplation of them by the spirit of man, that wherever anythingdoes not exist that ought to be there, the space it ought to occupy, even if but a blank, assumes the appearance of a separating gulf. Thenegative looks a positive. Where a man does not love, the not-lovingmust seem rational. For no one loves because he sees why, but becausehe loves. No human reason can he given for the highest necessity ofdivinely created existence. For reasons are always from abovedownwards. A man must just feel this necessity, and then questioning isover. It justifies itself. But he who has not felt has it not to argueabout. He has but its phantom, which he created himself in a vaineffort to understand, and which he supposes to be it. Love cannot beargued about in its absence, for there is no reflex, no symbol of itnear enough to the fact of it, to admit of just treatment by thealgebra of the reason or imagination. Indeed, the very talking about itraises a mist between the mind and the vision of it. But let a man oncelove, and all those difficulties which appeared opposed to love, willjust be so many arguments for loving. 

Let a man once find another who has fallen among thieves; let him be aneighbour to him, pouring oil and wine into his wounds, and bindingthem up, and setting him on his own beast, and paying for him at theinn; let him do all this merely from a sense of duty; let him even, inthe pride of his fancied, and the ignorance of his true calling, bateno jot of his Jewish superiority; let him condescend to the verybaseness of his own lowest nature; yet such will be the virtue ofobeying an eternal truth even to his poor measure, of putting inactuality what he has not even seen in theory, of doing the truth evenwithout believing it, that even if the truth does not after the deedgive the faintest glimmer as truth in the man, he will yet be agesnearer the truth than before, for he will go on his way loving thatSamaritan neighbour a little more than his Jewish dignity will justify. Nor will he question the reasonableness of so doing, although he maynot care to spend any logic upon its support. How much more if he be aman who would love his neighbour if he could, will the higher conditionunsought have been found in the action! For man is a whole; and so soonas he _unites himself_ by obedient action, the truth that is in himmakes itself known to him, shining from the new whole. For his actionis his response to his maker's design, his individual part in thecreation of himself, his yielding to the All in all, to the tides ofwhose harmonious cosmoplastic life all his being thenceforward liesopen for interpenetration and assimilation. When will once begins toaspire, it will soon find that action must precede feeling, that theman may know the foundation itself of feeling. 

With those who recognize no authority as the ground of tentativeaction, a doubt, a suspicion of truth ought to be ground enough forputting it to the test. 

The whole system of divine education as regards the relation of man andman, has for its end that a man should love his neighbour as himself. It is not a lesson that he can learn by itself, or a duty theobligation of which can be shown by argument, any more than thedifference between right and wrong can be defined in other terms thantheir own. "But that difference, " it may be objected, "manifestsitself of itself to every mind: it is self-evident; whereas the lovingof one's neighbour is _not_ seen to be a primary truth; so far from it, that far the greater number of those who hope for an eternity ofblessedness through him who taught it, do not really believe it to be atruth; believe, on the contrary, that the paramount obligation is totake care of one's self at much risk of forgetting one's neighbour. "

But the human race generally has got as far as the recognition of rightand wrong; and therefore most men are born capable of making thedistinction. The race has not yet lived long enough for its latestoffspring to be born with the perception of the truth of love to theneighbour. It is to be seen by the present individual only after a longreception of and submission to the education of life. And once seen, itis believed. 

The whole constitution of human society exists for the express end, Isay, of teaching the two truths by which man lives, Love to God andLove to Man. I will say nothing more of the mysteries of the parentalrelation, because they belong to the teaching of the former truth, thanthat we come into the world as we do, to look up to the love over us, and see in it a symbol, poor and weak, yet the best we can have orreceive of the divine love. [Footnote: It might be expressed after adeeper and truer fashion by saying that, God making human affairs afterhis own thoughts, they are therefore such as to be the best teachers oflove to him and love to our neighbour. This is an immeasurably noblerand truer manner of regarding them than as a scheme or plan invented bythe divine intellect. ] And thousands more would find it easy to loveGod if they had not such miserable types of him in the self-seeking, impulse-driven, purposeless, faithless beings who are all they have forfather and mother, and to whom their children are no dearer than herlitter is to the unthinking dam. What I want to speak of now, withregard to the second great commandment, is the relation of brotherhoodand sisterhood. Why does my brother come of the same father and mother?Why do I behold the helplessness and confidence of his infancy? Why isthe infant laid on the knee of the child? Why do we grow up with thesame nurture? Why do we behold the wonder of the sunset and the mysteryof the growing moon together? Why do we share one bed, join in the samegames, and attempt the same exploits? Why do we quarrel, vow revengeand silence and endless enmity, and, unable to resist the brotherhoodwithin us, wind arm in arm and forget all within the hour? Is it notthat Love may grow lord of all between him and me? Is it not that I mayfeel towards him what there are no words or forms of words to express--a love namely, in which the divine self rushes forth in utterself-forgetfulness to live in the contemplation of the brother--a lovethat is stronger than death, --glad and proud and satisfied? But if lovestop there, what will be the result? Ruin to itself; loss of thebrotherhood. He who loves not his brother for deeper reasons than thoseof a common parentage will cease to love him at all. The love thatenlarges not its borders, that is not ever spreading and including, anddeepening, will contract, shrivel, decay, die. I have had the sons ofmy mother that I may learn the universal brotherhood. For there is abond between me and the most wretched liar that ever died for themurder he would not even confess, closer infinitely than that whichsprings only from having one father and mother. That we are the sonsand the daughters of God born from his heart, the outcoming offspringof his love, is a bond closer than all other bonds in one. No man everloved his own child aright who did not love him for his humanity, forhis divinity, to the utter forgetting of his origin from himself. Theson of my mother is indeed my brother by this greater and closer bondas well; but if I recognize that bond between him and me at all, Irecognize it for my race. True, and thank God! the greater excludes notthe less; it makes all the weaker bonds stronger and truer, nor forbidsthat where all are brothers, some should be those of our bosom. Stillmy brother according to the flesh is my first neighbour, that we may bevery nigh to each other, whether we will or no, while our hearts aretender, and so may learn _brotherhood_. For our love to each other isbut the throbbing of the heart of the great brotherhood, and could comeonly from the eternal Father, not from our parents. Then my secondneighbour appears, and who is he? Whom I come in contact with soever. He with whom I have any transactions, any human dealings whatever. Notthe man only with whom I dine; not the friend only with whom I share mythoughts; not the man only whom my compassion would lift from someslough; but the man who makes my clothes; the man who prints my book;the man who drives me in his cab; the man who begs from me in thestreet, to whom, it may be, for brotherhood's sake, I must not give;yea, even the man who condescends to me. With all and each there is achance of doing the part of a neighbour, if in no other way yet byspeaking truly, acting justly, and thinking kindly. Even these deedswill help to that love which is born of righteousness. All true actionclears the springs of right feeling, and lets their waters rise andflow. A man must not choose his neighbour; he must take the neighbourthat God sends him. In him, whoever he be, lies, hidden or revealed, abeautiful brother. The neighbour is just the man who is next to you atthe moment, the man with whom any business has brought you in contact. 

Thus will love spread and spread in wider and stronger pulses till thewhole human race will be to the man sacredly lovely. Drink-debased, vice-defeatured, pride-puffed, wealth-bollen, vanity-smeared, they willyet be brothers, yet be sisters, yet be God-born neighbours. Anyrough-hewn semblance of humanity will at length be enough to move theman to reverence and affection. It is harder for some to learn thusthan for others. There are whose first impulse is ever to repel and notto receive. But learn they may, and learn they must. Even these maygrow in this grace until a countenance unknown will awake in them ayearning of affection rising to pain, because there is for it noexpression, and they can only give the man to God and be still. 

And now will come in all the arguments out of which the man tried invain before to build a stair up to the sunny heights of love. "Ahbrother! thou hast a soul like mine, " he will say. "Out of thine eyesthou lookest, and sights and sounds and odours visit thy soul as mine, with wonder and tender comforting. Thou too lovest the faces of thyneighbours. Thou art oppressed with thy sorrows, uplifted with thyjoys. Perhaps thou knowest not so well as I, that a region of gladnesssurrounds all thy grief, of light all thy darkness, of peace all thytumult. Oh, my brother! I will love thee. I cannot come very near thee:I will love thee the more. It may be thou dost not love thy neighbour;it may be thou thinkest only how to get from him, how to gain by him. How lonely then must thou be! how shut up in thy poverty-stricken room, with the bare walls of thy selfishness, and the hard couch of thyunsatisfaction! I will love thee the more. Thou shalt not be alone withthyself. Thou art not me; thou art another life--a second self;therefore I can, may, and will love thee. "

When once to a man the human face is the human face divine, and thehand of his neighbour is the hand of a brother, then will he understandwhat St Paul meant when he said, "I could wish that myself wereaccursed from Christ for my brethren. " But he will no longer understandthose who, so far from feeling the love of their neighbour an essentialof their being, expect to be set free from its law in the world tocome. There, at least, for the glory of God, they may limit itsexpansive tendencies to the narrow circle of their heaven. On itsbattlements of safety, they will regard hell from afar, and say to eachother, "Hark! Listen to their moans. But do not weep, for they are ourneighbours no more. " St Paul would be wretched before the throne ofGod, if he thought there was one man beyond the pale of his mercy, andthat as much for God's glory as for the man's sake. And what shall wesay of the man Christ Jesus? Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a dim hope that in the far-offtime there might be some help for him, arise from the company of theblessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit withthe last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himselfmore blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that oneof his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men weretaught to love their neighbour as themselves, was howling unheeded farbelow in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that hemust arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must girdhis loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, travelling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find hisbrother?--who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the loveof the Father?

But it is a wild question. God is, and shall be, All in all. Father ofour brothers and sisters! thou wilt not be less glorious than we, taught of Christ, are able to think thee. When thou goest into thewilderness to seek, thou wilt not come home until thou hast found. Itis because we hope not for them in thee, not knowing thee, not knowingthy love, that we are so hard and so heartless to the brothers andsisters whom thou hast given us. 

One word more: This love of our neighbour is the only door out of thedungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbingphosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in ourown nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweetwinds of the universe. The man thinks his consciousness is himself;whereas his life consisteth in the inbreathing of God, and theconsciousness of the universe of truth. To have himself, to knowhimself, to enjoy himself, he calls life; whereas, if he would forgethimself, tenfold would be his life in God and his neighbours. Theregion of man's life is a spiritual region. God, his friends, hisneighbours, his brothers all, is the wide world in which alone hisspirit can find room. Himself is his dungeon. If he feels it not now, he will yet feel it one day--feel it as a living soul would feel beingprisoned in a dead body, wrapped in sevenfold cerements, and buried ina stone-ribbed vault within the last ripple of the sound of thechanting people in the church above. His life is not in knowing that helives, but in loving all forms of life. He is made for the All, forGod, who is the All, is his life. And the essential joy of his lifelies abroad in the liberty of the All. His delights, like those of theIdeal Wisdom, are with the sons of men. His health is in the body ofwhich the Son of Man is the head. The whole region of life is open tohim--nay, he must live in it or perish. 

Nor thus shall a man lose the consciousness of well-being. Far deeperand more complete, God and his neighbour will flash it back upon him--pure as life. No more will he agonize "with sick assay" to generate itin the light of his own decadence. For he shall know the glory of hisown being in the light of God and of his brother. 

But he may have begun to love his neighbour, with the hope of ere longloving him as himself, and notwithstanding start back affrighted at yetanother word of our Lord, seeming to be another law yet harder than thefirst, although in truth it is not another, for without obedience to itthe former cannot be attained unto. He has not yet learned to love hisneighbour as himself whose heart sinks within him at the word, _I sayunto you, Love your enemies_. 

 LOVE THINE ENEMY. 

 _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 themthat curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them whichdespitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children ofyour Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on theevil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not eventhe publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do yemore than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye thereforeperfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. _--StMatthew v. 43-48. 

Is not this at length _too_ much to expect? Will a man ever love hisenemies? He may come to do good to them that hate him; but when will hepray for them that despitefully use him and persecute him? When? Whenhe is the child of his Father in heaven. Then shall he love hisneighbour as himself, even if that neighbour be his enemy. In thepassage in Leviticus (xix. 18, ) already referred to as quoted by ourLord and his apostles, we find the neighbour and the enemy are one. "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thypeople, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord. "

Look at the glorious way in which Jesus interprets the scripture thatwent before him. "_I am the Lord_, "--"That ye may be perfect, as yourFather in heaven is perfect. "

Is it then reasonable to love our enemies? God does; therefore it mustbe the highest reason. But is it reasonable to expect that man shouldbecome capable of doing so? Yes; on one ground: that the divine energyis at work in man, to render at length man's doing divine as his natureis. For this our Lord prayed when he said: "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one inus. " Nothing could be less likely to human judgment: our Lord knowsthat one day it will come. 

Why should we love our enemies? The deepest reason for this we cannotput in words, for it lies in the absolute reality of their being, whereour enemies are of one nature with us, even of the divine nature. Intothis we cannot see, save as into a dark abyss. But we can adumbratesomething of the form of this deepest reason, if we let the thoughts ofour heart move upon the face of the dim profound. 

"Are our enemies men like ourselves?" let me begin by asking. "Yes. ""Upon what ground? The ground of their enmity? The ground of the wrongthey do us?" "No. " "In virtue of cruelty, heartlessness, injustice, disrespect, misrepresentation?" "Certainly not. _Humanum est errare_ isa truism; but it possesses, like most truisms, a latent germ of worthytruth. The very word _errare_ is a sign that there is a way so trulythe human that, for a man to leave it, is to _wander_. If it be humanto wander, yet the wandering is not humanity. The very words _humane_and _humanity_ denote some shadow of that loving-kindness which, whenperfected after the divine fashion, shall include even our enemies. Wedo not call the offering of human sacrifices, the torturing ofcaptives, cannibalism--humanity. Not because they do such deeds arethey men. Their humanity must be deeper than those. It is in virtue ofthe divine essence which is in them, that pure essential humanity, thatwe call our enemies men and women. It is this humanity that we are tolove--a something, I say, deeper altogether than and independent of theregion of hate. It is the humanity that originates the claim ofneighbourhead; the neighbourhood only determines the occasion of itsexercise. " "Is this humanity in every one of our enemies?" "Else therewere nothing to love. " "Is it there in very deed?--Then we _must_ loveit, come between us and it what may. "

But how can we love a man or a woman who is cruel and unjust to us?--who sears with contempt, or cuts off with wrong every tendril we wouldput forth to embrace?--who is mean, unlovely, carping, uncertain, self-righteous, self-seeking, and self-admiring?--who can even sneer, the most inhuman of human faults, far worse in its essence than meremurder?

These things cannot be loved. The best man hates them most; the worstman cannot love them. But are these the man? Does a woman bear thatform in virtue of these? Lies there not within the man and the woman adivine element of brotherhood, of sisterhood, a something lovely andlovable, --slowly fading, it may be, --dying away under the fierce heatof vile passions, or the yet more fearful cold of sepulchralselfishness--but there? Shall that divine something, which, onceawakened to be its own holy self in the man, will loathe these unlovelythings tenfold more than we loathe them now--shall this divine thinghave no recognition from us? It is the very presence of this fadinghumanity that makes it possible for us to hate. If it were an animalonly, and not a man or a woman that did us hurt, we should not hate: weshould only kill. We hate the man just because we are prevented fromloving him. We push over the verge of the creation--_we damn_--justbecause we cannot embrace. For to embrace is the necessity of ourdeepest being. That foiled, we hate. Instead of admonishing ourselvesthat there is our enchained brother, that there lies our enchanted, disfigured, scarce recognizable sister, captive of the devil, to break, how much sooner, from their bonds, that we love them!--we recoil intothe hate which would fix them there; and the dearly lovable reality ofthem we sacrifice to the outer falsehood of Satan's incantations, thusleaving them to perish. Nay, we murder them to get rid of them, we_hate_ them. Yet within the most obnoxious to our hate, lies thatwhich, could it but show itself as it is, and as it will show itselfone day, would compel from our hearts a devotion of love. It is not theunfriendly, the unlovely, that we are told to love, but the brother, the sister, who is unkind, who is unlovely. Shall we leave our brotherto his desolate fate? Shall we not rather say, "With my love at leastshalt thou be compassed about, for thou hast not thy own lovingness toinfold thee; love shall come as near thee as it may; and when thinecomes forth to meet mine, we shall be one in the indwelling God"?

Let no one say I have been speaking in a figure merely. That I havebeen so speaking I know. But many things which we see most vividly andcertainly are more truly expressed by using a right figure, than byattempting to give them a clear outline of logical expression. Myfigure means a truth. 

If any one say, "Do not make such vague distinctions. There is theperson. Can you deny that that person is unlovely? How then can youlove him?" I answer, "That person, with the evil thing cast out of him, will be yet more the _person_, for he will be his real self. The thingthat now makes you dislike him is separable from him, is therefore nothe, makes himself so much less himself, for it is working death in him. Now he is in danger of ceasing to be a person at all. When he isclothed and in his right mind, he will be a person indeed. You _could_not then go on hating him. Begin to love him now, and help him into theloveliness which is his. Do not hate him although you can. Thepersonalty, I say, though clouded, besmeared, defiled with the wrong, lies deeper than the wrong, and indeed, so far as the wrong has reachedit, is by the wrong injured, yea, so far, it may be, destroyed. "

But those who will not acknowledge the claim of love, may yetacknowledge the claim of justice. There are who would shrink withhorror from the idea of doing injustice to those, from the idea ofloving whom they would shrink with equal horror. But if it isimpossible, as I believe, without love to be just, much more cannotjustice co-exist with hate. The pure eye for the true vision ofanother's claims can only go with the loving heart. The man who hatescan hardly be delicate in doing justice, say to his neighbour's love, to his neighbour's predilections and peculiarities. It is hard enoughto be just to our friends; and how shall our enemies fare with us? Forjustice demands that we shall think rightly of our neighbour ascertainly as that we shall neither steal his goods nor bear falsewitness against him. Man is not made for justice from his fellow, butfor love, which is greater than justice, and by including supersedesjustice. _Mere_ justice is an impossibility, a fiction of analysis. Itdoes not exist between man and man, save relatively to human _law_. Justice to be justice must be much more than justice. Love is the lawof our condition, without which we can no more render justice than aman can keep a straight line walking in the dark. The eye is notsingle, and the body is not full of light. No man who is evenindifferent to his brother can recognize the claims which his humanityhas upon him. Nay, the very indifference itself is an injustice. 

I have taken for granted that the fault lies with the enemy soconsidered, for upon the primary rocks would I build my foundation. Butthe question must be put to each man by himself, "Is my neighbourindeed my enemy, or am I my neighbour's enemy, and so take him to bemine?--awful thought! Or, if he be mine, am not I his? Am I notrefusing to acknowledge the child of the kingdom within his bosom, sokilling the child of the kingdom within my own?" Let us claim forourselves no more indulgence than we give to him. Such honesty will endin severity at home and clemency abroad. For we are accountable for theill in ourselves, and have to kill it; for the good in our neighbour, and have to cherish it. He only, in the name and power of God, can killthe bad in him; we can cherish the good in him by being good to itacross all the evil fog that comes between our love and his good. 

Nor ought it to be forgotten that this fog is often the result ofmisapprehension and mistake, giving rise to all kinds of indignations, resentments, and regrets. Scarce anything about us is just as it seems, but at the core there is truth enough to dispel all falsehood andreveal life as unspeakably divine. O brother, sister, across this wearyfog, dim-lighted by the faint torches of our truth-seeking, I call tothe divine in thee, which is mine, not to rebuke thee, not to rousethee, not to say "Why hatest thou me?" but to say "I love thee; inGod's name I love thee. " And I will wait until the true self looks outof thine eyes, and knows the true self in me. 

But in the working of the Divine Love upon the race, my enemy is doomedto cease to be my enemy, and to become my friend. One flash of truthtowards me would destroy my enmity at once; one hearty confession ofwrong, and our enmity passes away; from each comes forth the brotherwho was inside the enemy all the time. For this The Truth is at work. In the faith of this, let us love the enemy now, accepting God's workin reversion, as it were; let us believe as seeing his yet invisibletriumph, clasping and holding fast our brother, in defiance of thechangeful wiles of the wicked enchantment which would persuade our eyesand hearts that he is not our brother, but some horrible thing, hatefuland hating. 

But again I must ask, What if _we_ are in the wrong and do the wrong, and hate because we have injured? What then? Why, then, let us cry toGod as from the throat of hell; struggle, as under the weight of aspiritual incubus; cry, as knowing the vile disease that cleaveth fastunto us; cry, as possessed of an evil spirit; cry, as one buried alive, from the sepulchre of our evil consciousness, that He would take pityupon us the chief of sinners, the most wretched and vile of men, andsend some help to lift us from the fearful pit and the miry clay. Nothing will help but the Spirit proceeding from the Father and theSon, the spirit of the Father and the Brother casting out andrevealing. It will be with tearing and foaming, with a terrible cry anda lying as one dead, that such a demon will go out. But what a visionwill then arise in the depths of the purified soul!

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven isperfect. " "Love your enemies, and ye shall be the children of thehighest. " It is the divine glory to forgive. 

Yet a time will come when the Unchangeable will cease to forgive; whenit will no more belong to his perfection to love his enemies; when hewill look calmly, and have his children look calmly too, upon theascending smoke of the everlasting torments of our strong brothers, ourbeautiful sisters! Nay, alas! the brothers are weak now; the sistersare ugly now!

O brother, believe it not. "O Christ!" the redeemed would cry, "whereart thou, our strong Jesus? Come, our grand brother. See the sufferingbrothers down below! See the tormented sisters! Come, Lord of Life!Monarch of Suffering! Redeem them. For us, we will go down into theburning, and see whether we cannot at least carry through the howlingflames a drop of water to cool their tongues. "

Believe it not, my brother, lest it quench forgiveness in thee, andthou be not forgiven, but go down with those thy brothers to thetorment; whence, if God were not better than that phantom _thou_callest God, thou shouldst _never_ come out; but whence assuredly thoushalt come out when thou hast paid the uttermost farthing; when thouhast learned of God in hell what thou didst refuse to learn of him uponthe gentle-toned earth; what the sunshine and the rain could not teachthee, nor the sweet compunctions of the seasons, nor the statelyvisitings of the morn and the eventide, nor the human face divine, northe word that was nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth--the story ofHim who was mighty to save, because he was perfect in love. 

O Father, thou art All-in-all, perfect beyond the longing of thychildren, and we are all and altogether thine. Thou wilt make us pureand loving and free. We shall stand fearless in thy presence, becauseperfect in thy love. Then shall thy children be of good cheer, infinitein the love of each other, and eternal in thy love. Lord Jesus, let theheart of a child be given to us, that so we may arise from the grave ofour dead selves and die no more, but see face to face _the God of theLiving_. 

 THE GOD OF THE LIVING. 

 _He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live untohim_. --ST LUKE xx. 38. 

It is a recurring cause of perplexity in our Lord's teaching, that heis too simple for us; that while we are questioning with ourselvesabout the design of Solomon's earring upon some gold-plated door of thetemple, he is speaking about the foundations of Mount Zion, yea, of theearth itself, upon which it stands. If the reader of the Gospelsupposes that our Lord was here using a verbal argument with theSadducees, namely, "I _am_ the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;therefore they _are_, " he will be astonished that no Sadducee was foundwith courage enough to reply: "All that God meant was to introducehimself to Moses as the same God who had aided and protected hisfathers while they were alive, saying, I am he that was the God of thyfathers. They found me faithful. Thou, therefore, listen to me, andthou too shalt find me faithful unto the death. "

But no such reply suggested itself even to the Sadducees of that day, for their eastern nature could see argument beyond logic. Shall Godcall himself the God of the dead, of those who were alive once, butwhom he either could not or would not keep alive? Is that the Godhood, and its relation to those who worship it? The changeless God of anever-born and ever-perishing torrent of life; of which each atom crieswith burning heart, _My God_! and straightway passes into the Godlesscold! "Trust in me, for I took care of your fathers once upon a time, though they are gone now. Worship and obey me, for I will be good toyou for threescore years and ten, or thereabouts; and after that, whenyou are not, and the world goes on all the same without you, I willcall myself your God still. " God changes not. Once God he is alwaysGod. If he has once said to a man, "I am thy God, and that man has diedthe death of the Sadducee's creed, " then we have a right to say thatGod is the God of the dead. 

"And wherefore should he not be so far the God of the dead, if duringthe time allotted to them here, he was the faithful God of the living?"What Godlike relation can the ever-living, life-giving, changeless Godhold to creatures who partake not of his life, who have death at thevery core of their being, are not worth their Maker's keeping alive? Tolet his creatures die would be to change, to abjure his Godhood, tocease to be that which he had made himself. If they are not worthkeeping alive, then his creating is a poor thing, and he is not sogreat, nor so divine as even the poor thoughts of those his dyingcreatures have been able to imagine him. But our Lord says, "All liveunto him. " With Him death is not. Thy life sees our life, O Lord. Allof whom _all_ can be said, are present to thee. Thou thinkest about us, eternally more than we think about thee. The little life that burnswithin the body of this death, glows unquenchable in thy true-seeingeyes. If thou didst forget us for a moment then indeed death would be. But unto thee we live. The beloved pass from our sight, but they passnot from thine. This that we call death, is but a form in the eyes ofmen. It looks something final, an awful cessation, an utter change. Itseems not probable that there is anything beyond. But if God could seeus before we were, and make us after his ideal, that we shall havepassed from the eyes of our friends can be no argument that he beholdsus no longer. "All live unto Him. " Let the change be ever so great, ever so imposing; let the unseen life be ever so vague to ourconception, it is not against reason to hope that God could seeAbraham, after his Isaac had ceased to see him; saw Isaac after Jacobceased to see him; saw Jacob after some of the Sadducees had begun todoubt whether there ever had been a Jacob at all. He remembers them;that is, he carries them in his mind: he of whom God thinks, lives. Hetakes to himself the name of _Their God_. The Living One cannot namehimself after the dead; when the very Godhead lies in the giving oflife. Therefore they must be alive. If he speaks of them, remembers hisown loving thoughts of them, would he not have kept them alive if hecould; and if he could not, how could he create them? Can it be aneasier thing to call into life than to keep alive?

"But if they live to God, they are aware of God. And if they are awareof God, they are conscious of their own being: Whence then thenecessity of a resurrection?"

For their relation to others of God's children in mutual revelation;and for fresh revelation of God to all. --But let us inquire what ismeant by the resurrection of the body. "With what body do they come?"

Surely we are not required to believe that the same body is raisedagain. That is against science, common sense, Scripture. St Paulrepresents the matter quite otherwise. One feels ashamed of arguingsuch a puerile point. Who could wish his material body which has indeeddied over and over again since he was born, never remaining for onehour composed of the same matter, its endless activity depending uponits endless change, to be fixed as his changeless possession, such asit may then be, at the moment of death, and secured to him in worthlessidentity for the ages to come? A man's material body will be to hisconsciousness at death no more than the old garment he throws aside atnight, intending to put on a new and a better in the morning. To desireto keep the old body seems to me to argue a degree of sensualmaterialism excusable only in those pagans who in their Elysian fieldscould hope to possess only such a thin, fleeting, dreamy, andaltogether funebrial existence, that they might well long for thethicker, more tangible bodily being in which they had experienced thepleasures of a tumultuous life on the upper world. As well might aChristian desire that the hair which has been shorn from him throughall his past life should be restored to his risen and glorified head. 

Yet not the less is the doctrine of the Resurrection gladdening as thesound of the silver trumpet of its visions, needful as the very breathof life to our longing souls. Let us know what it means, and we shallsee that it is thus precious. 

Let us first ask what is the use of this body of ours. It is the meansof Revelation to us, the _camera_ in which God's eternal shows are setforth. It is by the body that we come into contact with Nature, withour fellow-men, with all their revelations of God to us. It is throughthe body that we receive all the lessons of passion, of suffering, oflove, of beauty, of science. It is through the body that we are bothtrained outwards from ourselves, and driven inwards into our deepestselves to find God. There is glory and might in this vital evanescence, this slow glacier-like flow of clothing and revealing matter, this everuptossed rainbow of tangible humanity. It is no less of God's makingthan the spirit that is clothed therein. 

We cannot yet have learned all that we are meant to learn through thebody. How much of the teaching even of this world can the most diligentand most favoured man have exhausted before he is called to leave it!Is all that remains to be lost? Who that has loved this earth can butbelieve that the spiritual body of which St Paul speaks will be a yethigher channel of such revelation? The meek who have found that theirLord spake true, and have indeed inherited the earth, who have seenthat all matter is radiant of spiritual meaning, who would not cast asigh after the loss of mere animal pleasure, would, I think, be theleast willing to be without a body, to be unclothed without being againclothed upon. Who, after centuries of glory in heaven, would notrejoice to behold once more that patient-headed child of winter andspring, the meek snowdrop? In whom, amidst the golden choirs, would notthe vision of an old sunset wake such a song as the ancient dwellers ofthe earth would with gently flattened palm hush their throbbing harpsto hear?

All this revelation, however, would render only _a_ body necessary, notthis body. The fulness of the word _Resurrection_ would be ill met ifthis were all. We need not only a body to convey revelation to us, buta body to reveal us to others. The thoughts, feelings, imaginationswhich arise in us, must have their garments of revelation whereby shallbe made manifest the unseen world within us to our brothers and sistersaround us; else is each left in human loneliness. Now, if this be oneof the uses my body served on earth before, the new body must be likethe old. Nay, it must be the same body, glorified as we are glorified, with all that was distinctive of each from his fellows more visiblethan ever before. The accidental, the nonessential, the unrevealing, the incomplete will have vanished. That which made the body what it wasin the eyes of those who loved us will be tenfold there. Will not thisbe the resurrection of the body? of the same body though not of thesame dead matter? Every eye shall see the beloved, every heart willcry, "My own again!--more mine because more himself than ever I beheldhim!" For do we not say on earth, "He is not himself to-day, " or "Shelooks her own self;" "She is more like herself than I have seen her forlong"? And is not this when the heart is glad and the face is radiant?For we carry a better likeness of our friends in our hearts than theircountenances, save at precious seasons, manifest to us. 

Who will dare to call anything less than this a resurrection? Oh, howthe letter killeth! There are who can believe that the dirt of theirbodies will rise the same as it went down to the friendly grave, whoyet doubt if they will know their friends when they rise again. Andthey call _that_ believing in the resurrection!

What! shall a man love his neighbour as himself, and must he be contentnot to know him in heaven? Better be content to lose our consciousness, and know ourselves no longer. What! shall God be the God of thefamilies of the earth, and shall the love that he has thus createdtowards father and mother, brother and sister, wife and child, gomoaning and longing to all eternity; or worse, far worse, die out ofour bosoms? Shall God be God, and shall this be the end?

Ah, my friends! what will resurrection or life be to me, how shall Icontinue to love God as I have learned to love him through you, if Ifind he cares so little for this human heart of mine, as to take fromme the gracious visitings of your faces and forms? True, I might have agaze at Jesus, now and then; but he would not be so good as I hadthought him. And how should I see him if I could not see you? God willnot take you, has not taken you from me to bury you out of my sight inthe abyss of his own unfathomable being, where I cannot follow and findyou, myself lost in the same awful gulf. No, our God is an unveiling, arevealing God. He will raise you from the dead, that I may behold you;that that which vanished from the earth may again stand forth, lookingout of the same eyes of eternal love and truth, holding out the samemighty hand of brotherhood, the same delicate and gentle, yet stronghand of sisterhood, to me, this me that knew you and loved you in thedays gone by. I shall not care that the matter of the forms I loved athousand years ago has returned to mingle with the sacred goings on ofGod's science, upon that far-off world wheeling its nursery of growingloves and wisdoms through space; I shall not care that the muscle whichnow sends the ichor through your veins is not formed of the veryparticles which once sent the blood to the pondering brain, theflashing eye, or the nervous right arm; I shall not care, I say, solong as it is yourselves that are before me, beloved; so long asthrough these forms I know that I look on my own, on my loving souls ofthe ancient time; so long as my spirits have got garments of revealingafter their own old lovely fashion, garments to reveal themselves tome. The new shall then be dear as the old, and for the same reason, that it reveals the old love. And in the changes which, thank God, musttake place when the mortal puts on immortality, shall we not feel thatthe nobler our friends are, the more they are themselves; that the morethe idea of each is carried out in the perfection of beauty, the morelike they are to what we thought them in our most exalted moods, tothat which we saw in them in the rarest moments of profoundestcommunion, to that which we beheld through the veil of all theirimperfections when we loved them the truest?

Lord, evermore give us this Resurrection, like thine own in the body ofthy Transfiguration. Let us see and hear, and know, and be seen, andheard, and known, as thou seest, hearest, and knowest. Give usglorified bodies through which to reveal the glorified thoughts whichshall then inhabit us, when not only shalt thou reveal God, but each ofus shall reveal thee. 

And for this, Lord Jesus, come thou, the child, the obedient God, thatwe may be one with thee, and with every man and woman whom thou hastmade, in the Father. 

 END OF FIRST SERIES

 UNSPOKEN SERMONS SERIES TWO

 THESE ALSO AFTER EIGHTEEN YEARS TO MY WIFE

 CORAGGIO, BORDIGHERA

 _January 1885_

 THE WAY. 

 '_If thou wouldest be perfect_. '--ST. MATTHEW xix 21. 

For reasons many and profound, amongst the least because of thefragmentary nature of the records, he who would read them without thecandle of the Lord--that is, the light of truth in his inward parts--must not merely fall into a thousand errors--a thing for such a one ofless moment--but must fail utterly of perceiving and understanding thelife therein struggling to reveal itself--the life, that is, of the Sonof Man, the thought, the feeling, the intent of the Lord himself, thatby which he lived, that which is himself, that which he poured out forus. Yet the one thing he has to do with is this life of Jesus, his innernature and being, manifested through his outer life, according to thepower of sight in the spiritual eye that looks thereupon. 

In contemplating the incident revealing that life of which I would nowendeavour to unfold the truth, my readers who do not _study_ the GreekTestament must use the revised version. Had I not known and rejoiced init long before the revision appeared, I should have owed the revisersendless gratitude, if for nothing more than the genuine reading of St. Matthew's report of the story of the youth who came to our Lord. Whoever does not welcome the change must fail to see its preciousness. 

Reading then from the revised version, we find in St. Matthew thecommencement of the conversation between Jesus and the young man verydifferent from that given in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke. There is not for that the smallest necessity for rejecting eitheraccount; they blend perfectly, and it is to me a joy unspeakable tohave both. Put together they give a completed conversation. Here it isas I read it; let my fellow students look to the differing, far fromopposing, reports, and see how naturally they combine. 

'Good Master, ' said the kneeling youth, and is interrupted by theMaster:--

'Why callest thou me good?' he returns. 'None is good save one, evenGod. '

Daring no reply to this, the youth leaves it, and betakes himself tohis object in addressing the Lord. 

'What good thing shall I do, ' he says, 'that I may have eternal life?'

But again the Lord takes hold of the word _good_:--

'Why askest thou me concerning that which is good?' he rejoins. 'Onethere is who is good. --But if thou wouldest enter into life, keep thecommandments. '

'Which?'

'Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt notsteal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thymother; and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. '

'All these things have I observed: what lack I yet?'

'If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to thepoor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. '

Let us regard the story. 

As Jesus went out of a house (see St. Mark x. 10 and 17), the young mancame running to him, and kneeling down in the way, addressed him as'Good Master. '

The words with which the Lord interrupts his address reveal the wholeattitude of the Lord's being. At that moment, at every and each moment, just as much as when in the garden of Gethsemane, or encountering anyof those hours which men call crises of life, his whole thought, hiswhole delight, was in the thought, in the will, in the being of hisFather. The joy of the Lord's life, that which made it life to him, wasthe Father; of him he was always thinking, to him he was alwaysturning. I suppose most men have some thought of pleasure orsatisfaction or strength to which they turn when action pauses, lifebecomes for a moment still, and the wheel sleeps on its own swiftness:with Jesus it needed no pause of action, no rush of renewedconsciousness, to send him home; his thought was ever and always hisFather. To its home in the heart of the Father his heart ever turned. That was his treasure-house, the jewel of his mind, the mystery of hisgladness, claiming all degrees and shades of delight, from peace andcalmest content to ecstasy. His life was hid in God. No vain show couldenter at his eyes; every truth and grandeur of life passed before himas it was; neither ambition nor disappointment could distort them tohis eternal childlike gaze; he beheld and loved them from the bosom ofthe Father. It was not for himself he came to the world--not toestablish his own power over the doings, his own influence over thehearts of men: he came that they might know the Father who was his joy, his life. The sons of men were his Father's children like himself: thatthe Father should have them all in his bosom was the one thought of hisheart: that should be his doing for his Father, cost him what it might!He came to do his will, and on the earth was the same he had been fromthe beginning, the eternal first. He was not interested in himself, butin his Father and his Father's children. He did not care to hearhimself called good. It was not of consequence to him. He was there tolet men see the goodness of the Father in whom he gloried. For that heentered the weary dream of the world, in which the glory was so dulledand clouded. 'You call _me_ good! You should know my Father!'

For the Lord's greatness consisted in his Father being greater than he:who calls into being is greater than who is called. The Father wasalways the Father, the Son always the Son; yet the Son is not ofhimself, but by the Father; he does not live by his own power, like theFather. If there were no Father, there would be no Son. All that is theLord's is the Father's, and all that is the Father's he has given tothe Son. The Lord's goodness is of the Father's goodness; because theFather is good the Son is good. When the word _good_ enters the ears ofthe Son, his heart lifts it at once to his Father, the Father of all. His words contain no denial of goodness in himself: in his grand self-regard he was not the original of his goodness, neither did he care forhis own goodness, except to be good: it was to him a matter of course. But for his Father's goodness, he would spend life, suffering, labour, death, to make that known! His other children must learn to give himhis due, and love him as did the primal Son! The Father was all in allto the Son, and the Son no more thought of his own goodness than anhonest man thinks of his honesty. When the good man sees goodness, hethinks of his own evil: Jesus had no evil to think of, but neither doeshe think of his goodness; he delights in his Father's. 'Why callestthou me good? None is good save one, even God. '

Checked thus, the youth turns to the question which, working in hisheart, had brought him running, and made him kneel: what good thingshall he do that he may have eternal life? It is unnecessary to inquireprecisely what he meant by _eternal life_. Whatever shape the thingtook to him, that shape represented a something he needed and had notgot--a something which, it was clear to him, could be gained only insome path of good. But he thought to gain a thing by a doing, when thevery thing desired was _a being_: he would have that as a possessionwhich must possess him. 

The Lord cared neither for isolated truth nor for orphaned deed. It wastruth in the inward parts, it was the good heart, the mother of gooddeeds, he cherished. It was the live, active, knowing, breathing goodhe came to further. He cared for no speculation in morals or religion. It was good men he cared about, not notions of good things, or evengood actions, save as the outcome of life, save as the bodies in whichthe primary live actions of love and will in the soul took shape andcame forth. Could he by one word have set at rest all the questioningsof philosophy as to the supreme good and the absolute truth, I ventureto say that word he would not have uttered. But he would die to makemen good and true. His whole heart would respond to the cry of sadpublican or despairing pharisee, 'How am I to be good?'

When the Lord says, 'Why askest thou me concerning that which is good?'we must not put emphasis on the _me_, as if the Lord refused thequestion, as he had declined the epithet: he was the proper person toask, only the question was not the right one: the good thing was asmall matter; the good Being was all in all. [Footnote: As it stands, it is difficult to read the passage without putting emphasis on the_me_, which spoils the sense. I think it would better be, 'Why dostthou ask me concerning &c. ?'] 'Why ask me about the good thing? Thereis one living good, in whom the good thing, and all good, is alive andever operant. Ask me not about the good thing, but the good person, thegood being--the origin of all good'--who, because he is, can make good. He is the one live good, ready with his life to communicate livinggood, the power of being, and so doing good, for he makes good itselfto exist. It is not with this good thing and that good thing we have todo, but with that power whence comes our power even to speak the word_good_. We have to do with him to whom no one can look without the needof being good waking up in his heart; to think about him is to begin tobe good. To do a good thing is to do a good thing; to know God is to begood. It is not to make us do all things right he cares, but to make ushunger and thirst after a righteousness possessing which we shall neverneed to think of what is or is not good, but shall refuse the evil andchoose the good by a motion of the will which is at once necessity andchoice. You see again he refers him immediately as before to hisFather. 

But I am anxious my reader should not mistake. Observe, the question inthe young man's mind is not about the doing or not doing of somethinghe knows to be right; had such been the case, the Lord would havepermitted no question at all; the one thing he insists upon is the_doing_ of the thing we know we ought to do. In the instance present, the youth looking out for some unknown good thing to do, he sends himback to the doing of what he knows, and that in answer to his questionconcerning the way to eternal life. 

A man must have something to do in the matter, and may well ask such aquestion of any teacher! The Lord does not for a moment turn away fromit, and only declines the form of it to help the youth to what hereally needs. He has, in truth, already more than hinted where theanswer lies, namely, in God himself, but that the youth is not yetcapable of receiving; he must begin with him farther back: 'If thouwouldest enter into life, keep the commandments;'--for verily, if thecommandments have nothing to do with entering into life, why were theyever given to men? This is his task--he must keep the commandments. 

Then the road to eternal life is the keeping of the commandments! Hadthe Lord _not_ said so, what man of common moral sense would ever daresay otherwise? What else can be the way into life but the doing of whatthe Lord of life tells the creatures he has made, and whom he wouldhave live for ever, that they must do? It is the beginning of the way. If a man had kept all those commandments, yet would he not thereforehave in him the life eternal; nevertheless, without keeping of thecommandments there is no entering into life; the keeping of them is thepath to the gate of life; it is not life, but it is the way--so much ofthe way to it. Nay, the keeping of the commandments, consciously orunconsciously, has closest and essential relation to eternal life. 

The Lord says nothing about the first table of the law: why does he nottell this youth as he did the lawyer, that to love God is everything?

He had given him a glimpse of the essence of his own life, had pointedthe youth to the heart of all--for him to think of afterwards: he wasnot ready for it yet. He wanted eternal life: to love God with all ourheart, and soul, and strength, and mind, is to know God, and to knowhim _is_ eternal life; that is the end of the whole saving matter; itis no human beginning, it is the grand end and eternal beginning of allthings; but the youth was not capable of it. To begin with that wouldbe as sensible as to say to one asking how to reach the top of somemountain, 'Just set your foot on that shining snow-clad peak, highthere in the blue, and you will at once be where you wish to go. ' 'LoveGod with all your heart, and eternal life is yours:'--it would havebeen to mock him. Why, he could not yet see or believe that that waseternal life! He was not yet capable of looking upon life even fromafar! How many _Christians_ are? How many know that they are not? Howmany care that they are not? The Lord answers his question directly, tells him what to do--a thing he can do--to enter into life: he mustkeep the commandments!--and when he asks, 'Which?' specifies only thosethat have to do with his neighbour, ending with the highest and mostdifficult of them. 

'But no man can perfectly keep a single commandment of the second tableany more than of the first. '

Surely not--else why should they have been given? But is there nomeaning in the word _keep_, or _observe_, except it be qualified by_perfectly_? Is there no keeping but a perfect keeping?

'None that God cares for. '

There I think you utterly wrong. That no keeping but a perfect one will_satisfy_ God, I hold with all my heart and strength; but that there isnone else he cares for, is one of the lies of the enemy. What father isnot pleased with the first tottering attempt of his little one to walk?What father would be satisfied with anything but the manly step of thefull-grown son?

When the Lord has definitely mentioned the commandments he means, theyouth returns at once that he _has_ observed those from his youth up:are we to take his word for it? The Lord at least takes his word forit: he looked on him and loved him. Was the Lord deceived in him? Didhe tell an untruth? or did the Master believe he had kept thecommandments perfectly? There must be a keeping of the commandments, which, although anything but perfect, is yet acceptable to the heart ofhim from whom nothing is hid. In that way the youth had kept thecommandments. He had for years been putting forth something of hislife-energy to keep them. Nor, however he had failed of perfection, hadhe missed the end for which they were given him to keep. For theimmediate end of the commandments never was that men should succeed inobeying them, but that, finding they could not do that which yet mustbe done, finding the more they tried the more was required of them, they should be driven to the source of life and law--of their life andhis law--to seek from him such reinforcement of life as should make thefulfilment of the law as possible, yea, as natural, as necessary. Thisresult had been wrought in the youth. His observance had given him nosatisfaction; he was not at rest; but he desired eternal life--of whichthere was no word in the law: the keeping of the law had served todevelop a hunger which no law or its keeping could fill. Must not theimperfection of his keeping of the commandments, even in the lowersense in which he read them, have helped to reveal how far they werebeyond any keeping of his, how their implicit demands rose into theinfinitude of God's perfection?

Having kept the commandments, the youth needed and was ready for afurther lesson: the Lord would not leave him where he was; he had cometo seek and to save. He saw him in sore need of perfection--the thingthe commonplace Christian thinks he can best do without--the thing theelect hungers after with an eternal hunger. Perfection, the perfectionof the Father, is eternal life. 'If thou wouldest be perfect, ' said theLord. What an honour for the youth to be by him supposed desirous ofperfection! And what an enormous demand does he, upon the supposition, make of him! To gain the perfection he desired, the one thing lackingwas, that he should sell all that he had, give it to the poor, andfollow the Lord! Could this be all that lay between him and enteringinto life? God only knows what the victory of such an obedience mightat once have wrought in him! Much, much more would be necessary beforeperfection was reached, but certainly the next step, to sell andfollow, would have been the step into life: had he taken it, in thevery act would have been born in him that whose essence and vitality iseternal life, needing but process to develop it into the gloriousconsciousness of oneness with The Life. 

There was nothing like this in the law: was it not hard?--Hard to letearth go, and take heaven instead? for eternal life, to let dead thingsdrop? to turn his hack on Mammon, and follow Jesus? lose his richfriends, and he of the Master's household? Let him say it was hard whodoes not know the Lord, who has never thirsted after righteousness, never longed for the life eternal!

The youth had got on so far, was so pleasing in the eyes of the Master, that he would show him the highest favour he could; he would take himto be with him--to walk with him, and rest with him, and go from himonly to do for him what he did for his Father in heaven--to plead withmen, he a mediator between God and men. He would set him free at once, a child of the kingdom, an heir of the life eternal. 

I do not suppose that the youth was one whom ordinary people would calla lover of money; I do not believe he was covetous, or desired even thelarge increase of his possessions; I imagine he was just like most goodmen of property: he valued his possessions--looked on them as a good. Isuspect that in the case of another, he would have regarded suchpossession almost as a merit, a desert; would value a man more who had_means_, value a man less who had none--like most of my readers. Theyhave not a notion how entirely they will one day have to alter theirjudgment, or have it altered for them, in this respect: well for themif they alter it for themselves!

From this false way of thinking, and all the folly and unreality thataccompany it, the Lord would deliver the young man. As the thing was, he was a slave; for a man is in bondage to what ever he cannot partwith that is less than himself. He could have taken his possessionsfrom him by an exercise of his own will, but there would have beenlittle good in that; he wished to do it by the exercise of the youngman's will: that would be a victory indeed for both! So would he enterinto freedom and life, delivered from the bondage of mammon by thelovely will of the Lord in him, one with his own. By the putting forthof the divine energy in him, he would escape the corruption that is inthe world through lust--that is, the desire or pleasure of _having_. 

The young man would not. 

Was the Lord then premature in his demand on the youth? Was he notready for it? Was it meant for a test, and not as an actual word ofdeliverance? Did he show the child a next step on the stair too highfor him to set his foot upon? I do not believe it. He gave him the verynext lesson in the divine education for which he was ready. It waspossible for him to respond, to give birth, by obedience, to theredeemed and redeeming will, and so be free. It was time the demandshould be made upon him. Do you say, 'But he would not respond, hewould not obey!'? Then it was time, I answer, that he should refuse, that he should know what manner of spirit he was of, and meet theconfusions of soul, the sad searchings of heart that must follow. Atime comes to every man when he must obey, or make such refusal--_andknow it_. 

Shall I then be supposed to mean that the refusal of the young man wasof necessity final? that he was therefore lost? that because hedeclined to enter into life the door of life was closed against him?Verily, I have not so learned Christ. And that the lesson was not lost, I see in this, that he went away sorrowful. Was such sorrow, in themind of an earnest youth, likely to grow less or to grow more? Was allhe had gone through in the way of obedience to be of no good to him?Could the nature of one who had kept the commandments be so slightthat, after having sought and talked with Jesus, held communion withhim who is the Life, he would care less about eternal life than before?Many, alas! have looked upon his face, yet have never seen him, andhave turned back; some have kept company with him for years, and deniedhim; but their weakness is not the measure of the patience or theresources of God. Perhaps this youth was never one of the Lord's solong as he was on the earth, but perhaps when he saw that the Masterhimself cared nothing for the wealth he had told him to cast away, that, instead of ascending the throne of his fathers, he let the peopledo with him what they would, and left the world the poor man he hadlived in it, by its meanest door, perhaps then he became one of thosewho sold all they had, and came and laid the money at the apostles'feet. In the meantime he had that in his soul which made it heavy: bythe gravity of his riches the world held him, and would not let himrise. He counted his weight his strength, and it was his weakness. Moneyless in God's upper air he would have had power indeed. Money isthe power of this world--power for defeat and failure to him who holdsit--a weakness to be overcome ere a man can be strong; yet many decentpeople fancy it a power of the world to come! It is indeed a littlepower, as food and drink, as bodily strength, as the winds and thewaves are powers; but it is no mighty thing for the redemption of men;yea, to the redemption of those who have it, it is the saddestobstruction. To make this youth capable of eternal life, clearly--andthe more clearly that he went away sorrowful--the first thing was tomake a poor man of him! He would doubtless have gladly devoted hiswealth to the service of the Master, yea, and gone with him, _as a richman_, to spend it for him. But part with it to free him for hisservice--that he could not--_yet_!

And how now would he go on with his keeping of the commandments? Wouldhe not begin to see more plainly his shortcomings, the larger scope oftheir requirements? Might he not feel the keeping of them moreimperative than ever, yet impossible without something he had not? Thecommandments can never be kept while there is a strife to keep them:the man is overwhelmed in the weight of their broken pieces. It needs aclean heart to have pure hands, all the power of a live soul to keepthe law--a power of life, not of struggle; the strength of love, notthe effort of duty. 

One day the truth of his conduct must dawn upon him with absoluteclearness. Bitter must be the discovery. He had refused the lifeeternal! had turned his back upon The Life! In deepest humility andshame, yet with the profound consolation of repentance, he would returnto the Master and bemoan his unteachableness. There are who, like St. Paul, can say, 'I did wrong, but I did it in ignorance; my heart wasnot right, and I did not know it:' the remorse of such must be verydifferent from that of one who, brought to the point of being capableof embracing the truth, turned from it and refused to be set free. Tohim the time will come, God only knows its hour, when he will see thenature of his deed, _with the knowledge that he was dimly seeing it soeven when he did it_: the alternative had been put before him. And allthose months, or days, or hours, or moments, he might have beenfollowing the Master, hearing the words he spoke, through the windowsof his eyes looking into the very gulfs of Godhead!

The sum of the matter in regard to the youth is this:--He had begunearly to climb the eternal stair. He had kept the commandments, and byevery keeping had climbed. But because he was _well to do_--a phrase ofunconscious irony--he felt well to be--quite, but for that lack ofeternal life! His possessions gave him a standing in the world--aposition of consequence--of value in his eyes. He knew himself lookedup to; he liked to be looked up to; he looked up to himself because ofhis _means_, forgetting that _means_ are but tools, and poor tools too. To part with his wealth would be to sink to the level of his inferiors!Why should he not keep it? why not use it in the service of the Master?What wisdom could there be in throwing away such a grand advantage? Hecould devote it, but he could not cast it from him! He could devote it, but he could not devote himself! He could not make himself naked as alittle child and let his Father take him! To him it was not the word ofwisdom the 'Good Master' spoke. How could precious money be a hindranceto entering into life! How could a rich man believe he would be of morevalue without his money? that the casting of it away would make him oneof God's Anakim? that the battle of God could be better fought withoutits impediment? that his work refused as an obstruction the aid ofwealth? But the Master had repudiated money that he might do the willof his Father; and the disciple must be as his master. Had he done asthe Master told him, he would soon have come to understand. Obedienceis the opener of eyes. 

There is this danger to every good youth in keeping the commandments, that he will probably think of himself more highly than he ought tothink. He may be correct enough as to the facts, and in his deductions, and consequent self-regard, be anything but fair. He may think himselfa fine fellow, when he is but an ordinarily reasonable youth, trying todo but the first thing necessary to the name or honour of a man. Doubtless such a youth is exceptional among youths; but the number offools not yet acknowledging the first condition of manhood nowisealters the fact that he who has begun to recognize duty, andacknowledge the facts of his being, is but a tottering child on thepath of life. He is on the path; he is as wise as at the time he canbe; the Father's arms are stretched out to receive him; but he is nottherefore a wonderful being; not therefore a model of wisdom; not atall the admirable creature his largely remaining folly would, in hisworst moments, that is when he feels best, persuade him to thinkhimself; he is just one of God's poor creatures. What share thisbesetting sin of the _good young man_ may have had in the miserablefailure of this one, we need not inquire; but it may well be that hethought the Master under-valued his work as well as his wealth, and wasless than fair to him. 

To return to the summing up of the matter:--

The youth, climbing the stair of eternal life, had come to a landing-place where not a step more was visible. On the cloud-swathed platformhe stands looking in vain for further ascent. What he thought withhimself he wanted, I cannot tell: his idea of eternal life I do notknow; I can hardly think it was but the poor idea of living for ever, all that commonplace minds grasp at for eternal life--its mereconcomitant shadow, in itself not worth thinking about, not for amoment to be disputed, and taken for granted by all devout Jews: when aman has eternal life, that is, when he is one with God, what should hedo but live for ever? without oneness with God, the continuance ofexistence would be to me the all but unsurpassable curse--theunsurpassable itself being, a God other than the God I see in Jesus;but whatever his idea, it must have held in it, though perhaps only insolution, all such notions as he had concerning God and man and acommon righteousness. While thus he stands, then, alone and helpless, behold the form of the Son of Man! It is God himself come to meet theclimbing youth, to take him by the hand, and lead him up his own stair, the only stair by which ascent can be made. He shows him the first stepof it through the mist. His feet are heavy; they have golden shoes. Togo up that stair he must throw aside his shoes. He must walk bare-footed into life eternal. Rather than so, rather than stride free-limbed up the everlasting stair to the bosom of the Father, he willkeep his precious shoes! It is better to drag them about on the earth, than part with them for a world where they are useless!

But how miserable his precious things, his golden vessels, hisembroidered garments, his stately house, must have seemed when he wentback to them from the face of the Lord! Surely it cannot have been longbefore in shame and misery he cast all from him, even as Judas castfrom him the thirty pieces of silver, in the agony of every one whowakes to the fact that he has preferred money to the Master! For, although never can man be saved without being freed from hispossessions, it is yet only _hard_, not impossible, _for a rich man toenter into the kingdom of God_. 

 THE HARDNESS OF THE WAY. 

 "_Children, how hard is it_!"--St. Mark x. 24. 

I suspect there is scarcely a young man rich and thoughtful who is notready to feel our Lord's treatment of this young man hard. He is apt toask, "Why should it be difficult for a rich man to enter into thekingdom of heaven?" He is ready to look upon the natural fact as anarbitrary decree, arising, shall I say? from some prejudice in thedivine mind, or at least from some objection to the joys of well-being, as regarded from the creatures' side. Why should the rich faredifferently from other people in respect of the world to come? They donot perceive that the law is they _shall_ fare like other people, whereas they want to fare as rich people. A condition of things inwhich it would be easy for a rich man to enter into the kingdom ofheaven is to me inconceivable. There is no kingdom of this world intowhich a rich man may not easily enter--in which, if he be but richenough, he may not be the first: a kingdom into which it would be easyfor a rich man to enter could be no kingdom of heaven. The rich mandoes not by any necessity of things belong to the kingdom of Satan, butinto that kingdom he is especially welcome, whereas into the kingdom ofheaven he will be just as welcome as another man. 

I suspect also that many a rich man turns from the record of thisincident with the resentful feeling that there lies in it a claim uponhis whole having; while there are many, and those by no means only ofthe rich, who cannot believe the Lord really meant to take the poorfellow's money from him. To the man born to riches they seem not merelya natural, but an essential condition of well-being; and the man whohas _made_ his money, feels it his by the labour of his soul, thetravail of the day, and the care of the night. Each feels a right tohave and to hold the things he possesses; and if there is a necessityfor his entering into the kingdom of heaven, it is hard indeed thatright and necessity should confront each other, and constitute all buta bare impossibility! Why should he not 'make the best of both worlds'?He would compromise, if he might; he would serve Mammon a little, andGod much. He would not have such a 'best of both worlds' as comes ofputting the lower in utter subservience to the higher--of casting awaythe treasure of this world and taking the treasure of heaven instead. He would gain as little as may be of heaven--but something, with theloss of as little as possible of the world. That which he desires ofheaven is not its best; that which he would not yield of the world isits most worthless. 

I can well imagine an honest youth, educated in Christian forms, thusreasoning with himself:--'Is the story of general relation? Is thisdemand made upon me? If I make up my mind to be a Christian, shall I berequired to part with all I possess? It must have been comparativelyeasy in those times to give up the kind of things they had! If I hadbeen he, I am sure I should have done it--at the demand of the Saviourin person. Things are very different now! Wealth did not then imply thesame social relations as now! I should be giving up so much more!Neither do I love money as he was in danger of doing: in all times theJews have been Mammon-worshippers! I try to do good with my money!Besides, am I not a Christian already? Why should the same thing berequired of me as of a young Jew? If every one who, like me, has aconscience about money, and cares to use it well, had to give up all, the power would at once be in the hands of the irreligious; they wouldhave no opposition, and the world would go to the devil! We read oftenin the Bible of rich men, but never of any other who was desired topart with all that he had! When Ananias was struck dead, it was notbecause he did not give up all his money, but because he pretended tohave done so. St. Peter expressly says, 'While it remained was it notthine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?' Howwould the Lord have been buried but for the rich Joseph? Besides, theLord said, "If thou wouldst be perfect, go, sell that thou hast. " Icannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and he does not expect it. '--Itwould be more honest if he said, 'I do not want to be perfect; I amcontent to be saved. ' Such as he do not care for being perfect as theirFather in heaven is perfect, but for being what they call _saved_. Theylittle think that without perfection there is no salvation--thatperfection is salvation: they are one. --'And again, ' he adds, inconclusion triumphant, 'the text says, "How hard is it for them thattrust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" I do not trust in myriches. I know that they can do nothing to save me!'

I will suppose myself in immediate communication with such a youth. Ishould care little to set forth anything called truth, except in siegefor surrender to the law of liberty. If I cannot persuade, I would besilent. Nor would I labour to instruct the keenest intellect; I wouldrather learn for myself. To persuade the heart, the will, the action, is alone worth the full energy of a man. His strength is first for hisown, then for his neighbour's manhood. He must first pluck out the beamout of his own eye, then the mote out of his brother's--if indeed themote in his brother's be more than the projection of the beam in hisown. To make a man happy as a lark, _might be_ to do him grievouswrong: to make a man wake, rise, look up, turn, is worth the life anddeath of the Son of the Eternal. 

I say then to the youth:--

'Have you kept--have you been keeping the commandments?'

'I will not dare to say that, ' I suppose him to answer. 'I ought toknow better than that youth how much is implied in the keeping of thecommandments!'

'But, ' I ask insisting, 'does your answer imply that, counting the Lorda hard master, you have taken the less pains to do as he would haveyou? or that, bending your energies to the absolute perfection herequires, you have the more perceived the impossibility of fulfillingthe law? Can you have failed to note that it is the youth who has beenfor years observing the commandments on whom the further, and to youstartling, command is laid, to part with all that he has? Surely not!Are you then one on whom, because of correspondent condition, the samecommand could be laid? Have you, in any sense like that in which theyouth answered the question, kept the commandments? Have you, unsatisfied with the result of what keeping you have given them, andfilled with desire to be perfect, gone kneeling to the Master to learnmore of the way to eternal life? or are you so well satisfied with whatyou are, that you have never sought eternal life, never hungered andthirsted after the righteousness of God, the perfection of your being?If this latter be your condition, then be comforted; the Master doesnot require of you to sell what you have and give to the poor. _You_follow him! _You_ go with him to preach good tidings!--you who care notfor righteousness! You are not one whose company is desirable to theMaster. Be comforted, I say: he does not want you; he will not ask youto open your purse for him; you may give or withhold; it is nothing tohim. What! is he to be obliged to one outside his kingdom--to theuntrue, the ignoble, for money? Bring him a true heart, an obedienthand: he has given his life-blood for that; but your money--he neitherneeds it nor cares for it. '

'Pray, do not deal harshly with me. I confess I have not been what Iought, but I want to repent, and would fain enter into life. Do notthink, because I am not prepared, without the certainty that it isrequired of me, to cast from me all I have that I have no regard forhigher things. '

'Once more, then, _go and keep the commandments_. It is not come toyour money yet. The commandments are enough for you. You are not yet achild in the kingdom. You do not care for the arms of your father; youvalue only the shelter of his roof. As to your money, let thecommandments direct you how to use it. It is in you but pitiablepresumption to wonder whether it is required of you to sell all thatyou have. When in keeping the commandments you have found the greatreward of loving righteousness--the further reward of discovering that, with all the energy you can put forth, you are but an unprofitableservant; when you have come to know that the law can be kept only bysuch as need no law; when you have come to feel that you would ratherpass out of being than live on such a poor, miserable, selfish life asalone you can call yours; when you are aware of a something beyond allthat your mind can think, yet not beyond what your heart can desire--asomething that is not yours, seems as if it never could be yours, whichyet your life is worthless without; when you have come therefore to theMaster with the cry, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"it may be he will then say to you, "Sell all that you have and give tothe poor, and come follow me. " If he do, then will you be of men mosthonourable if you obey--of men most pitiable if you refuse. Till thenyou would be no comfort to him, no pleasure to his friends. For theyoung man to have sold all and followed him would have been to acceptGod's patent of peerage: to you it is not offered. Were one of thedisobedient, in the hope of the honour, to part with every straw hepossessed, he would but be sent back to keep the commandments in thenew and easier circumstances of his poverty. 

'Does this comfort you? Then alas for you! A thousand times alas! Yourrelief is to know that the Lord has no need of you--does not requireyou to part with your money, does not offer you himself instead! You donot indeed sell him for thirty pieces of silver, but you are glad notto buy him with all that you have! Wherein do you differ from the youthof the story? In this, that he was invited to do more, to doeverything, to partake of the divine nature; you have not had it inyour power to refuse; you are not fit to be invited. Such as you cannever enter the kingdom. You would not even know you were in heaven ifyou were in it; you would not see it around you if you sat on the veryfootstool of the throne. '

'But I do not trust in my riches; I trust in the merits of my Lord andSaviour. I trust in his finished work, I trust in the sacrifice he hasoffered. '

'Yes; yes!--you will trust in anything but the Man himself who tellsyou it is hard to be saved! Not all the merits of God and his Christcan give you eternal life; only God and his Christ can; and theycannot, would not if they could, without your keeping the commandments. The knowledge of the living God _is_ eternal life. What have you to dowith his merits? You have to know his being, himself. And as totrusting in your riches--who ever imagined he could have eternal lifeby his riches? No man with half a conscience, half a head, and no heartat all, could suppose that any man trusting in his riches to get himin, could enter the kingdom. That would be too absurd. The money-confident Jew might hope that, as his riches were a sign of the favourof God, that favour would not fail him at the last; or their possessionmight so enlarge his self-satisfaction that he could not entertain theidea of being lost; but _trust in his riches_!--no. It is the lastrefuge of the riches-lover, the riches-worshipper, the man to whomtheir possession is essential for his peace, to say he does not trustin them to take him into life. Doubtless the man who thinks of nothingso much, trusts in them in a very fearful sense; but hundreds who do sowill yet say, "I do not trust in my riches; I trust in--" this or thatstock-phrase. '

'You forget yourself; you are criticizing the Lord's own words: hesaid, "How hard is it _for them that trust in riches_ to enter into thekingdom of heaven!"'

'I do not forget myself; to this I have been leading you:--our Lord, Ibelieve, never said those words. The reading of both the Sinaitic andthe Vatican manuscript, the oldest two we have, that preferred, I amglad to see, by both Westcott and Tischendorf, though not by Tregellesor the Revisers, is, "Children, how hard is it to enter into thekingdom of God!" These words I take to be those of the Lord. Somecopyist, with the mind at least of a rich man, dissatisfied with theLord's way of regarding money, and like yourself anxious to compromize, must forsooth affix his marginal gloss--to the effect that it is notthe possessing of riches, but the trusting in them, that makes itdifficult to enter into the kingdom! _Difficult_? Why, it is eternallyimpossible for the man who trusts in his riches to enter into thekingdom! it is for the man who has riches it is difficult. Is the Lordsupposed to teach that for a man who trusts in his riches it is_possible_ to enter the kingdom? that, though impossible with men, thisis possible with God? God take the Mammon-worshipper into his glory!No! the Lord never said it. The annotation of Mr. Facingbothways creptinto the text, and stands in the English version. Our Lord was not inthe habit of explaining away his hard words. He let them stand in allthe glory of the burning fire wherewith they would purge us. Wheretheir simplicity finds corresponding simplicity, they are understood. The twofold heart must mistake. It is hard for a rich man, just becausehe is a rich man, to enter into the kingdom of heaven. '

Some, no doubt, comfort themselves with the thought that, if it be sohard, the fact will be taken into account: it is but another shape ofthe fancy that the rich man must be differently treated from hisfellows; that as he has had his good things here, so he must have themthere too. Certain as life they will have absolute justice, that is, fairness, but what will that avail, if they enter not into the kingdom?It is life they must have; there is no enduring of existence without_life_. They think _they can do without eternal life, if only they maylive for ever_! Those who know what eternal life means count it the oneterror to have to live on without it. 

Take then the Lord's words thus: 'Children, how hard is it to enterinto the kingdom of God!' It is quite like his way of putting things. Calling them first to reflect on the original difficulty for every manof entering into the kingdom of God, he reasserts in yet strongerphrase the difficulty of the rich man: 'It is easier for a camel to gothrough a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdomof God. ' It always was, always will be, hard to enter into the kingdomof heaven. It is hard even to believe that one must be born fromabove--must pass into a new and unknown consciousness. The law-faithfulJew, the ceremonial Christian, shrinks from the self-annihilation, theLife of grace and truth, the upper air of heavenly delight, theall-embracing love that fills the law full and sets it aside. Theycannot accept a condition of being as in itself eternal life. And hardto believe in, this life, this kingdom of God, this simplicity ofabsolute existence, is hard to enter. How hard? As hard as the Masterof salvation could find words to express the hardness: 'If any mancometh unto me, and hateth not . .. . His own life also, he cannot be mydisciple. ' And the rich man must find it harder than another to hatehis own life. There is so much associated with it to swell out the selfof his consciousness, that the difficulty of casting it from him as themere ugly shadow of the self God made, is vastly increased. 

None can know how difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who have tried--tried hard, and have not ceased to try. Icare not to be told that one may pass at once into all possiblesweetness of assurance; it is not assurance I desire, but the thingitself; not the certainty of eternal life, but eternal life. I care notwhat other preachers may say, while I know that in St. Paul the spiritand the flesh were in frequent strife. They only, I repeat, know howhard it is to enter into life, who are in conflict every day, aregrowing to have this conflict every hour--nay, begin to see that nomoment is life, without the presence that maketh strong. Let any tellme of peace and content, yea, joy unspeakable as the instant result ofthe new birth; I deny no such statement, refuse no such testimony; allI care to say is, that, if by salvation they mean less than absoluteoneness with God, I count it no salvation, neither would be contentwith it if it included every joy in the heaven of their best imagining. If they are not righteous even as he is righteous, they are not saved, whatever be their gladness or their content; they are but on the way tobe saved. If they do not love their neighbour--not as themselves: thatis a phrase ill to understand, and not of Christ, but--as Christ loveshim, I cannot count them entered into life, though life may have begunto enter into them. Those whose idea of life is simply an eternal one, best know how hard it is to enter into life. The Lord said, 'Childrenhow hard is it to enter into the kingdom!' the disciples little knewwhat was required of them!

Demands unknown before are continually being made upon the Christian:it is the ever fresh rousing and calling, asking and sending of theSpirit that worketh in the children of obedience. When he thinks he hasattained, then is he in danger; when he finds the mountain he has solong been climbing show suddenly a distant peak, radiant in eternalwhiteness, and all but lost in heavenly places, a peak whose glory-crowned apex it seems as if no human foot could ever reach--then isthere hope for him; proof there is then that he has been climbing, forhe beholds the yet unclimbed; he sees what he could not see before; ifhe knows little of what he is, he knows something of what he is not. Helearns ever afresh that he is not in the world as Jesus was in theworld; but the very wind that breathes courage as he climbs is the hopethat one day he shall be like him, seeing him as he is. 

Possessions are _Things_, and _Things_ in general, save as affordingmatter of conquest and means of spiritual annexation, are very ready toprove inimical to the better life. The man who for consciousness ofwell-being depends upon anything but life, the life essential, is aslave; he hangs on what is less than himself. He is not perfect who, deprived of every _thing_, would not sit down calmly content, aware ofa well-being untouched; for none the less would he be possessor of allthings, the child of the Eternal. _Things_ are given us, this bodyfirst of things, that through them we may be trained both toindependence and true possession of them. We must possess them; theymust not possess us. Their use is to mediate--as shapes andmanifestations in lower kind of the things that are unseen, that is, inthemselves unseeable, the things that belong, not to the world ofspeech, but the world of silence, not to the world of showing, but theworld of being, the world that cannot be shaken, and must remain. Thesethings unseen take form in the things of time and space--not that theymay exist, for they exist in and from eternal Godhead, but that theirbeing may be known to those in training for the eternal; these thingsunseen the sons and daughters of God must possess. But instead ofreaching out after them, they grasp at their forms, reward the thingsseen as the things to be possessed, fall in love with the bodiesinstead of the souls of them. There are good people who can hardlybelieve that, if the young man had consented to give up his wealth, theLord would not then have told him to keep it; they too seem to thinkthe treasure in heaven insufficient as a substitute. They cannotbelieve he would have been better off without his wealth. 'Is notwealth power?' they ask. It is indeed power, and so is a wolf hid inthe robe; it is power, but as of a brute machine, of which the ownerill knows the handles and cranks, valves and governor. The multitude ofthose who read the tale are of the same mind as the youth himself--inhis worst moment, as he turned and went--with one vast difference, thatthey are not sorrowful. 

_Things_ can never be really possessed by the man who cannot do withoutthem--who would not be absolutely, divinely content in theconsciousness that the cause of his being is within it--and _with him_. I would not be misunderstood: no man can have the consciousness of Godwith him and not be content; I mean that no man who has not the Fatherso as to be eternally content in him alone, can possess a sunset or afield of grass or a mine of gold or the love of a fellow-creatureaccording to its nature--as God would have him possess it--in theeternal way of inheriting, having, and holding. He who has God, has allthings, after the fashion in which he who made them has them. To man, woman, and child, I say--if you are not content, it is because God isnot with you as you need him, not with you as he would be with you, asyou _must_ have him; for you need him as your body never needed food orair, need him as your soul never hungered after joy, or peace, orpleasure. 

It is imperative on us to get rid of the tyranny of _things_. See howimperative: let the young man cling with every fibre to his wealth, what God can do he will do; his child shall not be left in the hell ofpossession! Comes the angel of death!--and where are the things thathaunted the poor soul with such manifold hindrance and obstruction! Theworld, and all that is in the world, drops and slips, from his feet, from his hands, carrying with it his body, his eyes, his ears, everypouch, every coffer, that could delude him with the fancy ofpossession. 

'Is the man so freed from the dominion of things? does Death so servehim--so ransom him? Why then hasten the hour? Shall not the youth abidethe stroke of Time's clock--await the Inevitable on its path to freehim?'

Not so!--for then first, I presume, does the man of things become awareof their tyranny. When a man begins to abstain, then first herecognizes the strength of his passion; it may be, when a man has not athing left, he will begin to know what a necessity he had made ofthings; and if then he begin to contend with them, to cast out of hissoul what Death has torn from his hands, then first will he know thefull passion of possession, the slavery of prizing the worthless partof the precious. 

'Wherein then lies the service of Death? He takes the sting, but leavesthe poison!'

In this: it is not the fetters that gall, but the fetters that soothe, which eat into the soul. When the fetters of gold are gone, on whichthe man delighted to gaze, though they held him fast to his dungeon-wall, buried from air and sunshine, then first will he feel them in thesoreness of their lack, in the weary indifference with which he lookson earth and sea, on space and stars. When the truth begins to dawnupon him that those fetters were a horror and a disgrace, then will thegood of saving death appear, and the man begin to understand thathaving never was, never could be well-being; that it is not bypossessing we live, but by life we possess. In this way is the loss ofthe things he thought he had, a motioning, hardly _towards_, yet infavour of deliverance. It may seem to the man the first of his slaverywhen it is in truth the beginning of his freedom. Never soul was setfree without being made to feel its slavery; nothing but itself canenslave a soul, nothing without itself free it. 

When the drunkard, free of his body, but retaining his desire unable toindulge it, has time at length to think, in the lack of the means ofdestroying thought, surely there dawns for him then at last a fearfulhope!--not until, by the power of God and his own obedient effort, heis raised into such a condition that, be the temptation what it might, he would not yield for an immortality of unrequited drunkenness--allits delights and not one of its penalties--is he saved. 

Thus death may give a new opportunity--with some hope for the multitudecounting themselves Christians, who are possessed by _things_ as by alegion of devils; who stand well in their church; whose lives areregarded as stainless; who are kind, friendly, give largely, believe inthe redemption of Jesus, talk of the world and the church; yet whosecare all the time is to heap up, to make much into more, to add houseto house and field to field, burying themselves deeper and deeper inthe ash-heap of _Things_. 

But it is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things;they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy from the lack ofit. The man who is ever digging his grave is little better than he whoalready lies mouldering in it. The money the one has, the money theother would have, is in each the cause of an eternal stupidity. To theone as to the other comes the word, '_How is it that ye do notunderstand_?'

 THE CAUSE OF SPIRITUAL STUPIDITY. 

 '_How is it that ye do not understand?_'--ST. MARK viii. 21. 

After feeding the four thousand with seven loaves and a few smallfishes, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus, having crossedthe lake, was met on the other side by certain Pharisees, whoseattitude towards him was such that he betook himself again to the boat, and recrossed the lake. On the way the disciples bethought them thatthey had in the boat but a single loaf: probably while the Lord wasoccupied with the Pharisees, one of them had gone and bought it, littlethinking they were about to start again so soon. Jesus, still occupiedwith the antagonism of the leaders of the people, and desirous ofdestroying their influence on his disciples, began to warn them againstthem. In so doing he made use of a figure they had heard him usebefore--that of leaven as representing a hidden but potent andpervading energy: the kingdom of heaven, he had told them, was likeleaven hid in meal, gradually leavening the whole of it. He now tellsthem to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. The disciples, whoseminds were occupied with their lack of provisions, the moment theyheard the word leaven, thought of bread, concluded it must be becauseof its absence that he spoke of leaven, and imagined perhaps a warningagainst some danger of defilement from Pharisaical cookery: 'It isbecause we have taken no bread!' A leaven like that of the Phariseeswas even then at work in their hearts; for the sign the Phariseessought in the mockery of unbelief, they had had a few hours before, andhad already, in respect of all that made it of value, forgotten. 

It is to the man who is trying to live, to the man who is obedient tothe word of the Master, that the word of the Master unfolds itself. When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them: theLord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding nosatisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves tothe conscience and heart, to the man himself, in the process of life-effort. According as the new creation, that of reality, advances inhim, the man becomes able to understand the words, the symbols, theparables of the Lord. For life, that is, action, is alone the humancondition into which the light of the Living can penetrate; life alonecan assimilate life, can change food into growth. See how the discipleshere fooled themselves!

See how the Lord calls them to their senses. He does not tell them inso many words where they are wrong; he attacks instead the cause inthemselves which led to their mistake--a matter always of infinitelymore consequence than any mistake itself: the one is a live mistake, anuntruth in the soul, the other a mere dead blunder born of it. Theword-connection therefore between their blunder and our Lord'sexhortation, is not to be found; the logic of what the Lord said, isnot on the surface. Often he speaks not to the words but to thethought; here he speaks not even to the thought, but to the whole modeof thinking, to the thought-matrix, the inward condition of the men. 

He addresses himself to rouse in them a sense of their lack ofconfidence in God, which was the cause of their blunder as to hismeaning. He reminds them of the two miracles with the loaves, and thequantity of fragments left beyond the need. From one of these miraclesthey had just come; it was not a day behind them; yet here they weredoubting already! He makes them go over the particulars of themiracles--hardly to refresh their memories-they were tenacious enoughof the marvel, but to make their hearts dwell on them; for they hadalready forgotten or had failed to see their central revelation--theeternal fact of God's love and care and compassion. They knew thenumber of the men each time, the number of the loaves each time, thenumber of the baskets of fragments they had each time taken up, butthey forgot the Love that had so broken the bread that its remnantstwenty times outweighed its loaves. 

Having thus questioned them like children, and listened as to theanswers of children, he turns the light of their thoughts uponthemselves, and, with an argument to the man which overleaps all thelinks of its own absolute logic, demands, 'How is it that ye do notunderstand?' Then they did understand, and knew that he did not speakto them of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Phariseesand of the Sadducees. He who trusts can understand; he whose mind isset at ease can discover a reason. 

How otherwise than by rebuking and quelling their anxiety, could thosewords have made them see what then they saw? What connection was therebetween 'How many baskets took ye up?' and 'How is it that ye do notunderstand?' What had the miracles to do with their discovering thatwhen he spoke of leaven, it was not of the leaven of bread? If not ofthe leaven of bread, how did the reference to those miracles of breadmake them recognize the fact?

The lesson he would have had them learn from the miracle, the naturallesson, the only lesson worthy of the miracle, was, that God cared forhis children, and could, did, and would provide for their necessities. This lesson they had not learned. No doubt the power of the miracle wassome proof of his mission, but the love of it proved it better, for itmade it worth proving: it was a throb of the Father's heart. The groundof the Master's upbraiding is not that they did not understand him, butthat they did not trust God; that, after all they had seen, they yettroubled themselves about bread. Because we easily imagine ourselves inwant, we imagine God ready to forsake us. The miracles of Jesus werethe ordinary works of his Father, wrought small and swift that we mighttake them in. The lesson of them was that help is always within God'sreach when his children want it--their design, to show what God is--notthat Jesus was God, but that his Father was God--that is, was what hewas, for no other kind of God could be, or be worth believing in, noother notion of God be worth having. The mission undertaken by the Son, was not to show himself as having all power in heaven and earth, but toreveal his Father, to show him to men such as he is, that men may knowhim, and knowing, trust him. It were a small boon indeed that Godshould forgive men, and not give himself. It would be but to give themback themselves; and less than God just as he is will not comfort menfor the essential sorrow of their existence. Only God the gift can turnthat sorrow into essential joy: Jesus came to give them God, who iseternal life. 

Those miracles of feeding gave the same lesson to their eyes, theirhands, their mouths, that his words gave to their ears when he said, 'seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be yeof doubtful mind; for your Father knoweth that ye have need of thesethings;' 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, andall these things shall be added unto you. ' So little had they learnedit yet, that they remembered the loaves but forgot the Father--as menin their theology forget the very [Greek: _Theou logos_]. Thusforgetting, they were troubled about provision for the day, and themoment leaven was mentioned, thought of bread. _What else could hemean? The connection was plain_! The Lord reminds them of the miracle, which had they believed after its true value, they would not have beenso occupied as to miss what he meant. It had set forth to them thetruth of God's heart towards them; revealed the loving care withoutwhich he would not be God. Had they learned this lesson, they would nothave needed the reminder; for their hearts would not have been sofilled with discomfort as to cause them mistake his word. Had they butsaid with themselves that, though they had but one loaf, they had himwho makes all the loaves, they would never have made the foolishblunder they did. 

The answer then to the Lord's reproach, 'How is it that ye do notunderstand?' is plainly this: their minds were so full of care aboutthe day's bread, that they could not think with simplicity aboutanything else; the mere mention of leaven threw them floundering afreshin the bog of their unbelief. When the Lord reminded them of what theireyes had seen, so of what he was and what God was, and of thefoolishness of their care--the moment their fear was taught to look up, that moment they began to see what the former words of the Lord musthave meant: their minds grew clear enough to receive and reflect in ameasure their intent. 

The care of the disciples was care for the day, not for the morrow; theword _morrow_ must stand for any and every point of the future. Thenext hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much inGod's care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute isjust as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the nextthousand years--in neither can we do anything, in both God is doingeverything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be preparedto-day are of the duty of to-day; the moment which coincides with workto be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till Godhas made it. 

Their lack of bread seems to have come from no neglect, but from theimmediacy of the Lord's re-embarkation; at the same time had there beena want of foresight, that was not the kind of thing the Lord cared toreprove; it was not this and that fault he had come to set right, butthe primary evil of life without God, the root of all evils, fromhatred to discourtesy. Certain minor virtues also, prudence amongst therest, would thus at length be almost, if not altogether, superseded. Ifa man forget a thing, God will see to that: man is not lord of hismemory or his intellect. But man is lord of his will, his action; andis then verily to blame when, remembering a duty, he does not do it, but puts it off, and so forgets it. If a man lay himself out to do theimmediate duty of the moment, wonderfully little forethought, Isuspect, will be found needful. That forethought only is right whichhas to determine duty, and pass into action. To the foundation ofyesterday's work well done, the work of the morrow will be sure to fit. Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight ofan archangel. 

With the disciples as with the rich youth, it was _Things_ thatprevented the Lord from being understood. Because of possession theyoung man had not a suspicion of the grandeur of the call with whichJesus honoured him. He thought he was hardly dealt with to be offered apatent of Heaven's nobility--he was so very rich! _Things_ filled hisheart; things blocked up his windows; things barricaded his door, sothat the very God could not enter. His soul was not empty, swept, andgarnished, but crowded with meanest idols, among which his spirit creptabout upon its knees, wasting on them the gazes that belonged to hisfellows and his Master. The disciples were a little further on than he;they had left all and followed the Lord; but neither had they yet gotrid of _Things_. The paltry solitariness of a loaf was enough to hidethe Lord from them, to make them unable to understand him. Why, havingforgotten, could they not trust? Surely if he had told them that forhis sake they must go all day without food, they would not have minded!But they lost sight of God, and were as if either he did not see, ordid not care for them. 

In the former case it was the possession of wealth, in the latter thenot having more than a loaf, that rendered incapable of receiving theword of the Lord: the evil principle was precisely the same. If it be_Things_ that slay you, what matter whether things you have, or thingsyou have not? The youth, not trusting in God, the source of his riches, cannot brook the word of his Son, offering him better riches, moredirect from the heart of the Father. The disciples, forgetting who islord of the harvests of the earth, cannot understand his word, becausefilled with the fear of a day's hunger. He did not trust in God ashaving given; they did not trust in God as ready to give. We are likethem when, in _any_ trouble, we do not trust him. It is hard on God, when his children will not let him give; when they carry themselves sothat he must withhold his hand, lest he harm them. To take no care thatthey acknowledge whence their help comes, would be to leave themworshippers of idols, trusters in that which is not. 

Distrust is atheism, and the barrier to all growth. Lord, we do notunderstand thee, because we do not trust thy Father--whole-hearted tous, as never yet was mother to her first-born! Full of care, as if hehad none, we think this and that escapes his notice, for this and thathe does not think! While we who are evil would die to give our childrenbread to eat, we are not certain the only Good will give us anything ofwhat we desire! The things of thy world so crowd our hearts, that thereis no room in them for the things of thy heart, which would raise oursabove all fear, and make us merry children in our Father's house!Surely many a whisper of the watching Spirit we let slip throughbrooding over a need not yet come to us! To-morrow makes to-day's wholehead sick, its whole heart faint. When we should be still, sleeping ordreaming, we are fretting about an hour that lies a half sun's-journeyaway! Not so doest thou, Lord! thou doest the work of thy Father! Wertthou such as we, then should we have good cause to be troubled! Butthou knowest it is difficult, _things_ pressing upon every sense, tobelieve that the informing power of them is in the unseen; that out ofit they come; that, where we can descry no hand directing, a will, nearer than any hand, is moving them from within, causing them tofulfil his word! Help us to obey, to resist, to trust. 

The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting tillyou lay the book aside to leap upon you--that need which is no need, isa demon sucking at the spring of your life. 

'No; mine is a reasonable care--an unavoidable care, indeed!'

'Is it something you have to do this very moment?'

'No. '

'Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that isrequired of you this moment!'

'There is nothing required of me at this moment. '

'Nay, but there is--the greatest thing that can be required of man. '

'Pray, what is it?'

'Trust in the living God. His will is your life. '

'He may not will I should have what I need!'

'Then you only think you need it. Is it a good thing?'

'Yes, it is a good thing. '

'Then why doubt you shall have it?'

'Because God may choose to have me go without it. '

'Why should he?'

'I cannot tell. '

'Must it not be in order to give you something instead?'

'I want nothing instead. '

'I thought I was talking to a Christian!'

'I can consent to be called nothing else. '

'Do you not, then, know that, when God denies anything a child of hisvalues, it is to give him something _he_ values?'

'But if I do not want it?'

'You are none the less miserable just because you do not have it. Instead of his great possessions the young man was to have the companyof Jesus, and treasure in heaven. When God refused to deliver a certainman from a sore evil, concerning which he three times besought him, unaccustomed to be denied, he gave him instead his own graciousness, consoled him in person for his pain. '

'Ah, but that was St. Paul!'

'True; what of that?'

'He was one by himself!'

'God deals with all his children after his own father-nature. Noscripture is of private interpretation even for a St. Paul. It setsforth God's way with man. If thou art not willing that God should havehis way with thee, then, in the name of God, be miserable--till thymisery drive thee to the arms of the Father. '

'I do trust him in spiritual matters. '

'Everything is an affair of the spirit. If God has a way, then that isthe only way. Every little thing in which you would have your own way, has a mission for your redemption; and he will treat you as a naughtychild until you take your Father's way for yours. '

There will be this difference, however, between the rich that loves hisriches and the poor that hates his poverty--that, when they die, theheart of the one will be still crowded with things and their pleasures, while the heart of the other will be relieved of their lack; the onehas had his good things, the other his evil things. But the rich manwho held his _things_ lightly, nor let them nestle in his heart; whowas a channel and no cistern; who was ever and always forsaking hismoney--starts, in the new world, side by side with the man whoaccepted, not hated, his poverty. Each will say, 'I am free!'

For the only air of the soul, in which it can breathe and live, is thepresent God and the spirits of the just: that is our heaven, our home, our all-right place. Cleansed of greed, jealousy, vanity, pride, possession, all the thousand forms of the evil self, we shall be God'schildren on the hills and in the fields of that heaven, not onedesiring to be before another, any more than to cast that other out;for ambition and hatred will then be seen to be one and the samespirit. --'What thou hast, I have; what thou desirest, I will; I give tomyself ten times in giving once to thee. My want that thou mightsthave, would be rich possession. ' But let me be practical; for thou artready to be miserable over trifles, and dost not believe God goodenough to care for thy care: I would reason with thee to help thee ridof thy troubles, for they hide from thee the thoughts of thy God. 

The things readiest to be done, those which lie not at the door but onthe very table of a man's mind, are not merely in general the mostneglected, but even by the thoughtful man, the oftenest let alone, theoftenest postponed. The Lord of life demanding high virtue of us, canit be that he does not care for the first principles of justice? May aman become strong in righteousness without learning to speak the truthto his neighbour? Shall a man climb the last flight of the stair whohas never set foot on the lowest step? Truth is one, and he who doesthe truth in the small thing is of the truth; he who will do it only ina great thing, who postpones the small thing near him to the greatthing farther from him, is not of the truth. Let me suggest somepossible parallels between ourselves and the disciples maundering overtheir one loaf--with the Bread of Life at their side in the boat. Wetoo dull our understandings with trifles, fill the heavenly spaces withphantoms, waste the heavenly time with hurry. To those who possesstheir souls in patience come the heavenly visions. When I troublemyself over a trifle, even a trifle confessed--the loss of some littlearticle, say--spurring my memory, and hunting the house, not fromimmediate need, but from dislike of loss; when a book has been borrowedof me and not returned, and I have forgotten the borrower, and fretover the missing volume, while there are thousands on my shelves fromwhich the moments thus lost might gather treasure holding relation withneither moth, nor rust, nor thief; am I not like the disciples? Am Inot a fool whenever loss troubles me more than recovery would gladden?God would have me wise, and smile at the trifle. Is it not time I losta few things when I care for them so unreasonably? This losing ofthings is of the mercy of God; it comes to teach us to let them go. Orhave I forgotten a thought that came to me, which seemed of the truth, and a revealment to my heart? I wanted to keep it, to have it, to useit by and by, and it is gone! I keep trying and trying to call it back, feeling a poor man till that thought be recovered--to be far more lost, perhaps, in a note-book, into which I shall never look again to findit! I forget that it is live things God cares about--live truths, notthings set down in a book, or in a memory, or embalmed in the joy ofknowledge, but things lifting up the heart, things active in an activewill. True, my lost thought might have so worked; but had I faith inGod, the maker of thought and memory, I should know that, if thethought was a truth, and so alone worth anything, it must come again;for it is in God--so, like the dead, not beyond my reach: kept for me, I shall have it again. 

'These are foolish illustrations--not worth writing!'

If such things are not, then the mention of them is foolish. If theyare, then he is foolish who would treat them as if they were not. Ichoose them for their smallness, and appeal especially to all who keephouse concerning the size of trouble that suffices to hide word andface of God. 

With every haunting trouble then, great or small, the loss of thousandsor the lack of a shilling, go to God, and appeal to him, the God ofyour life, to deliver you, his child, from that which is unlike him, therefore does not belong to you, but is antagonistic to your nature. If your trouble is such that you cannot appeal to him, the more needyou should appeal to him! Where one cannot go to God, there issomething specially wrong. If you let thought for the morrow, or thenext year, or the next month, distress you; if you let the chatter ofwhat is called the public, peering purblind into the sanctuary ofmotive, annoy you; if you seek or greatly heed the judgment of men, capable or incapable, you set open your windows to the mosquitoes ofcare, to drown with their buzzing the voice of the Eternal!

If you tell me that but for care, the needful work of the world wouldbe ill done--'What work, ' I ask, 'can that be, which will be betterdone by the greedy or anxious than by the free, fearless soul? Can carebe a better inspirer of labour than the sending of God? If the work isnot his work, then, indeed, care may well help it, for its success isloss. But is he worthy the name of man who, for the fear of starvation, will do better work than for the joy that his labour is not in vain inthe Lord? I know as well as you that you are not likely to get richthat way; but neither will you block up the gate of the kingdom ofheaven against yourself. 

Ambition in every shape has to do with _Things_, with outwardadvantages for the satisfaction of self-worship; it is that form ofpride, foul shadow of Satan, which usurps the place of aspiration. Thesole ambition that is of God is the ambition to rise above oneself; allother is of the devil. Yet is it nursed and cherished in many a soulthat thinks itself devout, filling it with petty cares anddisappointments, that swarm like bats in its air, and shut out theglory of God. The love of the praise of men, the desire of fame, thepride that takes offence, the puffing-up of knowledge, these and everyother form of Protean self-worship--we must get rid of them all. Wemust be free. The man whom another enslaves may be free as God; to himwho is a slave in himself, God will not enter in; he will not sup withhim, for he cannot be his friend. He will sit by the humblest hearthwhere the daily food is prepared; he will not eat in a lumber-room, letthe lumber be thrones and crowns. _Will not_, did I say? _Cannot_, Isay. Men full of things would not once partake with God, were he bythem all the day. 

Nor will God force any door to enter in. He may send a tempest aboutthe house; the wind of his admonishment may burst doors and windows, yea, shake the house to its foundations; but not then, not so, will heenter. The door must be opened by the willing hand, ere the foot ofLove will cross the threshold. He watches to see the door move fromwithin. Every tempest is but an assault in the siege of love. Theterror of God is but the other side of his love; it is love outside thehouse, that would be inside--love that knows the house is no house, only a place, until it enter--no home, but a tent, until the Eternaldwell there. _Things_ must be cast out to make room for their souls--the eternal truths which in things find shape and show. 

But who is sufficient to cast them out? If a man take courage andencounter the army of bats and demon-snakes that infests the place ofthe Holy, it is but to find the task too great for him; that the templeof God will not be cleansed by him; that the very dust he raises insweeping is full of corruptive forces. Let such as would do what theymust yet cannot, be what they must yet cannot, remember, with hope andcourage, that he who knows all about our being, once _spake a parableto the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint_. 

 THE WORD OF JESUS ON PRAYER. 

 '_They ought always to pray_. '--ST. LUKE xviii. I. 

The impossibility of doing what we would as we would, drives us to lookfor help. And this brings us to a new point of departure. Everythingdifficult indicates something more than our theory of life yetembraces, checks some tendency to abandon the strait path, leaving openonly the way ahead. But there is a reality of being in which all thingsare easy and plain--oneness, that is, with the Lord of Life; to prayfor this is the first thing; and to the point of this prayer everydifficulty hedges and directs us. But if I try to set forth somethingof the reasonableness of all prayer, I beg my readers to remember thatit is for the sake of action and not speculation; if prayer be anythingat all, it is a thing to be done: what matter whether you agree with meor not, if you do not pray? I would not spend my labour for that; Idesire it to serve for help to pray, not to understand how a man mightpray and yet be a reasonable soul. 

First, a few words about the parable itself. 

It is an instance, by no means solitary, of the Lord's use of a taleabout a very common or bad person, to persuade, reasoning _a fortiori_, of the way of the All-righteous. Note the points: 'Did the unrighteousjudge, to save himself from annoyance, punish one with whom he was notoffended, for the sake of a woman he cared nothing about? and shall notthe living Justice avenge his praying friends over whose injuries hehas to exercise a long-suffering patience towards their enemies?'--forso I would interpret the phrase, as correctly translated in theRevision, 'and he is long-suffering over them. '--'I say unto you, thathe will avenge them speedily. Howbeit when the Son of Man cometh, shallhe find faith on the earth?'

Here then is a word of the Lord about prayer: it is a comfort that herecognizes difficulty in the matter--sees that we need encouragement togo on praying, that it looks as if we were not heard, that it is nowonder we should be ready to faint and leave off. He tells a parable inwhich the suppliant has to go often and often to the man who can helpher, gaining her end only at the long last. Actual delay on the part ofGod, we know from what follows, he does not allow; the more plain is itthat he recognizes how the thing must look to those whom he would havego on praying. Here as elsewhere he teaches us that we must not go bythe look of things, but by the reality behind the look. A truth, anecessity of God's own willed nature, is enough to set up against awhole army of appearances. It looks as if he did not hear you: nevermind; he does; it must be that he does; go on as the woman did; you toowill be heard. She is heard at last, and in virtue of her much going;God hears at once, and will avenge speedily. The unrighteous judgecared nothing for the woman; those who cry to God are his own chosen--plain in the fact that they cry to him. He has made and appointed themto cry: they do cry: will he not hear them? They exist that they maypray; he has chosen them that they may choose him; he has called themthat they may call him--that there may be such communion, suchinterchange as belongs to their being and the being of their Father. The gulf of indifference lay between the poor woman and the unjustjudge; God and those who seek his help, are closer than two handsclasped hard in love: he will avenge them speedily. It is a boldassertion in the face of what seems great delay--an appearanceacknowledged in the very groundwork of the parable. Having made it, whydoes he seem to check himself with a sigh, adding, Howbeit when the Sonof Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?' After all he hadsaid, and had yet to say, after all he had done, and was going on todo, when he came again, after time given for the holy leaven to work, would he find men trusting the Father? Would he find them, even then, beyond the tyranny of appearances, believing in spite of them? Wouldthey be children enough towards God to know he was hearing them andworking for them, though they could not hear him or see him work?--tobelieve the ways of God so wide, that even on the breadth of his trackwas room for their understanding to lose its way--what they saw, sosmall a part of what he was doing, that it could give them but littleclue to his end? that it was because the goal God had in view for themwas so high and afar, that they could detect no movement of approachthereto? The sigh, the exclamation, never meant that God might be doingsomething more than he was doing, but that the Father would have adreary time to wait ere his children would know, that is, trust in him. The utterance recognizes the part of man, his slowly yielded part infaith, and his blame in troubling God by not trusting in him. If menwould but make haste, and stir themselves up to take hold on God! Theywere so slow of heart to believe! They could but would not help it anddo better!

He seems here to refer to his second coming--concerning the time ofwhich, he refused information; concerning the mode of which, he said itwould be unexpected; but concerning the duty of which, he insisted itwas _to be ready_: we must be faithful, and at our work. Do those whosay, lo here or lo there are the signs of his coming, think to be tookeen for him, and spy his approach? When he tells them to watch lest hefind them neglecting their work, they stare this way and that, andwatch lest he should succeed in coming like a thief! So throughout: if, instead of speculation, we gave ourselves to obedience, what adifference would soon be seen in the world! Oh, the multitude ofso-called religious questions which the Lord would answer with, 'striveto enter in at the strait gate'! Many eat and drink and talk and teachin his presence; few do the things he says to them! Obedience is the onekey of life. 

I would meet difficulties, not answer objections; I would removestumbling-blocks from the path of him who would pray; I would help himto pray. If, seeing we live not by our own will, we live by anotherwill, then is there reason, and then only can there be reason inprayer. To him who refuses that other will, I have nothing to say. Thehour may come when he will wish there were some one to pray to; now heis not of those whom I can help. 

If there be a God, and I am his creature, there may be, there shouldbe, there must be some communication open between him and me. If anyone allow a God, but one scarce good enough to care about hiscreatures, I will yield him that it were foolish to pray to such a God;but the notion that, with all the good impulses in us, we are theoffspring of a cold-hearted devil, is so horrible in its inconsistency, that I would ask that man what hideous and cold-hearted disregard tothe truth makes him capable of the supposition! To such a one God'sterrors, or, if not his terrors, then God's sorrows yet will speak; thedivine something in him will love, and the love be left moaning. 

If I find my position, my consciousness, that of one from home, nay, that of one in some sort of prison; if I find that I can neither rulethe world in which I live nor my own thoughts or desires; that I cannotquiet my passions, order my likings, determine my ends, will my growth, forget when I would, or recall what I forget; that I cannot love whereI would, or hate where I would; that I am no king over myself; that Icannot supply my own needs, do not even always know which of my seemingneeds are to be supplied, and which treated as impostors; if, in aword, my own being is everyway too much for me; if I can neitherunderstand it, be satisfied with it, nor better it--may it not wellgive me pause--the pause that ends in prayer? When my own scale seemstoo large for my management; when I reflect that I cannot account formy existence, have had no poorest hand in it, neither, should I notlike it, can do anything towards causing it to cease; when I think thatI can do nothing to make up to those I love, any more than to those Ihate, for evils I have done them and sorrows I have caused them; thatin my worst moments I disbelieve in my best, in my best loathe myworst; that there is in me no wholeness, no unity; that life is not agood to me, for I scorn myself--when I think all or any such things, can it be strange if I think also that surely there ought to besomewhere a being to account for me, one to account for himself, andmake the round of my existence just; one whose very being accounts andis necessary to account for mine; whose presence in my being isimperative, not merely to supplement it, but to make to myself myexistence a good? For if not rounded in itself, but dependent on thatwhich it knows not and cannot know, it cannot be to itself a good knownas a good--a thing of reason and well-being: it will be a life longingfor a _logos_ to be the interpretative soul of its _cosmos_--a _logos_it cannot have. To know God present, to have the consciousness of Godwhere he is the essential life, must be absolutely necessary to thatlife! He that is made in the image of God must know him or be desolate:the child must have the Father! Witness the dissatisfaction, yeadesolation of my soul--wretched, alone, unfinished, without him! Itcannot act from itself, save in God; acting from what seems itselfwithout God, is no action at all, it is a mere yielding to impulse. Allwithin is disorder and spasm. There is a cry behind me, and a voicebefore; instincts of betterment tell me I must rise above my presentself--perhaps even above all my possible self: I see not how to obey, how to carry them out! I am shut up in a world of consciousness, anunknown _I_ in an unknown world: surely this world of my unwilled, unchosen, compelled existence, cannot be shut out from him, cannot beunknown to him, cannot be impenetrable, impermeable, unpresent to himfrom whom I am! nay, is it not his thinking in which I think? is it notby his consciousness that I am conscious? Whatever passes in me must beas naturally known to him as to me, and more thoroughly, even toinfinite degrees. My thought must lie open to him: if he makes methink, how can I elude him in thinking? 'If I should spread my wingstoward the dawn, and sojourn at the last of the sea, even there thyhand would lead me, and thy right hand would hold me!' If he hasdetermined the being, how shall any mode of that being be hidden fromhim? If I speak to him, if I utter words ever so low; if I but thinkwords to him; nay, if I only think to him, surely he, my original, inwhose life and will and no otherwise I now think concerning him, hears, and knows, and acknowledges! Then shall I not think to him? Shall Inot tell him my troubles--how he, even he, has troubled me by makingme?--how unfit I am to be that which I am?--that my being is not to mea good thing yet?--that I need a law that shall account to me for it inrighteousness--reveal to me how I am to make it a good--how I am to_be_ a good, and not an evil? Shall I not tell him that I need him tocomfort me? his breath to move upon the face of the waters of the Chaoshe has made? Shall I not cry to him to be in me rest and strength? toquiet this uneasy motion called life, and make me live indeed? todeliver me from my sins, and make me clean and glad? Such a cry is ofthe child to the Father: if there be a Father, verily he will hear, andlet the child know that he hears! Every need of God, lifting up theheart, is a seeking of God, is a begging for himself, is profoundestprayer, and the root and inspirer of all other prayer. 

If it be reasonable for me to cry thus, if I cannot but cry, it isreasonable that God should hear, he cannot but hear. A being that couldnot hear or would not answer prayer, could not be God. 

'But, I ask, all this admitted--is what you call a necessary truth anexistent fact? You say, "It must be so;" I say, "What if there is noGod!" Convince me that prayer is heard, and I shall know. Why shouldthe question admit of doubt? Why should it require to be reasonedabout? We know that the wind blows: why should we not know that Godanswers prayer?'

I reply, What if God does not care to have you know it at second hand?What if there would be no good in that? There is some testimony onrecord, and perhaps there might be much were it not that, having to dowith things so immediately personal, and generally so delicate, answersto prayer would naturally not often be talked about; but no testimonyconcerning the thing can well be conclusive; for, like a reportedmiracle, there is always some way to daff it; and besides, theconviction to be got that way is of little value; it avails nothing toknow the thing by the best of evidence. 

As to the evidence itself, adduction of proof is scarce possible inrespect of inward experience, and to this class belongs the better partof the evidence: the testimony may be truthful, yet the testifierutterly self-deceived! How am I to know the thing as he says he knowsit? How am I to judge of it? There is king David:--Poetry!--oldpoetry!--and in the most indefinite language in the world! Doubtless heis little versed in the utterance of the human soul, who does notrecognize in many of the psalms a cry as true as ever came from depthof pain or height of deliverance; but it may all have been but now thejarring and now the rhythmical movement of the waves of the psychicalaether!--I lay nothing upon testimony for my purpose now, knowing thethings that can be said, and also not valuing the bare assent of theintellect. The sole assurance worth a man's having, even if the mostincontestable evidence were open to him from a thousand other quarters, is that to be gained only from personal experience--that assurance inhimself which he can least readily receive from another, and which isleast capable of being transmuted into evidence for another. Theevidence of Jesus Christ could not take the place of that. A truth isof enormous import in relation to the life--that is the heart, andconscience, and will; it is of little consequence merely as a facthaving relation to the understanding. God may hear all prayers thatever were offered to him, and a man may believe that he does, nor beone whit the better for it, so long as God has no prayers of his tohear, he no answers to receive from God. Nothing in this quarter willever be gained by investigation. Reader, if you are in any trouble, trywhether God will not help you; if you are in no need, why should youask questions about prayer? True, he knows little of himself who doesnot know that he is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, andnaked; but until he begins at least to suspect a need, how can he pray?And for one who does not want to pray, I would not lift a straw todefeat such a one in the argument whether God hears or does not hearprayer: for me, let him think what he will! it matters nothing inheaven or in earth: whether in hell I do not know. 

As to the so-called scientific challenge to prove the efficacy ofprayer by the result of simultaneous petition, I am almost ashamed toallude to it. There should be light enough in science itself to showthe proposal absurd. A God capable of being so moved in one directionor another, is a God not worth believing in--could not be the Godbelieved in by Jesus Christ--and he said he knew. A God that shouldfail to hear, receive, attend to one single prayer, the feeblest orworst, I cannot believe in; but a God that would grant every request ofevery man or every company of men, would be an evil God--that is noGod, but a demon. That God should hang in the thought-atmosphere like awindmill, waiting till men enough should combine and send out prayer insufficient force to turn his outspread arms, is an idea too absurd. Godwaits to be gracious not to be tempted. A man capable of proposing sucha test, could have in his mind no worthy representative idea of a God, and might well disbelieve in any: it is better to disbelieve thanbelieve in a God unworthy. 

'But I want to believe in God. I want to know that there is a God thatanswers prayer, that I may believe in him. There was a time when Ibelieved in him. I prayed to him in great and sore trouble of heart andmind, and he did not hear me. I have not prayed since. '

How do you know that he did not hear you?

'He did not give me what I asked, though the weal of my soul hung onit. '

In your judgment. Perhaps he knew better. 

'I am the worse for his refusal. I would have believed in him if he hadheard me. '

Till the next desire came which he would not grant, and then you wouldhave turned your God away. A desirable believer you would have made! Aworthy brother to him who thought nothing fit to give the Father lessthan his all! You would accept of him no decision against your desire!That ungranted, there was no God, or not a good one! I think I will notargue with you more. This only I will say: God has not to consider hischildren only at the moment of their prayer. Should he be willing togive a man the thing he knows he would afterwards wish he had not givenhim? If a man be not fit to be refused, if he be not ready to betreated with love's severity, what he wishes may perhaps be given himin order that he may wish it had not been given him; but barely to givea man what he wants because he wants it, and without farther purpose ofhis good, would be to let a poor ignorant child take his fate into hisown hands--the cruelty of a devil. Yet is every prayer heard; and thereal soul of the prayer may require, for its real answer, that itshould not be granted in the form in which it is requested. 

'To have a thing in another shape, might be equivalent to not having itat all. '

If you knew God, you would leave that to him. He is not mocked, and hewill not mock. But he knows you better than you know yourself, andwould keep you from fooling yourself. He will not deal with you as thechild of a day, but as the child of eternal ages. You shall besatisfied, if you will but let him have his way with the creature hehas made. The question is between your will and the will of God. He isnot one of those who give readiest what they prize least. He does notcare to give anything but his best, or that which will prepare for it. Not many years may pass before you confess, 'Thou art a God who hearsprayer, and gives a better answer. ' You may come to see that the desireof your deepest heart would have been frustrated by having what seemedits embodiment then. That God should as a loving father listen, hear, consider, and deal with the request after the perfect tenderness of hisheart, is to me enough; it is little that I should go without what Ipray for. If it be granted that any answer which did not come of love, and was not for the final satisfaction of him who prayed, would beunworthy of God; that it is the part of love and knowledge to watchover the wayward, ignorant child; then the trouble of seeminglyunanswered prayers begins to abate, and a lovely hope and comfort takesits place in the child-like soul. To hear is not necessarily to grant--God forbid! but to hear is necessarily to attend to--sometimes asnecessarily to refuse. 

'Concerning this thing, ' says St. Paul, 'I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he hath said unto me, My grace issufficient for thee; power is made perfect in weakness. ' God had abetter thing for Paul than granting his prayer and removing hiscomplaint: he would make him strong; the power of Christ should descendand remain upon him; he would make him stronger than his suffering, make him a sharer in the energy of God. Verily, if we have God, we cando without the answer to any prayer. 

'But if God is so good as you represent him, and if he knows all thatwe need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it benecessary to ask him for anything?'

I answer, What if he knows prayer to be the thing we need first andmost? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplyingof our great, our endless need--the need of himself? What if the goodof all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help todrive us to God? Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may ormay not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need;prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motiveof that prayer. Our wants are for the sake of our coming into communionwith God, our eternal need. If gratitude and love immediately followedthe supply of our needs, if God our Saviour was the one thought of ourhearts, then it might be unnecessary that we should ask for anything weneed. But seeing we take our supplies as a matter of course, feeling asif they came out of nothing, or from the earth, or our own thoughts, instead of out of a heart of love and a will which alone is force, itis needful that we should be made feel some at least of our wants, thatwe may seek him who alone supplies all of them, and find his every gifta window to his heart of truth. So begins a communion, a talking withGod, a coming-to-one with him, which is the sole end of prayer, yea, ofexistence itself in its infinite phases. We must ask that we mayreceive; but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lowerneeds, is not God's end in making us pray, for he could give useverything without that: to bring his child to his knee, God withholdsthat man may ask. 

In regard, however, to the high necessities of our nature, it is inorder that he may be able to give that God requires us to ask--requiresby driving us to it--by shutting us up to prayer. For how can he giveinto the soul of a man what it needs, while that soul cannot receiveit? The ripeness for receiving is the asking. The blossom-cup of thesoul, to be filled with the heavenly dews, is its prayer. When the soulis hungry for the light, for the truth--when its hunger has waked itshigher energies, thoroughly roused the will, and brought the soul intoits highest condition, that of action, its only fitness for receivingthe things of God, that action is prayer. Then God can give; then hecan be as he would towards the man; for the glory of God is to givehimself. --We thank thee, Lord Christ, for by thy pain alone do we risetowards the knowledge of this glory of thy rather and our Father. 

And even in regard to lower things--what it may be altogether unfit todo for a man who does not recognize the source of his life, it may bein the highest sense fit to grant him when he comes to that source toask for it. Even in the case of some individual desire of one who inthe main recognizes the Father, it may be well to give him asking whom, not asking, it would not benefit. For the real good of every gift it isessential, first, that the giver be in the gift--as God always is, forhe is love--and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver inthe gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of his greatest and onlysufficing gift--that of himself. No gift unrecognized as coming fromGod is at its own best; therefore many things that God would gladlygive us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until weask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts wefind him, then in him we shall find all things. 

Sometimes to one praying will come the feeling rather than question:'Were it not better to abstain? If this thing be good, will he not giveit me? Would he not be better pleased if I left it altogether to him?'It comes, I think, of a lack of faith and childlikeness--taking form, perhaps, in a fear lest, asking for what was not good, the prayershould be granted. Such a thought has no place with St. Paul; he says, 'Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you;' 'In everythingmaking your request known unto him. ' It may even come of ambition afterspiritual distinction. In every request, heart and soul and mind oughtto supply the low accompaniment, 'Thy will be done;' but the making ofany request brings us near to him, into communion with our Life. Doesit not also help us to think of him in all our affairs, and learn ineverything to give thanks? Anything large enough for a wish to lightupon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon: the thought of him to whomthat prayer goes will purify and correct the desire. To say, 'Father, Ishould like this or that, ' would be enough at once, if the wish werebad, to make us know it and turn from it. Such prayer about things mustof necessity help to bring the mind into true and simple relation withhim; to make us remember his will even when we do not see what thatwill is. Surely it is better and more trusting to tell him all withoutfear or anxiety. Was it not thus the Lord carried himself towards hisFather when he said, 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me'?But there was something he cared for more than his own fear--hisFather's will: 'Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. ' There isno apprehension that God might be displeased with him for saying whathe would like, and not leaving it all to his Father. Neither did heregard his Father's plans as necessarily so fixed that they could notbe altered to his prayer. The true son-faith is that which comes withboldness, fearless of the Father doing anything but what is rightfatherly, patient, and full of loving-kindness. We must not think toplease him by any asceticism even of the spirit; we must speak straightout to him. The true child will not fear, but lay bare his wishes tothe perfect Father. The Father may will otherwise, but his grace willbe enough for the child. 

There could be no riches but for need. God himself is made rich byman's necessity. By that he is rich to give; through that we are richby receiving. 

As to any notion of prevailing by entreaty over an unwilling God, thatis heathenish, and belongs to such as think him a hard master, or onelike the unjust judge. What so quenching to prayer as the notion ofunwillingness in the ear that hears! And when prayer is dull, whatmakes it flow like the thought that God is waiting to give, wants togive us everything! 'Let us therefore come boldly to the throne ofgrace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time ofneed. ' We shall be refused our prayer if that be better; but what isgood our Father will give us with divine good will. The Lord spoke hisparable 'to the end that they ought always to pray, _and not tofaint_. '

 MAN'S DIFFICULTY CONCERNING PRAYER. 

 '--_and not to faint_. '--ST. LUKE xviii. 1. 

'How should any design of the All-wise be altered in response to prayerof ours!' How are we to believe such a thing?

By reflecting that he is the All-wise, who sees before him, and willnot block his path. Such objection springs from poorest idea of God inrelation to us. It supposes him to have cares and plans and intentionsconcerning our part of creation, irrespective of us. What is the wholesystem of things for, but our education? Does God care for suns andplanets and satellites, for divine mathematics and ordered harmonies, more than for his children? I venture to say he cares more for oxenthan for those. He lays no plans irrespective of his children; and, hisdesign being that they shall be free, active, live things, he sees thatspace be kept for them: they need room to struggle out of theirchrysalis, to undergo the change that comes with the waking will, andto enter upon the divine sports and labours of children in the houseand domain of their Father. Surely he may keep his plans in a measureunfixed, waiting the free desire of the individual soul! Is not thedesign of the first course of his children's education just to bringthem to the point where they shall pray? and shall his system appointedto that end be then found hard and fast, tooth-fitted and inelastic, asif informed of no live causing soul, but an unself-knowing force--sothat he cannot answer the prayer because of the system which has itsexistence for the sake of the prayer? True, in many cases, the prayer, far more than the opportunity of answering it, is God's end; but howwill the further end of the prayer be reached, which is oneness betweenthe heart of the child and of the Father? how will the child go on topray if he knows the Father cannot answer him? _Will not_ may be forlove, but how with a self-imposed _cannot_? How could he be Father, whocreating, would not make provision, would not keep room for the babbledprayers of his children? Is his perfection a mechanical one? Has hehimself no room for choice--therefore can give none? There must be aGodlike region of choice as there is a human, however little we may beable to conceive it. It were a glory in such system that its sunsthemselves wavered and throbbed at the pulse of a new child-life. 

What perfection in a dwelling would it be that its furniture and thepaths between were fitted as the trays and pigeon-holes of a cabinet?What stupidity of perfection would that be which left no margin aboutGod's work, no room for change of plan upon change of fact--yea, eventhe mighty change that, behold now at length, his child is praying! Seethe freedom of God in his sunsets--never a second like one of theforegone!--in his moons and skies--in the ever-changing solid earth!--all moving by no dead law, but in the harmony of the vital law ofliberty, God's creative perfection--all ordered from within. A divineperfection that were indeed, where was no liberty! where there could bebut one way of a thing! I may move my arm as I please: shall God beunable so to move his? If but for himself, God might well desire nochange, but he is God for the sake of his growing creatures; all hismaking and doing is for them, and change is the necessity of their veryexistence. They need a mighty law of liberty, into which shall neverintrude one atom of chance. Is the one idea of creation the begettingof a free, grand, divine will in us? and shall that will, praying withthe will of the Father, find itself cramped, fettered, manacled byforegone laws? Will it not rather be a new-born law itself, working newthings? No man is so tied by divine law that he can nowise modify hiswork: shall God not modify his? Law is but mode of life-action. Is itof his perfection that he should have no scope, no freedom? Is he butthe prisoned steam in the engine, pushing, escaping, stopped--his wayordered by valve and piston? or is he an indwelling, willing, orderingpower? Law is the slave of Life. Is not a man's soul, as it dwells inhis body, a dim-shadowing type of God in and throughout his universe?If you say, he has made things to go, set them going, and left them--then I say, If his machine interfered with his answering the prayer ofa single child, he would sweep it from him--not to bring back chaos, but to make room for his child. But order is divine, and cannot beobstructive to its own higher ends; it must subserve them. Order, freeorder, neither chaos, nor law unpossessed and senseless, is the home ofThought. If you say There can be but one perfect way, I answer, Yet theperfect way to bring a thing so far, to a certain crisis, can ill bethe perfect way to carry it on after that crisis: the plan will have tochange then. And as this crisis depends on a will, all cannot be inexact, though in live preparation for it. We must remember that God isnot occupied with a grand toy of worlds and suns and planets, ofattractions and repulsions, of agglomerations and crystallizations, offorces and waves; that these but constitute a portion of his workshopsand tools for the bringing out of righteous men and women to fill hishouse of love withal. Would he have let his Son die for a law ofnature, as we call it? These doubtless are the outcome of willed lawsof his own being; but they take their relations in matter only for thesake of the birth of sons and daughters, that they may yet again beborn from above, and into the higher region whence these things issue;and many a modification of the ideal, rendering it less than complete, must be given to those whose very doom being to grow or perish impliestheir utter inability to lay hold of the perfect. The best _means_cannot be the ideal Best. The embodiment of uplifting truth for thelow, cannot be equal to that for the higher, else it will fail, andprove for its object not good; but, as the low ascend, their revelationwill ascend also. 

That God cannot interfere to modify his plans, interfere without thechange of a single law of his world, is to me absurd. If we can change, God can change, else is he less free than we--his plans, I say, notprinciples, not ends: God himself forbid!--change them after divinefashion, above our fashions as the heavens are higher than the earth. And as in all his miracles Jesus did only in miniature what his Fatherdoes ever in the great--in far wider, more elaborate, and beautifulways, I will adduce from them an instance of answer to prayer that hasin it a point bearing, it seems to me, most importantly on the thing Iam now trying to set forth. Poor, indeed, was the making of the wine inthe earthen pots of stone, compared with its making in the lovelygrowth of the vine with its clusters of swelling grapes--the live rootsgathering from the earth the water that had to be borne in pitchers andpoured into the great vases; but it is precious as the interpreter ofthe same, even in its being the outcome of our Lord's sympathy withordinary human rejoicing. There is however an element in its originthat makes it yet more precious to me--the regard of our Lord to a wishof his mother. Alas, how differently is the tale often received! howmisunderstood!

His mother had suggested to him that here was an opportunity forappearing in his own greatness, the potent purveyor of wine for thefailing feast. It was not in his plan, as we gather from his words; forthe Lord never pretended anything, whether to his enemy or his mother;he is The True. He lets her know that he and she have differentoutlooks, different notions of his work: 'What to me and thee, woman?'he said: 'my hour is not yet come;' but there was that in his look andtone whence she knew that her desire, scarce half-fashioned intorequest, was granted. What am I thence to conclude, worthy of the Sonof God, and the Son of Mary, but that, at the prayer of his mother, hemade room in his plans for the thing she desired? It was not his wishthen to work a miracle, but if his mother wished it, he would! He didfor his mother what for his own part he would rather have let alone. Not always did he do as his mother would have him; but this was a casein which he could do so, for it would interfere nowise with the will ofhis Father. Was the perfect son, for, being perfect, he must be perfectevery way, to be the only son of man who needed do nothing to pleasehis mother--nothing but what fell in with his plan for the hour? Not socould he be the root, the living heart of the great response of thechildren to the Father of all! not so could the idea of the grandfamily ever be made a reality! Alas for the son who would not willinglyfor his mother do something which in itself he would rather not do! Ifit would have hurt his mother, if it had been in any way turning fromthe will of his Father in heaven, he would not have done it: that wouldhave been to answer her prayer against her. His yielding makes thestory doubly precious to my heart. The Son then could change hisintent, and spoil nothing: so, I say, can the Father; for the Son doesnothing but what he sees the Father do. 

Finding it possible to understand, however, that God may answer prayersto those who pray for themselves, what are we to think concerningprayer for others? One may well say, It would surely be very selfish topray only for ourselves! but the question is of the use, not of thecharacter of the action: if there be any good in it, let us pray forall for whom we feel we can pray; but is there to be found in regard toprayer for others any such satisfaction as in regard to prayer forourselves? The ground is changed--if the fitness of answering prayerlies in the praying of him who prays: the attitude necessary toreception does not belong to those _for_ whom prayer is made, but tohim _by_ whom it is made. What fitness then can there be in praying forothers? Will God give to another for our asking what he would not givewithout it? Would he not, if it could be done without the person'sself, do it without a second person? If God were a tyrant, one whoseheart might be softened by the sight of anxious love; or if he were onewho might be informed, enlightened, reasoned with; or one in whom asetting forth of character, need, or claim might awake interest; thenwould there be plain reason in prayer for another--which yet, howeverdisinterested and loving, must be degrading, as offered to one unworthyof prayer. But if we believe that God is the one unselfish, the onegood being in the universe, and that his one design with his childrenis to make them perfect as he is perfect; if we believe that he notonly would once give, but is always giving himself to us for our life;if we believe--which once I heard a bishop decline to acknowledge--thatGod does his best for _every_ man; if also we believe that God knowsevery man's needs, and will, for love's sake, not spare one pang thatmay serve to purify the soul of one of his children; if we believe allthis, how can we think he will in any sort alter his way with onebecause another prays for him? The prayer would arise from nothing inthe person prayed for; why should it initiate a change in God's dealingwith him?

The argument I know not how to answer. I can only, in the face of it, and feeling all the difficulty, say, and say again, 'Yet I believe Imay pray for my friend--for my enemy--for anybody! Yet and yet, thereis, there must be some genuine, essential good and power in the prayerof one man for another to the maker of both--and that just becausetheir maker is perfect, not less than very God. ' I shall not bringauthority to bear, for authority can at best but make us believe reasonthere, it cannot make us see it. The difficulty remains the same evenwhen we hear the Lord himself pray to his Father for those the Fatherloves because they have received his Son--loves therefore with aspecial love, as the foremost in faith, the elect of the world--lovesnot merely because they must die if he did not love them, but lovesfrom the deeps of divine approval. Those who believe in Jesus will besatisfied, in the face of the incomprehensible, that in what he doesreason and right must lie; but not therefore do we understand. At thesame time, though I cannot explain, I can show some ground upon which, even had he not been taught to do so, but left alone with his heart, aman might yet, I think, pray for another. 

If God has made us to love like himself, and like himself long to help;if there are for whom we, like him, would give our lives to lift themfrom the evil gulf of their ungodliness; if the love in us would, forthe very easing of the love he kindled, gift another--like himself whochooses and cherishes even the love that pains him; if, in the midst ofa sore need to bless, to give, to help, we are aware of an utterimpotence; if the fire burns and cannot out; and if all our hope forourselves lies in God--what is there for us, what can we think of, whatdo, but go to God?--what but go to him with this our own difficulty andneed? And where is the natural refuge, there must be the help. Therecan be no need for which he has no supply. The best argument that hehas help, is that we have need. If I can be helped through my friend, Ithink God will take the thing up, and do what I cannot do--help myfriend that I may be helped--perhaps help me to help him. You see, inpraying for another we pray for ourselves--for the relief of the needsof our love; it is not prayer for another alone, and thus it comesunder the former kind. Would God give us love, the root of power, inus, and leave that love, whereby he himself creates, altogetherhelpless in us? May he not at least expedite something for our prayers?Where he could not alter, he could perhaps expedite, in view of somehelp we might then be able to give. If he desires that we should workwith him, that work surely helps him!

There are some things for which the very possibility of supposing themare an argument; but I think I can go a little farther here, andimagine at least the _where_ if not the _how_, the divine conditions inwhich the help for another in answer to prayer is born, the divineregion in which its possibility must dwell. 

God is ever seeking to lift us up into the sharing of his divinenature; God's kings, such men, namely, as with Jesus have borne witnessto the truth, share his glory even on the throne of the Father. See thegrandeur of the creative love of the Holy! nothing less will serve itthan to have his children, through his and their suffering, share thethrone of his glory! If such be the perfection of the Infinite, shouldthat perfection bring him under bonds and difficulties, and not ratherset him freer to do the thing he would in the midst of opposing forces?If his glory be in giving himself, and we must share therein, givingourselves, why should we not begin here and now? If he would have hischildren fellow-workers with him; if he has desired and willed that notonly by the help of his eternal Son, but by the help also of thechildren who through him have been born from above, other and stillother children shall be brought to his knee, to his fireside, to theplenty of his house, why should he not have kept some margin of roomwherein their prayers may work for those whom they have to help, whoare of the same life as they? I cannot tell how, but may not thoseprayers in some way increase God's opportunity for working his best andhighest will? Dealing with his children, the good ones may add to hispower with the not yet good--add to his means of helping them. One wayis clear: the prayer will react upon the mind that prays, its lightwill grow, will shine the brighter, and draw and enlighten the more. But there must be more in the thing. Prayer in its perfect idea being arising up into the will of the Eternal, may not the help of the Fatherbecome one with the prayer of the child, and for the prayer of him heholds in his arms, go forth for him who wills not yet to be lifted tohis embrace? To his bosom God himself cannot bring his children atonce, and not at all except through his own suffering and theirs. Butwill not any good parent find some way of granting the prayer of thechild who comes to him, saying, 'Papa, this is my brother's birthday: Ihave nothing to give him, and I do love him so! could you give mesomething to give him, or give him something for me?'

'Still, could not God have given the gift without the prayer? And whyshould the good of any one depend on the prayer of another?'

I can only answer with the return question, 'Why should my love bepowerless to help another?' But we must not tie God to our measures oftime, or think he has forgotten that prayer even which, apparentlyunanswered, we have forgotten. Death is not an impervious wall; throughit, beyond it, go the prayers. It is possible we may have some to helpin the next world because we have prayed for them in this: will it notbe a boon to them to have an old friend to their service? I butspeculate and suggest. What I see and venture to say is this: If in Godwe live and move and have our being; if the very possibility of lovinglies in this, that we exist in and by the live air of love, namely Godhimself, we must in this very fact be nearer to each other than by anybodily proximity or interchange of help; and if prayer is like a pulsethat sets this atmosphere in motion, we must then by prayer come closerto each other than are the parts of our body by their complex nerve-telegraphy. Surely, in the Eternal, hearts are never parted! surely, through the Eternal, a heart that loves and seeks the good of another, must hold that other within reach! Surely the system of things wouldnot be complete in relation to the best thing in it--love itself, iflove had no help in prayer. If I love and cannot help, does not myheart move me to ask him to help who loves and can?--him without whomlife would be to me nothing, without whom I should neither love norcare to pray!--will he answer, 'Child, do not trouble me; I am alreadydoing all I can'? If such answer came, who that loved would not becontent to be nowhere in the matter? But how if the eternal, limitlessLove, the unspeakable, self-forgetting God-devotion, which, demandingall, gives all, should say, 'Child, I have been doing all I could; butnow you are come, I shall be able to do more! here is a corner for you, my little one: push at this thing to get it out of the way'! How if heshould answer, 'Pray on, my child; I am hearing you; it goes through mein help to him. We are of one mind about it; I help and you help. Ishall have you all safe home with me by and by! There is no fear, onlywe must work, and not lose heart. Go, and let your light so shinebefore men that they may see your good things, and glorify me byknowing that I am light and no darkness'!--what then? Oh that lovelypicture by Michelangelo, with the young ones and the little ones cometo help God to make Adam!

But it may be that the answer to prayer will come in a shape that seemsa refusal. It may come even in an increase of that from which we seekdeliverance. I know of one who prayed to love better: a sore divisioncame between--out of which at length rose a dawn of tenderness. 

Our vision is so circumscribed, our theories are so small--the garmentof them not large enough to wrap us in; our faith so continuallyfashions itself to the fit of our dwarf intellect, that there isendless room for rebellion against ourselves: we must not let our poorknowledge limit our not so poor intellect, our intellect limit ourfaith, our faith limit our divine hope; reason must humbly watch overall--reason, the candle of the Lord. 

There are some who would argue for prayer, not on the ground of anypossible answer to be looked for, but because of the good to be gainedin the spiritual attitude of the mind in praying. There are those evenwho, not believing in any ear to hear, any heart to answer, will yetpray. They say it does them good; they pray to nothing at all, but theyget spiritual benefit. 

I will not contradict their testimony. So needful is prayer to the soulthat the mere attitude of it may encourage a good mood. Verily to prayto that which is not, is in logic a folly; yet the good that, they say, comes of it, may rebuke the worse folly of their unbelief, for itindicates that prayer is natural, and how could it be natural ifinconsistent with the very mode of our being? Theirs is a better waythan that of those who, believing there is a God, but not believingthat he will give any answer to their prayers, yet pray to him; that ismore foolish and more immoral than praying to the No-god. Whatever theGod be to whom they pray, their prayer is a mockery of him, ofthemselves, of the truth. 

On the other hand, let God give no assent to the individual prayer, letthe prayer even be for something nowise good enough to be a gift ofGod, yet the soul that prays will get good of its prayer, if only inbeing thereby brought a little nearer to the Father, and making way forcoming again. Prayer does react in good upon the praying soul, irrespective of answer. But to pray for the sake of the prayer, andwithout regard to there being no one to hear, would to me indicate anature not merely illogical but morally false, did I not suspect avague undetected apprehension of a Something diffused through the Allof existence, and some sort of shadowiest communion therewith. 

There are moods of such satisfaction in God that a man may feel as ifnothing were left to pray for, as if he had but to wait with patiencefor what the Lord would work; there are moods of such hungering desire, that petition is crushed into an inarticulate crying; and there is acommunion with God that asks for nothing, yet asks for everything. Thislast is the very essence of prayer, though not petition. It is possiblefor a man, not indeed to believe in God, but to believe that there is aGod, and yet not desire to enter into communion with him; but he thatprays and does not faint will come to recognize that to talk with Godis more than to have all prayers granted--that it is the end of allprayer, granted or refused. And he who seeks the Father more thananything he can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is notlikely to ask amiss. 

Even such as ask amiss may sometimes have their prayers answered. TheFather will never give the child a stone that asks for bread; but I amnot sure that he will never give the child a stone that asks for astone. If the Father say, 'My child, that is a stone; it is no bread;'and the child answer, 'I am sure it is bread; I want it;' may it not bewell he should try his bread?

But now for another point in the parable, where I think I can give somehelp--I mean the Lord's apparent recognition of delay in the answeringof prayer: in the very structure of the parable he seems to take delayfor granted, and says notwithstanding, 'He will avenge them speedily!'

The reconciling conclusion is, that God loses no time, though theanswer may not be immediate. 

He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what weask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, wouldbe to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be ourFather. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, toincrease the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptivecondition. 

Again, not from any straitening in God, but either from our owncondition and capacity, or those of the friend for whom we pray, timemay be necessary to the working out of the answer. God is limited byregard for our best; our best implies education; in this we mustourselves have a large share; this share, being human, involves time. And perhaps, indeed, the better the gift we pray for, the more time isnecessary to its arrival. To give us the spiritual gift we desire, Godmay have to begin far back in our spirit, in regions unknown to us, anddo much work that we can be aware of only in the results; for ourconsciousness is to the extent of our being but as the flame of thevolcano to the world-gulf whence it issues: in the gulf of our unknownbeing God works behind our consciousness. With his holy influence, withhis own presence, the one thing for which most earnestly we cry, he maybe approaching our consciousness from behind, coming forward throughregions of our darkness into our light, long before we begin to beaware that he is answering our request--has answered it, and isvisiting his child. To avenge speedily must mean to make no delaybeyond what is absolutely necessary, to begin the moment it is possibleto begin. Because the Son of Man did not appear for thousands of yearsafter men began to cry out for a Saviour, shall we imagine he did notcome the first moment it was well he should come? Can we doubt that tocome a moment sooner would have been to delay, not to expedite, hiskingdom? For anything that needs a process, to begin to act at once isto be speedy. God does not put off like the unrighteous judge; he doesnot delay until irritated by the prayers of the needy; he will hearwhile they are yet speaking; yea, before they call he will answer. 

The Lord uses words without anxiety as to the misuse of them by such asdo not search after his will in them; and the word _avenge_ may besimply retained from the parable without its special meaning therein;yet it suggests a remark or two. 

Of course, no prayer for any revenge that would gratify the selfishnessof our nature, a thing to be burned out of us by the fire of God, needsthink to be heard. Be sure, when the Lord prayed his Father to forgivethose who crucified him, he uttered his own wish and his Father's willat once: God will never punish according to the abstract abomination ofsin, as if men knew what they were doing. 'Vengeance is mine, ' he says:with a right understanding of it, we might as well pray for God'svengeance as for his forgiveness; that vengeance is, to destroy thesin--to make the sinner abjure and hate it; nor is there anysatisfaction in a vengeance that seeks or effects less. The man himselfmust turn against himself, and so be for himself. If nothing else willdo, then hell-fire; if less will do, whatever brings repentance andself-repudiation, is God's repayment. 

Friends, if any prayers are offered against us; if the vengeance of Godbe cried out for, because of some wrong you or I have done, God grantus his vengeance! Let us not think that we shall get off!

But perhaps the Lord was here thinking, not of persecution, or any formof human wrong, but of the troubles that most trouble his truedisciple; and the suggestion is comforting to those whose foes arewithin them, for, if so, then he recognizes the evils of self, againstwhich we fight, not as parts of ourselves, but as our foes, on which hewill avenge the true self that is at strife with them. And certainly noevil is, or ever could be, of the essential being and nature of thecreature God made! The thing that is not good, however associated withour being, is against that being, not of it--is its enemy, on which weneed to be avenged. When we fight, he will avenge. Till we fight, evilshall have dominion over us, a dominion to make us miserable; otherthan miserable can no one be, under the yoke of a nature contrary tohis own. Comfort thyself then, who findest thine own heart and soul, orrather the things that move therein, too much for thee: God will avengehis own elect. He is not delaying; he is at work for thee. Only thoumust pray, and not faint. Ask, ask; it shall be given you. Seek mostthe best things; to ask for the best things is to have them; the seedof them is in you, or you could not ask for them. 

But from whatever quarter come our troubles, whether from the worldoutside or the world inside, still let us pray. In his own right way, the only way that could satisfy us, for we are of his kind, will Godanswer our prayers with help. He will avenge us of our adversaries, andthat speedily. Only let us take heed that we be adversaries to no man, but fountains of love and forgiving tenderness to all. And from noadversary, either on the way with us, or haunting the secret chamber ofour hearts, let us hope to be delivered till we _have paid the lastfarthing_. 

 THE LAST FARTHING. 

 _'Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing. _'--ST. MATTHEW v. 26. 

There is a thing wonderful and admirable in the parables, not readilygrasped, but specially indicated by the Lord himself--theirunintelligibility to the mere intellect. They are addressed to theconscience and not to the intellect, to the will and not to theimagination. They are strong and direct but not definite. They are notmeant to explain anything, but to rouse a man to the feeling, 'I am notwhat I ought to be, I do not the thing I ought to do!' Many maunderinginterpretations may be given by the wise, with plentiful loss oflabour, while the child who uses them for the necessity of walking inthe one path will constantly receive light from them. The greatestobscuration of the words of the Lord, as of all true teachers, comesfrom those who give themselves to interpret rather than do them. Theologians have done more to hide the gospel of Christ than any of itsadversaries. It was not for our understandings, but our will, thatChrist came. He who does that which he sees, shall understand; he whois set upon understanding rather than doing, shall go on stumbling andmistaking and speaking foolishness. He has not that in him which canunderstand that kind. The gospel itself, and in it the parables of theTruth, are to be understood only by those who walk by what they find. It is he that runneth that shall read, and no other. It is not intendedby the speaker of the parables that any other should knowintellectually what, known but intellectually, would be for hisinjury--what knowing intellectually he would imagine he had grasped, perhaps even appropriated. When the pilgrim of the truth comes on hisjourney to the region of the parable, he finds its interpretation. Itis not a fruit or a jewel to be stored, but a well springing by thewayside. 

Let us try to understand what the Lord himself said about his parables. It will be better to take the reading of St. Matthew xiii. 14, 15, asit is plainer, and the quotation from Isaiah (vi. 9, 10) is given infull--after the Septuagint, and much clearer than in our version fromthe Hebrew:--in its light should be read the corresponding passages inthe other Gospels: in St. Mark's it is so compressed as to be capableof quite a different and false meaning: in St. John's reference, theblinding of the heart seems attributed directly to the devil:--thepurport is, that those who by insincerity and falsehood close theirdeeper eyes, shall not be capable of using in the matter the moresuperficial eyes of their understanding. Whether this follows as apsychical or metaphysical necessity, or be regarded as a specialpunishment, it is equally the will of God, and comes from him who isthe live Truth. They shall not see what is not for such as they. It isthe punishment of the true Love, and is continually illustrated andfulfilled: if I know anything of the truth of God, then the objectorsto Christianity, so far as I am acquainted with them, do not; theirarguments, not in themselves false, have nothing to do with the matter;they see the thing they are talking against, but they do not see thething they think they are talking against. 

This will help to remove the difficulty that the parables are plainlyfor the teaching of the truth, and yet the Lord speaks of them as forthe concealing of it. They are for the understanding of that man onlywho is practical--who does the thing he knows, who seeks to understandvitally. They reveal to the live conscience, otherwise not to thekeenest intellect--though at the same time they may help to rouse theconscience with glimpses of the truth, where the man is on the bordersof waking. Ignorance may be at once a punishment and a kindness: allpunishment is kindness, and the best of which the man at the time iscapable: 'Because you will not do, you shall not see; but it would beworse for you if you did see, not being of the disposition to do. ' Suchare punished in having the way closed before them; they punishthemselves; their own doing results as it cannot but result on them. Tosay to them certain things so that they could understand them, wouldbut harden them more, because they would not do them; they should havebut parables--lanterns of the truth, clear to those who will walk intheir light, dark to those who will not. The former are content to havethe light cast upon their way; the latter will have it in their eyes, and cannot: if they had, it would but blind them. For them to know morewould be their worse condemnation. They are not fit to know more; moreshall not be given them yet; it is their punishment that they are inthe wrong, and shall keep in the wrong until they come out of it. 'Youchoose the dark; you shall stay in the dark till the terrors that dwellin the dark affray you, and cause you to cry out. ' God puts a seal uponthe will of man; that seal is either his great punishment, or hismighty favour: 'Ye love the darkness, abide in the darkness:' 'O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt!'

What special meaning may be read in the different parts of magistrate, judge, and officer, beyond the general suggestion, perhaps, of thetentative approach of the final, I do not know; but I think I do knowwhat is meant by 'agree on the way, ' and 'the uttermost farthing. ' Theparable is an appeal to the common sense of those that hear it, inregard to every affair of righteousness. Arrange what claim liesagainst you; compulsion waits behind it. Do at once what you must doone day. As there is no escape from payment, escape at least the prisonthat will enforce it. Do not drive Justice to extremities. Duty isimperative; it must be done. It is useless to think to escape theeternal law of things; yield of yourself, nor compel God to compel you. 

To the honest man, to the man who would fain be honest, the word is ofright gracious import. To the untrue, it is a terrible threat; to himwho is of the truth, it is sweet as most loving promise. He who is ofGod's mind in things, rejoices to hear the word of the changelessTruth; the voice of the Right fills the heavens and the earth, andmakes his soul glad; it is his salvation. If God were not inexorablyjust, there would be no stay for the soul of the feeblest lover ofright: 'thou art true, O Lord: one day I also shall be true!' 'Thoushalt render the right, cost you what it may, ' is a dread sound in theears of those whose life is a falsehood: what but the last farthingwould those who love righteousness more than life pay? It is a joyprofound as peace to know that God is determined upon such payment, isdetermined to have his children clean, clear, pure as very snow; isdetermined that not only shall they with his help make up for whateverwrong they have done, but at length be incapable, by eternal choice ofgood, under any temptation, of doing the thing that is not divine, thething God would not do. 

There has been much cherishing of the evil fancy, often without itstaking formal shape, that there is some way of getting out of theregion of strict justice, some mode of managing to escape doing _all_that is required of us; but there is no such escape. A way to avoid anydemand of righteousness would be an infinitely worse way than the roadto the everlasting fire, for its end would be eternal death. No, thereis no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it--no planto retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. OutSatan must go, every hair and feather! Neither shalt thou think to bedelivered from the necessity of _being_ good by being made good. God isthe God of the animals in a far lovelier way, I suspect, than many ofus dare to think, but he will not be the God of a man by making a goodbeast of him. Thou must be good; neither death nor any admittance intogood company will make thee good; though, doubtless, if thou be willingand try, these and all other best helps will be given thee. There is noclothing in a robe of imputed righteousness, that poorest of legalcobwebs spun by spiritual spiders. To me it seems like an invention ofwell-meaning dulness to soothe insanity; and indeed it has proved adoor of escape out of worse imaginations. It is apparently an old'doctrine;' for St. John seems to point at it where he says, 'Littlechildren, let no man lead you astray; he that doeth righteousness isrighteous even as he is righteous. ' Christ is our righteousness, notthat we should escape punishment, still less escape being righteous, but as the live potent creator of righteousness in us, so that we, withour wills receiving his spirit, shall like him resist unto blood, striving against sin; shall know in ourselves, as he knows, what alovely thing is righteousness, what a mean, ugly, unnatural thing isunrighteousness. He _is_ our righteousness, and that righteousness isno fiction, no pretence, no imputation. 

One thing that tends to keep men from seeing righteousness andunrighteousness as they are, is, that they have been told many thingsare righteous and unrighteous, which are neither the one nor the other. Righteousness is just fairness--from God to man, from man to God and toman; it is giving every one his due--his large mighty due. He isrighteous, and no one else, who does this. And any system which tendsto persuade men that there is any salvation but that of becomingrighteous even as Jesus is righteous; that a man can be made good, as agood dog is good, without his own willed share in the making; that aman is saved by having his sins hidden under a robe of imputedrighteousness--that system, so far as this tendency, is of the deviland not of God. Thank God, not even error shall injure the true ofheart; it is not wickedness. They grow in the truth, and as love castsout fear, so truth casts out falsehood. 

I read, then, in this parable, that a man had better make up his mindto be righteous, to be fair, to do what he can to pay what he owes, inany and all the relations of life--all the matters, in a word, whereinone man may demand of another, or complain that he has not receivedfair play. Arrange your matters with those who have anything againstyou, while you are yet together and things have not gone too far to bearranged; _you will have to do it_, and that under less easycircumstances than now. Putting off is of no use. You must. The thinghas to be done; there are means of compelling you. 

'In this affair, however, I am in the right. '

'If so, very well--for this affair. But I have reason to doubt whetheryou are capable of judging righteously in your own cause:--do you hatethe man?'

'No, I don't hate him. '

'Do you dislike him?'

'I can't say I _like_ him. '

'Do you love him as yourself?'

'Oh, come! come! no one does that!'

'Then no one is to be trusted when he thinks, however firmly, that heis all right, and his neighbour all wrong, in any matter between them. '

'But I don't say I am all right, and he is all wrong; there may besomething to urge on his side: what I say is, that I am more in theright than he. '

'This is not fundamentally a question of things: it is a question ofcondition, of spiritual relation and action, towards your neighbour. Ifin yourself you were all right towards him, you could do him no wrong. Let it be with the individual dispute as it may, you owe him somethingthat you do not pay him, as certainly as you think he owes yousomething he will not pay you. '

'He would take immediate advantage of me if I owned that. '

'So much the worse for him. Until you are fair to him, it does notmatter to you whether he is unfair to you or not. '

'I beg your pardon--it is just what does matter! I want nothing but myrights. What can matter to me more than my rights?'

'Your duties--your debts. You are all wrong about the thing. It is avery small matter _to you_ whether the man give you your rights or not;it is life or death to you whether or not you give him his. Whether hepay you what you count his debt or no, you will be compelled to pay himall you owe him. If you owe him a pound and he you a million, you mustpay him the pound whether he pay you the million or not; there is nobusiness-parallel here. If, owing you love, he gives you hate, you, owing him love, have yet to pay it. A love unpaid you, a justice undoneyou, a praise withheld from you, a judgment passed on you withoutjudgment, will not absolve you of the debt of a love unpaid, a justicenot done, a praise withheld, a false judgment passed: these uttermostfarthings--not to speak of such debts as the world itself countsgrievous wrongs--you must pay him, whether he pay you or not. We have agood while given us to pay, but a crisis will come--come soon afterall--comes always sooner than those expect it who are not ready forit--a crisis when the demand unyielded will be followed by prison. 

The same holds with every demand of God: by refusing to pay, the manmakes an adversary who will compel him--and that for the man's ownsake. If you or your life say, 'I will not, ' then he will see to it. There is a prison, and the one thing we know about that prison is, thatits doors do not open until entire satisfaction is rendered, the lastfarthing paid. 

The main debts whose payment God demands are those which lie at theroot of all right, those we owe in mind, and soul, and being. Whateverin us can be or make an adversary, whatever could prevent us from doingthe will of God, or from agreeing with our fellow--all must be yielded. Our every relation, both to God and our fellow, must be acknowledgedheartily, met as a reality. Smaller debts, if any debt can be small, follow as a matter of course. 

If the man acknowledge, and would pay if he could but cannot, theuniverse will be taxed to help him rather than he should continueunable. If the man accepts the will of God, he is the child of theFather, the whole power and wealth of the Father is for him, and theuttermost farthing will easily be paid. If the man denies the debt, oracknowledging does nothing towards paying it, then--at last--theprison! God in the dark can make a man thirst for the light, who neverin the light sought but the dark. The cells of the prison may differ indegree of darkness; but they are all alike in this, that not a dooropens but to payment. There is no day but the will of God, and he whois of the night cannot be for ever allowed to roam the day; unfelt, unprized, the light must be taken from him, that he may know what thedarkness is. When the darkness is perfect, when he is totally withoutthe light he has spent the light in slaying, then will he knowdarkness. 

I think I have seen from afar something of the final prison of all, theinnermost cell of the debtor of the universe; I will endeavour toconvey what I think it may be. 

It is the vast outside; the ghastly dark beyond the gates of the cityof which God is the light--where the evil dogs go ranging, silent asthe dark, for there is no sound any more than sight. The time of signsis over. Every sense has its signs, and they were all misused: there isno sense, no sign more--nothing now by means of which to believe. Theman wakes from the final struggle of death, in absolute loneliness--such a loneliness as in the most miserable moment of deserted childhoodhe never knew. Not a hint, not a shadow of anything outside hisconsciousness reaches him. All is dark, dark and dumb; no motion--notthe breath of a wind! never a dream of change! not a scent from far-offfield! nothing to suggest being or thing besides the man himself, nosign of God anywhere. God has so far withdrawn from the man, that he isconscious only of that from which he has withdrawn. In the midst of thelive world he cared for nothing but himself; now in the dead world heis in God's prison, his own separated self. He would not believe in Godbecause he never saw God; now he doubts if there be such a thing as theface of a man--doubts if he ever really saw one, ever anything morethan dreamed of such a thing:--he never came near enough to humanbeing, to know what human being really was--so may well doubt if humanbeings ever were, if ever he was one of them. 

Next after doubt comes reasoning on the doubt: 'The only one must beGod! I know no one but myself: I must myself be God--none else!' Poorhelpless dumb devil!--his own glorious lord god! Yea, he will imaginehimself that same resistless force which, without his will, without hisknowledge, is the law by which the sun burns, and the stars keep theircourses, the strength that drives all the engines of the world. Hisfancy will give birth to a thousand fancies, which will run riot likethe mice in a house but just deserted: he will call it creation, and_his_. Having no reality to set them beside, nothing to correct themby; the measured order, harmonious relations, and sweet graces of God'sworld nowhere for him; what he thinks, will be, for lack of what Godthinks, the man's realities: what others can he have! Soon, misery willbeget on imagination a thousand shapes of woe, which he will not beable to rule, direct, or even distinguish from real presences--a wholeworld of miserable contradictions and cold-fever-dreams. 

But no liveliest human imagination could supply adequate representationof what it would be to be left without a shadow of the presence of God. If God gave it, man could not understand it: he knows neither God norhimself in the way of the understanding. For not he who cares leastabout God was in this world ever left as God could leave him. I doubtif any man could continue following his wickedness from whom God hadwithdrawn. 

The most frightful idea of what could, to his own consciousness, befalla man, is that he should have to lead an existence with which God hadnothing to do. The thing could not be; for being that is caused, thecausation ceasing, must of necessity cease. It is always in, and neverout of God, that we can live and do. But I suppose the man so left thathe seems to himself utterly alone, yet, alas! with himself--smallestinterchange of thought, feeblest contact of existence, dullestreflection from other being, impossible: in such evil case I believethe man would be glad to come in contact with the worst-loathed insect:it would be a shape of life, something beyond and besides his own huge, void, formless being! I imagine some such feeling in the prayer of thedevils for leave to go into the swine. His worst enemy, could he but beaware of him, he would be ready to worship. For the misery would be notmerely the absence of all being other than his own self, but thefearful, endless, unavoidable presence of that self. Without thecorrection, the reflection, the support of other presences, being isnot merely unsafe, it is a horror--for anyone but God, who is his ownbeing. For him whose idea is God's, and the image of God, his own beingis far too fragmentary and imperfect to be anything like good company. It is the lovely creatures God has made all around us, in them givingus himself, that, until we know him, save us from the frenzy ofaloneness--for that aloneness is Self, Self, Self. The man who mindsonly himself must at last go mad if God did not interfere. 

Can there be any way out of the misery? Will the soul that could notbelieve in God, with all his lovely world around testifying of him, believe when shut in the prison of its own lonely, weary all-and-nothing? It would for a time try to believe that it was indeed nothing, a mere glow of the setting sun on a cloud of dust, a paltry dream thatdreamed itself--then, ah, if only the dream might dream that it was nomore! that would be the one thing to hope for. Self-loathing, and thatfor no sin, from no repentance, from no vision of better, would beginand grow and grow; and to what it might not come no soul can tell--ofessential, original misery, uncompromising self disgust! Only, then, ifa being be capable of self-disgust, is there not some room for hope--asmuch as a pinch of earth in the cleft of a rock might yield for thegrowth of a pine? Nay, there must be hope while there is existence; forwhere there is existence there must be God; and God is for ever good, nor can be other than good. But alas, the distance from the light! Sucha soul is at the farthest verge of life's negation!--no, not thefarthest! a man is nearer heaven when in deepest hell than just ere hebegins to reap the reward of his doings--for he is in a condition toreceive the smallest show of the life that is, as a boon unspeakable. All his years in the world he received the endless gifts of sun andair, earth and sea and human face divine, as things that came to himbecause that was their way, and there was no one to prevent them; nowthe poorest thinning of the darkness he would hail as men of old theglow of a descending angel; it would be as a messenger from God. Notthat he would think of God! it takes long to think of God; but hope, not yet seeming hope, would begin to dawn in his bosom, and the thinnerdarkness would be as a cave of light, a refuge from the horrid self ofwhich he used to be so proud. 

A man may well imagine it impossible ever to think so unpleasantly ofhimself! But he has only to let things go, and he will make it thereal, right, natural way to think of himself. True, all I have beensaying is imaginary; but our imagination is made to mirror truth; allthe things that appear in it are more or less after the model of thingsthat are; I suspect it is the region whence issues prophecy; and whenwe are true it will mirror nothing but truth. I deal here with the samelight and darkness the Lord dealt with, the same St. Paul and St. Johnand St. Peter and St. Jude dealt with. Ask yourself whether thefaintest dawn of even physical light would not be welcome to such asoul as some refuge from the dark of the justly hated self. 

And the light would grow and grow across the awful gulf between thesoul and its haven--its repentance--for repentance is the firstpressure of the bosom of God; and in the twilight, struggling andfaint, the man would feel, faint as the twilight, another thoughtbeside his, another thinking Something nigh his dreary self--perhapsthe man he had most wronged, most hated, most despised--and would beglad that some one, whoever, was near him: the man he had most injured, and was most ashamed to meet, would be a refuge from himself--oh, howwelcome!

So might I imagine a thousand steps up from the darkness, each a littleless dark, a little nearer the light--but, ah, the weary way! He cannotcome out until he have paid the uttermost farthing! Repentance oncebegun, however, may grow more and more rapid! If God once get a willinghold, if with but one finger he touch the man's self, swift aspossibility will he draw him from the darkness into the light. For thatfor which the forlorn, self-ruined wretch was made, was to be a childof God, a partaker of the divine nature, an heir of God and joint heirwith Christ. Out of the abyss into which he cast himself, refusing tobe the heir of God, he must rise and be raised. To the heart of God, the one and only goal of the human race--the refuge and home of all andeach, he must set out and go, or the last glimmer of humanity will diefrom him. Whoever will live must cease to be a slave and become a childof God. There is no half-way house of rest, where ungodliness may bedallied with, nor prove quite fatal. Be they few or many cast into suchprison as I have endeavoured to imagine, there can be no deliverancefor human soul, whether in that prison or out of it, but in paying thelast farthing, in becoming lowly, penitent, self-refusing--so receivingthe sonship, and learning to cry, _Father_!

 ABBA, FATHER!

'_--the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. _'-ROMANSviii. 15. 

The hardest, gladdest thing in the world is, to cry _Father_! from afull heart. I would help whom I may to call thus upon the Father. 

There are things in all forms of the systematic teaching ofChristianity to check this outgoing of the heart--with some to renderit simply impossible. The more delicate the affections, the less easyto satisfy, the readier are they to be damped and discouraged, yeaquite blown aside; even the suspicion of a cold reception is enough toparalyze them. Such a cold wind blowing at the very gate of heaven--thank God, _outside_ the gate!--is the so-called doctrine of_Adoption_. When a heart hears--and believes, or half believes--that itis not the child of God by origin, from the first of its being, but maypossibly be adopted into his family, its love sinks at once in a coldfaint: where is its own father, and who is this that would adopt it? Tomyself, in the morning of childhood, the evil doctrine was a mistthrough which the light came struggling, a cloud-phantom of repellentmien--requiring maturer thought and truer knowledge to dissipate it. But it requires neither much knowledge nor much insight to stand upagainst its hideousness; it needs but love that will not be denied, andcourage to question the phantom. 

A devout and honest scepticism on God's side, not to be put down byanything called authority, is absolutely necessary to him who wouldknow the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free. Whatever any company ofgood men thinks or believes, is to be approached with respect; butnothing claimed or taught, be the claimers or the teachers who theymay, must come between the soul and the spirit of the father, who ishimself the teacher of his children. Nay, to accept authority may be torefuse the very thing the 'authority' would teach; it may remainaltogether misunderstood just for lack of that natural process of doubtand inquiry, which we were intended to go through by him who would haveus understand. 

As no scripture is of private interpretation, so is there no feeling inhuman heart which exists in that heart alone, which is not, in someform or degree, in every heart; and thence I conclude that many musthave groaned like myself under the supposed authority of this doctrine. The refusal to look up to God as our Father is the one central wrong inthe whole human affair; the inability, the one central misery: whateverserves to clear any difficulty from the way of the recognition of theFather, will more or less undermine every difficulty in life. 

'Is God then not my Father, ' cries the heart of the child, 'that I needto be adopted by him? Adoption! that can never satisfy me. Who is myfather? Am I not his to begin with? Is God not my very own Father? Ishe my Father only in a sort or fashion--by a legal contrivance? Truly, much love may lie in adoption, but if I accept it from any one, I allowmyself the child of another! The adoption of God would indeed be ablessed thing if another than he had given me being! but if he gave mebeing, then it means no reception, but a repudiation. --"O Father, am Inot your child?"'

'No; but he will adopt you. He will not acknowledge you his child, buthe will call you his child, and be a father to you. '

'Alas!' cries the child, 'if he be not my father, he cannot become myfather. A father is a father from the beginning. A primary relationcannot be superinduced. The consequence might be small where earthlyfatherhood was concerned, but the very origin of my being--alas, if hebe only a maker and not a father! Then am I only a machine, and not achild--not a man! It is false to say I was created in his image!

'It avails nothing to answer that we lost our birthright by the fall. Ido not care to argue that _I_ did not fall when Adam fell; for I havefallen many a time, and there is a shadow on my soul which I or anothermay call a curse; I cannot get rid of a something that always intrudesbetween my heart and the blue of every sky. But it avails nothing, either for my heart or their argument, to say I have fallen and beencast out: can any repudiation, even that of God, undo the facts of anexistent origin? Nor is it merely that he made me: by whose power do Igo on living? When he cast me out, as you say, did I then begin to drawmy being from myself--or from the devil? In whom do I live and move andhave my being? It cannot be that I am not the creature of God. '

'But creation is not fatherhood. '

'Creation in the image of God, is. And if I am not in the image of God, how can the word of God be of any meaning to me? "He called them godsto whom the word of God came, " says the Master himself. To be fit toreceive his word implies being of his kind. No matter how his image mayhave been defaced in me: the thing defaced is his image, remains hisdefaced image--an image yet that can hear his word. What makes me eviland miserable is, that the thing spoiled in me is the image of thePerfect. Nothing can be evil but in virtue of a good hypostasis. No, no! nothing can make it that I am not the child of God. If one say, "Look at the animals: God made them: you do not call them the childrenof God!" I answer: "But I am to blame; they are not to blame! I clingfast to my blame: it is the seal of my childhood. " I have nothing toargue from in the animals, for I do not understand them. Two thingsonly I am sure of: that God is to them "a faithful creator;" and thatthe sooner I put in force my claim to be a child of God, the better forthem; for they too are fallen, though without blame. '

'But you are evil: how can you be a child of the Good?'

'Just as many an evil son is the child of a good parent. '

'But in him you call a good parent, there yet lay evil, and thataccounts for the child being evil. '

'I cannot explain. God let me be born through evil channels. But inwhatever manner I may have become an unworthy child, I cannot therebyhave ceased to be a child of God--his child in the way that a childmust ever be the child of the man of whom he comes. Is it not proof--this complaint of my heart at the word _Adoption_? Is it not the spiritof the child, crying out, "Abba, Father"?'

'Yes; but that is the spirit of adoption; the text says so. '

'Away with your adoption! I could not even be adopted if I were notsuch as the adoption could reach--that is, of the nature of God. Muchas he may love him, can a man adopt a dog? I must be of a nature forthe word of God to come to--yea, so far, of the divine nature, of theimage of God! Heartily do I grant that, had I been left to myself, hadGod dropped me, held no communication with me, I could never have thuscried, never have cared when they told me I was not a child of God. Buthe has never repudiated me, and does not now desire to adopt me. Pray, why should it grieve me to be told I am not a child of God, if I be nota child of God? If you say--Because you have learned to love him, Ianswer--Adoption would satisfy the love of one who was not but would bea child; for me, I cannot do without a father, nor can any adoptiongive me one. '

'But what is the good of all you say, if the child is such that thefather cannot take him to his heart?'

'Ah, indeed, I grant you, nothing!--so long as the child does notdesire to be taken to the father's heart; but the moment he does, thenit is everything to the child's heart that he should be indeed thechild of him after whom his soul is thirsting. However bad I may be, Iam the child of God, and therein lies my blame. Ah, I would not lose myblame! in my blame lies my hope. It is the pledge of what I am, andwhat I am not; the pledge of what I am meant to be, what I shall oneday be, the child of God in spirit and in truth. '

'Then you dare to say the apostle is wrong in what he so plainlyteaches?'

'By no means; what I do say is, that our English presentation of histeaching is in this point very misleading. It is not for me to judgethe learned and good men who have revised the translation of the NewTestament--with so much gain to every one whose love of truth isgreater than his loving prejudice for accustomed form;--I can only say, I wonder what may have been their reasons for retaining this word_adoption_. In the New Testament the word is used only by the apostlePaul. Liddell and Scott give the meaning--"Adoption as a son, " which isa mere submission to popular theology: they give no reference except tothe New Testament. The relation of the word [Greek: _niothesia_] to theform [Greek: _thetos_], which means "taken, " or rather, "_placed_ asone's child, " is, I presume, the sole ground for the so translating ofit: usage plentiful and invariable could not justify that translationhere, in the face of what St. Paul elsewhere shows he means by theword. The Greek word _might_ be variously meant--though I can find nouse of it earlier than St. Paul; the English can mean but one thing, and that is not what St. Paul means. "The spirit of adoption" Luthertranslates "the spirit of a child;" _adoption_ he translates_kindschaft_, or _childship_'

Of two things I am sure--first, that by _niothesia_ St. Paul did notintend _adoption_; and second, that if the Revisers had gone throughwhat I have gone through because of the word, if they had felt it comebetween God and their hearts as I have felt it, they could not haveallowed it to remain in their version. 

Once more I say, the word used by St Paul does not imply that Godadopts children that are not his own, but rather that a second time hefathers his own; that a second time they are born--this time fromabove; that he will make himself tenfold, yea, infinitely their father:he will have them back into the very bosom whence they issued, issuedthat they might learn they could live nowhere else; he will have themone with himself. It was for the sake of this that, in his Son, he diedfor them. 

Let us look at the passage where he reveals his use of the word. It isin another of his epistles--that to the Galatians: iv. I-7. 

'But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothingfrom a bondservant, though he is lord of all; but is under guardiansand stewards until the term appointed of the father. So we also, whenwe were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of theworld: but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them whichwere under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Andbecause ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into ourhearts, crying, Abba, Father. So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. '

How could the Revisers choose this last reading, 'an heir through God, 'and keep the word _adoption_? From the passage it is as plain as St. Paul could make it, that, by the word translated _adoption_, he meansthe raising of a father's own child from the condition of tutelage andsubjection to others, a state which, he says, is no better than that ofa slave, to the position and rights of a son. None but a child couldbecome a son; the idea is--a spiritual coming of age; _only when thechild is a man is he really and fully a son_. The thing holds in theearthly relation. How many children of good parents--good children inthe main too--never know those parents, never feel towards them aschildren might, until, grown up, they have left the house--until, perhaps, they are parents themselves, or are parted from them by death!To be a child is not necessarily to be a son or daughter. The childshipis the lower condition of the upward process towards the sonship, thesoil out of which the true sonship shall grow, the former without whichthe latter were impossible. God can no more than an earthly parent becontent to have only children: he must have sons and daughters--children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love--not merely in thesense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sensethat they love like him, love as he loves. For this he does not adoptthem; he dies to give them himself, thereby to raise his own to hisheart; he gives them a birth from above; they are born again out ofhimself and into himself--for he is the one and the all. His childrenare not his real, true sons and daughters until they think like him, feel with him, judge as he judges, are at home with him, and withoutfear before him because he and they mean the same thing, love the samethings, seek the same ends. For this are we created; it is the one endof our being, and includes all other ends whatever. It can come only ofunbelief and not faith, to make men believe that God has cast them off, repudiated them, said they are not, yea never were, his children--andhe all the time spending himself to make us the children he designed, foreordained--children who would take him for their Father! He is ourfather all the time, for he is true; but until we respond with thetruth of children, he cannot let all the father out to us; there is noplace for the dove of his tenderness to alight. He is our father, butwe are not his children. Because we are his children, we must becomehis sons and daughters. Nothing will satisfy him, or do for us, butthat we be one with our father! What else could serve! How else shouldlife ever be a good! Because we are the sons of God, we must become thesons of God. 

There may be among my readers--alas for such!--to whom the word_Father_ brings no cheer, no dawn, in whose heart it rouses no trembleof even a vanished emotion. It is hardly likely to be their fault. Forthough as children we seldom love up to the mark of reason; though weoften offend; and although the conduct of some children is inexplicableto the parent who loves them; yet, if the parent has been butordinarily kind, even the son who has grown up a worthless man, willnow and then feel, in his better moments, some dim reflex of childship, some faintly pleasant, some slightly sorrowful remembrance of thefather around whose neck his arms had sometimes clung. In my ownchildhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills oflife, even sharp pain itself. Therefore I say to son or daughter whohas no pleasure in the name _Father_, 'You must interpret the word byall that you have missed in life. Every time a man might have been toyou a refuge from the wind, a covert from the tempest, the shadow of agreat rock in a weary land, that was a time when a father might havebeen a father indeed. Happy you are yet, if you have found man or womansuch a refuge; so far have you known a shadow of the perfect, seen theback of the only man, the perfect Son of the perfect Father. All thathuman tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness oflove, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father--ofthe maker of fatherhood, the Father of all the fathers of the earth, specially the Father of those who have specially shown a father-heart. '

This Father would make to himself sons and daughters indeed--that is, such sons and daughters as shall be his sons and daughters not merelyby having come from his heart, but by having returned thither--childrenin virtue of being such as whence they came, such as choose to be whathe is. He will have them share in his being and nature--strong whereinhe cares for strength; tender and gracious as he is tender andgracious; angry where and as he is angry. Even in the small matter ofpower, he will have them able to do whatever his Son Jesus could on theearth, whose was the life of the perfect man, whose works were those ofperfected humanity. Everything must at length be subject to man, as itwas to The Man. When God can do what he will with a man, the man may dowhat he will with the world; he may walk on the sea like his Lord; thedeadliest thing will not he able to hurt him:--'He that believeth onme, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater than these shallhe do. '

 God, whose pleasure brought Man into being, stands away As it were, an handbreath off, to give Boom for the newly-made to live. 

He has made us, but we have to be. All things were made _through_ theWord, but that which was made _in_ the Word was life, and that life isthe light of men: they who live by this light, that is, live as Jesuslived--by obedience, namely, to the Father, have a share in their ownmaking; the light becomes life in them; they are, in their lower way, alive with the life that was first born in Jesus, and through him hasbeen born in them--by obedience they become one with the godhead: 'Asmany as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. 'He does not _make_ them the sons of God, but he gives them power tobecome the sons of God: in choosing and obeying the truth, man becomesthe true son of the Father of lights. 

It is enough to read with understanding the passage I have quoted fromhis epistle to the Galatians, to see that the word _adoption_ does notin the least fit St. Paul's idea, or suit the things he says. While webut obey the law God has laid upon us, without knowing the heart of theFather whence comes the law, we are but slaves--not necessarily ignobleslaves, yet slaves; but when we come to think _with_ him, when the mindof the son is as the mind of the Father, the action of the son the sameas that of the Father, then is the son _of_ the Father, then are we thesons of God. And in both passages--this, and that which, from hisepistle to the Romans, I have placed at the head of this sermon--wefind the same phrase, _Abba, Father_, showing, if proof were needful, that he uses the word [Greek: uiothesia] the same sense in both:nothing can well be plainer, that needs consideration at all, than whatthat sense is. Let us glance at the other passages in which he uses thesame word: as he alone of the writers of the New Testament does use it, so, for aught I know, he may have made it for himsef. One of them is inthe same eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans; this I will keepto the last. Another is in the following chapter, the fourth verse; init he speaks of the [Greek: viothesia], literally the _son-placing_(that is, the placing of sons in the true place of sons), as belongingto the Jews. On this I have but to remark that 'whose is the [Greek:viothesia]' cannot mean either that they had already received it, orthat it belonged to the Jews more than to the Gentiles; it can onlymean that, as the elder-brother-nation, they had a foremost claim toit, and would naturally first receive it; that, in their best men, theyhad always been nearest to it. It must be wrought out first in such ashad received the preparation necessary; those were the Jews; of theJews was the Son, bringing the [Greek: viothesia], the sonship, to all. Therefore theirs was the [Greek: viothesia], just as theirs was thegospel. It was to the Jew first, then to the Gentile--though many aGentile would have it before many a Jew. Those and only those who outof a true heart cry '_Abba, Father_, ' be they of what paltry littleso-called church, other than the body of Christ, they may, or of nootherat all, are the sons and daughters of God. 

St. Paul uses the word also in his epistle to the Ephesians, the firstchapter, the fifth verse. 'Having predestinated us unto the adoption ofchildren by Jesus Christ to himself, ' says the authorized version;'Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ untohimself, ' says the revised--and I see little to choose between them:neither gives the meaning of St. Paul. If there is anything gained bythe addition of the words 'of children' in the one case, and 'as sons'in the other, to translate the word for which 'adoption' alone is madeto serve in the other passages, the advantage is only to the minus-side, to that of the wrong interpretation. 

Children we were; true sons we could never be, save through The Son. Hebrothers us. He takes us to the knees of the Father, beholding whoseface we grow sons indeed. Never could we have known the heart of theFather, never felt it possible to love him as sons, but for him whocast himself into the gulf that yawned between us. In and through himwe were foreordained to the sonship: sonship, even had we never sinned, never could we reach without him. We should have been little childrenloving the Father indeed, but children far from the sonhood thatunderstands and adores. 'For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God;' 'If any man hath not the spirit of Christ, heis none of his;' yea, if we have not each other's spirits, we do notbelong to each other. There is no unity but having the same spirit. There is but one spirit, that of truth. 

It remains to note yet another passage. 

That never in anything he wrote was it St. Paul's intention tocontribute towards a system of theology, it were easy to show: one signof the fact is, that he does not hesitate to use this word he hasperhaps himself made, in different, and apparently opposing, though byno means contradictory senses: his meanings always vivify each other. His ideas are so large that they tax his utterance and make him strainthe use of words, but there is no danger to the honest heart, whichalone he regards, of misunderstanding them, though 'the ignorant andunsteadfast wrest them' yet. At one time he speaks of the sonship asbeing the possession of the Israelite, at another as his who haslearned to cry _Abba, Father_; and here, in the passage I have now lastto consider, that from the 18th to the 25th verse of this same eighthchapter of his epistle to the Romans, he speaks of the _niothesia_ asyet to come--and as if it had to do, not with our spiritual, but ourbodily condition. This use of the word, however, though not the sameuse as we find anywhere else, is nevertheless entirely consistent withhis other uses of it. 

The 23rd verse says, 'And not only so, but ourselves also, which havethe first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan withinourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. '

It is nowise difficult to discern that the ideas in this and the mainuse are necessarily associated and more than consistent. The putting ofa son in his true, his foreordained place, has outward relations aswell as inward reality; the outward depends on the inward, arises fromit, and reveals it. When the child whose condition under tutors hadpassed away, took his position as a son, he would naturally change hisdress and modes of life: when God's children cease to be slaves doingright from law and duty, and become his sons doing right from theessential love of God and their neighbour, they too must change thegarments of their slavery for the robes of liberty, lay aside the bodyof this death, and appear in bodies like that of Christ, with whom theyinherit of the Father. But many children who have learned to cry _Abba, Father_, are yet far from the liberty of the sons of God. Sons they areand no longer children, yet they groan as being still in bondage!--Plainly the apostle has no thought of working out an idea; with burningheart he is writing a letter: he gives, nevertheless, lines plentifullysufficient for us to work out his idea, and this is how it takes clearshape:--

We are the sons of God the moment we lift up our hearts, seeking to besons--the moment we begin to cry _Father_. But as the world must beredeemed in a few men to begin with, so the soul is redeemed in a fewof its thoughts and wants and ways, to begin with: it takes a long timeto finish the new creation of this redemption. Shall it have takenmillions of years to bring the world up to the point where a few of itsinhabitants shall desire God, and shall the creature of this new birthbe perfected in a day? The divine process may indeed now go on withtenfold rapidity, for the new factor of man's fellow-working, for thesake of which the whole previous array of means and forces existed, isnow developed; but its end is yet far below the horizon of man'svision:--

The apostle speaks at one time of the thing as to come, at another timeas done--when it is but commenced: our ways of thought are such. Aman's heart may leap for joy the moment when, amidst the sea-waves, astrong hand has laid hold of the hair of his head; he may cry aloud, 'Iam saved;'--and he may be safe, but he is not saved; this is far from asalvation to suffice. So are we sons when we begin to cry Father, butwe are far from perfected sons. So long as there is in us the leasttaint of distrust, the least lingering of hate or fear, we have notreceived the sonship; we have not such life in us as raised the body ofJesus; we have not attained to the resurrection of the dead--by whichword, in his epistle to the Philippians (iii. 2), St. Paul means, Ithink, the same thing as here he means by the sonship which he puts inapposition with the redemption of the body:--

Until our outward condition is that of sons royal, sons divine; so longas the garments of our souls, these mortal bodies, are mean--torn anddragged and stained; so long as we groan under sickness and weaknessand weariness, old age, forgetfulness, and all heavy things; so long wehave not yet received the sonship in full--we are but getting ready oneday to creep from our chrysalids, and spread the great heaven-stormingwings of the psyches of God. We groan being burdened; we groan, waitingfor the sonship--to wit, the redemption of the body--the uplifting ofthe body to be a fit house and revelation of the indwelling spirit--nay, like that of Christ, a fit temple and revelation of the deeperindwelling God. For we shall always need bodies to manifest and revealus to each other--bodies, then, that fit the soul with absolute truthof presentment and revelation. Hence the revealing of the sons of God, spoken of in the 19th verse, is the same thing as the redemption of thebody; the body is redeemed when it is made fit for the sons of God;then it is a revelation of them--the thing it was meant for, andalways, more or less imperfectly, was. Such it shall be, when truth isstrong enough in the sons of God to make it such--for it is the soulthat makes the body. When we are the sons of God in heart and soul, then shall we be the sons of God in body too: 'we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. '

I care little to speculate on the kind of this body; two things only Iwill say, as needful to be believed, concerning it: first, that it willbe a body to show the same self as before--but, second, a body to showthe being truly--without the defects, that is, and imperfections of theformer bodily revelation. Even through their corporeal presence shallwe then know our own infinitely better, and find in them endlessly moredelight, than before. These things we must believe, or distrust theFather of our spirits. Till this redemption of the body arrives, the[Greek: uiothesia] is not wrought out, is only upon the way. Nor can itcome but by our working out the salvation he is working in us. 

This redemption of the body--its deliverance from all that is amiss, awry, unfinished, weak, worn out, all that prevents the revelation ofthe sons of God, is called by the apostle, not certainly the_adoption_, but the [Greek: niothesia], the sonship in fullmanifestation. It is the slave yet left in the sons and daughters ofGod that has betrayed them into even permitting the word _adoption_ tomislead them!

To see how the whole utterance hangs together, read from the 18th verseto the 25th, especially noticing the 19th: 'For the earnest expectationof the creation waiteth for the revealing' (_the outshining_) 'of thesons of God. ' When the sons of God show as they are, taking, with thecharacter, the appearance and the place that belong to their sonship;when the sons of God sit with _the_ Son of God on the throne of theirFather; then shall they be in potency of fact the lords of the lowercreation, the bestowers of liberty and peace upon it; then shall thecreation, subjected to vanity for their sakes, find its freedom intheir freedom, its gladness in their sonship. The animals will glory toserve them, will joy to come to them for help. Let the heartless scoff, the unjust despise! the heart that cries _Abba, Father_, cries to theGod of the sparrow and the oxen; nor can hope go too far in hoping whatthat God will do for the creation that now groaneth and travaileth inpain because our higher birth is delayed. Shall not the judge of allthe earth do right? Shall my heart be more compassionate than his?

If to any reader my interpretation be unsatisfactory, I pray him not tospend his strength in disputing my faith, but in making sure his ownprogress on the way to freedom and sonship. Only to the child of God istrue judgment possible. Were it otherwise, what would it avail to provethis one or that right or wrong? Right opinion on questions the mostmomentous will deliver no man. Cure for any ill in me or about me thereis none, but to become the son of God I was born to be. Until such Iam, until Christ is born in me, until I am revealed a son of God, painand trouble will endure--and God grant they may! Call this presumption, and I can only widen my assertion: until you yourself are the son ofGod you were born to be, you will never find life a good thing. If Ipresume for myself, I presume for you also. But I do not presume. Thushave both Jesus Christ and his love-slave Paul represented God--as aFather perfect in love, grand in self-forgetfulness, supreme inrighteousness, devoted to the lives he has uttered. I will not believeless of the Father than I can conceive of glory after the lines he hasgiven me, after the radiation of his glory in the face of his Son. Heis the express image of the Father, by which we, his imperfect images, are to read and understand him: imperfect, we have yet perfectionenough to spell towards the perfect. 

It comes to this then, after the grand theory of the apostle:--Theworld exists for our education; it is the nursery of God's children, served by troubled slaves, troubled because the children are themselvesslaves--children, but not good children. Beyond its own will orknowledge, the whole creation works for the development of the childrenof God into the sons of God. When at last the children have arisen andgone to their Father; when they are clothed in the best robe, with aring on their hands and shoes on their feet, shining out at length intheir natural, their predestined sonship; then shall the mountains andthe hills break forth before them into singing, and all the trees ofthe field shall clap their hands. Then shall the wolf dwell with thelamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid and the calf, and the younglion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Thenshall the fables of a golden age, which faith invented, and unbeliefthrew into the past, unfold their essential reality, and the tale ofparadise prove itself a truth by becoming a fact. Then shall everyideal show itself a necessity, aspiration although satisfied put forthyet longer wings, and the hunger after righteousness know itselfblessed. Then first shall we know what was in the Shepherd's mind whenhe said, '_I came that they may have life, and may have itabundantly_. '

 LIFE. 

'_I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly_. '--St. John x. 10. 

In a word, He came to supply all our lack--from the root outward; forwhat is it we need but more life? What does the infant need but morelife? What does the bosom of his mother give him but life in abundance?What does the old man need, whose limbs are weak and whose pulse islow, but more of the life which seems ebbing from him? Weary withfeebleness, he calls upon death, but in reality it is life he wants. Itis but the encroaching death in him that desires death. He longs forrest, but death cannot rest; death would be as much an end to rest asto weariness: even weakness cannot rest; it takes strength as well asweariness to rest. How different is the weariness of the strong manafter labour unduly prolonged, from the weariness of the sick man whoin the morning cries out, 'Would God it were evening!' and in theevening, 'Would God it were morning!' Low-sunk life imagines itselfweary of life, but it is death, not life, it is weary of. Never a crywent out after the opposite of life from any soul that knew what lifeis. Why does the poor, worn, out-worn suicide seek death? Is it not inreality to escape from death?--from the death of homelessness andhunger and cold; the death of failure, disappointment, and distraction;the death of the exhaustion of passion; the death of madness--of ahousehold he cannot rule; the death of crime and fear of discovery? Heseeks the darkness because it seems a refuge from the death whichpossesses him. He is a creature possessed by death; what he calls hislife is but a dream full of horrible phantasms. 

'More life!' is the unconscious prayer of all creation, groaning andtravailing for the redemption of its lord, the son who is not yet ason. Is not the dumb cry to be read in the faces of some of theanimals, in the look of some of the flowers, and in many an aspect ofwhat we call Nature? All things are possible with God, but all thingsare not easy. It is easy for him _to be_, for there he has to do withhis own perfect will: it is not easy for him to create--that is, afterthe grand fashion which alone will satisfy his glorious heart and will, the fashion in which he is now creating us. In the very nature ofbeing--that is, God--it must be hard--and divine history shows howhard--to create that which shall be not himself, yet like himself. Theproblem is, so far to separate from himself that which must yet on himbe ever and always and utterly dependent, that it shall have theexistence of an individual, and be able to turn and regard him--choosehim, and say, 'I will arise and go to my Father, ' and so develop initself the highest _Divine_ of which it is capable--the will for thegood against the evil--the will to be one with the life whence it hascome, and in which it still is--the will to close the round of itsprocession in its return, so working the perfection of reunion--toshape in its own life the ring of eternity--to live immediately, consciously, and active-willingly from its source, from its own verylife--to restore to the beginning the end that comes of thatbeginning--to be the thing the maker thought of when he willed, ere hebegan to work its being. 

I imagine the difficulty of doing this thing, of effecting thiscreation, this separation from himself such that will in the creatureshall be possible--I imagine, I say, the difficulty of such creation sogreat, that for it God must begin inconceivably far back in theinfinitesimal regions of beginnings--not to say before anything in theleast resembling man, but eternal miles beyond the last farthest-pusheddiscovery in _protoplasm_--to set in motion that division from himselfwhich in its grand result should be individuality, consciousness, choice, and conscious choice--choice at last pure, being the choice ofthe right, the true, the divinely harmonious. Hence the final end ofthe separation is not individuality; that is but a means to it; thefinal end is oneness--an impossibility without it. For there can be nounity, no delight of love, no harmony, no good in being, where there isbut one. Two at least are needed for oneness; and the greater thenumber of individuals, the greater, the lovelier, the richer, thediviner is the possible unity. 

God is life, and the will-source of life. In the outflowing of thatlife, I know him; and when I am told that he is love, I see that if hewere not love he would not, could not create. I know nothing deeper inhim than love, nor believe there is in him anything deeper than love--nay, that there can be anything deeper than love. The being of God islove, therefore creation. I imagine that from all eternity he has beencreating. As he saw it was not good for man to be alone, so has henever been alone himself;--from all eternity the Father has had theSon, and the never-begun existence of that Son I imagine an easyoutgoing of the Father's nature; while to make other beings--beingslike us, I imagine the labour of a God, an eternal labour. Speakingafter our poor human fashions of thought--the only fashions possible tous--I imagine that God has never been contented to be alone even withthe Son of his love, the prime and perfect idea of humanity, but thathe has from the first willed and laboured to give existence to othercreatures who should be blessed with his blessedness--creatures whom heis now and always has been developing into likeness with that Son--alikeness for long to be distant and small, but a likeness to be forever growing: perhaps never one of them yet, though unspeakablyblessed, has had even an approximate idea of the blessedness in storefor him. 

Let no soul think that to say God undertook a hard labour in willingthat many sons and daughters should be sharers of the divine nature, isto abate his glory! The greater the difficulty, the greater is theglory of him who does the thing he has undertaken--without shadow ofcompromise, with no half-success, but with a triumph of absolutesatisfaction to innumerable radiant souls! He knew what it wouldcost!--not energy of will alone, or merely that utterance andseparation from himself which is but the first of creation, though thatmay well itself be pain--but sore suffering such as we cannot imagine, and could only be God's, in the bringing out, call it birth ordevelopment, of the God-life in the individual soul--a suffering stillrenewed, a labour thwarted ever by that soul itself, compelling him totake, still at the cost of suffering, the not absolutely best, only thebest possible means left him by the resistance of his creature. Manfinds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best;God finds it hard to give, because he would give the best, and man willnot take it. What Jesus did, was what the Father is always doing; thesuffering he endured was that of the Father from the foundation of theworld, reaching its climax in the person of his Son. God provides thesacrifice; the sacrifice is himself. He is always, and has ever been, sacrificing himself to and for his creatures. It lies in the veryessence of his creation of them. The worst heresy, next to that ofdividing religion and righteousness, is to divide the Father from theSon--in thought or feeling or action or intent; to represent the Son asdoing that which the Father does not himself do. Jesus did nothing butwhat the Father did and does. If Jesus suffered for men, it was becausehis Father suffers for men; only he came close to men through his bodyand their senses, that he might bring their spirits close to his Fatherand their Father, so giving them life, and losing what could be lost ofhis own. He is God our Saviour: it is because God is our Saviour thatJesus is our Saviour. The God and Father of Jesus Christ could neverpossibly be satisfied with less than giving himself to his own! Theunbeliever may easily imagine a better God than the common theology ofthe country offers him; but not the lovingest heart that ever beat caneven reflect the length and breadth and depth and height of that loveof God which shows itself in his Son--one, and of one mind, withhimself. The whole history is a divine agony to give divine life tocreatures. The outcome of that agony, the victory of that creative andagain creative energy, will be radiant life, whereof joy unspeakable isthe flower. Every child will look in the eyes of the Father, and theeyes of the Father will receive the child with an infinite embrace. 

The life the Lord came to give us is a life exceeding that of thehighest undivine man, by far more than the life of that man exceeds thelife of the animal the least human. More and more of it is for each whowill receive it, and to eternity. The Father has given to the Son tohave life in himself; that life is our light. We know life only aslight; it is the life in us that makes us see. All the growth of theChristian is the more and more life he is receiving. At first hisreligion may hardly be distinguishable from the mere prudent desire tosave his soul; but at last he loses that very soul in the glory oflove, and so saves it; self becomes but the cloud on which the whitelight of God divides into harmonies unspeakable. 

'In the midst of life we are in death, ' said one; it is more true thatin the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; whatmen call death is but a shadow--a word for that which cannot be--anegation, owing the very idea of itself to that which it would deny. But for life there could be no death. If God were not, there would noteven be nothing. Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owesits very idea to existence. 

One form of the question between matter and spirit is, which was first, and caused the other--things or thoughts; whether things withoutthought caused thought, or thought without things caused things. Tothose who cannot doubt that thought was first, causally preceding theearliest material show, it is easily plain that death can be the curefor nothing, that the cure for everything must be life--that the illswhich come with existence, are from its imperfection, not of itself--that what we need is more of it. We who _are_, have nothing to do withdeath; our relations are alone with life. The thing that can mourn canmourn only from lack; it cannot mourn because of being, but because ofnot enough being. We are vessels of life, not yet full of the wine oflife; where the wine does not reach, there the clay cracks, and aches, and is distressed. Who would therefore pour out the wine that is there, instead of filling to the brim with more wine! All the being mustpartake of essential being; life must be assisted, upheld, comforted, every part, with life. Life is the law, the food, the necessity oflife. Life is everything. Many doubtless mistake the joy of life forlife itself; and, longing after the joy, languish with a thirst at oncepoor and inextinguishable; but even that thirst points to the onespring. These love self, not life, and self is but the shadow of life. When it is taken for life itself, and set as the man's centre, itbecomes a live death in the man, a devil he worships as his god; theworm of the death eternal he clasps to his bosom as his one joy!

The soul compact of harmonies has more life, a larger being, than thesoul consumed of cares; the sage is a larger life than the clown; thepoet is more alive than the man whose life flows out that money maycome in; the man who loves his fellow is infinitely more alive than hewhose endeavour is to exalt himself above him; the man who strives tobe better, than he who longs for the praise of the many; but the man towhom God is all in all, who feels his life-roots hid with Christ inGod, who knows himself the inheritor of all wealth and worlds and ages, yea, of power essential and in itself, that man has begun to be aliveindeed. 

Let us in all the troubles of life remember--that our one lack islife--that what we need is more life--more of the life-making presencein us making us more, and more largely, alive. When most oppressed, when most weary of life, as our unbelief would phrase it, let usbethink ourselves that it is in truth the inroad and presence of deathwe are weary of. When most inclined to sleep, let us rouse ourselves tolive. Of all things let us avoid the false refuge of a weary collapse, a hopeless yielding to things as they are. It is the life in us that isdiscontented; we need more of what is discontented, not more of thecause of its discontent. Discontent, I repeat, is the life in us thathas not enough of itself, is not enough to itself, so calls for more. He has the victory who, in the midst of pain and weakness, cries out, not for death, not for the repose of forgetfulness, but for strength tofight; for more power, more consciousness of being, more God in him;who, when sorest wounded, says with Sir Andrew Barton in the oldballad:--

 Fight on my men, says Sir Andrew Barton, I am hurt, but I am not slain; I'll lay me down and bleed awhile, And then I'll rise and fight again;

--and that with no silly notion of playing the hero--what havecreatures like us to do with heroism who are not yet barelyhonest!--but because so to fight is the truth, and the only way. 

If, in the extreme of our exhaustion, there should come to us, as toElijah when he slept in the desert, an angel to rouse us, and show usthe waiting bread and water, how would we carry ourselves? Would we, infaint unwillingness to rise and eat, answer, 'Lo I am weary unto death!The battle is gone from me! It is lost, or unworth gaining! The worldis too much for me! Its forces will not heed me! They have worn me out!I have wrought no salvation even for my own, and never should work any, were I to live for ever! It is enough; let me now return whence I came;let me be gathered to my fathers and be at rest!'? I should be loth tothink that, if the enemy, in recognizable shape, came roaring upon us, we would not, like the red-cross knight, stagger, heavy sword innerveless arm, to meet him; but, in the feebleness of foiled effort, itwants yet more faith to rise and partake of the food that shall bringback more effort, more travail, more weariness. The true man trusts ina strength which is not his, and which he does not feel, does not evenalways desire; believes in a power that seems far from him, which isyet at the root of his fatigue itself and his need of rest--rest as farfrom death as is labour. To trust in the strength of God in ourweakness; to say, 'I am weak: so let me be: God is strong;' to seekfrom him who is our life, as the natural, simple cure of all that isamiss with us, power to do, and be, and live, even when we areweary, --this is the victory that overcometh the world. To believe inGod our strength in the face of all seeming denial, to believe in himout of the heart of weakness and unbelief, in spite of numbness andweariness and lethargy; to believe in the wide-awake real, through allthe stupefying, enervating, distorting dream; to will to wake, when thevery being seems athirst for a godless repose;--these are the brokensteps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love. 'I am weak, ' saysthe true soul, 'but not so weak that I would not be strong; not sosleepy that I would not see the sun rise; not so lame but that I wouldwalk! Thanks be to him who perfects strength in weakness, and gives tohis beloved while they sleep!'

If we will but let our God and Father work his will with us, there canbe no limit to his enlargement of our existence, to the flood of lifewith which he will overflow our consciousness. We have no conception ofwhat life might be, of how vast the consciousness of which we could bemade capable. Many can recall some moment in which life seemed richerand fuller than ever before; to some, such moments arrive mostly indreams: shall soul, awake or asleep, infold a bliss greater than itsLife, the living God, can seal, perpetuate, enlarge? Can the humantwilight of a dream be capable of generating or holding a fuller lifethan the morning of divine activity? Surely God could at any momentgive to a soul, by a word to that soul, by breathing afresh into thesecret caves of its being, a sense of life before which the mostexultant ecstasy of earthly triumph would pale to ashes! If eversunlit, sail-crowded sea, under blue heaven flecked with wind-chasedwhite, filled your soul as with a new gift of life, think what sense ofexistence must be yours, if he whose thought has but fringed itsgarment with the outburst of such a show, take his abode with you, andwhile thinking the gladness of a God inside your being, let you knowand feel that he is carrying you as a father in his bosom!

I have been speaking as if life and the consciousness of it were one;but the consciousness of life is not life; it is only the outcome oflife. The real life is that which is of and by itself--is life becauseit wills itself--which is, in the active, not the passive sense: thiscan only be God. But in us there ought to be a life correspondent tothe life that is God's; in us also must be the life that willsitself--a life in so far resembling the self-existent life andpartaking of its image, that it has a share in its own being. There isan original act possible to the man, which must initiate the reality ofhis existence. He must live in and by willing to live. A tree lives; Ihardly doubt it has some vague consciousness, known by but not toitself, only to the God who made it; I trust that life in its lowestforms is on the way to thought and blessedness, is in the process ofthat separation, so to speak, from God, in which consists the creationof living souls; but the life of these lower forms is not life in thehigh sense--in the sense in which the word is used in the Bible: truelife knows and rules itself; the eternal life is life come awake. Thelife of the most exalted of the animals is not such whatever it maybecome, and however I may refuse to believe their fate and being fixedas we see them. But as little as any man or woman would be inclined tocall the existence of the dog, looking strange lack out of his wistfuleyes, an existence to be satisfied with--his life an end sufficient initself, as little could I, looking on the human pleasure, the humanrefinement, the common human endeavour around me, consent to regardthem as worthy the name of life. What in them is true dwells amidst anunchallenged corruption, demanding repentance and labour and prayer forits destruction. The condition of most men and women seems to me a lifein death, an abode in unwhited sepulchres, a possession of witheringforms by spirits that slumber, and babble in their dreams. That they donot feel it so, is nothing. The sow wallowing in the mire may rightlyassert it her way of being clean, but theirs is not the life of theGod-born. The day must come when they will hide their faces with suchshame as the good man yet feels at the memory of the time when he livedlike them. There is nothing for man worthy to be called life, but thelife eternal--God's life, that is, after his degree shared by the manmade to be eternal also. For he is in the image of God, intended topartake of the life of the most high, to be alive as he is alive. Ofthis life the outcome and the light is righteousness, love, grace, truth; but the life itself is a thing that will not be defined, even asGod will not be defined: it is a power, the formless cause of form. Ithas no limits whereby to be defined. It shows itself to the soul thatis hungering and thirsting after righteousness, but that soul cannotshow it to another, save in the shining of its own light. The ignorantsoul understands by this life eternal only an endless elongation ofconsciousness; what God means by it is a being like his own, a beingbeyond the attack of decay or death, a being so essential that it hasno relation whatever to nothingness; a something which is, and cannever go to that which is not, for with that it never had to do, butcame out of the heart of Life, the heart of God, the fountain of being;an existence partaking of the divine nature, and having nothing incommon, any more than the Eternal himself, with what can pass or cease:God owes his being to no one, and his child has no lord but his Father. 

This life, this eternal life, consists for man in absolute oneness withGod and all divine modes of being, oneness with every phase of rightand harmony. It consists in a love as deep as it is universal, asconscious as it is unspeakable; a love that can no more be reasonedabout than life itself--a love whose presence is its all-sufficingproof and justification, whose absence is an annihilating defect: hewho has it not cannot believe in it: how should death believe in life, though all the birds of God are singing jubilant over the empty tomb!The delight of such a being, the splendour of a consciousness rushingfrom the wide open doors of the fountain of existence, the ecstasy ofthe spiritual sense into which the surge of life essential, immortal, increate, flows in silent fulness from the heart of hearts--what mayit, what must it not be, in the great day of God and the individualsoul!

What then is our practical relation to the life original? What have weto do towards the attaining to the resurrection from the dead? If wedid not make, could not have made ourselves, how can we, now we aremade, do anything at the unknown roots of our being? What relation ofconscious unity can be betwixt the self-existent God, and beings wholive at the will of another, beings who could not refuse to be--cannoteven cease to be, but must, at the will of that other, go on living, weary of what is not life, able to assert their relation to life onlyby refusing to be content with what is not life?

The self-existent God is that other by whose will we live; so the linksof the unity must already exist, and can but require to be broughttogether. For the link in our being wherewith to close the circle ofimmortal oneness with the Father, we must of course search the deepestof man's nature: there only, in all assurance, can it be found. Andthere we do find it. For the _will_ is the deepest, the strongest, thedivinest thing in man; so, I presume, is it in God, for such we find itin Jesus Christ. Here, and here only, in the relation of the two wills, God's and his own, can a man come into vital contact--on the eternalidea, in no one-sided unity of completest dependence, but in willedharmony of dual oneness--with the All-in-all. When a man can and doesentirely say, 'Not my will, but thine be done'--when he so wills thewill of God as to do it, then is he one with God--one, as a true sonwith a true father. When a man wills that his being be conformed to thebeing of his origin, which is the life in his life, causing and bearinghis life, therefore absolutely and only of its kind, one with it moreand deeper than words or figures can say--to the life which is itself, only more of itself, and more than itself, causing itself--when the manthus accepts his own causing life, _and sets himself to live the willof that causing life_, humbly eager after the privileges of hisorigin, --thus receiving God, he becomes, in the act, a partaker of thedivine nature, a true son of the living God, and an heir of all hepossesses: by the obedience of a son, he receives into himself the verylife of the Father. Obedience is the joining of the links of theeternal round. Obedience is but the other side of the creative will. Will is God's will, obedience is man's will; the two make one. Theroot-life, knowing well the thousand troubles it would bring upon him, has created, and goes on creating other lives, that, though incapableof self-being, they may, by willed obedience, share in the bliss of hisessential self-ordained being. If we do the will of God, eternal lifeis ours--no mere continuity of existence, for that in itself isworthless as hell, but a being that is one with the essential Life, andso within his reach to fill with the abundant and endless out-goings ofhis love. Our souls shall be vessels ever growing, and ever as theygrow, filled with the more and more life proceeding from the Father andthe Son, from God the ordaining, and God the obedient. What the delightof the being, what the abundance of the life he came that we mighthave, we can never know until we have it. But even now to the holyfancy it may sometimes seem too glorious to support--as if we must dieof very life--of more being than we could bear--to awake to a yethigher life, and be filled with a wine which our souls were heretoforetoo weak to hold! To be for one moment aware of such pure simple lovetowards but one of my fellows as I trust I shall one day have towardseach, must of itself bring a sense of life such as the utmost effort ofmy imagination can but feebly shadow now--a mighty glory ofconsciousness!--not to be always present, indeed, for my love, and notmy glory in that love, is my life. There would be, even in that onelove, in the simple purity of a single affection such as we werecreated to generate, and intended to cherish, towards all, an expansionof life inexpressible, unutterable. For we are made for love, not forself. Our neighbour is our refuge; _self_ is our demon-foe. Every manis the image of God to every man, and in proportion as we love him, weshall know the sacred fact. The precious thing to human soul is, andone day shall be known to be, every human soul. And if it be so betweenman and man, how will it not be betwixt the man and his maker, betweenthe child and his eternal Father, between the created and the creatingLife? Must not the glory of existence be endlessly redoubled in theinfinite love of the creature--for all love is infinite--to theinfinite God, the great one life, than whom is no other--only shadows, lovely shadows of him!

Reader to whom my words seem those of inflation and foolish excitement, it can be nothing to thee to be told that I seem to myself to speakonly the words of truth and soberness; but what if the cause why theyseem other to thy mind be--not merely that thou art not whole, but thatthy being nowise thirsts after harmony, that thou art not of the truth, that thou hast not yet begun to live? How should the reveller, issuingworn and wasted from the haunts where the violent seize joy by force tofind her perish in their arms--how should such reveller, I say, breakforth and sing with the sons of the morning, when the ocean of lightbursts from the fountain of the east? As little canst thou, with thymind full of petty cares, or still more petty ambitions, understand thegroaning and travailing of the creation. It may indeed be that thou arthonestly desirous of saving thy own wretched soul, but as yet thoucanst know but little of thy need of him who is _the first and the lastand the living one_. 

 THE FEAR OF GOD. 

 _'And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last and the Living one. '_--Rev. I. 17, 18. 

It is not alone the first beginnings of religion that are full of fear. So long as love is imperfect, there is room for torment. That lore onlywhich fills the heart--and nothing but love can fill any heart--is ableto cast out fear, leaving no room for its presence. What we find in thebeginnings of religion, will hold in varying degree, until thereligion, that is the love, be perfected. 

The thing that is unknown, yet known to be, will always be more or lessformidable. When it is known as immeasurably greater than we, and ashaving claims and making demands upon us, the more vaguely these areapprehended, the more room is there for anxiety; and when theconscience is not clear, this anxiety may well mount to terror. According to the nature of the mind which occupies itself with the ideaof the Supreme, whether regarded as maker or ruler, will be the kindand degree of the terror. To this terror need belong no exalted ideasof God; those fear him most who most imagine him like their own evilselves, only beyond them in power, easily able to work his arbitrarywill with them. That they hold him but a little higher than themselves, tends nowise to unity with him: who so far apart as those on the samelevel of hate and distrust? Power without love, dependence where is norighteousness, wake a worship without devotion, a loathliness ofservile flattery. Neither, where the notion of God is better, but theconscience is troubled, will his goodness do much to excludeapprehension. The same consciousness of evil and of offence which gaverise to the bloody sacrifice, is still at work in the minds of most whocall themselves Christians. Naturally the first emotion of man towardsthe being he calls God, but of whom he knows so little, is fear. 

Where it is possible that fear should exist, it is well it shouldexist, cause continual uneasiness, and be cast out by nothing less thanlove. In him who does not know God, and must be anything but satisfiedwith himself, fear towards God is as reasonable as it is natural, andserves powerfully towards the development of his true humanity. Neitherthe savage, nor the self-sufficient sage, is rightly human. It mattersnothing whether we regard the one or the other as degenerate or asundeveloped--neither I say is human; the humanity is there, but has tobe born in each, and for this birth everything natural must do itspart; fear is natural, and has a part to perform nothing but itselfcould perform in the birth of the true humanity. Until love, which isthe truth towards God, is able to cast out fear, it is well that fearshould hold; it is a bond, however poor, between that which is and thatwhich creates--a bond that must be broken, but a bond that can bebroken only by the tightening of an infinitely closer bond. Verily, Godmust be terrible to those that are far from him; for they fear he willdo, yea, he is doing with them what they do not, cannot desire, and canill endure. Such as many men are, such as all without God would become, they must prefer a devil, because of his supreme selfishness, to a Godwho will die for his creatures, and insists upon giving himself tothem, insists upon their being unselfish and blessed like himself. Thatwhich is the power and worth of life they must be, or die; and thevague consciousness of this makes them afraid. They love their poorexistence as it is; God loves it as it must be--and they fear him. 

The false notions of men of low, undeveloped nature both with regard towhat is good and what the Power requires of them, are such that theycannot but fear, and devotion is lost in the sacrifices ofingratiation: God takes them where they are, accepts whatever theyhonestly offer, and so helps them to outgrow themselves, preparing themto offer the true offering, and to know him whom they ignorantlyworship. He will not abolish their fear except with the truth of hisown being. Till they apprehend that, and in order that they may come toapprehend it, he receives their sacrifices of blood, the invention oftheir sore need, only influencing for the time the modes of them. Hewill destroy the lie that is not all a lie only by the truth which isall true. Although he loves them utterly, he does not tell them thereis nothing in him to make them afraid. That would be to drive them fromhim for ever. While they are such as they are, there is much in himthat cannot but affright them; they ought, they do well to fear him. Itis, while they remain what they are, the only true relation betweenthem. To remove that fear from their hearts, save by letting them knowhis love with its purifying fire, a love which for ages, it may be, they cannot know, would be to give them up utterly to the power ofevil. Persuade men that fear is a vile thing, that it is an insult toGod, that he will none of it--while yet they are in love with their ownwill, and slaves to every movement of passionate impulse, and what willthe consequence be? That they will insult God as a discarded idol, asuperstition, a falsehood, as a thing under whose evil influence theyhave too long groaned, a thing to be cast out and spit upon. After thathow much will they learn of him? Nor would it be long ere the old fearwould return--with this difference, perhaps, that instead of tremblingbefore a live energy, they would tremble before powers which formerlythey regarded as inanimate, and have now endowed with souls after theimagination of their fears. Then would spiritual chaos with all itsmonsters be come again. God being what he is, a God who lovesrighteousness; a God who, rather than do an unfair thing, would laydown his Godhead, and assert himself in ceasing to be; a God who, thathis creature might not die of ignorance, died as much as a God coulddie, and that is divinely more than man can die, to give him himself;such a God, I say, may well look fearful from afar to the creature whorecognizes in himself no imperative good; who fears only suffering, andhas no aspiration--only wretched ambition! But in proportion as such acreature comes nearer, grows towards him in and for whose likeness hewas begun; in proportion, that is, as the eternal right begins todisclose itself to him; in proportion as he becomes capable of the ideathat his kind belongs to him as he could never belong to himself;approaches the capacity of seeing and understanding that hisindividuality can be perfected only in the love of his neighbour, andthat his being can find its end only in oneness with the source fromwhich it came; in proportion, I do not say as he sees these things, butas he nears the possibility of seeing them, will his terror at the Godof his life abate; though far indeed from surmising the bliss thatawaits him, he is drawing more nigh to the goal of his nature, thecentral secret joy of sonship to a God who loves righteousness andhates iniquity, does nothing he would not permit in his creature, demands nothing of his creature he would not do himself. 

The fire of God, which is his essential being, his love, his creativepower, is a fire unlike its earthly symbol in this, that it is only ata distance it burns--that the farther from him, it burns the worse, andthat when we turn and begin to approach him, the burning begins tochange to comfort, which comfort will grow to such bliss that the heartat length cries out with a gladness no other gladness can reach, 'Whomhave I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desirebesides thee!' The glory of being, the essence of life and its joy, shining upon the corrupt and deathly, must needs, like the sun, consumethe dead, and send corruption down to the dust; that which it burns inthe soul is not of the soul, yea, is at utter variance with it; yet soclose to the soul is the foul fungous growth sprung from and subsistingupon it, that the burning of it is felt through every spiritual nerve:when the evil parasites are consumed away, that is when the man yieldshis self and all that self's low world, and returns to his lord andGod, then that which, before, he was aware of only as burning, he willfeel as love, comfort, strength--an eternal, ever-growing life in him. For now he lives, and life cannot hurt life; it can only hurt death, which needs and ought to be destroyed. God is life essential, eternal, and death cannot live in his sight; for death is corruption, and has noexistence in itself, living only in the decay of the things of life. Ifthen any child of the father finds that he is afraid before him, thatthe thought of God is a discomfort to him, or even a terror, let himmake haste--let him not linger to put on any garment, but rush at oncein his nakedness, a true child, for shelter from his own evil and God'sterror, into the salvation of the Father's arms, the home whence he wassent that he might learn that it was home. What father being evil wouldit not win to see the child with whom he was vexed running to hisembrace? how much more will not the Father of our spirits, who seeksnothing but his children themselves, receive him with open arms!

Self, accepted as the law of self, is the one demon-enemy of life; Godis the only Saviour from it, and from all that is not God, for God islife, and all that is not God is death. Life is the destruction ofdeath, of all that kills, of all that is of death's kind. 

When John saw the glory of the Son of Man, he fell at his feet as onedead. In what way John saw him, whether in what we vaguely call avision, or in as human a way as when he leaned back on his bosom andlooked up in his face, I do not now care to ask: it would take allglorious shapes of humanity to reveal Jesus, and he knew the right wayto show himself to John. It seems to me that such words as were spokencan have come from the mouth of no mere vision, can have been allowedto enter no merely tranced ear, that the mouth of the very Lord himselfspoke them, and that none but the living present Jesus could havespoken or may be supposed to speak them; while plainly John receivedand felt them as a message he had to give again. There are also, strangely as the whole may affect us, various points in his descriptionof the Lord's appearance which commend themselves even to our ignoranceby their grandeur and fitness. Why then was John overcome with terror?We recall the fact that something akin to terror overwhelmed the mindsof the three disciples who saw his glory on the mount; but since thenJohn had leaned on the bosom of his Lord, had followed him to thejudgment seat and had not denied his name, had borne witness to hisresurrection and suffered for his sake--and was now 'in the isle thatis called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus:' why, I say, was he, why should he be afraid? No glory even of God _should_breed terror; when a child of God is afraid, it is a sign that the word_Father_ is not yet freely fashioned by the child's spiritual mouth. The glory can breed terror only in him who is capable of beingterrified by it; while he is such it is well the terror should be bredand maintained, until the man seek refuge from it in the only placewhere it is not--in the bosom of the glory. 

There is one point not distinguishable in the Greek: whether is meant, 'one like unto _the_ Son of Man, ' or, 'one like unto _a_ son of Man:'the authorized version has the former, the revised prefers the latter. I incline to the former, and think that John saw him like the man hehad known so well, and that it was the too much glory, dimming hisvision, that made him unsure, not any perceived unlikeness minglingwith the likeness. Nothing blinds so much as light, and their veryglory might well render him unable to distinguish plainly the familiarfeatures of _The_ Son of Man. 

But the appearance of The Son of Man was not intended to breed terrorin the son of man to whom he came. Why then was John afraid? why didthe servant of the Lord fall at his feet as one dead? Joy to us that hedid, for the words that follow--surely no phantasmic outcome ofuncertain vision or blinding terror! They bear best sign of theirsource: however given to his ears, they must be from the heart of ourgreat Brother, the one Man, Christ Jesus, divinely human!

It was still and only the imperfection of the disciple, unfinished infaith, so unfinished in everything a man needs, that was the cause ofhis terror. This is surely implied in the words the Lord said to himwhen he fell! The thing that made John afraid, he speaks of as thething that ought to have taken from him all fear. For the glory that hesaw, the head and hair pouring from it such a radiance of light thatthey were white as white wool--snow-white, as his garments on mountHermon; in the midst of the radiance his eyes like a flame of fire, andhis countenance as the sun shineth in his strength; the darker glow ofthe feet, yet as of fine brass burning in a furnace--as if they, inmemory of the twilight of his humiliation, touching the earth took ahumbler glory than his head high in the empyrean of undisturbedperfection; the girdle under his breast, golden between the snow andthe brass;--what were they all but the effulgence of his glory who washimself the effulgence of the Father's, the poor expression of theunutterable verity which was itself the reason why John ought not to beafraid?--'He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; Iam the first and the last, and the living one. '

Endless must be our terror, until we come heart to heart with the fire-core of the universe, the first and the last and the living one!

But oh, the joy to be told, by Power himself, the first and the last, the living one--told what we can indeed then see _must_ be true, butwhich we are so slow to believe--that the cure for trembling is thepresence of Power; that fear cannot stand before Strength; that thevisible God is the destruction of death; that the one and only safetyin the universe, is the perfect nearness of the Living One! God isbeing; death is nowhere! What a thing to be taught by the very mouth ofhim who knows! He told his servant Paul that strength is made perfectin weakness; here he instructs his servant John that the thing to beafraid of is weakness, not strength. All appearances of strength, suchas might rightly move terror, are but false appearances; the trueStrong is the _One_, even as the true Good is the _One_. The Living Onehas the power of life; the Evil One but the power of death--whose verynature is a self-necessity for being destroyed. 

But the glory of the mildest show of the Living One is such, that eventhe dearest of his apostles, the best of the children of men, is cowedat the sight. He has not yet learned that glory itself is a part of hisinheritance, yea is of the natural condition of his being; that thereis nothing in the man made in the image of God alien from the mostglorious of heavenly shows: he has not learned this yet, and falls asdead before it--when lo, the voice of him that was and is and is forevermore, telling him not to be afraid--for the very reason, the oneonly reason, that he is the first and the last, the living one! Forwhat shall be the joy, the peace, the completion of him that lives, butclosest contact with his Life?--a contact close as ere he issued fromthat Life, only in infinitely higher kind, inasmuch as it is now willedon _both_ sides. He who has had a beginning, needs the indwelling powerof that beginning to make his being complete--not merely complete tohis consciousness, but complete in itself--justified, rounded, endedwhere it began--with an 'endless ending. ' Then is it complete even asGod's is complete, for it is one with the self-existent, blossoming inthe air of that world wherein it is rooted, wherein it lives and grows. Far indeed from trembling because he on whose bosom he had leaned whenthe light of his love was all but shut in now stands with the glory ofthat love streaming forth, John Boanerges ought to have felt the morejoyful and safe as the strength of the living one was more manifested. It was never because Jesus was clothed in the weakness of the fleshthat he was fit to be trusted, but because he was strong with astrength able to take the weakness of the flesh for the garment whereinit could best work its work: that strength was now shining out with itsown light, so lately pent within the revealing veil. Had John been asclose in spirit to the Son of Man as he had been in bodily presence, hewould have indeed fallen at his feet, but not as one dead--as one toofull of joy to stand before the life that was feeding his; he wouldhave fallen, but not to lie there senseless with awe the most holy; hewould have fallen to embrace and kiss the feet of him who had now asecond time, as with a resurrection from above, arisen before him, inyet heavenlier plenitude of glory. 

It is the man of evil, the man of self-seeking design, not he who wouldfain do right, not he who, even in his worst time, would at once submitto the word of the Master, who is reasonably afraid of power. When Godis no longer the ruler of the world, and there is a stronger than he;when there is might inherent in evil, and making-energy in that whosenature is destruction; then will be the time to stand in dread ofpower. But even then the bad man would have no security against thechance of crossing some scheme of the lawless moment, wheredisintegration is the sole unity of plan, and being ground up anddestroyed for some no-idea of the Power of darkness. And then would bethe time for the good--no, not to tremble, but to resolve with the Lordof light to endure all, to let every billow of evil dash and break uponhim, nor do the smallest ill, tell the whitest lie for God--knowingthat any territory so gained could belong to no kingdom of heaven, could be but a province of the kingdom of darkness. If there were twopowers, the one of evil, the other of good, as men have not unnaturallyin ignorance imagined, his sense of duty would reveal the being born ofthe good power, while he born of the evil could have no choice but beevil. But Good only can create; and if Evil were ever so much thestronger, the duty of men would remain the same--to hold by the LivingOne, and defy Power to its worst--like Prometheus on his rock, defyingJove, and for ever dying--thus for ever foiling the Evil. For Evil candestroy only itself and its own; it could destroy no enemy--could atworst but cause a succession of deaths, from each of which the defiantsoul would rise to loftier defiance, to more victorious endurance--until at length it laughed Evil in the face, and the demon-god shrunkwithered before it. In those then who believe that good is the onepower, and that evil exists only because for a time it subserves, cannot help subserving the good, what place can there be for fear? Thestrong and the good are one; and if our hope coincides with that ofGod, if it is rooted in his will, what should we do but rejoice in theeffulgent glory of the First and the Last?

The First and the Last is the inclosing defence of the castle of ourbeing; the Master is before and behind; he began, he will see that itbe endless. He garrisons the place; he is the living, the live-makingone. 

The reason then for not fearing before God is, that he is all-glorious, all-perfect. Our being needs the all-glorious, all-perfect God. Thechildren can do with nothing less than the Father; they need theinfinite one. Beyond all wherein the poor intellect can descry order;beyond all that the rich imagination can devise; beyond all thathungriest heart could long, fullest heart thank for--beyond all these, as the heavens are higher than the earth, rise the thought, thecreation, the love of the God who is in Christ, his God and our God, his Father and our Father. 

Ages before the birth of Jesus, while, or at least where yet even Mosesand his law were unknown, the suffering heart of humanity saw and waspersuaded that nowhere else lay its peace than with the first, thelast, the living one:--

 _O that thou woudest hide me in the grave, . .. And remember me!. .. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands_. 

 THE VOICE OF JOB. 

 '_O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keepme secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a settime, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the daysof my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thinehands_. '--Job xiv. 13-15. 

The book of Job seems to me the most daring of poems: from a positionof the most vantageless realism, it assaults the very citadel of theideal! Its hero is a man seated among the ashes, covered with loathsomeboils from head to foot, scraping himself with a potsherd. Sore inbody, sore in mind, sore in heart, sore in spirit, he is the instance-type of humanity in the depths of its misery--all the waves and billowsof a world of adverse circumstance rolling free over its head. I wouldnot be supposed to use the word _humanity_ either in the abstract, orof the mass concrete; I mean the humanity of the individual endlesslyrepeated: Job, I say, is _the human being_--a centre to the sickeningassaults of pain, the ghastly invasions of fear: these, one time oranother, I presume, threaten to overwhelm every man, reveal him tohimself as enslaved to the external, and stir him up to find some wayout into the infinite, where alone he can rejoice in the liberty thatbelongs to his nature. Seated in the heart of a leaden despair, Jobcries aloud to the Might unseen, scarce known, which yet he regards asthe God of his life. But no more that of a slave is his cry, than thedefiance of Prometheus hurled at Jupiter from his rock. He is moreoverwhelmed than the Titan, for he is in infinite perplexity as well aspain; but no more than in that of Prometheus is there a trace of thecowardly in his cry. Before the Judge he asserts his innocence, andwill not grovel--knowing indeed that to bear himself so would be toinsult the holy. He feels he has not deserved such suffering, and willneither tell nor listen to lies for God. 

Prometheus is more stonily patient than Job. Job is nothing of a Stoic, but bemoans himself like a child--a brave child who seems to himself tosuffer wrong, and recoils with horror-struck bewilderment from theunreason of the thing. Prometheus has to do with a tyrant whom hedespises, before whom therefore he endures with unbewailingunsubmission, upheld by the consciousness that he is fighting thebattle of humanity against an all but all-powerful Selfishness:endurance is the only availing weapon against him, and he will endureto the ever-delayed end! Job, on the other hand, is the more troubledbecause it is He who is at the head and the heart, who is the beginningand the end of things, that has laid his hand upon him with such aheavy torture that he takes his flesh in his teeth for pain. He cannot, will not believe _him_ a tyrant; but, while he pleads against hisdealing with himself, loves him, and looks to him as the source oflife, the power and gladness of being. He dares not think God unjust, but not therefore can he allow that he has done anything to merit thetreatment he is receiving at his hands. Hence is he of necessity inprofoundest perplexity, for how can the two things be reconciled? Thethought has not yet come to him that that which it would be unfair tolay upon him as punishment, may yet be laid upon him as favour--by alove supreme which would give him blessing beyond all possible prayer--blessing he would not dare to ask if he saw the means necessary to itsgiving, but blessing for which, once known and understood, he would bewilling to endure yet again all that he had undergone. Therefore is heso sorely divided in himself. While he must not think of God as havingmistaken him, the discrepancy that looks like mistake forces itselfupon him through every channel of thought and feeling. He had nowiserelaxed his endeavour after a godly life, yet is the hand of the God hehad acknowledged in all his ways uplifted against him, as rarelyagainst any transgressor!--nor against him alone, for his sons anddaughters have been swept away like a generation of vipers! Thepossessions, which made him the greatest of all the men of the east, have been taken from him by fire and wind and the hand of the enemy! Heis poor as the poorest, diseased as the vilest, bereft of the childrenwhich were his pride and his strength! The worst of all with which fearcould have dismayed him is come upon him; and worse now than all, deathis denied him! His prayer that, as he came naked from the womb, so hemay return naked and sore to the bosom of the earth, is not heard; heis left to linger in self-loathing, to encounter at every turn ofagonized thought the awful suggestion that God has cast him off! Hedoes not deny that there is evil in him; for--'Dost thou open thineeyes upon such an one, ' he pleads, 'and bringest _me_ into judgmentwith _thee_?' but he does deny that he has been a wicked man, a doer ofthe thing he knew to be evil: he does deny that there is any guile inhim. And who, because he knows and laments the guile in himself, willdare deny that there was once a Nathanael in the world? Had Job beenCalvinist or Lutheran, the book of Job would have been very different. His perplexity would then have been--how God being just, could requireof a man more than he could do, and punish him as if his sin were thatof a perfect being who chose to do the evil of which he knew all theenormity. For me, I will call no one Master but Christ--and from him Ilearn that his quarrel with us is that we will not do what we know, will not come to him that we may have life. How endlessly more powerfulwith men would be expostulation grounded, not on what they have done, but on what they will not do!

Job's child-like judgment of God had never been vitiated and perverted, to the dishonouring of the great Father, by any taint of such lowtheories as, alas! we must call the popular: explanations of God's waysby such as did not understand _Him_, they are acceptable to such as donot care to know him, such as are content to stand afar off and stareat the cloud whence issue the thunders and the voices; but a burdenthreatening to sink them to Tophet, a burden grievous to be borne, tosuch as would arise and go to the Father. The contradiction betweenJob's idea of the justice of God and the things which had befallen him, is constantly haunting him; it has a sting in it far worse than all theother misery with which he is tormented; but it is not fixed in thehopelessness of hell by an accepted explanation more frightful thanitself. Let the world-sphinx put as many riddles as she will, she candevour no man while he waits an answer from the world-redeemer. Jobrefused the explanation of his friends because he knew it false; tohave accepted such as would by many in the present day be given him, would have been to be devoured at once of the monster. He simply holdson to the skirt of God's garment--besieges his door--keeps putting hisquestion again and again, ever haunting the one source of true answerand reconciliation. No answer will do for him but the answer that Godonly can give; for who but God can justify God's ways to his creature?

From a soul whose very consciousness is contradiction, we must not lookfor logic; misery is rarely logical; it is itself a discord; yet is itnothing less than natural that, _feeling_ as if God wronged him, Jobshould yet be ever yearning after a sight of God, straining into hispresence, longing to stand face to face with him. He would confront theOne. He is convinced, or at least cherishes as his one hope the idea, that, if he could but get God to listen to him, if he might but lay hiscase clear before him, God would not fail to see how the thing was, andwould explain the matter to him--would certainly give him peace; theman in the ashes would know that the foundations of the world yet standsure; that God has not closed his eyes, or--horror of all horrors--ceased to be just! Therefore would he order his words before him, andhear what God had to say; surely the Just would set the mind of hisjustice-loving creature at rest!

His friends, good men, religious men, but of the pharisaic type--thatis, men who would pay their court to God, instead of coming into hispresence as children; men with traditional theories which have servedtheir poor turn, satisfied their feeble intellectual demands, theythink others therefore must accept or perish; men anxious to appeaseGod rather than trust in him; men who would rather receive salvationfrom God, than God their salvation--these his friends would persuadeJob to the confession that he was a hypocrite, insisting that suchthings could not have come upon him but because of wickedness, and asthey knew of none open, it must be for some secret vileness. They growangry with him when he refuses to be persuaded against his knowledge ofhimself. They insist on his hypocrisy, he on his righteousness. Nor maywe forget that herein lies not any overweening on the part of Job, forthe poem prepares us for the right understanding of the man by tellingus in the prologue, that God said thus to the accuser of men: 'Hastthou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in theearth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, andescheweth evil?' God gives Job into Satan's hand with confidence in theresult; and at the end of the trial approves of what Job has saidconcerning himself. But the very appearance of God is enough to makeJob turn against himself: his part was to have trusted God altogether, in spite of every appearance, in spite of every reality! He willjustify himself no more. He sees that though God has not been punishinghim for his sins, yet is he far from what he ought to be, and mustbecome: 'Behold, ' he says, 'I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I willlay mine hand upon my mouth. '

But let us look a little closer at Job's way of thinking and speakingabout God, and his manner of addressing him--so different from thepharisaic in all ages, in none more than in our own. 

Waxing indignant at the idea that his nature required such treatment--'Am I a sea or a whale, ' he cries out, 'that thou settest a watch overme?' _Thou knowest that I am not wicked_. 'Thou settest a print uponthe heels of my feet!'--_that the way I have gone may be known by myfootprints!_ To his friends he cries: 'Will ye speak wickedly for God?and talk deceitfully for him?' _Do you not know that I am the man Isay?_ 'Will ye accept His person?'--_siding with Him against me?_ 'Willye contend for God?'--_be special pleaders for him, his partisains_?'Is it good that He should search you out? or as one man mockethanother, do ye so mock Him?'--_saying what you do not think_? 'He willsurely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons!'--_even theperson of God himself_!

Such words are pleasing in the ear of the father of spirits. He is nota God to accept the flattery which declares him above obligation to hiscreatures; a God to demand of them a righteousness different from hisown; a God to deal ungenerously with his poverty-stricken children; aGod to make severest demands upon his little ones! Job is confident ofreceiving justice. There is a strange but most natural conflict offeeling in him. His faith is in truth profound, yet is he alwayscomplaining. It is but the form his faith takes in his trouble. Evenwhile he declares the hardness and unfitness of the usage he isreceiving, he yet seems assured that, to get things set right, all heneeds is admission to the presence of God--an interview with the MostHigh. To be heard must be to have justice. He uses language which, usedby any living man, would horrify the religious of the present day, inproportion to the lack of truth in them, just as it horrified his threefriends, the honest pharisees of the time, whose religion was'doctrine' and rebuke. God speaks not a word of rebuke to Job for thefreedom of his speech:--he has always been seeking such as Job toworship him. It is those who know only and respect the outsides ofreligion, such as never speak or think of God but as the _Almighty_ or_Providence_, who will say of the man who would go close up to God, andspeak to him out of the deepest in the nature he has made, 'he isirreverent. ' To utter the name of God in the drama--highest of humanarts, is with such men blasphemy. They pay court to God, not love him;they treat him as one far away, not as the one whose bosom is the onlyhome. They accept God's person. 'Shall not his excellency'--anotherthing quite than that you admire--'make you afraid? Shall not hisdread'--another thing quite than that to which you show your paganrespect--'fall upon you?'

In the desolation of this man, the truth of God seems to him, yet moreplainly than hitherto, the one thing that holds together the worldwhich by the word of his mouth came first into being. If God be notaccessible, nothing but despair and hell are left the man so lately thegreatest in the east. Like a child escaping from the dogs of thestreet, he flings the door to the wall, and rushes, nor looks behindhim, to seek the presence of the living one. Bearing with him theburden of his death, he cries, 'Look what thou hast laid upon me! Shallmortal man, the helpless creature thou hast made, bear cross likethis?' He would cast his load at the feet of his maker!--God is the Godof comfort, known of man as the refuge, the life-giver, or not known atall. But alas! he cannot come to him! Nowhere can he see his face! Hehas hid himself from him! 'Oh that I knew where I might find him! thatI might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, andfill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he wouldanswer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he pleadagainst me with his great power? No! but he would put strength in me. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be deliveredfor ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; andbackward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he dothwork, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: but he knoweth the way that I take: when he hathtried me, I shall come forth as gold. '

He cannot find him! Yet is he in his presence all the time, and hiswords enter into the ear of God his Saviour. 

The grandeur of the poem is that Job pleads his cause with God againstall the remonstrance of religious authority, recognizing no one butGod, and justified therein. And the grandest of all is this, that heimplies, if he does not actually say, that God _owes_ something to hiscreature. This is the beginning of the greatest discovery of all--thatGod owes _himself_ to the creature he has made in his image, for so hehas made him incapable of living without him. This, his creatures'highest claim upon him, is his divinest gift to them. For thefulfilling of this their claim he has sent his son, that he mayhimself, the father of him and of us, follow into our hearts. Perhapsthe worst thing in a theology constructed out of man's dull _possible_, and not out of the being and deeds and words of Jesus Christ, is theimpression it conveys throughout that God acknowledges no suchobligation. Are not we the clay, and he the potter? how can the clayclaim from the potter? We are the clay, it is true, but _his_ clay, butspiritual clay, live clay, with needs and desires--and _rights_; we areclay, but clay worth the Son of God's dying for, that it might learn toconsent to be shaped unto honour. We can have no merits--a _merit_ is athing impossible; but God has given us rights. Out of him we havenothing; but, created by him, come forth from him, we have even rightstowards him--ah, never, never _against_ him! his whole desire andlabour is to make us capable of claiming, and induce us to claim of himthe things whose rights he bestowed in creating us. No claim had we tobe created: that involves an absurdity; but, being made, we have claimson him who made us: our needs are our claims. A man who will notprovide for the hunger of his child, is condemned by the whole world. 

'Ah, but, ' says the partisan of God, 'the Almighty stands in a relationvery different from that of an earthly father: there is no parallel. ' Igrant it: there is no parallel. The man did not create the child, heonly yielded to an impulse created in himself: God is infinitely morebound to provide for _his_ child than any man is to provide for his. The relation is infinitely, divinely closer. It is God to whom everyhunger, every aspiration, every desire, every longing of our nature isto be referred; he made all our needs--made us the creatures of athousand necessities--and have we no claim on him? Nay, we have claimsinnumerable, infinite; and his one great claim on us is that we shouldclaim our claims of him. 

It is terrible to represent God as unrelated to us in the way of appealto his righteousness. How should he be righteous without owing usanything? How would there be any right for the judge of all the earthto do if he owed nothing? Verily he owes us nothing that he does notpay like a God; but it is of the devil to imagine imperfection anddisgrace in obligation. So far is God from thinking so that in everyact of his being he lays himself under obligation to his creatures. Oh, the grandeur of his goodness, and righteousness, and fearlessunselfishness! When doubt and dread invade, and the voice of love inthe soul is dumb, what can please the father of men better than to hearhis child cry to him from whom he came, 'Here I am, O God! Thou hastmade me: give me that which thou hast made me needing. ' The child'snecessity, his weakness, his helplessness, are the strongest of all hisclaims. If I am a whale, I can claim a sea; if I am a sea, I claim roomto roll, and break in waves after my kind; if I am a lion, I seek mymeat from God; am I a child, this, beyond all other claims, I claim--that, if any of my needs are denied me, it shall be by the love of afather, who will let me see his face, and allow me to plead my causebefore him. And this must be just what God desires! What would he have, but that his children should claim their father? To what end are allhis dealings with them, all his sufferings with and for and in them, but that they should claim their birthright? Is not their birthrightwhat he made them for, made in them when he made them? Is it not whathe has been putting forth his energy to give them ever since first hebegan them to be--the divine nature, God himself? The child has, andmust have, a claim on the father, a claim which it is the joy of thefather's heart to acknowledge. A created need is a created claim. Godis the origin of both need and supply, the father of our necessities, the abundant giver of the good things. Right gloriously he meets theclaims of his child! The story of Jesus is the heart of his answer, notprimarily to the prayers, but to the divine necessities of the childrenhe has sent out into his universe. 

Away with the thought that God could have been a perfect, an adorablecreator, doing anything less than he has done for his children! thatany other kind of being than Jesus Christ could have been worthy ofall-glorifying worship! that his nature demanded less of him than hehas done! that his nature is not absolute love, absoluteself-devotion--could have been without these highest splendours!

In the light of this truth, let us then look at the words at the headof this sermon: '_Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave_!' Jobappeals to his creator, whom his sufferings compel him to regard asdispleased with him, though he knows not why. _We_ know he was notdispleased but Job had not read the preface to his own story. He prayshim to hide him, and forget him for a time, that the desire of themaker to look again upon the creature he had made, to see once more thework of his hands, may awake within him; that silence and absence andloss may speak for the buried one, and make the heart of the parentremember and long after the face of the child; then 'thou shalt calland I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thinehands;' then will he rise in joy, to plead with confidence the cause ofhis righteousness. For God is nigher to the man than is anything Godhas made: what can be closer than the making and the made? that whichis, and that which is because the other is? that which wills, and thatwhich answers, owing to the will, the heart, the desire of the other, its power to answer? What other relation imaginable could give claimsto compare with those arising from such a relation? God must love hiscreature that looks up to him with hungry eyes--hungry for life, foracknowledgment, for justice, for the possibilities of living that lifewhich the making life has made him alive for the sake of living. Thewhole existence of a creature is a unit, an entirety of claim upon hiscreator:--just _therefore_, let him do with me as he will--even toseating me in the ashes, and seeing me scrape myself with a potsherd!--not the less but ever the more will I bring forward my claim! assertit--insist on it--assail with it the ear and the heart of the father. Is it not the sweetest music ear of maker can hear?--except the word ofperfect son, 'Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!' We, imperfect sons, shall learn to say the same words too: that we may grow capable and saythem, and so enter into our birthright, yea, become partakers of thedivine nature in its divinest element, that Son came to us--died forthe slaying of our selfishness, the destruction of our mean hollowpride, the waking of our childhood. We are his father's debtors for ourneeds, our rights, our claims, and he will have us pay the uttermostfarthing. Yes, so true is the Father, he will even compel us, throughmisery if needful, to put in our claims, for he knows we have eternalneed of these things: without the essential rights of his being, whocan live?

I protest, therefore, against all such teaching as, originating in andfostered by the faithlessness of the human heart, gives the impressionthat the exceeding goodness of God towards man is not the natural andnecessary outcome of his being. The root of every heresy popular in thechurch draws its nourishment merely and only from the soil of unbelief. The idea that God would be God all the same, as glorious as he neededto be, had he not taken upon himself the divine toil of bringing homehis wandered children, had he done nothing to seek and save the lost, is false as hell. Lying for God could go no farther. As if the idea ofGod admitted of his being less than he is, less than perfect, less thanall-in-all, less than Jesus Christ! less than Love absolute, less thanentire unselfishness! As if the God revealed to us in the New Testamentwere not his own perfect necessity of loving-kindness, but one who hasmade himself better than, by his own nature, by his own love, by thelaws which he willed the laws of his existence, he needed to be! Theywould have it that, being unbound, he deserves the greater homage! Soit might be, if he were not our father. But to think of the living Godnot as our father, but as one who has condescended greatly, beingnowise, in his own willed grandeur of righteous nature, bound to do ashe has done, is killing to all but a slavish devotion. It is to thinkof him as nothing like the God we see in Jesus Christ. 

It will be answered that we have fallen, and God is thereby freed fromany obligation, if any ever were. It is but another lie. No amount ofwrong-doing in a child can ever free a parent from the divine necessityof doing all he can to deliver his child; the bond between them cannotbe broken. It is the vulgar, slavish, worldly idea of freedom, that itconsists in being bound to nothing. Not such is God's idea of liberty!To speak as a man--the more of vital obligation he lays on himself, themore children he creates, with the more claims upon him, the freer ishe as creator and giver of life, which is the essence of his Godhead:to make scope for his essence is to be free. Our Lord teaches us thatthe truth, known by obedience to him, will make us free: our freedomlies in living the truth of our relations to God and man. For a man tobe alone in the universe would be to be a slave to unspeakable longingsand lonelinesses. And again to speak after the manner of men: God couldnot be satisfied with himself without doing all that a God and Fathercould do for the creatures he had made--that is, without doing justwhat he has done, what he is doing, what he will do, to deliver hissons and daughters, and bring them home with rejoicing. To answer thecry of the human heart, 'Would that I could see him! would that I mightcome before him, and look upon him face to face!' he sent his son, theexpress image of his person. And again, that we might not be limited inour understanding of God by the constant presence to our weak anddullable spiritual sense of any embodiment whatever, he took him away. Having seen him, in his absence we understand him better. That we mightknow him he came; that we might go to him he went. If we dare, likeJob, to plead with him in any of the heart-eating troubles that arisefrom the impossibility of loving such misrepresentation of him as isheld out to us to love by our would-be teachers; if we think and speakout before him that which seems to us to be right, will he not beheartily pleased with his children's love of righteousness--with thetruth that will not part him and his righteousness? Verily he will notplead against us with his great power, but will put strength in us, andwhere we are wrong will instruct us. For the heart that wants to do andthink aright, the heart that seeks to worship him as no tyrant, but asthe perfectly, absolutely righteous God, is the delight of the Father. To the heart that will not call that righteousness which it feels to beunjust, but clings to the skirt of his garment, and lifts pleading eyesto his countenance--to that heart he will lay open the riches of hisbeing--riches which it has not entered that heart to conceive. 'O Lord, they tell me I have so offended against thy law that, as I am, thoucanst not look upon me, but threatenest me with eternal banishment fromthy presence. But if thou look not upon me, how can I ever be otherthan I am? Lord, remember I was born in sin: how then can I see sin asthou seest it? Remember, Lord, that I have never known myself clean:how can I cleanse myself? Thou must needs take me as I am and cleanseme. Is it not impossible that I should behold the final goodness ofgood, the final evilness of evil? how then can I deserve eternaltorment? Had I known good and evil, seeing them as thou seest them, then chosen the evil, and turned away from the good, I know not what Ishould not deserve; but thou knowest it has ever been something good inthe evil that has enticed my selfish heart--nor mine only, but that ofall my kind. Thou requirest of us to forgive: surely thou forgivestfreely! Bound thou mayest be to destroy evil, but art thou bound tokeep the sinner alive that thou mayest punish him, even if it make himno better? Sin cannot be deep as life, for thou art the life; andsorrow and pain go deeper than sin, for they reach to the divine in us:thou canst suffer, though thou wilt not sin. To see men suffer mightmake us shun evil, but it never could make us hate it. We might seethereby that thou hatest sin, but we never could see that thou lovestthe sinner. Chastise us, we pray thee, in loving kindness, and we shallnot faint. We have done much that is evil, yea, evil is very deep inus, but we are not all evil, for we love righteousness; and art notthou thyself, in thy Son, the sacrifice for our sins, the atonement ofout breach? Thou hast made us subject to vanity, but hast thyself takenthy godlike share of the consequences. Could we ever have come to knowgood as thou knowest it, save by passing through the sea of sin and thefire of cleansing? They tell me I must say _for Christ's sake_, or thouwilt not pardon: it takes the very heart out of my poor love to hearthat thou wilt not pardon me except because Christ has loved me; but Igive thee thanks that nowhere in the record of thy gospel, does one ofthy servants say any such word. In spite of all our fears andgrovelling, our weakness, and our wrongs, thou wilt be to us what thouart--such a perfect Father as no most loving child-heart on earth couldinvent the thought of! Thou wilt take our sins on thyself, giving usthy life to live withal. Thou bearest our griefs and carriest oursorrows; and surely thou wilt one day enable us to pay every debt weowe to each other! Thou wilt be to us a right generous, abundantfather! Then truly our hearts shall be jubilant, because thou art whatthou art--infinitely beyond all we could imagine. Thou wilt humble andraise us up. Thou hast given thyself to us that, having thee, we may beeternally alive with thy life. We run within the circle of what mencall thy wrath, and find ourselves clasped in the zone of thy love!'

But be it well understood that when I say _rights_, I do not mean_merits_--of any sort. We can deserve from him nothing at all, in thesense of any right proceeding from ourselves. All our rights are suchas the bounty of love inconceivable has glorified our being with--bestowed for the one only purpose of giving the satisfaction, thefulfilment of the same--rights so deep, so high, so delicate, thattheir satisfaction cannot be given until we desire it--yea long for itwith our deepest desire. The giver of them came to men, lived with men, and died by the hands of men, that they might possess these rightsabundantly: more not God could do to fulfil his part--save indeed whathe is doing still every hour, every moment, for every individual. Ourrights are rights with God himself at the heart of them. He couldrecall them if he pleased, but only by recalling us, by making uscease. While we exist, by the being that is ours, they are ours. If hecould not fulfil our rights to us--because we would not have them, thatis--if he could not make us such as to care for these rights which hehas given us out of the very depth of his creative being, I think hewould have to uncreate us. But as to deserving, that is absurd: he hadto die in the endeavour to make us listen and receive. 'When ye shallhave done all the things that are commanded you, say, We areunprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do. 'Duty is a thing prepaid: it can never have desert. There is no claim onGod that springs from us: all is from him. 

But, lest it should be possible that any unchildlike soul might, inarrogance and ignorance, think to stand upon his rights _against_ God, and demand of him this or that after the will of the flesh, I will laybefore such a possible one some of the things to which he has a right, yea, perhaps has first of all a right to, from the God of his life, because of the beginning he has given him--because of the divine germthat is in him. He has a claim on God, then, a divine claim, for anypain, want, disappointment, or misery, that would help to show him tohimself as the fool he is; he has a claim to be punished to the lastscorpion of the whip, to be spared not one pang that may urge himtowards repentance; yea, he has a claim to be sent out into the outerdarkness, whether what we call hell, or something speechlessly worse, if nothing less will do. He has a claim to be compelled to repent; tobe hedged in on every side; to have one after another of the strong, sharp-toothed sheep-dogs of the great shepherd sent after him, tothwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate him of anyhope, until he come to see at length that nothing will ease his pain, nothing make life a thing worth having, but the presence of the livingGod within him; that nothing is good but the will of God; nothing nobleenough for the desire of the heart of man but oneness with the eternal. For this God must make him yield his very being, that He may enter inand dwell with him. 

That the man would enforce none of these claims, is nothing; for it isnot a man who owes them to him, but the eternal God, who by his ownwill of right towards the creature he has made, is bound to dischargethem. God has to answer to himself for his idea; he has to do with theneed of the nature he made, not with the self-born choice of the self-ruined man. His candle yet burns dim in the man's soul; that candlemust shine as the sun. For what is the all-pervading dissatisfaction ofhis wretched being but an unrecognized hunger after the righteousnessof his father. The soul God made is thus hungering, though the selfish, usurping self, which is its consciousness, is hungering only after lowand selfish things, ever trying, but in vain, to fill its mean, narrowcontent, with husks too poor for its poverty-stricken desires. For eventhat most degraded chamber of the soul which is the temple of thedeified Self, cannot be filled with less than God; even the usurpingSelf must be miserable until it cease to look at itself in the mirrorof Satan, and open the door of its innermost closet to the God whomeans to dwell there, and make peace. 

He that has looked on the face of God in Jesus Christ, whose heartoverflows, if ever so little, with answering love, sees God standingwith full hands to give the abundance for which he created hischildren, and those children hanging back, refusing to take, doubtingthe God-heart which knows itself absolute in truth and love. 

It is not at first easy to see wherein God gives Job any answer; Icannot find that he offers him the least explanation of why he has soafflicted him. He justifies him in his words; he says Job has spokenwhat is right concerning him, and his friends have not; and he calls upbefore him, one after another, the works of his hands. The answer, likesome of our Lord's answers if not all of them, seems addressed to Jobhimself, not to his intellect; to the revealing, God-like imaginationin the man, and to no logical faculty whatever. It consists in asetting forth of the power of God, as seen in his handywork, andwondered at by the men of the time; and all that is said concerningthem has to do with their show of themselves to the eyes of men. Inwhat belongs to the deeper meanings of nature and her mediation betweenus and God, the appearances of nature are the truths of nature, fardeeper than any scientific discoveries in and concerning them. The showof things is that for which God cares _most_, for their show is theface of far deeper things than they; we see in them, in a distant way, as in a glass darkly, the face of the unseen. It is through their show, not through their analysis, that we enter into their deepest truths. What they say to the childlike soul is the truest thing to be gatheredof them. To know a primrose is a higher thing than to know all thebotany of it--just as to know Christ is an infinitely higher thing thanto know all theology, all that is said about his person, or babbledabout his work. The body of man does not exist for the sake of itshidden secrets; its hidden secrets exist for the sake of itsoutside--for the face and the form in which dwells revelation: itsoutside is the deepest of it. So Nature as well exists primarily forher face, her look, her appeals to the heart and the imagination, hersimple service to human need, and not for the secrets to be discoveredin her and turned to man's farther use. What in the name of God is ourknowledge of the elements of the atmosphere to our knowledge of theelements of Nature? What are its oxygen, its hydrogen, its nitrogen, its carbonic acid, its ozone, and all the possible rest, to the blowingof the wind on our faces? What is the analysis of water to the babbleof a running stream? What is any knowledge of things to the heart, beside its child-play with the Eternal! And by an infinitedecomposition we should know nothing more of what a thing really is, for, the moment we decompose it, it ceases to be, and all its meaningis vanished. Infinitely more than astronomy even, which destroysnothing, can do for us, is done by the mere aspect and changes of thevault over our heads. Think for a moment what would be our idea ofgreatness, of God, of infinitude, of aspiration, if, instead of a blue, far withdrawn, light-spangled firmament, we were born and reared undera flat white ceiling! I would not be supposed to depreciate the laboursof science, but I say its discoveries are unspeakably less preciousthan the merest gifts of Nature, those which, from morning to night, wetake unthinking from her hands. One day, I trust, we shall be able toenter into their secrets from within them--by natural contact betweenour heart and theirs. When we are one with God we may well understandin an hour things that no man of science, prosecuting hisinvestigations from the surface with all the aids that keenest humanintellect can supply, would reach in the longest lifetime. Whether suchpower will ever come to any man in this world, or can come only in somestate of existence beyond it, matters nothing to me: the question doesnot interest me; life is one, and things will be then what they arenow; for God is one and the same there and here; and I shall be thesame there I am here, however larger the life with which it may pleasethe Father of my being to endow me. 

The argument implied, not expressed, in the poem, seems to be this--that Job, seeing God so far before him in power, and his works so farbeyond his understanding that they filled him with wonder andadmiration--the vast might of the creation, the times and the seasons, the marvels of the heavens, the springs of the sea, and the gates ofdeath; the animals, their generations and providing, their beauties andinstincts; the strange and awful beasts excelling the rest, behemoth onthe land, leviathan in the sea, creatures, perhaps, now vanished fromthe living world;--that Job, beholding these things, ought to havereasoned that he who could work so grandly beyond his understanding, must certainly use wisdom in things that touched him nearer, thoughthey came no nearer his understanding: 'shall he that contendeth withthe Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it. ''Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me that thoumayest be righteous?' In this world power is no _proof_ ofrighteousness; but was it likely that he who could create should beunrighteous? Did not all he made move the delight of the beholding man?Did such things foreshadow injustice towards the creature he had madein his image? If Job could not search his understanding in thesethings, why should he conclude his own case wrapt in the gloom ofinjustice? Did he understand his own being, history, and destiny?Should not God's ways in these also be beyond his understanding? Mighthe not trust him to do him justice? In such high affairs as the rightsof a live soul, might not matters be involved too high for Job? Themaker of Job was so much greater than Job, that his ways with him mightwell be beyond his comprehension! God's thoughts were higher than histhoughts, as the heavens were higher than the earth!

The true child, the righteous man, will trust absolutely, against allappearances, the God who has created in him the love of righteousness. 

God does not, I say, tell Job why he had afflicted him: he rouses hischild-heart to trust. All the rest of Job's life on earth, I imagine, his slowly vanishing perplexities would yield him ever freshmeditations concerning God and his ways, new opportunities of trustinghim, light upon many things concerning which he had not as yet begun todoubt, added means of growing in all directions into the knowledge ofGod. His perplexities would thus prove of divinest gift. Everything, intruth, which we cannot understand, is a closed book of larger knowledgeand blessedness, whose clasps the blessed perplexity urges us to open. There is, there can be, nothing which is not in itself a righteousintelligibility--whether an intelligibility for us, matters nothing. The awful thing would be, that anything should be in its natureunintelligible: that would be the same as _no God_. That God knows isenough for me; I shall know, if I can know. It would be death to thinkGod did not know; it would be as much as to conclude there was no Godto know. 

How much more than Job are we bound, who know him in his Son as Love, to trust God in all the troubling questions that force themselves uponus concerning the motions and results of things! With all those aboutthe lower animals, with all those about such souls as seem never towake from, or seem again to fall into the sleep of death, we will trusthim. 

In the confusion of Job's thoughts--how could they be other thanconfused, in the presence of the awful contradiction of two such factsstaring each other in the face, that God was just, yet _punishing_ arighteous man as if he were wicked?--while he was not yet able togenerate, or to receive the thought, that approving love itself mightbe inflicting or allowing the torture--that such suffering as his wasgranted only to a righteous man, that he might be made perfect--I canwell imagine that at times, as the one moment he doubted God'srighteousness, and the next cried aloud, 'Though he slay me, yet will Itrust in him, ' there must in the chaos have mingled some element ofdoubt as to the existence of God. Let not such doubt be supposed a yetfurther stage in unbelief. To deny the existence of God may, paradoxical as the statement will at first seem to some, involve lessunbelief than the smallest yielding to doubt of his goodness. I say_yielding_; for a man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow therebyin faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to rouse thehonest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are notyet, but have to be, understood; and theirs in general is theinhospitable reception of angels that do not come in their ownlikeness. Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertaintiesare what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed. In all Job's begging and longing to see God, then, may well be supposed to mingle the mighty desire to be assured ofGod's being. To acknowledge is not to be sure of God. One great pointin the poem is--that when Job hears the voice of God, though it uttersno word of explanation, it is enough to him to hear it: he knows thatGod is, and that he hears the cry of his creature. That he is there, knowing all about him, and what had befallen him, is enough; he needsno more to reconcile seeming contradictions, and the worst ills ofouter life become endurable. Even if Job could not at first follow hisargument of divine probability, God settled everything for him when, byanswering him out of the whirlwind, he showed him that he had notforsaken him. It is true that nothing but a far closer divine presencecan ever make life a thing fit for a son of man--and that for thesimplest of all reasons, that he is made in the image of God, and it isfor him absolutely imperative that he should have in him the reality ofwhich his being is the image: while he has it not in him, his being, his conscious self, is but a mask, a spiritual emptiness; but for thepresent, Job, yielding to God, was calmed and satisfied. Perhaps hecame at length to see that, if anything God could do to him wouldtrouble him so as to make him doubt God--if he knew him so imperfectlywho could do nothing ill, then it was time that he should be sotroubled, that the imperfection of his knowledge of God and his lack offaith in him should be revealed to him--that an earthquake of his beingshould disclose its hollowness, and at the same time bring to thesurface the gold of God that was in him. To know that our faith is weakis the first step towards its strengthening; to be capable ofdistrusting is death; to know that we are, and cry out, is to begin tolive--to begin to be made such that we cannot distrust--such that Godmay do anything with us and we shall never doubt him. Until doubt isimpossible, we are lacking in the true, the childlike knowledge of God;for either God is such that one _may_ distrust him, or he is such thatto distrust him is the greatest injustice of which a man can be guilty. If then we are able to distrust him, either we know God imperfect, orwe do not know him. Perhaps Job learned something like this; anyhow, the result of what he had had to endure was a greater nearness to God. But all that he was required to receive at the moment was the argumentfrom God's loving wisdom in his power, to his loving wisdom ineverything else. For power is a real and a good thing, giving animmediate impression that it proceeds from goodness. Nor, however longit may last after goodness is gone, was it ever born of anything butgoodness. In a very deep sense, power and goodness are one. In thedeepest fact they are one. 

Seeing God, Job forgets all he wanted to say, all he thought he wouldsay if he could but see him. The close of the poem is grandly abrupt. He had meant to order his cause before him; he had longed to see himthat he might speak and defend himself, imagining God as well as hisrighteous friends wrongfully accusing him; but his speech is gone fromhim; he has not a word to say. To justify himself in the presence ofHim who is Righteousness, seems to him what it is--foolishness andworthless labour. If God do not see him righteous, he is not righteous, and may hold his peace. If he is righteous, God knows it better than hedoes himself. Nay, if God do not care to justify him, Job has lost hisinterest in justifying himself. All the evils and imperfections of hisnature rise up before him in the presence of the one pure, the one whois right, and has no selfishness in him. 'Behold, ' he cries, 'I amvile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I willproceed no further. ' Then again, after God has called to witness forhim behemoth and leviathan, he replies, 'I know that thou canst doeverything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is hethat hideth counsel without knowledge?' This question was the word withwhich first God made his presence known to him; and in the mouth of Jobnow repeating the question, it is the humble confession, '_I am thatfoolish man_. '--'Therefore, ' he goes on, 'have I uttered that Iunderstood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. ' He hadnot knowledge enough to have a right to speak. 'Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak:'--In the time to come, he will yet cry--to be taught, not to justify himself. 'I will demand of thee, and declare thou untome. '--The more diligently yet will he seek to know the counsel of God. That he cannot understand will no longer distress him; it will onlyurge him to fresh endeavour after the knowledge of him who in all hisdoings is perfect. 'I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: butnow mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dustand ashes. '

Job had his desire: he saw the face of God--and abhorred himself indust and ashes. He sought justification; he found self-abhorrence. Wasthis punishment? The farthest from it possible. It was the bestthing--to begin with--that the face of God could do for him. Blessedestgift is self-contempt, when the giver of it is the visible glory of theLiving One. For there to see is to partake; to be able to behold thatglory is to live; to turn from and against self is to begin to be pureof heart. Job was in the right when he said that he did not deserve tobe in such wise punished for his sins: neither did he deserve to seethe face of God, yet had he that crown of all gifts given him--and itwas to see himself vile, and abhor himself. By very means of thesufferings against which he had cried out, the living one came near tohim, and he was silent. Oh the divine generosity that will grant us tobe abashed and self-condemned before the Holy!--to come so nigh him asto see ourselves dark spots against his brightness! Verily we must beof his kind, else no show of him could make us feel small and ugly andunclean! Oh the love of the Father, that he should give us to compareourselves with him, and be buried in humility and shame! To be rebukedbefore him is to be his. Good man as Job was, he had never yet beenright near to God; now God has come near to him, has become very realto him; he knows now in very deed that God is he with whom he has todo. He had laid all these troubles upon him that He might through themdraw nigh to him, and enable him to know him. 

Two things are clearly contained in, and manifest from this poem:--thatnot every man deserves for his sins to be punished everlastingly fromthe presence of the Lord; and that the best of men, when he sees theface of God, will know himself vile. God is just, and will never dealwith the sinner as if he were capable of sinning the pure sin; yet ifthe best man be not delivered from himself, that self will sink himinto Tophet. 

Any man may, like Job, plead his cause with God--though possibly it maynot be to like justification: he gives us liberty to speak, and willhear with absolute fairness. But, blessed be God, the one result forall who so draw nigh to him will be--to see him plainly, surely right, the perfect Saviour, the profoundest refuge even from the wrongs oftheir own being, yea, nearer to them always than any wrong they couldcommit; so seeing him, they will abhor themselves, and rejoice in him. And, as the poem indicates, when we turn from ourselves to him, becoming true, that is, being to God and to ourselves what we are, hewill turn again our captivity; they that have sown in tears shall reapin joy; they shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing theirsheaves with them. Then will the waters that rise from God's fountains, run in God's channels. 

For the prosperity that follows upon Job's submission, is theembodiment of a great truth. Although a man must do right if it sendhim to Hades, yea, even were it to send him for ever to hell itself, yet, while the Lord liveth, we need not fear: _all_ good things mustgrow out of and hang upon the one central good, the one law of life--the Will, the One Good. To submit absolutely to him is the only reason:circumstance as well as all being must then bud and blossom as therose. And it will!--what matter whether in this world or the next, ifone day I know my life as a perfect bliss, having neither limitationnor hindrance nor pain nor sorrow more than it can dominate in peaceand perfect assurance?

I care not whether the book of Job be a history or a poem. I think itis both--I do not care how much relatively of each. It was probably, inthe childlike days of the world, a well-known story in the east, whichsome man, whom God had made wise to understand his will and his ways, took up, and told after the fashion of a poet. What its age may be, whocan certainly tell!--it must have been before Moses. I would gladlythrow out the part of Elihu as an interpolation. One in whom, of allmen I have known, I put the greatest trust, said to me once whatamounted to this: 'There is as much difference between the language ofthe rest of the poem and that of Elihu, as between the language ofChaucer and that of Shakspere. '

The poem is for many reasons difficult, and in the original to meinaccessible; but, through all the evident inadequacy of ourtranslation, who can fail to hear two souls, that of the poet and thatof Job, crying aloud with an agonized hope that, let the evil showsaround them be what they may, truth and righteousness are yet the heartof things. The faith, even the hope of Job seems at times on the pointof giving way; he struggles like a drowning man when the billow goesover him, but with the rising of his head his courage revives. Christians we call ourselves!--what would not our faith be, were it asmuch greater than Job's as the word from the mouth of Jesus is mightierthan that he heard out of the whirlwind! Here is a book of faithindeed, ere the law was given by Moses: Grace and Truth have visitedus--but where is our faith?

Friends, our cross may be heavy, and the _via dolorosa_ rough; but wehave claims on God, yea the right to cry to him for help. He has spent, and is spending himself to give us our birthright, which isrighteousness. Though we shall not be condemned for our sins, we cannotbe saved but by leaving them; though we shall not be condemned for thesins that are past, we shall be condemned if we love the darknessrather than the light, and refuse to come to him that we may have life. God is offering us the one thing we cannot live without--his own self:we must make room for him; we must cleanse our hearts that he may comein; we must do as the Master tells us, who knew all about the Fatherand the way to him--_we must deny ourselves, and take up our crossdaily, and follow him_. 

 SELF-DENIAL. 

_'And he said unto all, If any man would come after me, let him denyhimself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoeverwould save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his lifefor my sake, the same shall save it. '_--St. Luke ix. 23, 24. 

Christ is the way out, and the way in; the way from slavery, consciousor unconscious, into liberty; the way from the unhomeliness of thingsto the home we desire but do not know; the way from the stormy skirtsof the Father's garments to the peace of his bosom. To picture him, weneed not only endless figures, but sometimes quite opposing figures: heis not only the door of the sheepfold, but the shepherd of the sheep;he is not only the way, but the leader in the way, the rock thatfollowed, and the captain of our salvation. We must become as littlechildren, and Christ must be born in us; we must learn of him, and theone lesson he has to give is himself: he does first all he wants us todo; he is first all he wants us to be. We must not merely do as he did;we must see things as he saw them, regard them as he regarded them; wemust take the will of God as the very life of our being; we mustneither try to get our own way, nor trouble ourselves as to what may bethought or said of us. The world must be to us as nothing. 

I would not be misunderstood if I may avoid it: when I say _the world_, I do not mean the world God makes and means, yet less the human heartsthat live therein; but the world man makes by choosing the perversionof his own nature--a world apart from and opposed to God's world. By_the world_ I mean all ways of judging, regarding, and thinking, whether political, economical, ecclesiastical, social, or individual, which are not divine, which are not God's ways of thinking, regarding, or judging; which do not take God into account, do not set his willsupreme, as the one only law of life; which do not care for the truthof things, but the customs of society, or the practice of the trade;which heed not what is right, but the usage of the time. Fromeverything that is against the teaching and thinking of Jesus, from theworld in the heart of the best man in it, specially from the world inhis own heart, the disciple must turn to follow him. The first thing inall progress is to leave something behind; to follow him is to leaveone's self behind. 'If any man would come after me, let him denyhimself. '

Some seem to take this to mean that the disciple must go against hislikings because they are his likings; must be unresponsive to thetendencies and directions and inclinations that are his, because theyare such, and his; they seem to think something is gained by abstinencefrom what is pleasant, or by the doing of what is disagreeable--that tothwart the lower nature is in itself a good. Now I will not dare saywhat a man may not get good from, if the thing be done in simplicityand honesty. I believe that when a man, for the sake of doing the thingthat is right, does in mistake that which is not right, God will takecare that he be shown the better way--will perhaps use the very thingwhich is his mistake to reveal to him the mistake it is. I will allowthat the mere effort of will, arbitrary and uninformed of duty, partaking of the character of tyranny and even schism, may add to theman's power over his lower nature; but in that very nature it is Godwho must rule and not the man, however well he may mean. From a man'srule of himself, in smallest opposition, however devout, to the law ofhis being, arises the huge danger of nourishing, by the pride of self-conquest, a far worse than even the unchained animal self--the demoniacself. True victory over self is the victory of God in the man, not ofthe man alone. It is not subjugation that is enough, but subjugation byGod. In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably--orsucceed more miserably. No portion of a man can rule another portion, for God, not the man, created it, and the part is greater than thewhole. In effecting what God does not mean, a man but falls into freshill conditions. In crossing his natural, therefore in themselves rightinclinations, a man may develop a self-satisfaction which in its verynature is a root of all sin. Doing the thing God does not require ofhim, he puts himself in the place of God, becoming not a law but a law-giver to himself, one who commands, not one who obeys. The diseasedsatisfaction which some minds feel in laying burdens on themselves, isa pampering, little as they may suspect it, of the most dangerousappetite of that self which they think they are mortifying. All thecreatures of God are good, received with thanksgiving; then only canany one of them become evil, when it is used in relations in which ahigher law forbids it, or when it is refused for the sake of self-discipline, in relations in which no higher law forbids, and Godtherefore allows it. For a man to be his own schoolmaster, is a rightdangerous position; the pupil cannot be expected to makeprogress--except, indeed, in the wrong direction. To enjoy heartily andthankfully, and do cheerfully without, when God wills we should, is theway to live in regard to things of the lower nature; these must nowisebe confounded with the things of _the world_. If any one say this isdangerous doctrine, I answer, 'The law of God is enough for me, and forlaws invented by man, I will none of them. They are false, and come allof rebellion. God and not man is our judge. '

Verily it is not to thwart or tease the poor self Jesus tells us. Thatwas not the purpose for which God gave it to us I He tells us we mustleave it altogether--yield it, deny it, refuse it, lose it: thus onlyshall we save it, thus only have a share in our own being. The self isgiven to us that we may sacrifice it; it is ours that we like Christmay have somewhat to offer--not that we should torment it, but that weshould deny it; not that we should cross it, but that we should abandonit utterly: then it can no more be vexed. 

'What can this mean?--we are not to thwart, but to abandon? Howabandon, without thwarting?'

It means this:--we must refuse, abandon, deny self altogether as aruling, or determining, or originating element in us. It is to be nolonger the regent of our action. We are no more to think, 'What shouldI like to do?' but 'What would the Living One have me do?' It is notselfish to take that which God has made us to desire; neither are wevery good to yield it--we should only be very bad not to do so, when hewould take it from us; but to yield it heartily, without a struggle orregret, is not merely to deny the Self a thing it would like, but todeny the Self itself, to refuse and abandon it. The Self is God'smaking--only it must be the 'slave of Christ, ' that the Son may make italso the free son of the same Father; it must receive all from him--notas from nowhere; as well as the deeper soul, it must follow him, notits own desires. It must not be its own law; Christ must be its law. The time will come when it shall be so possessed, so enlarged, soidealized, by the indwelling God, who is its deeper, its deepest self, that there will be no longer any enforced denial of it needful; it hasbeen finally denied and refused and sent into its own obedient place;it has learned to receive with thankfulness, to demand nothing; to turnno more upon its own centre, or any more think to minister to its owngood. God's eternal denial of himself, revealed in him who for oursakes in the flesh took up his cross daily, will have been developed inthe man; his eternal rejoicing will be in God--and in his fellows, before whom he will cast his glad self to be a carpet for their walk, afootstool for their rest, a stair for their climbing. 

To deny oneself then, is to act no more from the standing-ground ofself; to allow no private communication, no passing influence betweenthe self and the will; not to let the right hand know what the lefthand doeth. No grasping or seeking, no hungering of the individual, shall give motion to the will; no desire to be conscious of worthinessshall order the life; no ambition whatever shall be a motive of action;no wish to surpass another be allowed a moment's respite from death; nolonging after the praise of men influence a single throb of the heart. To deny the self is to shrink from no dispraise or condemnation orcontempt of the community, or circle, or country, which is against themind of the Living one; for no love or entreaty of father or mother, wife or child, friend or lover, to turn aside from following him, butforsake them all as any ruling or ordering power in our lives; we mustdo nothing to please them that would not first be pleasing to him. Bight deeds, and not the judgment thereupon; true words, and not whatreception they may have, shall be our care. Not merely shall we notlove money, or trust in it, or seek it as the business of life, but, whether we have it or have it not, we must never think of it as awindfall from the tree of event or the cloud of circumstance, but asthe gift of God. We must draw our life, by the uplooking, acknowledgingwill, every moment fresh from the living one, the causing life, notglory in the mere consciousness of health and being. It is God feedsus, warms us, quenches our thirst. The will of God must be to us all inall; to our whole nature the life of the Father must be the joy of thechild; we must know our very understanding his--that we live and feedon him every hour in the closest, veriest way: to know these things inthe depth of our knowing, is to deny ourselves, and take God instead. To try after them is to begin the denial, to follow him who neversought his own. So must we deny all anxieties and fears. When young wemust not mind what the world calls failure; as we grow old, we must notbe vexed that we cannot remember, must not regret that we cannot do, must not be miserable because we grow weak or ill: we must not mindanything. We have to do with God who can, not with ourselves where wecannot; we have to do with the Will, with the Eternal Life of theFather of our spirits, and not with the being which we could not make, and which is his care. He is our care; we are his; our care is to willhis will; his care, to give us all things. This is to deny ourselves. 'Self, I have not to consult you, but him whose idea is the soul ofyou, and of which as yet you are all unworthy. I have to do, not withyou, but with the source of you, by whom it is that any moment youexist--the Causing of you, not the caused you. You may be myconsciousness, but you are not my being. If you were, what a poor, miserable, dingy, weak wretch I should be! but my life is hid withChrist in God, whence it came, and whither it is returning--with youcertainly, but as an obedient servant, not a master. Submit, or I willcast you from me, and pray to have another consciousness given me. ForGod is more to me than my consciousness of myself. He is my life; youare only so much of it as my poor half-made being can grasp--as much ofit as I can now know at once. Because I have fooled and spoiled you, treated you as if you were indeed my own self, you have dwindledyourself and have lessened me, till I am ashamed of myself. If I wereto mind what you say, I should soon be sick of you; even now I am everand anon disgusted with your paltry, mean face, which I meet at everyturn. No! let me have the company of the Perfect One, not of you! of myelder brother, the Living One! I will not make a friend of the mereshadow of my own being! Good-bye, Self! I deny you, and will do my bestevery day to leave you behind me. '

And in this regard we must not fail to see, or seeing ever forget, that, when Jesus tells us we must follow him, we must come to him, wemust believe in him, he speaks first and always as _the Son_ of theFather--and that in the active sense, as the obedient God, not merelyas one who claims the sonship for the ground of being and so of furtherclaim. He is the Son of the Father as the Son who obeys the Father, asthe Son who came expressly and only to do the will of the Father, asthe messenger whose delight it is to do the will of him that sent him. At the moment he says _Follow me_, he is following the Father; his faceis set homeward. He would have us follow him because he is bent on thewill of the Blessed. It is nothing even thus to think of him, exceptthus we _believe_ in him--that is, so do. To believe in him is to do ashe does, to follow him where he goes. We must believe in him_practically_--altogether practically, as he believed in his Father;not as one concerning whom we have to hold something, but as one whomwe have to follow out of the body of this death into life eternal. Itis not to follow him to take him in any way theoretically, to hold thisor that theory about why he died, or wherein lay his atonement: suchthings can be revealed only to those who follow him in his active beingand the principle of his life--who do as he did, live as he lived. There is no other following. He is all for the Father; we must be allfor the Father too, else are we not following him. To follow him is tobe learning of him, to think his thoughts, to use his judgments, to seethings as he saw them, to feel things as he felt them, to be hearted, souled, minded, as he was--that so also we may be of the same mind withhis Father. This it is to deny self and go after him; nothing less, even if it be working miracles and casting out devils, is to be hisdisciple. Busy from morning to night doing great things for him on anyother road, we should but earn the reception, 'I never knew you. ' Whenhe says, 'Take my yoke upon you, ' he does not mean a yoke which hewould lay upon our shoulders; it is his own yoke he tells us to take, and to learn of him--it is the yoke he is himself carrying, the yokehis perfect Father had given him to carry. The will of the Father isthe yoke he would have us take, and bear also with him. It is of thisyoke that he says, _It is easy_, of this burden, _It is light_. He isnot saying, 'The yoke I lay upon you is easy, the burden light;' whathe says is, 'The yoke I carry is easy, the burden on my shoulders islight. ' With the garden of Gethsemane before him, with the hour and thepower of darkness waiting for him, he declares his yoke easy, hisburden light. There is no magnifying of himself. _He first_ denieshimself, and takes up his cross--then tells us to do the same. TheFather magnifies the Son, not the Son himself; the Son magnifies theFather. 

We must be jealous for God against ourselves, and look well to thecunning and deceitful Self--ever cunning and deceitful until it isinformed of God--until it is thoroughly and utterly denied, and God isto it also All-in-all--till we have left it quite empty of our will andour regard, and God has come into it, and made it--not indeed an_adytum_, but a _pylon_ for himself. Until then, its very denials, itsvery turnings from things dear to it for the sake of Christ, will tendto foster its self-regard, and generate in it a yet deeper self-worship. While it is not denied, only thwarted, we may throughsatisfaction with conquered difficulty and supposed victory, ministeryet more to its self-gratulation. The Self, when it finds it cannothave honour because of its gifts, because of the love lavished upon it, because of its conquests, and the 'golden opinions bought from allsorts of people, ' will please itself with the thought of itsabnegations, of its unselfishness, of its devotion to God, of itsforsakings for his sake. It may not _call_ itself, but it will soon_feel_ itself a saint, a superior creature, looking down upon thefoolish world and its ways, walking on high 'above the smoke and stirof this dim spot;'--all the time dreaming a dream of utter folly, worshipping itself with the more concentration that it has yielded theapprobation of the world, and dismissed the regard of others: even theyare no longer necessary to its assurance of its own worths and merits!In a thousand ways will Self delude itself, in a thousand ways befoolits own slavish being. Christ sought not his own, sought not anythingbut the will of his Father: we have to grow diamond-clear, true as thewhite light of the morning. Hopeless task!--were it not that he offersto come himself, and dwell in us. 

I have wondered whether the word of the Lord, 'take up his cross, ' wasa phrase in use at the time: when he used it first he had not yet toldthem that he would himself be crucified. I can hardly believe this formof execution such a common thing that the figure of bearing the crosshad come into ordinary speech. As the Lord's idea was new to men, so Ithink was the image in which he embodied it. I grant it _might_, beingsuch a hateful thing in the eyes of the Jews, have come to representthe worst misery of a human being; but would they be ready to use as afigure a fact which so sorely manifested their slavery? I hardly thinkit. Certainly it had not come to represent the thing he was nowteaching, that self-abnegation which he had but newly brought tolight--nay, hardly to the light yet--only the twilight; and nothingless, it seems to me, can have suggested the terrible symbol!

But we must note that, although the idea of the denial of self is anentire and absolute one, yet the thing has to be done _daily_: we mustkeep on denying. It is a deeper and harder thing than any sole effortof most herculean will may finally effect. For indeed the will itselfis not pure, is not free, until the Self is absolutely denied. It takeslong for the water of life that flows from the well within us, topermeate every outlying portion of our spiritual frame, subduingeverything to itself, making it all of the one kind, until at last, reaching the outermost folds of our personality, it casts out disease, our bodies by indwelling righteousness are redeemed, and the creationdelivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the gloryof the children of God. Every day till then we have to take up ourcross; every hour to see that we are carrying it. A birthright may belost for a mess of pottage, and what Satan calls a trifle must be athing of eternal significance. 

Is there not many a Christian who, having begun to deny himself, yetspends much strength in the vain and evil endeavour to accommodatematters between Christ and the dear Self--seeking to save that which sohe must certainly lose--in how different a way from that in which theMaster would have him lose it! It is one thing to have the loved selfdevoured of hell in hate and horror and disappointment; another toyield it to conscious possession by the living God himself, who willraise it then first and only to its true individuality, freedom, andlife. With its cause within it, then, indeed, it shall be saved!--howthen should it but live! Here is the promise to those who will leaveall and follow him: '_Whosoever shall lose his life, for my sake, thesame shall save it_, '--in St. Matthew, '_find it_. ' What speech of menor angels will serve to shadow the dimly glorious hope! To loseourselves in the salvation of God's heart! to be no longer any care toourselves, but know God taking divinest care of us, his own! to be andfeel just a resting-place for the divine love--a branch of the tree oflife for the dove to alight upon and fold its wings! to be an open airof love, a thoroughfare for the thoughts of God and all holy creatures!to know one's self by the reflex action of endless brotherlypresence--yearning after nothing from any, but ever pouring out love bythe natural motion of the spirit! to revel in the hundredfold ofeverything good we may have had to leave for his sake--above all, inthe unsought love of those who love us as we love them--circling usround, bathing us in bliss--never reached after, ever received, everwelcomed, altogether and divinely precious! to know that God and wemean the same thing, that we are in the secret, the child's secret ofexistence, that we are pleasing in the eyes and to the heart of theFather! to live nestling at his knee, climbing to his bosom, blessed inthe mere and simple being which is one with God, and is the outgoing ofhis will, justifying the being by the very facts of the being, by itsawareness of itself as bliss!--what a self is this to receive againfrom him for that we left, forsook, refused! We left it paltry, low, mean; he took up the poor cinder of a consciousness, carried it back tothe workshop of his spirit, made it a true thing, radiant, clear, fitfor eternal companying and indwelling, and restored it to our havingand holding for ever!

All high things can be spoken only in figures; these figures, having todo with matters too high for them, cannot _fit_ intellectually; theycan be interpreted truly, understood aright, only by such as have thespiritual fact in themselves. When we speak of a man and his soul, weimply a self and a self, reacting on each other: we cannot divideourselves so; the figure suits but imperfectly. It was never the designof the Lord to explain things to our understanding--nor would that inthe least have helped our necessity; what we require is a means, aword, whereby to think with ourselves of high things: that is what atrue figure, for a figure may be true while far from perfect, willalways be to us. But the imperfection of his figures cannot lie inexcess. Be sure that, in dealing with any truth, its symbol, howeverhigh, must come short of the glorious meaning itself holds. It is thelow stupidity of an unspiritual nature that would interpret the Lord'smeaning as less than his symbols. The true soul sees, or will come tosee, that his words, his figures always represent more than they areable to present; for, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so arethe heavenly things higher than the earthly signs of them, let thesigns be good as ever sign may be. There is no joy belonging to humannature, as God made it, that shall not be enhanced a hundredfold to theman who gives up himself--though, in so doing, he may seem to beyielding the very essence of life. To yield self is to give up graspingat things in their second causes, as men call them, but which aremerely God's means, and to receive them direct from their source--totake them seeing whence they come, and not as if they came fromnowhere, because no one appears presenting them. The careless soulreceives the Father's gifts as if it were a way things had of droppinginto his hand. He thus grants himself a slave, dependent on chance andhis own blundering endeavour--yet is he ever complaining, as if someone were accountable for the checks which meet him at every turn. Forthe good that comes to him, he gives no thanks--who is there to thank?at the disappointments that befall him he grumbles--there must be someone to blame! He does not think to what Power it could be of anyconsequence, nay, what power would not be worse than squandered, tosustain him after his own fashion, in his paltry, low-aimed existence!How could a God pour out his being to uphold the merest waste of hiscreatures? No world could ever be built or sustained on such an idea. It is the children who shall inherit the earth; such as will not bechildren, cannot possess. The hour is coming when all that art, allthat science, all that nature, all that animal nature, in ennoblingsubjugation to the higher even as man is subject to the Father, canafford, shall be the possession, to the endless delight, of the sonsand daughters of God: to him to whom he is all in all, God is able togive these things; to another he cannot give them, for he is unable toreceive them who is outside the truth of them. Assuredly we are not tolove God for the sake of what he can give us; nay, it is impossible tolove him save because he is our God, and altogether good and beautiful;but neither may we forget what the Lord does not forget, that, in theend, when the truth is victorious, God will answer his creature in thejoy of his heart. For what is joy but the harmony of the spirit! Thegood Father made his children to be joyful; only, ere they can enterinto his joy, they must be like himself, ready to sacrifice joy totruth. No promise of such joy is an appeal to selfishness. Every rewardheld out by Christ is a pure thing; nor can it enter the soul save as adeath to selfishness. The heaven of Christ is a loving of all, aforgetting of self, a dwelling of each in all, and all in each. Even inour nurseries, a joyful child is rarely selfish, generally righteous. It is not selfish to be joyful. What power could prevent him who seesthe face of God from being joyful?--that bliss is his which lies behindall other bliss, without which no other bliss could ripen or last. Theone bliss of the universe is the presence of God--which is simply Godbeing to the man, and felt by the man as being, that which in his ownnature he is--the indwelling power of his life. God must be to hiscreature what he is in himself, for it is by his essential being alone, that by which he is, that he can create. His presence is theunintermittent call and response of the creative to the created, of thefather to the child. Where can be the selfishness in being so madehappy? It may be deep selfishness to refuse to be happy. Is thereselfishness in the Lord's seeing of the travail of his soul and beingsatisfied? Selfishness consists in taking the bliss from another; tofind one's bliss in the bliss of another is not selfishness. Joy is notselfishness; and the greater the joy thus reaped, the farther is thatjoy removed from selfishness. The one bliss, next to the love of God, is the love of our neighbour. If any say, 'You love because it makesyou blessed, ' I deny it: 'We are blessed, I say, because we love. ' Noone could attain to the bliss of loving his neighbour who was selfishand sought that bliss from love of himself. Love is unselfishness. Inthe main we love because we cannot help it. There is no merit in it:how should there be in any love?--but neither is it selfish. There aremany who confound righteousness with merit, and think there is nothingrighteous where there is nothing meritorious. 'If it makes you happy tolove, ' they say, 'where is your merit? It is only selfishness!' Thereis no merit, I reply, yet the love that is born in us is our salvationfrom selfishness. It is of the very essence of righteousness. Because athing is joyful, it does not follow that I do it for the joy of it; yetwhen the joy is in others, the joy is pure. That _certain_ joys shouldbe joys, is the very denial of selfishness. The man would be ademoniacally selfish man, whom love itself did not make joyful. It isselfish to enjoy in content beholding others lack; even in the highestspiritual bliss, to sit careless of others would be selfishness, andthe higher the bliss, the worse the selfishness; but surely that blissis right altogether of which a great part consists in labour thatothers may share it. Such, I will not doubt--the labour to bring othersin to share with us, will be a great part of our heavenly content andgladness. The making, the redeeming Father will find plenty of likework for his children to do. Dull are those, little at least can theyhave of Christian imagination, who think that where all are good, things must be dull. It is because there is so little good yet in them, that they know so little of the power or beauty of merest life divine. Let such make haste to be true. Interest will there be and varietyenough, not without pain, in the ministration of help to those yetwearily toiling up the heights of truth--perhaps yet unwilling to partwith miserable self, which cherishing they are not yet worth being, orcapable of having. 

Some of the things a man may have to forsake in following Christ, hehas not to forsake because of what they are in themselves. Neithernature, art, science, nor fit society, is of those things a man willlose in forsaking himself: they are God's, and have no part in theworld of evil, the false judgments, low wishes, and unrealitiesgenerally, that make up the conscious life of the self which has to bedenied: such will never be restored to the man. But in forsakinghimself to do what God requires of him--his true work in the world, that is, a man may find he has to leave some of God's things--not torepudiate them, but for the time to forsake them, because they draw hismind from the absolute necessities of the true life in himself or inothers. He may have to deny himself in leaving them--not as bad things, but as things for which there is not room until those of paramountclaim have been so heeded, that these will no longer impede but furtherthem. Then he who knows God, will find that knowledge open the door ofhis understanding to all things else. He will become able to beholdthem from within, instead of having to search wearily into them fromwithout. This gave to king David more understanding than had all histeachers. Then will the things he has had to leave, be restored to hima hundred fold. So will it be in the forsaking of friends. To forsakethem for Christ, is not to forsake them as evil. It is not to cease tolove them, 'for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, howcan he love God whom he hath not seen?' it is--not to allow their loveto cast even a shadow between us and our Master; to be content to losetheir approval, their intercourse, even their affection, where theMaster says one thing and they another. It is to learn to love them ina far higher, deeper, tenderer, truer way than before--a way whichkeeps all that was genuine in the former way, and loses all that wasfalse. We shall love _their_ selves, and disregard our own. 

I do not forget the word of the Lord about _hating father and mother_:I have a glimpse of the meaning of it, but dare not attempt explainingit now. It is all against the self--not against the father and mother. 

There is another kind of forsaking that may fall to the lot of some, and which they may find very difficult: the forsaking of such notionsof God and his Christ as they were taught in their youth--which theyheld, nor could help holding, at such time as they began to believe--ofwhich they have begun to doubt the truth, but to cast which away seemslike parting with every assurance of safety. 

There are so-called doctrines long accepted of good people, which howany man can love God and hold, except indeed by fast closing of thespiritual eyes, I find it hard to understand. If a man care more foropinion than for life, it is not worth any other man's while topersuade him to renounce the opinions he happens to entertain; he wouldbut put other opinions in the same place of honour--a place which can_belong_ to no opinion whatever: it matters nothing what such a man mayor may not believe, for he is not a true man. By holding with a schoolhe supposes to be right, he but bolsters himself up with the worst ofall unbelief--opinion calling itself faith--unbelief calling itselfreligion. But for him who is in earnest about the will of God, it is ofendless consequence that he should think rightly of God. He cannot comeclose to him, cannot truly know his will, while his notion of him is inany point that of a false god. The thing shows itself absurd. If such aman seem to himself to be giving up even his former assurance ofsalvation, in yielding such ideas of God as are unworthy of God, hemust none the less, if he will be true, if he would enter into life, take up that cross also. He will come to see that he must follow _no_doctrine, be it true as word of man could state it, but the livingTruth, the Master himself. 

Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they nowbelieve of God. If they have not thought about them, but giventhemselves to obedience, they may not have done them much harm as yet;but they can make little progress in the knowledge of God, while, ifbut passively, holding evil things true of him. If, on the other hand, they do think about them, and find in them no obstruction, they mustindeed be far from anything to be called a true knowledge of God. Butthere are those who find them a terrible obstruction, and yet imagine, or at least fear them true: such must take courage to forsake the falsein _any_ shape, to deny their old selves in the most seemingly sacredof prejudices, and follow Jesus, not as he is presented in thetradition of the elders, but as he is presented by himself, hisapostles, and the spirit of truth. There are 'traditions of men' afterChrist as well as before him, and far worse, as 'making of none effect'higher and better things; and we have to look to it, _how we havelearned Christ_. 

 THE TRUTH IN JESUS. 

'_But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him, and weretaught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: that ye put away, asconcerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxethcorrupt after the lusts of deceit. _' [Footnote: That is, 'which isstill going to ruin through the love of the lie. ']--Eph. Iv. 20-22. 

How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought, that wemay have learned him wrong. That must he far worse than not to havelearned him at all: his place is occupied by a false Christ, hard toexorcise! The point is, whether we have learned Christ as he taughthimself, or as men have taught him who thought they understood, but didnot understand him. Do we think we know him--with notions fleshly, after low, mean human fancies and explanations, or do we indeed knowhim--after the spirit, in our measure as God knows him? The Christianreligion, throughout its history, has been open to more corruptmisrepresentation than ever the Jewish could be, for as it is higherand wider, so must it yield larger scope to corruption:--have welearned Christ in false statements and corrupted lessons about him, orhave we learned _himself_? Nay, true or false, is only our brain fullof things concerning him, or does he dwell himself in our hearts, alearnt, and ever being learnt lesson, the power of our life?

I have been led to what I am about to say, by a certain utterance ofone in the front rank of those who assert that we can know nothing ofthe 'Infinite and Eternal energy from which all things proceed;' andthe utterance is this:--

'The visiting on Adam's descendants through hundreds of generationsdreadful penalties for a small transgression which they did not commit;the damning of all men who do not avail themselves of an alleged modeof obtaining forgiveness, which most men have never heard of; and theeffecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was perfectlyinnocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a propitiatory victim;are modes of action which, ascribed to a human ruler, would call forthexpressions of abhorrence; and the ascription of them to the UltimateCause of things, even not felt to be full of difficulties, must becomeimpossible. '

I do not quote the passage with the design of opposing either clause ofits statement, for I entirely agree with it: almost it feels anabsurdity to say so. Neither do I propose addressing a word to thewriter of it, or to any who hold with him. The passage bears out what Ihave often said--that I never yet heard a word from one of that way ofthinking, which even touched anything I hold. One of my earliestrecollections is of beginning to be at strife with the false systemhere assailed. Such paganism I scorn as heartily in the name of Christ, as I scorn it in the name of righteousness. Rather than believe asingle point involving its spirit, even with the assurance thereby ofsuch salvation as the system offers, I would join the ranks of thosewho 'know nothing, ' and set myself with hopeless heart to what I am nowtrying with an infinite hope in the help of the pure originating One--to get rid of my miserable mean self, comforted only by the chance thatdeath would either leave me without thought more, or reveal somethingof the Ultimate Cause which it would not be an insult to him, or adishonour to his creature, to hold concerning him. Even such a chancealone might enable one to live. 

I will not now enquire how it comes that the writer of the passagequoted seems to put forward these so-called beliefs as representingChristianity, or even the creed of those who call themselvesChristians, seeing so many, and some of them of higher rank inliterature than himself, believing in Christ with true hearts, believenot one of such things as he has set down, but hold them in at least asgreat abhorrence as he: his answer would probably be, that, even had hebeen aware of such being the fact, what he had to deal with was theforming and ruling notions of religious society;--and that such are thethings held by the bulk of both educated and uneducated callingthemselves Christians, however many of them may vainly think by anexplanatory clause here and there to turn away the opprobrium of theirfalsehood, while they remain virtually the same--that such are thethings so held, I am, alas! unable to deny. It helps nothing, I repeat, that many, thinking little on the matter, use _quasi_ mitigated formsto express their tenets, and imagine that so they indicate a differentclass of ideas: it would require but a brief examination to beconvinced that they are not merely analogous--they are ultimatelyidentical. 

But had I to do with the writer, I should ask how it comes that, refusing these dogmas as abominable, and in themselves plainly false, yet knowing that they are attributed to men whose teaching has donemore to civilize the world than that of any men besides--how it comesthat, seeing such teaching as this could not have done so, he has nottaken such pains of enquiry as must surely have satisfied a man of hisfaculty that such was not their teaching; that it was indeed sodifferent, and so good, that even the forced companionship of suchhorrible lies as those he has recounted, has been unable to destroy itsregenerative power. I suppose he will allow that there was a man namedJesus, who died for the truth he taught: can he believe he died forsuch alleged truth as that? Would it not be well, I would ask him, toenquire what he did really teach, according to the primary sources ofour knowledge of him? If he answered that the question wasuninteresting to him, I should have no more to say; nor did I now startto speak of him save with the object of making my position plain tothose to whom I would speak--those, namely, who call themselvesChristians. 

If of them I should ask, 'How comes it that such opinions are heldconcerning the Holy One, whose ways you take upon you to set forth?' Ishould be met by most with the answer, 'Those are the things he tellsus himself in his word; we have learned them from the Scriptures;' bymany with explanations which seem to them so to explain the things thatthey are no longer to be reprobated; and by others with the remark thatbetter ideas, though largely held, had not yet had time to showthemselves as the belief of the thinkers of the nation. Of those whosepresentation of Christian doctrine is represented in the quotationabove, there are two classes--such as are content it should be so, andsuch to whom those things are grievous, but who do not see how to getrid of them. To the latter it may be some little comfort to have onewho has studied the New Testament for many years and loves it beyondthe power of speech to express, declare to them his conviction thatthere is not an atom of such teaching in the whole lovely, divineutterance; that such things are all and altogether the invention ofmen--honest invention, in part at least, I grant, but yet not true. Thank God, we are nowise bound to accept any man's explanation of God'sways and God's doings, however good the man may be, if it do notcommend itself to our conscience. The man's conscience may be a betterconscience than ours, and his judgment clearer; nothing the more can weaccept while we cannot see good: to do so would be to sin. 

But it is by no means my object to set forth what I believe or do notbelieve; a time may come for that; my design is now very differentindeed. I desire to address those who call themselves Christians, andexpostulate with them thus:--

Whatever be your _opinions_ on the greatest of all subjects, is it wellthat the impression with regard to Christianity made upon yourgeneration, should be that of your opinions, and not of somethingbeyond opinion? Is Christianity capable of being represented byopinion, even the best? If it were, how many of us are such as Godwould choose to represent his thoughts and intents by our opinionsconcerning them? Who is there of his friends whom any thoughtful manwould depute to represent his thoughts to his fellows? If you answer, 'The opinions I hold and by which I represent Christianity, are thoseof the Bible, ' I reply, that none can understand, still less represent, the opinions of another, but such as are of the same mind with him--certainly none who mistake his whole scope and intent so far as insupposing _opinion_ to be the object of any writer in the Bible. IsChristianity a system of articles of belief, let them be correct aslanguage can give them? Never. So far am I from believing it, that Iwould rather have a man holding, as numbers of you do, what seem to methe most obnoxious untruths, opinions the most irreverent and gross, ifat the same time he _lived_ in the faith of the Son of God, that is, trusted in God as the Son of God trusted in him, than I would have aman with every one of whose formulas of belief I utterly coincided, butwho knew nothing of a daily life and walk with God. The one, holdingdoctrines of devils, is yet a child of God; the other, holding thedoctrines of Christ and his Apostles, is of the world, yea, of thedevil. 

'How! a man hold the doctrine of devils, and yet be of God?'

Yes; for to hold a thing with the intellect, is not to believe it. Aman's real belief is that which he lives by; and that which the man Imean lives by, is the love of God, and obedience to his law, so far ashe has recognized it. Those hideous doctrines are outside of him; he_thinks_ they are inside, but no matter; they are not true, and theycannot really be inside any good man. They are sadly against him; forhe cannot love to dwell upon any of those supposed characteristics ofhis God; he acts and lives nevertheless in a measure like the true God. What a man believes, is the thing he does. This man would shrink withloathing from actions such as he thinks God justified in doing; likeGod, he loves and helps and saves. Will the living God let such a man'sopinions damn him? No more than he will let the correct opinions ofanother, who lives for himself, save him. The best salvation even thelatter could give would be but damnation. What I come to and insistupon is, that, supposing your theories right, and containing all thatis to be believed, yet those theories are not what makes youChristians, if Christians indeed you are. On the contrary, they are, with not a few of you, just what keeps you from being Christians. Forwhen you say that, to be saved, a man must hold this or that, then areyou leaving the living God and his will, and putting trust in somenotion about him or his will. To make my meaning clearer, --some of yousay we must trust in the finished work of Christ; or again, our faithmust be in the merits of Christ--in the atonement he has made--in theblood he has shed: all these statements are a simple repudiation of theliving Lord, _in whom_ we are told to believe, who, by his presencewith and in us, and our obedience to him, lifts us out of darkness intolight, leads us from the kingdom of Satan into the glorious liberty ofthe sons of God. No manner or amount of belief _about him_ is the faithof the New Testament. With such teaching I have had a lifelongacquaintance, and declare it most miserably false. But I do not nowmean to dispute against it; except the light of the knowledge of theglory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of hisopinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, Irepeat, is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation isthe preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God. Even if yourplan, your theories, were absolutely true, the holding of them withsincerity, the trusting in this or that about Christ, or in anything hedid or could do, the trusting in anything but himself, his own livingself, is a delusion. Many will grant this heartily, and yet the momentyou come to talk with them, you find they insist that to believe inChrist is to believe in the atonement, meaning by that only andaltogether their special theory about the atonement; and when you saywe must believe in the atoning Christ, and cannot possibly believe inany theory concerning the atonement, they go away and denounce you, saying, 'He does not believe in the atonement!' If I explain theatonement otherwise than they explain it, they assert that I deny theatonement; nor count it of any consequence that I say I believe in theatoner with my whole heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. This theycall _contending for the truth_! Because I refuse an explanation whichis not in the New Testament, though they believe it is, because theycan think of no other, one which seems to me as false in logic asdetestable in morals, not to say that there is no spirituality in itwhatever, therefore I am not a Christian! What wonder men such as Ihave quoted refuse the Christianity they suppose such 'believers' torepresent! I do not say that with this sad folly may not mingle apotent faith in the Lord himself; but I do say that the importance theyplace on theory is even more sadly obstructive to true faith than suchtheories themselves: while the mind is occupied in enquiring, 'Do I believe or feel this thing right?'--the true question isforgotten: 'Have I left all to follow him?' To the man who giveshimself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come right;the Lord himself will see that his disciple believe aright concerninghim. If a man cannot trust him for this, what claim can he make tofaith in him? It is because he has little or no faith, that he is leftclinging to preposterous and dishonouring ideas, the traditions of menconcerning his Father, and neither his teaching nor that of hisapostles. The living Christ is to them but a shadow; the all butobliterated Christ of their theories no soul can thoroughly believe in:the disciple of such a Christ rests on his work, or his merits, or hisatonement!

What I insist upon is, that a man's faith shall be in the living, loving, ruling, helping Christ, devoted to us as much as ever he was, and with all the powers of the Godhead for the salvation of hisbrethren. It is not faith that he did this, that his work wroughtthat--it is faith in the man who did and is doing everything for usthat will save him: without this he cannot work to heal spiritually, any more than he would heal physically, when he was present to the eyesof men. Do you ask, 'What is faith in him?' I answer, The leaving ofyour way, your objects, your self, and the taking of his and him; theleaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, inatonement itself, _and doing as he tells you_. I can find no wordsstrong enough to serve for the weight of this necessity--thisobedience. It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it hasalways been presenting something else than obedience as faith inChrist. The work of Christ is not the Working Christ, any more than theclothing of Christ is the body of Christ. If the woman who touched thehem of his garment had trusted in the garment and not in him who woreit, would she have been healed? And the reason that so many who believe_about_ Christ rather than in him, get the comfort they do, is that, touching thus the mere hem of his garment, they cannot help believing alittle in the live man inside the garment. It is not wonderful thatsuch believers should so often be miserable; they lay themselves downto sleep with nothing but the skirt of his robe in their hand--a robetoo, I say, that never was his, only by them is supposed his--when theymight sleep in peace with the living Lord in their hearts. Instead ofso knowing Christ that they have him in them saving them, they liewasting themselves in soul-sickening self-examination as to whetherthey are believers, whether they are really trusting in the atonement, whether they are truly sorry for their sins--the way to madness of thebrain, and despair of the heart. Some even ponder the imponderable--whether they are of the elect, whether they have an interest in theblood shed for sin, whether theirs is a saving faith--when all the timethe man who died for them is waiting to begin to save them from everyevil--and first from this self which is consuming them with troubleabout its salvation; he will set them free, and take them home to thebosom of the Father--if only they will mind what he says to them--whichis the beginning, middle, and end of faith. If, instead of searchinginto the mysteries of corruption in their own charnel-houses, theywould but awake and arise from the dead, and come out into the lightwhich Christ is waiting to give them, he would begin at once to fillthem with the fulness of God. 

'But I do not know how to awake and arise!'

I will tell you:--Get up, and do something the master tells you; somake yourself his disciple at once. Instead of asking yourself whetheryou believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done onething because he said, Do it, or once abstained because he said, Do notdo it. It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believein him, if you do not anything he tells you. If you can think ofnothing he ever said as having had an atom of influence on your doingor not doing, you have too good ground to consider yourself no discipleof his. Do not, I pray you, worse than waste your time in trying toconvince yourself that you are his disciple notwithstanding--that forthis reason or that you still have cause to think you believe in him. What though you should succeed in persuading yourself to absolutecertainty that you are his disciple, if, after all, he say to you, 'Whydid you not do the things I told you? Depart from me; I do not knowyou!' Instead of trying to persuade yourself, if the thing be true youcan make it truer; if it be not true, you can begin at once to make ittrue, to _be_ a disciple of the Living One--by obeying him in the firstthing you can think of in which you are not obeying him. We must learnto obey him in everything, and so must begin somewhere: let it be atonce, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of ourconscience! Oh fools and slow of heart, if you think of nothing butChrist, and do not set yourselves to do his words! you but build yourhouses on the sand. What have such teachers not to answer for who haveturned your regard away from the direct words of the Lord himself, which are spirit and life, to contemplate plans of salvation torturedout of the words of his apostles, even were those plans as true as theyare false! There is but one plan of salvation, and that is to believein the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, to take him for what he is--ourmaster, and his words as if he meant them, which assuredly he did. Todo his words is to enter into vital relation with him, to obey him isthe only way to be one with him. The relation between him and us is anabsolute one; it can nohow begin to _live_ but in obedience: it isobedience. There can be no truth, no reality, in any initiation ofatonement with him, that is not obedience. What! have I the poorestnotion of a God, and dare think of entering into relations with him, the very first of which is not that what he saith, I will do? The thingis eternally absurd, and comes of the father of lies. I know what hewhispers to those to whom such teaching as this is distasteful: 'It isthe doctrine of works!' But one word of the Lord humbly heard andreceived will suffice to send all the demons of false theology into theabyss. He says the man that does not do the things he tells him, buildshis house to fall in utter ruin. He instructs his messengers to go andbaptize all nations, 'teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Ihave commanded you. ' Tell me it is faith he requires: do I not know it?and is not faith the highest act of which the human mind is capable?But faith in what? Faith in what he is, in what he says--a faith whichcan have no existence except in obedience--a faith which is obedience. To do what he wishes is to put forth faith in him. For this theteaching of men has substituted this or that belief _about_ him, faithin this or that supposed design of his manifestation in the flesh. Itwas himself, and God in him that he manifested; but faith in him andhis father thus manifested, they make altogether secondary toacceptance of the paltry contrivance of a juggling morality, which theyattribute to God and his Christ, imagining it the atonement, and 'theplan of salvation. ' 'Do you put faith in _him_, ' I ask, 'or in thedoctrines and commandments of men?' If you say 'In him, '--'Is it thenpossible, ' I return, 'that you do not see that, above all things andall thoughts, you are bound to obey him?' Do you not mourn that youcannot trust in him as you would, that you find it too hard? Too hardit is for you, and too hard it will remain, while the things he tellsyou to do--the things you can do--even those you will not try! Howshould you be capable of trusting in the true one while you are nowisetrue to him? How are you to believe he will do his part by you, whileyou are not such as to do your part by him? How are you to believewhile you are not faithful? How, I say, should you be capable oftrusting in him? The very thing to make you able to trust in him, andso receive all things from him, you turn your back upon: obedience youdecline, or at least neglect. You say you do not refuse to obey him? Icare not whether you refuse or not, while you do not obey. Remember theparable: 'I go, sir, and went not. ' What have you done this day becauseit was the will of Christ? Have you dismissed, once dismissed, ananxious thought for the morrow? Have you ministered to any needy soulor body, and kept your right hand from knowing what your left hand did?Have you begun to leave all and follow him? Did you set yourself tojudge righteous judgment? Are you being ware of covetousness? Have youforgiven your enemy? Are you seeking the kingdom of God and hisrighteousness before all other things? Are you hungering and thirstingafter righteousness? Have you given to some one that asked of you? Tellme something that you have done, are doing, or are trying to do becausehe told you. If you do nothing that he says, it is no wonder that youcannot trust in him, and are therefore driven to seek refuge in theatonement, as if something he had done, and not he himself in his doingwere the atonement. _That is not as you understand it?_ What does itmatter how you understand, or what you understand, so long as you arenot of one mind with the Truth, so long as you and God are not _atone_, do not atone together? How should you understand? Knowing thatyou do not heed his word, why should I heed your explanation of it? Youdo not his will, and so you cannot understand him; you do not know him, that is why you cannot trust in him. You think your common sense enoughto let you know what he means? Your common sense ought to be enough toknow itself unequal to the task. It is the heart of the child thatalone can understand the Father. Would you have me think you guilty ofthe sin against the Holy Ghost--that you _understand_ Jesus Christ andyet will not obey him? That were too dreadful. I believe you do notunderstand him. No man can do yet what he tells him aright--but are youtrying? Obedience is not perfection, but trying. You count him a hardmaster, and will not stir. Do you suppose he ever gave a commandmentknowing it was of no use for it could not be done? He tells us a thingknowing that we must do it, or be lost; that not his Father himselfcould save us but by getting us at length to do everything he commands, for not otherwise can we know life, can we learn the holy secret ofdivine being. He knows that you can try, and that in your trying andfailing he will be able to help you, until at length you shall do thewill of God even as he does it himself. He takes the will in theimperfect deed, and makes the deed at last perfect. Correctest notionswithout obedience are worthless. The doing of the will of God is theway to oneness with God, which alone is salvation. Sitting at the gateof heaven, sitting on the footstool of the throne itself, yea, claspingthe knees of the Father, you could not be at peace, except in theirevery vital movement, in every their smallest point of consciousness, your heart, your soul, your mind, your brain, your body, were one withthe living God. If you had one brooding thought that was not a joy inhim, you would not be at peace; if you had one desire you could notleave absolutely to his will you would not be at peace; you would notbe saved, therefore could not feel saved. God, all and in all, ours tothe fulfilling of our very being, is the religion of the perfect, son-hearted Lord Christ. 

Well do I know it is faith that saves us--but not faith in any work ofGod--it is faith in God himself. If I did not believe God as good asthe tenderest human heart, the fairest, the purest, the most unselfishhuman heart could imagine him, yea, an infinitude better, higher thanwe as the heavens are higher than the earth--believe it, not as aproposition, or even as a thing I was convinced of, but with theresponsive condition and being of my whole nature; if I did not feelevery fibre of heart and brain and body safe with him because he is theFather who made me that I am--I would not be saved, for this faith issalvation; it is God and the man one. God and man together, the vitalenergy flowing unchecked from the creator into his creature--that isthe salvation of the creature. But the poorest faith in the living God, the God revealed in Christ Jesus, if it be vital, true, that isobedient, is the beginning of the way to know him, and to know him iseternal life. If you mean by faith anything of a different kind, thatfaith will not save you. A faith, for instance, that God does notforgive me because he loves me, but because he loves Jesus Christ, cannot save me, because it is a falsehood against God: if the thingwere true, such a gospel would be the preaching of a God that was notlove, therefore in whom was no salvation, a God to know whom could notbe eternal life. Such a faith would damn, not save a man; for it wouldbind him to a God who was anything but perfect. Such assertions goingby the name of Christianity, are nothing but the poor remnants ofpaganism; and it is only with that part of our nature not yet Christianthat we are able to believe them--so far indeed as it is possible a lieshould be believed. We must forsake all our fears and distrusts forChrist. We must receive his teaching heartily, nor let theinterpretation of it attributed to his apostles make us turn aside fromit. I say interpretation attributed to them; for what they teach isnever against what Christ taught, though very often the exposition ofit is--and that from no fault in the apostles, but from the grievousfault of those who would understand, and even explain, rather thanobey. We may be sure of this, that no man will be condemned for any sinthat is past; that, if he be condemned, it will be because he would notcome to the light when the light came to him; because he would notcease to do evil and learn to do well; because he hid his unbelief inthe garment of a false faith, and would not obey; because he imputed tohimself a righteousness that was not his; because he preferredimagining himself a worthy person, to confessing himself everywhere inthe wrong, and repenting. We may be sure also of this, that, if a manbecomes the disciple of Christ, he will not leave him in ignorance asto what he has to believe; he shall know the truth of everything it isneedful for him to understand. If we do what he tells us, his lightwill go up in our hearts. Till then we could not understand even if heexplained to us. If you cannot trust him to let you know what is right, but think you must hold this or that before you can come to him, then Ijustify your doubts in what you call your worst times, but which Isuspect are your best times in which you come nearest to thetruth--those, namely, in which you fear you have no faith. 

So long as a man will not set himself to obey the word spoken, the wordwritten, the word printed, the word read, of the Lord Christ, I wouldnot take the trouble to convince him concerning the most obnoxiousdoctrines that they were false as hell. It is those who would fainbelieve, but who by such doctrines are hindered, whom I would help. Disputation about things but hides the living Christ who alone canteach the truth, who is the truth, and the knowledge of whom is life; Iwrite for the sake of those whom the false teaching that claims beforeall to be true has driven away from God--as well it might, for the Godso taught is not a God worthy to be believed in. A stick, or a stone, or a devil, is all that some of our brethren of mankind have to believein: he who believes in a God not altogether unselfish and good, a Godwho does not do all he can for his creatures, belongs to the sameclass; his is not the God who made the heaven and the earth and the seaand the fountains of water--not the God revealed in Christ. If a mansee in God any darkness at all, and especially if he defend thatdarkness, attempting to justify it as one who respects the person ofGod, I cannot but think his blindness must have followed his mockery of'_Lord! Lord!_' Surely, if he had been strenuously obeying Jesus, hewould ere now have received the truth that God is light, and in him isno darkness--a truth which is not acknowledged by calling the darknessattributed to him light, and the candle of the Lord in the soul of mandarkness. It is one thing to believe that God can do nothing wrong, quite another to call whatever presumption may attribute to him right. 

The whole secret of progress is the doing of the thing we know. Thereis no other way of progress in the spiritual life; no other way ofprogress in the understanding of that life: only as we do, can we know. 

Is there then anything you will not leave for Christ? You cannot knowhim--and yet he is the Truth, the one thing alone that can be known! Doyou not care to be imperfect? would you rather keep this or that, withimperfection, than part with it to be perfect? You cannot know Christ, for the very principle of his life was the simple absolute relation ofrealities; his one idea was to be a perfect child to his Father. He whowill not part with all for Christ, is not worthy of him, and cannotknow him; and the Lord is true, and cannot acknowledge him: how couldhe receive to his house, as one of his kind, a man who preferssomething to his Father; a man who is not for God; a man who willstrike a bargain with God, and say, 'I will give up so much, if thouwilt spare me'! To yield all to him who has only made us and given useverything, yea his very self by life and by death, such a man countstoo much. His conduct says, 'I never asked thee to do so much for me, and I cannot make the return thou demandest. ' The man will have to beleft to himself. He must find what it is to be without God! Those whoknow God, or have but begun to catch a far-off glimmer of hisgloriousness, of what he is, regard life as insupportable save God bethe All in all, the first and the last. 

To let their light shine, not to force on them their interpretations ofGod's designs, is the duty of Christians towards their fellows. If youwho set yourselves to explain the theory of Christianity, had setyourselves instead to do the will of the Master, the one object forwhich the Gospel was preached to you, how different would now be thecondition of that portion of the world with which you come intocontact! Had you given yourselves to the understanding of his word thatyou might do it, and not to the quarrying from it of material wherewithto buttress your systems, in many a heart by this time would the nameof the Lord be loved where now it remains unknown. The word of lifewould then by you have been held out indeed. Men, undeterred by yourexplanations of Christianity, for you would not be forcing them ontheir acceptance, and attracted by your behaviour, would be saying toeach other, as Moses said to himself when he saw the bush that burnedwith fire and was not consumed, 'I will now turn aside and see thisgreat sight!' they would be drawing nigh to behold how these Christiansloved one another, and how just and fair they were to every one thathad to do with them! to note that their goods were the best, theirweight surest, their prices most _reasonable_, their word most certain!that in their families was neither jealousy nor emulation! that mammonwas not there worshipped! that in their homes selfishness was neitherthe hidden nor the openly ruling principle; that their children were asdiligently taught to share, as some are to save, or to lay out onlyupon self--their mothers more anxious lest a child should hoard thanlest he should squander; that in no house of theirs was religion onething, and the daily life another; that the ecclesiastic did not thinkfirst of his church, nor the peer of his privileges. 

What do I hear you say?--'_How then shall the world go on_?' The Lord'sworld will go on, and that without you; the devil's world will go on, and that with you. The objection is but another and overwhelming proofof your unbelief. Either you do not believe the word the Lord spake--that, if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, allthings needful will be added to us; or what he undertakes does notsatisfy you; it is not enough; you want more; you prefer the offers ofMammon. You are nowise anxious to be saved from the too-much that is asnare; you want what you call a fortune--the freedom of the world. Youwould not live under such restrictions as the Lord might choose to layupon you if he saw that something might be made of you precious in hissight! You would inherit the earth, and not by meekness; you would havethe life of this world sweet, come of the life eternal, the life thatGod shares with you, what may: so much as that comes to, you wouldgladly leave God to look after, if only you might be sure of not sharingwith the rich man when you die. But you find that, unable to trust himfor this world, neither can you trust him for the world to come. Refusing to obey him in your life, how can you trust him for your life?Hence the various substitutes you seek for faith in him: you would holdhim to his word, bind him by his promises, appeal to the atonement, tothe satisfaction made to his justice, as you call it--while you willtake no trouble to fulfil the absolutely reasonable and necessarycondition, yea, morally and spiritually imperative condition--conditionand means in one--on which he offers, and through which alone he canoffer you deliverance from the burden of life into the strength andglory of life--that you shall be true, and to him obedient children. Yousay 'Christ has satisfied the law, ' but you will not satisfy him! Hesays, 'Come unto me, ' and you will not rise and go to him. You say, 'Lord I believe; help mine unbelief, ' but when he says, 'Leaveeverything behind you, and be as I am towards God, and you shall havepeace and rest, ' you turn away, muttering about _figurative language_. If you had been true, had been living _the_ life, had been Christiansindeed, you would, however little, have drawn the world after you. Inyour churches you would be receiving truest nourishment, yea strength tolive--thinking far less of serving God on the Sunday, and far more ofserving your neighbour in the week. The sociable vile, the masterfulrich, the deceitful trader, the ambitious poor, whom you have attractedto your communities with the offer of a salvation other than deliverancefrom sin, would not be lording it over them and dragging them down; theywould be the cleaner and the stronger for their absence; while thepublicans and the sinners would have been drawn instead, and turned intotrue men and women; and the Israelite indeed, who is yet more repelledby your general worldliness than by your misrepresentations of God, showing him selfish like yourselves who is the purity of the creation--the Israelite in whom is no guile would have hastened to the company ofthe loving men and true, eager to learn what it was that made them sogood, so happy, so unselfish, so free of care, so ready to die, sowilling to live, so hopeful, so helpful, so careless to possess, soundeferential to possession. Finding you to hold, from the traditionalforce of false teaching, such things as you do, he would have said, 'No!such beliefs can never account for such mighty results!' You would haveanswered, 'Search the Scriptures and see. ' He would have searched, andfound--not indeed the things you imagine there, but things infinitelybetter and higher, things that indeed account for the result he wonderedat; he would have found such truth as he who has found will hold forever as the only gladness of his being. There you would have had yourreward for being true Christians in spite of the evil doctrines you hadbeen taught and teaching: you would have been taught in return the truthof the matter by him whom your true Christianity had enticed to itself, and sent to the fountainhead free of the prejudices that disabled yourjudgment. Thus delivered from the false notions which could not fail tohave stunted your growth hitherto, how rapid would it not have become!

If any of you tell me my doctrine is presumptuous, that it is contraryto what is taught in the New Testament, and what the best of men havealways believed, I will not therefore proceed to defend even mybeliefs, the principles on which I try to live--how much less myopinions! I appeal to you instead, whether or not I have spoken thetruth concerning our paramount obligation to do the word of Christ. Ifyou answer that I have not, I have nothing more to say; there is noother ground on which we can meet. But if you allow that it is a prime, even if you do not allow it _the_ prime duty, then what I insist uponis, that you should do it, so and not otherwise recommending theknowledge of him. I do not attempt to change your opinions; if they arewrong, the obedience alone on which I insist can enable you to set themright; I only pray you to obey, and assert that thus only can you fityourselves for understanding the mind of Christ. I say none but he whodoes right, can think right; you cannot _know_ Christ to be right untilyou do as he does, as he tells you to do; neither can you set himforth, until you know him as he means himself to be known, that is, ashe is. If you are serving and trusting in Mammon, how can you know theliving God who, the source of life, is alone to be trusted in! If youdo not admit that it is the duty of a man to do the word of Christ, orif, admitting the duty, you yet do not care to perform it, why should Icare to convince you that my doctrine is right? What is it to any trueman what you think of his doctrine? What does it matter what you thinkof any doctrine? If I could convince your judgment, your heartsremaining as they are, I should but add to your condemnation. The trueheart must see at once, that, however wrong I may or may not be inother things, at least I am right in this, that Jesus must be obeyed, and at once obeyed, in the things he did say: it will not long imagineto obey him in things he did not say. If a man do what is unpleasing toChrist, believing it his will, he shall yet gain thereby, for it givesthe Lord a hold of him, which he will use; but before he can reachliberty, he must be delivered from that falsehood. For him who does notchoose to see that Christ must be obeyed, he must be left to theteaching of the Father, who brings all that hear and learn of him toChrist, that they may learn what he is who has taught them and broughtthem. He will leave no man to his own way, however much he may preferit. The Lord did not die to provide a man with the wretched heaven hemay invent for himself, or accept invented for him by others; he diedto give him life, and bring him to the heaven of the Father's peace;the children must share in the essential bliss of the Father and theSon. This is and has been the Father's work from the beginning--tobring us into the home of his heart, where he shares the glories oflife with the Living One, in whom was born life to light men back tothe original life. This is our destiny; and however a man may refuse, he will find it hard to fight with God--useless to kick against thegoads of his love. For the Father is goading him, or will goad him, ifneedful, into life by unrest and trouble; hell-fire will have its turnif less will not do: can any need it more than such as will neitherenter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor suffer them to enter itthat would? The old race of the Pharisees is by no means extinct; theywere St Paul's great trouble, and are yet to be found in everyreligious community under the sun. 

The one only thing truly to reconcile all differences is, to walk inthe light. So St Paul teaches us in his epistle to the Philippians, thethird chapter and sixteenth verse. After setting forth the loftiestidea of human endeavour in declaring the summit of his own aspiration, he says--not, 'This must be your endeavour also, or you cannot besaved;' but, 'If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall revealeven this unto you. Nevertheless whereto we have already attained, letus walk by that same. ' Observe what widest conceivable scope is givenby the apostle to honest opinion, even in things of grandestimport!--the one only essential point with him is, that whereto we haveattained, what we have seen to be true, _we walk by that_. In suchwalking, and in such walking only, love will grow, truth will grow; thesoul, then first in its genuine element and true relation towards God, will see into reality that was before but a blank to it; and he who haspromised to teach, will teach abundantly. Faster and faster will theglory of the Lord dawn upon the hearts and minds of his people sowalking--then his people indeed; fast and far will the knowledge of himspread, for truth of action, both preceding and following truth ofword, will prepare the way before him. The man walking in that wheretohe has attained, will be able to think aright; the man who does notthink right, is unable because he has not been walking right; only whenhe begins to do the thing he knows, does he begin to be able to thinkaright; then God comes to him in a new and higher way, and works alongwith the spirit he has created. The soul, without its heaven above itshead, without its life-breath around it, without its love-treasure inits heart, without its origin one with it and bound up in it, withoutits true self and originating life, cannot think to any real purpose--nor ever would to all eternity. When man joins with God, then is allimpotence and discord cast out. Until then, there can be but jar; Godis in contest with the gates of hell that open in the man, and can buthold his own; when the man joins him, then is Satan foiled. For thenfirst nature receives her necessity: no such necessity has she as thislaw of all laws--that God and man are one. Until they begin to be onein the reality as in the divine idea, in the flower as in the root, inthe finishing as in the issuing creation, nothing can go right with theman, and God can have no rest from his labour in him. As the greatestorbs in heaven are drawn by the least, God himself must be held indivine disquiet until every one of his family be brought home to hisheart, to be one with him in a unity too absolute, profound, far-reaching, fine, and intense, to be understood by any but the God fromwhom it comes, yet to be guessed at by the soul from theunspeakableness of its delight when at length it is with the _only_that can be its own, the one that it can possess, the one that canpossess it. For God is the heritage of the soul in the ownness oforigin; man is the offspring of his making will, of his life; Godhimself is his birth-place; God is the self that makes the soul able tosay _I too, I myself_. This absolute unspeakable bliss of the creatureis that for which the Son died, for which the Father suffered with him. Then only is life itself; then only is it right, is it one; then onlyis it as designed and necessitated by the eternal life-outgiving Life. 

Whereto then we have attained let us walk by that same!

 END OF THE SECOND SERIES. 

 UNSPOKEN SERMONS SERIES THREE

 _TO MY WIFE_

 Sun and wind and rain, the Lord Is to seed his Father buried For he is the living Word, And the quickening Spirit. 

 BORDIGHERA: _May_ 3, 1889. 

 THE CREATION IN CHRIST. 

 _All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men_. --John i. 3, 4. 

It seems to me that any lover of the gospel given to thinking, andespecially one accustomed to the effort of uttering thought, can hardlyhave failed to feel dissatisfaction, more or less definite, with theclose of the third verse, as here presented to English readers. Itseems to me in its feebleness, unlike, and rhetorically unworthy of therest. That it is no worse than pleonastic, that is, redundant, therefore only unnecessary, can be no satisfaction to the man who wouldfind perfection, if he may, in the words of him who was nearer the Lordthan any other. The phrase 'that was made' seems, from its uselessness, weak even to foolishness after what precedes: 'All things were made byhim, and without him was not anything made _that was made_. '

My hope was therefore great when I saw, in reading the Greek, that theshifting of a period would rid me of the pleonasm. If thereupon anyprecious result of meaning should follow, the change would not merelybe justifiable--seeing that points are of no authority with anyoneaccustomed to the vagaries of scribes, editors, and printers--but onefor which to give thanks to God. And I found the change did unfold sucha truth as showed the rhetoric itself in accordance with the highestthought of the apostle. So glad was I, that it added little to mysatisfaction to find the change supported by the best manuscripts andversions. It could add none to learn that the passage had been, inrespect of the two readings, a cause of much disputation: the ground ofargument on the side of the common reading, seemed to me worse thanworthless. 

Let us then look at the passage as I think it ought to be translated, and after that, seek the meaning for the sake of which it was written. It is a meaning indeed by no means dependent for its revelation on thispassage, belonging as it does to the very truth as it is in Jesus; butit is therein magnificently expressed by the apostle, and differentlyfrom anywhere else--that is, if I am right in the interpretation whichsuggested itself the moment I saw the probable rhetorical relation ofthe words. 

'All things were made through him, and without him was made not onething. That which was made in him was life, and the life was the lightof men. '

Note the antithesis of the _through_ and the _in_. 

In this grand assertion seems to me to lie, more than shadowed, thegerm of creation and redemption--of all the divine in its relation toall the human. 

In attempting to set forth what I find in it, I write with no desire toprovoke controversy, which I loathe, but with some hope of presentingto the minds of such as have become capable of seeing it, the glory ofthe truth of the Father and the Son, as uttered by this first of seers, after the grandest fashion of his insight. I am as indifferent to areputation for orthodoxy as I despise the championship of novelty. Tothe untrue, the truth itself must seem unsound, for the light that isin them is darkness. 

I believe, then, that Jesus Christ is the eternal son of the eternalfather; that from the first of firstness Jesus is the son, because Godis the father--a statement imperfect and unfit because an attempt ofhuman thought to represent that which it cannot grasp, yet which it sobelieves that it must try to utter it even in speech that cannot beright. I believe therefore that the Father is the greater, that if theFather had not been, the Son could not have been. I will not applylogic to the thesis, nor would I state it now but for the sake of whatis to follow. The true heart will remember the inadequacy of ourspeech, and our thought also, to the things that lie near the unknownroots of our existence. In saying what I do, I only say what Paulimplies when he speaks of the Lord giving up the kingdom to his father, that God may be all in all. I worship the Son as the human God, thedivine, the only Man, deriving his being and power from the Father, equal with him as a son is the equal at once and the subject of hisfather--but _making himself the equal of his father in what is mostprecious in Godhead, namely, Love_--which is, indeed, the essence ofthat statement of the evangelist with which I have now to do--a higherthing than the making of the worlds and the things in them, which hedid by the power of the Father, not by a self-existent power inhimself, whence the apostle, to whom the Lord must have said things hedid not say to the rest, or who was better able to receive what he saidto all, says, 'All things were made' not _by_, but '_through_ him. '

We must not wonder things away into nonentity, but try to present themto ourselves after what fashion we are able--our shadows of theheavenly. For our very beings and understandings and consciousnesses, though but shadows in regard to any perfection either of outline oroperation, are yet shadows of his being, his understanding, hisconsciousness, and he has cast those shadows; they are no more causallyour own than his power of creation is ours. In our shadow-speech then, and following with my shadow-understanding as best I can the words ofthe evangelist, I say, The Father, in bringing out of the unseen thethings that are seen, made essential use of the Son, so that all thatexists was created _through_ him. What the difference between the partin creation of the Father and the part of the Son may be, who canunderstand?--but perhaps we may one day come to see into it a little;for I dare hope that, through our willed sonship, we shall come farnearer ourselves to creating. The word _creation_ applied to theloftiest success of human genius, seems to me a mockery of humanity, itself in process of creation. 

Let us read the text again: 'All things were made _through_ him, andwithout him was made not one thing. That which was made _in_ him waslife. ' You begin to see it? The power by which he created the worldswas given him by his father; he had in himself a greater power thanthat by which he made the worlds. There was something made, not_through_ but _in_ him; something brought into being by himself. Herehe creates in his grand way, in himself, as did the Father. 'That whichwas made _in_ him was _life_'

What does this mean? What is the _life_ the apostle intends? Many formsof life have come to being through the Son, but those were results, notforms of the life that was brought to existence _in_ him. He could nothave been employed by the Father in creating, save in virtue of thelife that was _in_ him. 

As to what the life of God is to himself, we can only know that wecannot know it--even that not being absolute ignorance, for no one cansee that, from its very nature, he cannot understand a thing withouttherein approaching that thing in a most genuine manner. As to what thelife of God is in relation to us, we know that it is the causing lifeof everything that we call life--of everything that is; and in knowingthis, we know something of that life, by the very forms of its force. But the one interminable mystery, for I presume the two make but onemystery--a mystery that must be a mystery to us for ever, not becauseGod will not explain it, but because God himself could not make usunderstand it--is first, how he can be self-existent, and next, how hecan make other beings exist: self-existence and creation no man willever understand. Again, regarding the matter from the side of thecreature--the cause of his being is antecedent to that being; he cantherefore have no knowledge of his own creation; neither could heunderstand that which he can do nothing like. If we could makeourselves, we should understand our creation, but to do that we must beGod. And of all ideas this--that, with the self-dissatisfied, painfully circumscribed consciousness I possess, I could in any wayhave caused myself, is the most dismal and hopeless. Nevertheless, if Ibe a child of God, I must be _like_ him, like him even in the matter ofthis creative energy. There must be something in me that corresponds inits childish way to the eternal might in him. But I am forestalling. The question now is: What was that life, the thing made _in_ theSon--made by him inside himself, not outside him--made not _through_but _in him_--the life that was his own, as God's is his own?

It was, I answer, that act in him that corresponded in him, as the son, to the self-existence of his father. Now what is the deepest in God?His power? No, for power could not make him what we mean when we say_God. _ Evil could, of course, never create one atom; but let usunderstand very plainly, that a being whose essence was only powerwould be such a negation of the divine that no righteous worship couldbe offered him: his service must be fear, and fear only. Such a being, even were he righteous in judgment, yet could not be God. The Godhimself whom we love could not be righteous were he not somethingdeeper and better still than we generally mean by the word--but, alas, how little can language say without seeming to say something wrong! Inone word, God is Love. Love is the deepest depth, the essence of hisnature, at the root of all his being. It is not merely that he couldnot be God, if he had made no creatures to whom to be God; but love isthe heart and hand of his creation; it is his right to create, and hispower to create as well. The love that foresees creation is itself thepower to create. Neither could he be righteous--that is, fair to hiscreatures--but that his love created them. His perfection is his love. All his divine rights rest upon his love. Ah, he is not the greatmonarch! The simplest peasant loving his cow, is more divine than anymonarch whose monarchy is his glory. If God would not punish sin, or ifhe did it for anything but love, he would not be the father of JesusChrist, the God who works as Jesus wrought. What then, I say oncemore, is in Christ correspondent to the creative power of God? It mustbe something that comes also of love; and in the Son the love must beto the already existent. Because of that eternal love which has nobeginning, the Father must have the Son. God could not love, could notbe love, without making things to love: Jesus has God to love; the loveof the Son is responsive to the love of the Father. The response toself-existent love is self-abnegating love. The refusal of himself isthat in Jesus which corresponds to the creation of God. His love takesaction, creates, in self-abjuration, in the death of self as motive; inthe drowning of self in the life of God, where it lives only as love. What is life in a child? Is it not perfect response to his parents?thorough oneness with them? A child at strife with his parents, one inwhom their will is not his, is no child; as a child he is dead, and hisdeath is manifest in rigidity and contortion. His spiritual order is onthe way to chaos. Disintegration has begun. Death is at work in him. See the same child yielding to the will that is righteously above hisown; see the life begin to flow from the heart through the members; seethe relaxing limbs; see the light rise like a fountain in his eyes, andflash from his face! Life has again its lordship!

The life of Christ is this--negatively, that he does nothing, cares fornothing for his own sake; positively, that he cares with his whole soulfor the will, the pleasure of his father. Because his father is hisfather, therefore he will be his child. The truth in Jesus is hisrelation to his father; the righteousness of Jesus is his fulfilment ofthat relation. Meeting this relation, loving his father with his wholebeing, he is not merely alive as born of God; but, giving himself withperfect will to God, choosing to die to himself and live to God, hetherein creates in himself a new and higher life; and, standing uponhimself, has gained the power to awake life, the divine shadow of hisown, in the hearts of us his brothers and sisters, who have come fromthe same birth-home as himself, namely, the heart of his God and ourGod, his father and our father, but who, without our elder brother todo it first, would never have chosen that self-abjuration which islife, never have become alive like him. To will, not from self, butwith the Eternal, is to live. 

This choice of his own being, in the full knowledge of what he did;this active willing to be the Son of the Father, perfect inobedience--is that in Jesus which responds and corresponds to theself-existence of God. Jesus rose at once to the height of his being, set himself down on the throne of his nature, in the act of subjectinghimself to the will of the Father as his only good, the only _reason_of his existence. When he died on the cross, he did that, in the wildweather of his outlying provinces in the torture of the body of hisrevelation, which he had done at home in glory and gladness. From theinfinite beginning--for here I can speak only by contradictions-hecompleted and held fast the eternal circle of his existence in saying, 'Thy will, not mine, be done!' He made himself what he is by _deathing_himself into the will of the eternal Father, through which will he wasthe eternal Son--thus plunging into the fountain of his own life, theeverlasting Fatherhood, and taking the Godhead of the Son. This is thelife that was made _in_ Jesus: 'That which was made in him was life. 'This life, self-willed in Jesus, is the one thing that makes suchlife--the eternal life, the true life, possible--nay, imperative, essential, to every man, woman, and child, whom the Father has sentinto the outer, that he may go back into the inner world, his heart. Asthe self-existent life of the Father has given us being, so the willeddevotion of Jesus is his power to give us eternal life like his own--toenable us to do the same. There is no life for any man, other than thesame kind that Jesus has; his disciple must live by the same absolutedevotion of his will to the Father's; then is his life one with thelife of the Father. 

Because we are come out of the divine nature, which chooses to bedivine, we must _choose_ to be divine, to be of God, to be one withGod, loving and living as he loves and lives, and so be partakers ofthe divine nature, or we perish. Man cannot originate this life; itmust be shown him, and he must choose it. God is the father of Jesusand of us--of every possibility of our being; but while God is thefather of his children, Jesus is the father of their sonship; for inhim is made the life which is sonship to the Father--the recognition, namely, in fact and life, that the Father has his claim upon his sonsand daughters. We are not and cannot become true sons without our willwilling his will, our doing following his making. It was the will ofJesus to be the thing God willed and meant him, that made him the trueson of God. He was not the son of God because he could not help it, butbecause he willed to be in himself the son that he was in the divineidea. So with us: we must _be_ the sons we are. We are not made to bewhat we cannot help being; sons and daughters are not after suchfashion! We are sons and daughters in God's claim; we must be sons anddaughters in our will. And we can be sons and daughters, saved into theoriginal necessity and bliss of our being, only by choosing God for thefather he is, and doing his will--yielding ourselves true sons to theabsolute Father. Therein lies human bliss--only and essential. Theworking out of this our salvation must be pain, and the handing of itdown to them that are below must ever be in pain; but the eternal formof the will of God in and for us, is intensity of bliss. 

'And the life was the light of men. '

The life of which I have now spoken became light to men in theappearing of him in whom it came into being. The life became light thatmen might see it, and themselves live by choosing that life also, bychoosing so to live, such to be. 

There is always something deeper than anything said--something ofwhich all human, all divine words, figures, pictures, motion-forms, arebut the outer laminar spheres through which the central reality shinesmore or less plainly. Light itself is but the poor outside form of adeeper, better thing, namely, life. The life is Christ. The light toois Christ, but only the body of Christ. The life is Christ himself. Thelight is what we _see_ and shall see in him; the life is what we may_be_ in him. The life 'is a light by abundant clarity invisible;' it isthe unspeakable unknown; it must become light such as men can seebefore men can know it. Therefore the obedient human God appeared asthe obedient divine man, doing the works of his father--the things, that is, which his father did--doing them humbly before unfriendlybrethren. The Son of the Father must take his own form in the substanceof flesh, that he may be seen of men, and so become the light ofmen--not that men may have light, but that men may have life;--that, seeing what they could not originate, they may, through the life thatis in them, begin to hunger after the life of which they are capable, and which is essential to their being;--that the life in them may longfor him who is their life, and thirst for its own perfection, even asroot and stem may thirst for the flower for whose sake, and throughwhose presence in them, they exist. That the child of God may becomethe son of God by beholding _the_ Son, the life revealed in light; thatthe radiant heart of the Son of God may be the sunlight to his fellows;that the idea may be drawn out by the presence and drawing of theIdeal--that Ideal, the perfect Son of the Father, was sent to hisbrethren. 

Let us not forget that the devotion of the Son could never have beenbut for the devotion of the Father, who never seeks his own glory oneatom more than does the Son; who is devoted to the Son, and to all hissons and daughters, with a devotion perfect and eternal, withfathomless unselfishness. The whole being and doing of Jesus on earthis the same as his being and doing from all eternity, that whereby heis the blessed son-God of the father-God; it is the shining out of thatlife that men might see it. It is a being like God, a doing of the willof God, a working of the works of God, therefore an unveiling of theFather in the Son, that men may know him. It is the prayer of the Sonto the rest of the sons to come back to the Father, to be reconciled tothe Father, to behave to the Father as he does. He seems to me to say:'I know your father, for he is my father; I know him because I havebeen with him from eternity. You do not know him; I have come to you totell you that as I am, such is he; that he is just like me, onlygreater and better. He only is the true, original good; I am truebecause I seek nothing but his will. He only is all in all; I am notall in all, but he is my father, and I am the son in whom his heart oflove is satisfied. Come home with me, and sit with me on the throne ofmy obedience. Together we will do his will, and be glad with him, forhis will is the only good. You may do with me as you please; I will notdefend myself. Because I speak true, my witness is unswerving; I standto it, come what may. If I held my face to my testimony only tilldanger came close, and then prayed the Father for twelve legions ofangels to deliver me, that would be to say the Father would do anythingfor his children until it began to hurt him. I bear witness that myfather is such as I. In the face of death I assert it, and dare deathto disprove it. Kill me; do what you will and can against me; my fatheris true, and I am true in saying that he is true. Danger or hurt cannotturn me aside from this my witness. Death can only kill my body; hecannot make me his captive. Father, thy will be done! The pain willpass; it will be but for a time! Gladly will I suffer that men may knowthat I live, and that thou art my life. Be with me, father, that it maynot be more than I can bear. '

Friends, if you think anything less than this could redeem the world, or make blessed any child that God has created, you know neither theSon nor the Father. 

The bond of the universe, the chain that holds it together, the oneactive unity, the harmony of things, the negation of difference, thereconciliation of all forms, all shows, all wandering desires, allreturning loves; the fact at the root of every vision, revealing that'love is the only good in the world, ' and selfishness the one thinghateful, in the city of the living God unutterable, is the devotion ofthe Son to the Father. It is the life of the universe. It is not thefact that God created all things, that makes the universe a whole; butthat he through whom he created them loves him perfectly, is eternallycontent in his father, is satisfied to be because his father is withhim. It is not the fact that God is all in all, that unites theuniverse; it is the love of the Son to the Father. For of no onehoodcomes unity; there can be no oneness where there is only one. For thevery beginnings of unity there must be two. Without Christ, therefore, there could be no universe. The reconciliation wrought by Jesus is notthe primary source of unity, of safety to the world; thatreconciliation was the necessary working out of the eternal antecedentfact, the fact making itself potent upon the rest of the family--thatGod and Christ are one, are father and son, the Father loving the Sonas only the Father can love, the Son loving the Father as only the Soncan love. The prayer of the Lord for unity between men and the Fatherand himself, springs from the eternal need of love. The more I regardit, the more I am lost in the wonder and glory of the thing. But forthe Father and the Son, no two would care a jot the one for the other. It might be the right way for creatures to love because of mereexistence, but what two creatures would ever have originated theloving? I cannot for a moment believe it would have been I. Even had Icome into being as now with an inclination to love, selfishness wouldsoon have overborne it. But if the Father loves the Son, if the verymusic that makes the harmony of life lies, not in the theory of love inthe heart of the Father, but in the fact of it, in the burning love inthe hearts of Father and Son, then glory be to the Father and to theSon, and to the spirit of both, the fatherhood of the Father meetingand blending with the sonhood of the Son, and drawing us up into theglory of their joy, to share in the thoughts of love that pass betweenthem, in their thoughts of delight and rest in each other, in theirthoughts of joy in all the little ones. The life of Jesus is the lightof men, revealing to them the Father. 

But light is not enough; light is for the sake of life. We too musthave life in ourselves. We too must, like the Life himself, live. Wecan live in no way but that in which Jesus lived, in which life wasmade in him. That way is, to give up our life. This is the one supremeaction of life possible to us for the making of life in ourselves. Christ did it of himself, and so became light to us, that we might beable to do it in ourselves, after him, and through his originating act. We must do it ourselves, I say. The help that he has given and gives, the light and the spirit-working of the Lord, the spirit, in ourhearts, is all in order that we may, as we must, do it ourselves. Tillthen we are not alive; life is not made in us. The whole strife andlabour and agony of the Son with every man, is to get him to die as hedied. All preaching that aims not at this, is a building with wood andhay and stubble. If I say not with whole heart, 'My father, do with meas thou wilt, only help me against myself and for thee;' if I cannotsay, 'I am thy child, the inheritor of thy spirit, thy being, a part ofthyself, glorious in thee, but grown poor in me: let me be thy dog, thyhorse, thy anything thou willest; let me be thine in any shape the lovethat is my Father may please to have me; let me be thine in any way, and my own or another's in no way but thine;'--if we cannot, fully asthis, give ourselves to the Father, then we have not yet laid hold uponthat for which Christ has laid hold upon us. The faith that a man may, nay, must put in God, reaches above earth and sky, stretches beyond thefarthest outlying star of the creatable universe. The question is notat present, however, of removing mountains, a thing that will one daybe simple to us, but of waking and rising from the dead now. 

When a man truly and perfectly says with Jesus, and as Jesus said it, 'Thy will be done, ' he closes the everlasting life-circle; the life ofthe Father and the Son flows through him; he is a part of the divineorganism. Then is the prayer of the Lord in him fulfilled: 'I in themand thou in me, that they made be made perfect in one. ' The Christ inus, is the spirit of the perfect child toward the perfect father. TheChrist in us is our own true nature made blossom in us by the Lord, whose life is the light of men that it may become the life of men; forour true nature is childhood to the Father. 

Friends, those of you who know, or suspect, that these things are true, let us arise and live--arise even in the darkest moments of spiritualstupidity, when hope itself sees nothing to hope for. Let us nottrouble ourselves about the cause of our earthliness, except we know itto be some unrighteousness in us, but go at once to the Life. Never, never let us accept as consolation the poor suggestion, that the causeof our deadness is physical. Can it be comfort to know that this bodyof ours, because of the death in it, is too much for the spirit--whichought not merely to triumph over it, but to inspire it with subjectionand obedience? Let us comfort ourselves in the thought of the Fatherand the Son. So long as there dwells harmony, so long as the Son lovesthe Father with all the love the Father can welcome, all is well withthe little ones. God is all right--why should we mind standing in thedark for a minute outside his window? Of course we miss the _inness_, but there is a bliss of its own in waiting. What if the rain befalling, and the wind blowing; what if we stand alone, or, more painfulstill, have some dear one beside us, sharing our _outness_; what evenif the window be not shining, because of the curtains of goodinscrutable drawn across it; let us think to ourselves, or say to ourfriend, 'God is; Jesus is not dead; nothing can be going wrong, howeverit may look so to hearts unfinished in childness. ' Let us say to theLord, 'Jesus, art thou loving the Father in there? Then we out herewill do his will, patiently waiting till he open the door. We shall notmind the wind or the rain much. Perhaps thou art saying to the Father, "Thy little ones need some wind and rain: their buds are hard; theflowers do not come out. I cannot get them made blessed without alittle more winter-weather. " Then perhaps the Father will say, "Comfortthem, my son Jesus, with the memory of thy patience when thou wastmissing me. Comfort them that thou wast sure of me when everythingabout thee seemed so unlike me, so unlike the place thou hadst left. "'In a word, let us be at peace, because peace is at the heart ofthings--peace and utter satisfaction between the Father and the Son--inwhich peace they call us to share; in which peace they promise that atlength, when they have their good way with us, we shall share. 

Before us, then, lies a bliss unspeakable, a bliss beyond the thoughtor invention of man, to every child who will fall in with the perfectimagination of the Father. His imagination is one with his creativewill. The thing that God imagines, that thing exists. When the createdfalls in with the will of him who 'loved him into being, ' then all iswell; thenceforward the mighty creation goes on in him upon higher andyet higher levels, in more and yet more divine airs. Thy will, O God, be done! Nought else is other than loss, than decay, than corruption. There is no life but that born of the life that the Word made inhimself by doing thy will, which life is the light of men. Through thatlight is born the life of men--the same life in them that came firstinto being in Jesus. As he laid down his life, so must men lay downtheir lives, that as he liveth they may live also. That which was madein him was life, and the life is the light of men; and yet his own, towhom he was sent, _did not believe him_. 

 THE KNOWING OF THE SON. 

_Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. Andye have not his word abiding in you; for whom he hath sent, him yebelieve not_. --John v. 37, 38. 

We shall know one day just how near we come in the New Testament to thevery words of the Lord. That we have them with a difference, I cannotdoubt. For one thing, I do not believe he spoke in Greek. He was sentto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and would speak their naturallanguage, not that which, at best, they knew in secondary fashion. Thatthe thoughts of God would come out of the heart of Jesus in anythingbut the mother-tongue of the simple men to whom he spoke, I cannotthink. He may perhaps have spoken to the Jews of Jerusalem in Greek, for they were less simple; but at present I do not see ground tobelieve he did. 

Again, are we bound to believe that John Boanerges, who indeed best, and in some things alone, understood him, was able, after such a lapseof years, to give us in his gospel, supposing the Lord to have spokento his disciples in Greek, the _very_ words in which he uttered thesimplest profundities ever heard in the human world? I do not say hewas not able; I say--Are we bound to believe he was able? When thedisciples became, by the divine presence in their hearts, capable ofunderstanding the Lord, they remembered things he had said which theyhad forgotten; possibly the very words in which he said them returnedto their memories; but must we believe the evangelists always preciselyrecorded his words? The little differences between their records isanswer enough. The gospel of John is the outcome of years and years ofremembering, recalling, and pondering the words of the Master, onething understood recalling another. We cannot tell of how much thememory, in best condition--that is, with God in the man--may not becapable; but I do not believe that John would have always given us thevery words of the Lord, even if, as I do not think he did, he hadspoken them in Greek. God has not cared that we should anywhere haveassurance of his very words; and that not merely, perhaps, because ofthe tendency in his children to word-worship, false logic, andcorruption of the truth, but because he would not have them oppressedby words, seeing that words, being human, therefore but partiallycapable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant, and that even he must depend for being understood upon the spirit ofhis disciple. Seeing it could not give life, the letter should not bethroned with power to kill; it should be but the handmaid to open thedoor of the truth to the mind that was _of_ the truth. 

'Then you believe in an individual inspiration to anyone who chooses tolay claim to it!'

Yes--to everyone who claims it from God; not to everyone who claimsfrom men the recognition of his possessing it. He who has a thing, doesnot need to have it recognized. If I did not believe in a specialinspiration to every man who asks for the holy spirit, the good thingof God, I should have to throw aside the whole tale as an imposture;for the Lord has, according to that tale, promised such inspiration tothose who ask it. If an objector has not this spirit, is not inspiredwith the truth, he knows nothing of the words that are spirit and life;and his objection is less worth heeding than that of a savage to theassertion of a chemist. His assent equally is but the blowing of anidle horn. 

'But how is one to tell whether it be in truth the spirit of God thatis speaking in a man?'

You are not called upon to tell. The question for you is whether youhave the spirit of Christ yourself. The question is for you to put toyourself, the question is for you to answer to yourself: Am I alivewith the life of Christ? Is his spirit dwelling in me? Everyone whodesires to follow the Master has the spirit of the Master, and willreceive more, that he may follow closer, nearer, in his very footsteps. He is not called upon to prove to this or that or any man that he hasthe light of Jesus; he has to let his light shine. It does not followthat his work is to teach others, or that he is able to speak largetruths in true forms. When the strength or the joy or the pity of thetruth urges him, let him speak it out and not be afraid--content to becondemned for it; comforted that if he mistake, the Lord himself willcondemn him, and save him 'as by fire. ' The condemnation of his fellowmen will not hurt him, nor a whit the more that it be spoken in thename of Christ. If he speak true, the Lord will say 'I sent him. ' Forall truth is of him; no man can see a true thing to be true but by theLord, the spirit. 

'How am I to know that a thing is true?'

By _doing_ what you know to be true, and calling nothing true until yousee it to be true; by shutting your mouth until the truth opens it. Areyou meant to be silent? Then woe to you if you speak. 

'But if I do not take the words attributed to him by the evangelists, for the certain, absolute, very words of the Master, how am I to knowthat they represent his truth?'

By seeing in them what corresponds to the plainest truth he speaks, andcommends itself to the power that is working in you to make of you atrue man; by their appeal to your power of judging what is true; bytheir rousing of your conscience. If they do not seem to you true, either they are not the words of the Master, or you are not true enoughto understand them. Be certain of this, that, if any words that are hisdo not show their truth to you, you have not received his message inthem; they are not yet to you the word of God, for they are not in youspirit and life. They may be the nearest to the truth that words cancome; they may have served to bring many into contact with the heart ofGod; but for you they remain as yet sealed. If yours be a true heart, it will revere them because of the probability that they are words withthe meaning of the Master behind them; to you they are the rock in thedesert before Moses spoke to it. If you wait, your ignorance will nothurt you; if you presume to reason from them, you are a blind mandisputing of that you never saw. To reason from a thing not understood, is to walk straight into the mire. To dare to reason of truth fromwords that do not show to us that they are true, is the presumption ofPharisaical _hypocrisy_. Only they who are not true, are capable ofdoing it. Humble mistake will not hurt us: the truth is there, and theLord will see that we come to know it. We may think we know it when wehave scarce a glimpse of it; but the error of a true heart will not beallowed to ruin it. Certainly that heart would not have mistaken thetruth except for the untruth yet remaining in it; but he who casts outdevils will cast out that devil. 

In the saying before us, I see enough to enable me to believe that itswords embody the mind of Christ. If I could not say this, I should say, 'The apostle has here put on record a saying of Christ's; I have notyet been able to recognise the mind of Christ in it; therefore Iconclude that I cannot have understood it, for to understand what istrue is to know it true. ' I have yet seen no words credibly reported asthe words of Jesus, concerning which I dared to say, 'His mind is nottherein, therefore the words are not his. ' The mind of man call receiveany word only in proportion as it is the word of Christ, and inproportion as he is one with Christ. To him who does verily receive hisword, it is a power, not of argument, but of life. The words of theLord are not for the logic that deals with words as if they werethings; but for the spiritual logic that reasons from divine thought todivine thought, dealing with spiritual facts. 

No thought, human or divine, can be conveyed from man to man savethrough the symbolism of the creation. The heavens and the earth arearound us that it may be possible for us to speak of the unseen by theseen; for the outermost husk of creation has correspondence with thedeepest things of the Creator. He is not a God that hideth himself, buta God who made that he might reveal; he is consistent and onethroughout. There are things with which an enemy hath meddled; butthere are more things with which no enemy could meddle, and by which wemay speak of God. They may not have revealed him to us, but at leastwhen he is revealed, they show themselves so much of his nature, thatwe at once use them as spiritual tokens in the commerce of the spirit, to help convey to other minds what we may have seen of the unseen. Belonging to this sort of mediation are the words of the Lord I wouldnow look into. 

'And the Father himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And yehave not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believenot. '

If Jesus said these words, he meant more, not less, than lies on theirsurface. They cannot be mere assertion of what everybody knew; neithercan their repetition of similar negations be tautological. They werenot intended to inform the Jews of a fact they would not have dreamedof denying. Who among them would say he had ever heard God's voice, orseen his shape? John himself says 'No man hath seen God at any time. 'What is the tone of the passage? It is reproach. Then he reproachesthem that they had not seen God, when no man hath seen God at any time, and Paul says no man can see him! Is there here any paradox? Therecannot be the sophism: 'No man hath seen God; ye are to blame that yehave not seen God; therefore all men are to blame that they have notseen God!' If we read, 'No man hath seen God, but some men ought tohave seen him, ' we do not reap such hope for the race as will give theaspect of a revelation to the assurance that not one of those capableof seeing him has ever seen him!

The one utterance is of John; the other of his master: if there is anycontradiction between them, of course the words of John must be thrownaway. But there can hardly be contradiction, since he who says the onething, is recorder of the other as said by his master, him to whom hebelonged, whose disciple he was, whom he loved as never man loved manbefore. 

The word _see_ is used in one sense in the one statement, and inanother sense in the other. In the one it means _see with the eyes_; inthe other, _with the soul_. The one statement is made of all men; theother is made to certain of the Jews of Jerusalem concerningthemselves. It is true that no man hath seen God, and true that somemen ought to have seen him. No man hath seen him with his bodily eyes;these Jews ought to have seen him with their spiritual eyes. 

No man has ever seen God in any outward, visible, close-fitting form ofhis own: he is revealed in no shape save that of his son. Butmultitudes of men have with their mind's, or rather their heart's eye, seen more or less of God; and perhaps every man might have and ought tohave seen something of him. We cannot follow God into his infinitesimalintensities of spiritual operation, any more than into the atomiclife-potencies that lie deep beyond the eye of the microscope: God maybe working in the heart of a savage, in a way that no wisdom of hiswisest, humblest child can see, or imagine that it sees. Many who havenever beheld the face of God, may yet have caught a glimpse of the hemof his garment; many who have never seen his shape, may yet have seenthe vastness of his shadow; thousands who have never felt the warmth ofits folds, have yet been startled by

 No face: only the sight Of a sweepy garment vast and white. 

Some have dreamed his hand laid upon them, who never knew themselvesgathered to his bosom. The reproach in the words of the Lord is thereproach of men who ought to have had an experience they had not had. Let us look a little nearer at his words. 

'Ye have not heard his voice at any time, ' might mean, '_Ye have neverlistened to his voice_, ' or '_Ye have never obeyed his voice_' but thefollowing phrase, 'nor seen his shape, ' keeps us rather to the primarysense of the word _hear: 'The sound of his voice is unknown to you;''You have never heard his voice so as to know it for his_. ' 'You havenot seen his shape;'--'_You do not know what he is like_. ' Plainly heimplies, '_You ought to know his voice; you ought to know what he islike_. ' 'You have not his word abiding in you;'--'_The word that is inyou from the beginning, the word of God in your conscience, you havenot kept with you, it is not dwelling in you; by yourselves accepted asthe witness of Moses, the scripture in which you think you have eternallife does not abide with you, is not at home in you. It comes to youand goes from you. You hear, heed not, and forget. You do not dwellwith it, and brood upon it, and obey it. It finds no acquaintance inyou. You are not of its kind. You are not of those to whom the word ofGod comes. Their ears are ready to hear; they hunger after the word ofthe Father_. '

On what does the Lord found this his accusation of them? What is thesign in them of their ignorance of God?--For whom he hath sent, him yebelieve not. '

'How so?' the Jews might answer. 'Have we not asked from thee a signfrom heaven, and hast thou not pointblank refused it?'

The argument of the Lord was indeed of small weight with, and of littleuse to, those to whom it most applied, for the more it applied, themore incapable were they of seeing that it did apply; but it would beof great force upon some that stood listening, their minds more or lessopen to the truth, and their hearts drawn to the man before them. Hisargument was this: 'If ye had ever heard the Father's voice; if ye hadever known his call; if you had ever imagined him, or a God anythinglike him; if you had cared for his will so that his word was at home inyour hearts, you would have known me when you saw me--known that I mustcome from him, that I must be his messenger, and would have listened tome. The least acquaintance with God, such as any true heart must have, would have made you recognize that I came from the God of whom you knewthat something. You would have been capable of knowing me by the lightof his word abiding in you; by the shape you had beheld howevervaguely; by the likeness of my face and my voice to those of my father. You would have seen my father in me; you would have known me by thelittle you knew of him. The family-feeling would have been awake inyou, the holy instinct of the same spirit, making you know your elderbrother. That you do not know me now, as I stand here speaking to you, is that you do not know your own father, even my father; thatthroughout your lives you have refused to do his will, and so have notheard his voice; that you have shut your eyes from seeing him, and havethought of him only as a partisan of your ambitions. If you had lovedmy father, you would have known his son. ' And I think he might havesaid, 'If even you had loved your neighbour, you would have known me, neighbour to the deepest and best in you. ' If the Lord were to appearthis day in England as once in Palestine, he would not come in the haloof the painters, or with that wintry shine of effeminate beauty, ofsweet weakness, in which it is their helpless custom to represent him. Neither would he probably come as carpenter, or mason, or gardener. Hewould come in such form and condition as might bear to the presentEngland, Scotland, and Ireland, a relation like that which the form andcondition he then came in, bore to the motley Judea, Samaria, andGalilee. If he came thus, in form altogether unlooked for, who wouldthey be that recognized and received him? The idea involves noabsurdity. He is not far from us at any moment--if the old story beindeed more than the best and strongest of the fables that possess theworld. He might at any moment appear: who, I ask, would be the first toreceive him? Now, as then, it would of course be the childlike inheart, the truest, the least selfish. They would not be the highest inthe estimation of any church, for the childlike are not yet the many. It might not even be those that knew most about the former visit of theMaster, that had pondered every word of the Greek Testament. The firstto cry, 'It is the Lord!' would be neither 'good churchman' nor 'gooddissenter. ' It would be no one with so little of the mind of Christ asto imagine him caring about stupid outside matters. It would not be theman that holds by the mooring-ring of the letter, fast in the quay ofwhat he calls theology, and from his rotting deck abuses thepresumption of those that go down to the sea in ships--lets the wind ofthe spirit blow where it listeth, but never blow him out among itswonders in the deep. It would not be he who, obeying a command, doesnot care to see reason in the command; not he who, from very barrennessof soul, cannot receive the meaning and will of the Master, and sofails to fulfil the letter of his word, making it of none effect. Itwould certainly, if any, be those who were likest the Master--those, namely, that did the will of their father and his father, that builttheir house on the rock by hearing and doing his sayings. But are thereany enough like him to know him at once by the sound of his voice, bythe look of his face. There are multitudes who would at once be takenby a false Christ fashioned after their fancy, and would at once rejectthe Lord as a poor impostor. One thing is certain: they who firstrecognized him would be those that most loved righteousness and hatediniquity. 

But I would not forget that there are many in whom foolish forms covera live heart, warm toward everything human and divine; for theworst-fitting and ugliest robe may hide the loveliest form. Everycovering is not a clothing. The grass clothes the fields; the glorysurpassing Solomon's clothes the grass; but the traditions of theworthiest elders will not clothe any soul--how much less the traditionsof the unworthy! Its true clothing must grow out of the live soulitself. Some naked souls need but the sight of truth to rush to it, asDante says, like a wild beast to his den; others, heavily clad in thegarments the scribes have left behind them, and fearful of rending thatwhich is fit only to be trodden underfoot, right cautiously approachthe truth, go round and round it like a shy horse that fears a hiddenenemy. But let each be true after the fashion possible to him, and heshall have the Master's praise. 

If the Lord were to appear, the many who take the common presentationof thing or person for the thing or person, could never recognize thenew vision as another form of the old: the Master has been somisrepresented by such as have claimed to present him, and especiallyin the one eternal fact of facts--the relation between him and hisfather--that it is impossible they should see any likeness. For mypart, I would believe in no God rather than in such a God as isgenerally offered for believing in. How far those may be to blame who, righteously disgusted, cast the idea from them, nor make inquirywhether something in it may not be true, though most must be false, neither grant it any claim to investigation on the chance that somethat call themselves his prophets may have taken spiritual bribes

 To mingle beauty with infirmities, And pure perfection with impure defeature--

how far those may be to blame, it is not my work to inquire. Some wouldgrasp with gladness the hope that such chance might be proved a fact;others would not care to discern upon the palimpsest, covered but notobliterated, a credible tale of a perfect man revealing a perfect God:they are not true enough to desire that to be fact which wouldimmediately demand the modelling of their lives upon a perfect idea, and the founding of their every hope upon the same. 

_But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the sameimage_. 

 THE MIRRORS OF THE LORD. 

 _But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of theLord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as bythe spirit of the Lord_. --II. Corinthians iii. 18. 

We may see from this passage how the apostle Paul received the Lord, and how he understands his life to be the light of men, and so theirlife also. 

Of all writers I know, Paul seems to me the most plainly, the mostdeterminedly practical in his writing. What has been called hismysticism is at one time the exercise of a power of seeing, as byspiritual refraction, truths that had not, perhaps have not yet, risenabove the human horizon; at another, the result of a wide-eyed habit ofnoting the analogies and correspondences between the concentric regionsof creation; it is the working of a poetic imagination divinely alive, whose part is to foresee and welcome approaching truth; to discover thesame principle in things that look unlike; to embody things discovered, in forms and symbols heretofore unused, and so present to other mindsthe deeper truths to which those forms and symbols owe their being. 

I find in Paul's writing the same artistic fault, with the sameresulting difficulty, that I find in Shakspere's--a fault that, in eachcase, springs from the admirable fact that the man is much more thanthe artist--the fault of trying to say too much at once, of pouring outstintless the plethora of a soul swelling with life and its thought, through the too narrow neck of human utterance. Thence it comes that weare at times bewildered between two or more meanings, equally good inthemselves, but perplexing as to the right deduction, as to the line ofthe thinker's reasoning. The uncertainty, however, lies always in theintellectual region, never in the practical. What Paul cares about isplain enough to the true heart, however far from plain to the man whosedesire to understand goes ahead of his obedience, who starts with thenotion that Paul's design was to teach a system, to explain instead ofhelp to see God, a God that can be revealed only to childlike insight, never to keenest intellect. The energy of the apostle, like that of hismaster, went forth to rouse men to seek the kingdom of God over them, his righteousness in them; to dismiss the lust of possession andpassing pleasure; to look upon the glory of the God and Father, andturn to him from all that he hates; to recognize the brotherhood ofmen, and the hideousness of what is unfair, unloving, andself-exalting. His design was not to teach any plan of salvation otherthan obedience to the Lord of Life. He knew nothing of the so-calledChristian systems that change the glory of the perfect God into thelikeness of the low intellects and dull consciences of men--a worsecorruption than the representing of him in human shape. What kind ofsoul is it that would not choose the Apollo of light, the high-walkingHyperion, to the notion of the dull, self-cherishing monarch, thelaw-dispensing magistrate, or the cruel martinet, generated in thepagan arrogance of Rome, and accepted by the world in the church as theportrait of its God! Jesus Christ is the _only_ likeness of the livingFather. 

Let us see then what Paul teaches us in this passage about the lifewhich is the light of men. It is his form of bringing to bear upon menthe truth announced by John. 

When Moses came out from speaking with God, his face was radiant; itsshining was a wonder to the people, and a power upon them. But theradiance began at once to diminish and die away, as was natural, for itwas not indigenous in Moses. Therefore Moses put a veil upon his facethat they might not see it fade. As to whether this was right or wise, opinion may differ: it is not my business to discuss the question. Whenhe went again into the tabernacle, he took off his veil, talked withGod with open face, and again put on the veil when he came out. Paulsays that the veil which obscured the face of Moses lies now upon thehearts of the Jews, so that they cannot understand him, but that whenthey turn to the Lord, go into the tabernacle with Moses, the veilshall be taken away, and they shall see God. Then will they understandthat the glory is indeed faded upon the face of Moses, but by reason ofthe glory that excelleth, the glory of Jesus that overshines it. Here, after all, I can hardly help asking--Would not Moses have done betterto let them see that the glory of their leader was altogether dependenton the glory within the veil, whither they were not worthy to enter?Did that veil hide Moses's face only? Did he not, howeverunintentionally, lay it on their hearts? Did it not cling there, andhelp to hide God from them, so that they could not perceive that thegreater than Moses was come, and stormed at the idea that the glory oftheir prophet must yield? Might not the absence of that veil from hisface have left them a little more able to realize that his glory was aglory that must pass, a glory whose glory was that it prepared the wayfor a glory that must extinguish it? Moses had put the veil for everfrom his face, but they clutched it to their hearts, and it blindedthem--admirable symbol of the wilful blindness of old Mosaist or modernWesleyan, admitting no light that his Moses or his Wesley did not see, and thus losing what of the light he saw and reflected. 

Paul says that the sight of the Lord will take that veil from theirhearts. His light will burn it away. His presence gives liberty. Wherehe is, there is no more heaviness, no more bondage, no more wildernessor Mount Sinai. The Son makes free with sonship. 

And now comes the passage whose import I desire to make more clear:

'But we all, ' having this presence and this liberty, 'with open facebeholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into thesame image, ' that of the Lord, 'from glory to glory, even as of theLord, the spirit. '

'We need no Moses, no earthly mediator, to come between us and thelight, and bring out for us a little of the glory. We go into thepresence of the Son revealing the Father--into the presence of theLight of men. Our mediator is the Lord himself, the spirit of light, amediator not sent by us to God to bring back his will, but come fromGod to bring us himself. We enter, like Moses, into the presence of thevisible, radiant God--only how much more visible, more radiant! AsMoses stood with uncovered face receiving the glory of God full uponit, so with open, with uncovered face, full in the light of the gloryof God, in the place of his presence, stand we--you and I, Corinthians. It is no reflected light we see, but the glory of God shining _in_, shining out of, shining in and from the face of Christ, the glory ofthe Father, one with the Son. Israel saw but the fading reflection ofthe glory of God on the face of Moses; we see the glory itself in theface of Jesus. '

But in what follows, it seems to me that the revised version misses themeaning almost as much as the authorized, when, instead of 'beholdingas in a glass, ' it gives 'reflecting as a mirror. ' The former is wrong;the latter is far from right. The idea, with the figure, is that of apoet, not a man of science. The poet deals with the outer show ofthings, which outer show is infinitely deeper in its relation to truth, as well as more practically useful, than the analysis of the man ofscience. Paul never thought of the mirror as reflecting, as throwingback the rays of light from its surface; he thought of it as receiving, taking into itself, the things presented to it--here, as filling itsbosom with the glory it looks upon. When I see the face of my friend ina mirror, the mirror seems to hold it in itself, to surround the visagewith its liquid embrace. The countenance is _there_--down there in thedepth of the mirror. True, it shines radiant out of it, but it is notthe shining out of it that Paul has in his thought; it is the fact--the_visual_ fact, which, according to Wordsworth, the poet alwaysseizes--of the mirror holding in it the face. 

That this is the way poet or prophet--Paul was both--would think of thething, especially in the age of the apostle, I shall be able to makeappear even more probable by directing your notice to the followingpassage from Dante--whose time, though so much farther from that of theapostle than our time from Dante's, was in many respects much likerPaul's than ours. 

The passage is this:--Dell' Inferno: Canto xxiii. 25-27:

 E quei: 'S'io fossi d'impiombato vetro, L'immagine di fuor tua non trarrei Piu tosto a me, che quella dentro impetro. '

Here Virgil, with reference to the power he had of reading the thoughtsof his companion, says to Dante:

'If I were of leaded glass, '--meaning, 'If I were glass covered at theback with lead, so that I was a mirror, '--'I should not draw thyoutward image to me more readily than I gain thy inner one;'--meaning, 'than now I know your thoughts. '

It seems, then, to me, that the true simple word to represent theGreek, and the most literal as well by which to translate it, is theverb _mirror_--when the sentence, so far, would run thus: 'But we all, with unveiled face, mirroring the glory of the Lord, --. '

I must now go on to unfold the idea at work in the heart of theapostle. For the mere correctness of a translation is nothing, exceptit bring us something deeper, or at least some fresher insight: withhim who cares for the words apart from what the writer meant them toconvey, I have nothing to do: he must cease to 'pass for a man' andbegin to be a man indeed, on the way to be a live soul, before I candesire his intercourse. The prophet-apostle seems to me, then, to say, 'We all, with clear vision of the Lord, mirroring in our hearts hisglory, even as a mirror would take into itself his face, are therebychanged into his likeness, his glory working our glory, by the presentpower, in our inmost being, of the Lord, the spirit. ' Our mirroring ofChrist, then, is one with the presence of his spirit in us. The idea, you see, is not the reflection, the radiating of the light of Christ onothers, though that were a figure lawful enough; but the taking into, and having in us, him working to the changing of us. 

That the thing signified transcends the sign, outreaches the figure, isno discovery; the thing figured always belongs to a higher stratum, towhich the simile serves but as a ladder; when the climber has reachedit, 'he then unto the ladder turns his back. ' It is but according tothe law of symbol, that the thing symbolized by the mirror should haveproperties far beyond those of leaded glass or polished metal, seeingit is a live soul understanding that which it takes into itsdeeps--holding it, and conscious of what it holds. It mirrors by itswill to hold in its mirror. Unlike its symbol, it can hold not merelythe outward visual resemblance, but the inward likeness of the personrevealed by it; it is open to the influences of that which it embraces, and is capable of active co-operation with them: the mirror and thething mirrored are of one origin and nature, and in closest relation toeach other. Paul's idea is, that when we take into our understanding, our heart, our conscience, our being, the glory of God, namely JesusChrist as he shows himself to our eyes, our hearts, our consciences, heworks upon us, and will keep working, till we are changed to the verylikeness we have thus mirrored in us; for with his likeness he comeshimself, and dwells in us. He will work until the same likeness iswrought out and perfected in us, the image, namely, of the humanity ofGod, in which image we were made at first, but which could never bedeveloped in us except by the indwelling of the perfect likeness. Bythe power of Christ thus received and at home in us, we arechanged--the glory in him becoming glory in us, his glory changing usto glory. 

But we must beware of receiving this or any symbol _after the flesh_, beware of interpreting it in any fashion that partakes of the characterof the mere physical, psychical, or spirituo-mechanical. The symboldeals with things far beyond the deepest region whence symbols can bedrawn. The indwelling of Jesus in the soul of man, who shall declare!But let us note this, that the dwelling of Jesus in us is the power ofthe spirit of God upon us; for 'the Lord is that spirit, ' and that Lorddwelling in us, we are changed 'even as from the Lord the spirit. ' Whenwe think Christ, Christ comes; when we receive his image into ourspiritual mirror, he enters with it. Our thought is not cut off fromhis. Our open receiving thought is his door to come in. When our heartsturn to him, that is opening the door to him, that is holding up ourmirror to him; then he comes in, not by our thought only, not in ouridea only, but he comes himself, and of his own will--comes in as wecould not take him, but as he can come and we receive him--enabled toreceive by his very coming the one welcome guest of the whole universe. Thus the Lord, the spirit, becomes the soul of our souls, becomesspiritually what he always was creatively; and as our spirit informs, gives shape to our bodies, in like manner his soul informs, gives shapeto our souls. In this there is nothing unnatural, nothing at conflictwith our being. It is but that the deeper soul that willed and willsour souls, rises up, the infinite Life, into the Self we call _I_ and_me_, but which lives immediately from him, and is his very ownproperty and nature--unspeakably more his than ours: this deepercreative soul, working on and with his creation upon higher levels, makes the _I_ and _me_ more and more his, and himself more and moreours; until at length the glory of our existence flashes upon us, weface full to the sun that enlightens what it sent forth, and knowourselves alive with an infinite life, even the life of the Father;know that our existence is not the moonlight of a mere consciousness ofbeing, but the sun-glory of a life justified by having become one withits origin, thinking and feeling with the primal Sun of life, from whomit was dropped away that it might know and bethink itself, and returnto circle for ever in exultant harmony around him. Then indeed we_are_; then indeed we have life; the life of Jesus has, through light, become life in us; the glory of God in the face of Jesus, mirrored inour hearts, has made us alive; we are one with God for ever and ever. 

What less than such a splendour of hope would he worthy the revelationof Jesus? Filled with the soul of their Father, men shall inherit theglory of their Father; filled with themselves, they cast him out, androt. The company of the Lord, soul to soul, is that which saves withlife, his life of God-devotion, the souls of his brethren. No othersaving can save them. They must receive the Son, and through the Sonthe Father. What it cost the Son to get so near to us that we could say_Come in_, is the story of his life. He stands at the door and knocks, and when we open to him he comes in, and dwells with us, and we aretransformed to the same image of truth and purity and heavenlychildhood. Where power dwells, there is no force; where the spirit-Lordis, there is liberty. The Lord Jesus, by free, potent communion withtheir inmost being, will change his obedient brethren till in everythought and impulse they are good like him, unselfish, neighbourly, brotherly like him, loving the Father perfectly like him, ready to diefor the truth like him, caring like him for nothing in the universe butthe will of God, which is love, harmony, liberty, beauty, and joy. 

I do not know if we may call this having life in ourselves; but it isthe waking up, the perfecting in us of the divine life inherited fromour Father in heaven, who made us in his own image, whose natureremains in us, and makes it the deepest reproach to a man that he hasneither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. He who wouldthus live must, as a mirror draws into its bosom an outward glory, receive into his 'heart of heart' the inward glory of Jesus Christ, _the Truth_. 

 THE TRUTH. 

 I am the truth. --John xiv. 6

When the man of the five senses talks of _truth_, he regards it but asa predicate of something historical or scientific proved a fact; or, ifhe allows that, for aught he knows, there may be higher truth, yet, ashe cannot obtain proof of it from without, he acts as if under noconceivable obligation to seek any other satisfaction concerning it. Whatever appeal be made to the highest region of his nature, such a onebehaves as if it were the part of a wise man to pay it no heed, becauseit does not come within the scope of the lower powers of that nature. According to the word of _the_ man, however, truth means more thanfact, more than relation of facts or persons, more than loftiestabstraction of metaphysical entity--means being and life, will andaction; for he says, '_I am the truth_. '

I desire to help those whom I may to understand more of what is meantby _the truth_, not for the sake of definition, or logicaldiscrimination, but that, when they hear the word from the mouth of theLord, the right idea may rise in their minds; that the word may neitherbe to them a void sound, nor call up either a vague or false notion ofwhat he meant by it. If he says, 'I am the truth, ' it must, to say theleast, be well to know what he means by the word with whose idea heidentifies himself. And at once we may premise that he can mean nothingmerely intellectual, such as may be set forth and left there; he meanssomething vital, so vital that the whole of its necessary relations aresubject to it, so vital that it includes everything else which, in anylower plane, may go or have gone by the same name. Let us endeavour toarrive at his meaning by a gently ascending stair. 

A thing being so, the word that says it is so, is the truth. But thefact may be of no value in itself, and our knowledge of it of no valueeither. Of most facts it may be said that the truth concerning them isof no consequence. For instance, it cannot be in itself importantwhether on a certain morning I took one side of the street or theother. It may be of importance to some one to know which I took, but initself it is of none. It would therefore be felt unfit if I said, 'Itis a _truth_ that I walked on the sunny side. ' The correct word wouldbe a _fact_, not a truth. If the question arose whether a statementconcerning the thing were correct, we should still be in the region offact or no fact; but when we come to ask whether the statement was trueor false, then we are concerned with the matter as the assertion of ahuman being, and ascend to another plane of things. It may be of noconsequence which side I was upon, or it may be of consequence to someone to know which, but it is of vital importance to the witness and toany who love him, whether or not he believes the statement hemakes--whether the man himself is true or false. Concerning the thingit can be but a question of _fact_; it remains a question of fact evenwhether the man has or has not spoken the truth; but concerning the manit is a question of truth: he is either a pure soul, so far as thisthing witnesses, or a false soul, capable and guilty of a lie. In thisrelation it is of no consequence whether the man spoke the fact or not;if he meant to speak the fact, he remains a true man. 

Here I would anticipate so far as to say that there are _truths_ aswell as _facts_, and lies against truths as well as against facts. Whenthe Pharisees said _Corban_, they lied against the truth that a manmust honour his father and mother. 

Let us go up now from the region of facts that seem casual, to thosefacts that are invariable, by us unchangeable, which therefore involvewhat we call _law_. It will be seen at once that the _fact_ here is ofmore dignity, and the truth or falsehood of a statement in this regionof more consequence in itself. It is a small matter whether the waterin my jug was frozen on such a morning; but it is a fact of greatimportance that at thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit water alwaysfreezes. We rise a step here in the nature of the facts concerned: arewe come therefore into the region of truths? Is it a truth that waterfreezes at thirty-two degrees? I think not. There is no principle, opento us, involved in the changeless fact. The principle that lies at theroot of it in the mind of God must be a truth, but to the human mindthe fact is as yet only a fact. The word truth ought to be kept forhigher things. There are those that think such facts the highest thatcan be known; they put therefore the highest word they know to thehighest thing they know, and call the facts of nature truths; but to meit seems that, however high you come in your generalization, howeverwide you make your law---including, for instance, all solidity underthe law of freezing--you have not risen higher than the statement thatsuch and such is an invariable fact. Call it a law if you will--a lawof nature if you choose--that it always is so, but not a truth. Itcannot be to us a truth until we descry the reason of its existence, its relation to mind and intent, yea to self-existence. Tell us why it_must_ be so, and you state a truth. When we come to see that a law issuch, because it is the embodiment of a certain eternal thought, beheldby us in it, a fact of the being of God, the facts of which alone aretruths, then indeed it will be to us, not a law merely, but an embodiedtruth. A law of God's nature is a way he would have us think of him; itis a necessary truth of all being. When a law of Nature makes us seethis; when we say, I understand that law; I see why it ought to be; itis just like God; then it rises, not to the dignity of a truth initself, but to the truth of its own nature--namely, a revelation ofcharacter, nature, and will in God. It is a picture of something inGod, a word that tells a fact about God, and is therefore far nearerbeing called a truth than anything below it. As a simple illustration:What notion should we have of the unchanging and unchangeable, withoutthe solidity of matter? If, such as we are, we had nothing solid aboutus, where would be our thinking about God and truth and law?

But there is a region perhaps not so high as this from the scientificpoint of view, where yet the word truth may begin to be rightlyapplied. I believe that every fact in nature is a revelation of God, isthere such as it is because God is such as he is; and I suspect thatall its facts impress us so that we learn God unconsciously. True, wecannot think of any one fact thus, except as we find the soul ofit--its fact of God; but from the moment when first we come intocontact with the world, it is to us a revelation of God, his thingsseen, by which we come to know the things unseen. How should we imaginewhat we may of God, without the firmament over our heads, a visiblesphere, yet a formless infinitude! What idea could we have of Godwithout the sky? The truth of the sky is what it makes us feel of theGod that sent it out to our eyes. If you say the sky could not but beso and such, I grant it--with God at the root of it. There is nothingfor us to conceive in its stead--therefore indeed it must be so. In itsdiscovered laws, light seems to me to be such because God is such. Itsso-called laws are the waving of his garments, waving so because he isthinking and loving and walking inside them. 

We are here in a region far above that commonly claimed for science, open only to the heart of the child and the childlike man and woman--aregion in which the poet is among his own things, and to which he hasoften to go to fetch them. For things as they are, not as science dealswith them, are the revelation of God to his children. I would not bemisunderstood: there is no fact of science not yet incorporated in alaw, no law of science that has got beyond the hypothetic andtentative, that has not in it the will of God, and therefore may notreveal God; but neither fact nor law is there for the sake of fact orlaw; each is but a mean to an end; in the perfected end we find theintent, and there God--not in the laws themselves, save as his means. For that same reason, human science cannot discover God; for humanscience is but the backward undoing of the tapestry-web of God'sscience, works with its back to him, and is always leaving him--hisintent, that is, his perfected work--behind it, always going fartherand farther away from the point where his work culminates inrevelation. Doubtless it thus makes some small intellectual approach tohim, but at best it can come only to his back; science will never findthe face of God; while those who would reach his heart, those who, likeDante, are returning thither where they are, will find also thespring-head of his science. Analysis is well, as death is well;analysis is death, not life. It discovers a little of the way God walksto his ends, but in so doing it forgets and leaves the end itselfbehind. I do not say the man of science does so, but the very processof his work is such a leaving of God's ends behind. It is a followingback of his footsteps, too often without appreciation of the result forwhich the feet took those steps. To rise from the perfected work is theswifter and loftier ascent. If the man could find out why God workedso, then he would be discovering God; but even then he would not bediscovering the best and the deepest of God; for his means cannot be sogreat as his ends. I must make myself clearer. 

Ask a man of mere science, what is the truth of a flower: he will pullit to pieces, show you its parts, explain how they operate, how theyminister each to the life of the flower; he will tell you what changesare wrought in it by scientific cultivation; where it lives originally, where it can live; the effects upon it of another climate; what partthe insects bear in its varieties--and doubtless many more facts aboutit. Ask the poet what is the truth of the flower, and he will answer:'Why, the flower itself, the perfect flower, and what it cannot helpsaying to him who has ears to hear it. ' The truth of the flower is, notthe facts about it, be they correct as ideal science itself, but theshining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing throned on its stalk--thecompeller of smile and tear from child and prophet. The man of sciencelaughs at this, because he is only a man of science, and does not knowwhat it means; but the poet and the child care as little for hislaughter as the birds of God, as Dante calls the angels, for histreatise on aerostation. The children of God must always be mocked bythe children of the world, whether in the church or out of it--childrenwith sharp ears and eyes, but dull hearts. Those that hold love theonly good in the world, understand and smile at the world's children, and can do very well without anything they have got to tell them. Inthe higher state to which their love is leading them, they willspeedily outstrip the men of science, for they have that which is atthe root of science, that for the revealing of which God's scienceexists. What shall it profit a man to know all things, and lose thebliss, the consciousness of well-being, which alone can give value tohis knowledge?

God's science in the flower exists for the existence of the flower inits relation to his children. If we understand, if we are at one with, if we love the flower, we have that for which the science is there, that which alone can equip us for true search into the means and waysby which the divine idea of the flower was wrought out to be presentedto us. The idea of God _is_ the flower; his idea is not the botany ofthe flower. Its botany is but a thing of ways and means--of canvas andcolour and brush in relation to the picture in the painter's brain. Themere intellect can never find out that which owes its being to theheart supreme. The relation of the intellect to that which is born ofthe heart is an unreal except it be a humble one. The idea of God, Irepeat, is the flower. He thought it; invented its means; sent it, agift of himself, to the eyes and hearts of his children. When we seehow they are loved by the ignorant and degraded, we may well believethe flowers have a place in the history of the world, as written forthe archives of heaven, which we are yet a long way from understanding, and which science could not, to all eternity, understand, or enable tounderstand. Watch that child! He has found one of his silent andmotionless brothers, with God's clothing upon it, God's thought in itsface. In what a smile breaks out the divine understanding between them!Watch his mother when he takes it home to her--no nearer understandingit than he! It is no old association that brings those tears to hereyes, powerful in that way as are flowers, and things far inferior toflowers; it is God's thought, unrecognized as such, holding communionwith her. She weeps with a delight inexplicable. It is only a daisy!only a primrose! only a pheasant-eye-narcissus! only a lily of thefield! only a snowdrop! only a sweet-pea! only a brave yellow crocus!But here to her is no mere fact; here is no law of nature; here is atruth of nature, the truth of a flower--a perfect thought from theheart of God--a truth of God!--not an intellectual truth, but a divinefact, a dim revelation, a movement of the creative soul! Who but afather could think the flowers for his little ones? We are nigh theregion now in which the Lord's word is at home--'I am the truth. '

I will take an illustrative instance altogether to my mind and specialpurpose. What, I ask, is the truth of water? Is it that it is formed ofhydrogen and oxygen?--That the chemist has now another mode of statingthe _fact_ of water, will not affect my illustration. His new mode willprobably be one day yet more antiquated than mine is now. --Is it forthe sake of the fact that hydrogen and oxygen combined form water, thatthe precious thing exists? Is oxygen-and-hydrogen the divine idea ofwater? Or has God put the two together only that man might separate andfind them out? He allows his child to pull his toys to pieces; but werethey made that he might pull them to pieces? He were a child not to beenvied for whom his inglorious father would make toys to such an end! Aschool-examiner might see therein the best use of a toy, but not afather! Find for us what in the constitution of the two gases makesthem fit and capable to be thus honoured in forming the lovely thing, and you will give us a revelation about more than water, namely aboutthe God who made oxygen and hydrogen. There is no water in oxygen, nowater in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of theliving God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy nometaphysician can analyse. The water itself, that dances, and sings, and slakes the wonderful thirst--symbol and picture of that draught forwhich the woman of Samaria made her prayer to Jesus--this lovely thingitself, whose very wetness is a delight to every inch of the human bodyin its embrace--this live thing which, if I might, I would have runningthrough my room, yea, babbling along my table--this water is its ownself its own truth, and is therein a truth of God. Let him who wouldknow the love of the maker, become sorely athirst, and drink of thebrook by the way--then lift up his heart--not at that moment to themaker of oxygen and hydrogen, but to the inventor and mediator ofthirst and water, that man might foresee a little of what his soul mayfind in God. If he become not then as a hart panting for thewater-brooks, let him go back to his science and its husks: they willat last make him thirsty as the victim in the dust-tower of thePersian. As well may a man think to describe the joy of drinking bygiving thirst and water for its analysis, as imagine he has revealedanything about water by resolving it into its scientific elements. Leta man go to the hillside and let the brook sing to him till he lovesit, and he will find himself far nearer the fountain of truth than thetriumphal car of the chemist will ever lead the shouting crew of hishalf-comprehending followers. He will draw from the brook the water ofjoyous tears, 'and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and thesea, and the fountains of waters. '

The truth _of a thing_, then, is the blossom of it, the thing it ismade for, the topmost stone set on with rejoicing; truth in a man'simagination is the power to recognize this truth of a thing; andwherever, in anything that God has made, in the glory of it, be it skyor flower or human face, we see the glory of God, there a trueimagination is beholding a truth of God. And now we must advance to ayet higher plane. 

We have seen that the moment whatever goes by the name of truth comesinto connection with man; the moment that, instead of merely mirroringitself in his intellect as a thing outside of him, it comes intocontact with him as a being of action; the moment the knowledge of itaffects or ought to affect his sense of duty, it becomes a thing of farnobler import; the question of truth enters upon a higher phase, looksout of a loftier window. A fact which in itself is of no value, becomesat once a matter of life and death--moral life and death, when a manhas the choice, the imperative choice of being true or false concerningit. When the truth, the heart, the summit, the crown of a thing, isperceived by a man, he approaches the fountain of truth whence thething came, and perceiving God by understanding what is, becomes moreof a man, more of the being he was meant to be. In virtue of this truthperceived, he has relations with the universe undeveloped in him tillthen. But far higher will the doing of the least, the mostinsignificant duty raise him. He begins thereby to be a true man. A manmay delight in the vision and glory of a truth, and not himself betrue. The man whose vision is weak, but who, as far as he sees, anddesirous to see farther, does the thing he sees, is a true man. If aman knows what is, and says it is not, his knowing does not make himless than a liar. The man who recognizes the truth of any humanrelation, and neglects the duty involved, is not a true man. The manwho knows the laws of nature, and does not heed them, the more heteaches them to others, the less is he a true man. But he may obey themall and be the falsest of men, because of far higher and closer dutieswhich he neglects. The man who takes good care of himself and none ofhis brother and sister, is false. A man may be a poet, aware of thehighest truth of a thing, of that beauty which is the final cause ofits existence; he may draw thence a notion of the creative lovelinessthat thought it out; he may be a man who would not tell a lie, orsteal, or slander--and yet he may not be a true man, inasmuch as theessentials of manhood are not his aim: having nowise come to the flowerof his own being, nowise, in his higher degree, attained the truth of_a thing_--namely, that for which he exists, the creational notion ofhim--neither is he striving after the same. There are relations closerthan those of the facts around him, plainer than those that seem tobring the maker nigh to him, which he is failing to see, or seeingfails to acknowledge, or acknowledging fails to fulfil. Man is man onlyin the doing of the truth, perfect man only in the doing of the highesttruth, which is the fulfilling of his relations to his origin. But hehas relations with his fellow man, closer infinitely than with any ofthe things around him, and to many a man far plainer than his relationswith God. Now the nearer is plainer that he may step on it, and rise tothe higher, till then the less plain. These relations make a large partof his being, are essential to his very existence, and spring from thevery facts of the origination of his being. They are the relation ofthought to thought, of being to being, of duty to duty. The very natureof a man depends upon or is one with these relations. They are_truths_, and the man is a true man as he fulfils them. Fulfilling themperfectly, he is himself a _truth_, a living truth. As regarded merelyby the intellect, these relations are facts of man's nature; but thatthey are of man's nature makes them truths, and the fulfilments of themare duties. He is so constituted as to understand them at first morethan he can love them, with the resulting advantage of having therebythe opportunity of choosing them purely because they are true; so doinghe chooses to love them, and is enabled to love them in the doing, which alone can truly reveal them to him, and make the loving of thempossible. Then they cease to show themselves in the form of duties, andappear as they more truly are, absolute truths, essential realities, eternal delights. The man is a true man who chooses duty; he is aperfect man who at length never thinks of duty, who forgets the name ofit. The duty of Jesus was the doing in lower forms than the perfectthat which he loved perfectly, and did perfectly in the highest formsalso. Thus he fulfilled all righteousness. One who went to the truth bymere impulse, would be a holy animal, not a true man. Relations, truths, duties, are shown to the man away beyond him, that he maychoose them, and be a child of God, choosing righteousness like him. Hence the whole sad victorious human tale, and the glory to berevealed!

The moral philosopher who regards duties only as facts of his system;nay, even the man who rewards them as truths, essential realities ofhis humanity, but goes no farther, is essentially a liar, a man ofuntruth. He is a man indeed, but not a true man. He is a man inpossibility, but not a real man yet. The recognition of these things isthe imperative obligation to fulfil them. Not fulfilling theserelations, the man is undoing the right of his own existence, destroying his _raison d'etre_, making of himself a monster, a livereason why he should not live, for nothing on those terms could everhave begun to be. His presence is a claim upon his creator fordestruction. 

The facts of human relation, then, are truths indeed, and of awfullestimport. 'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know thatno murderer hath eternal life abiding in him!' The man who lives ahunter after pleasure, not a labourer in the fields of duty, who thinksof himself as if he were alone on the earth, is in himself a lie. Instead of being the man he looks, the man he was made to be, he livesas the beasts seem to live--with this difference, I trust, that theyare rising, while he, so far as lies in himself, is sinking. But hecannot be allowed to sink beyond God's reach; hence all the holy--thatis, healing--miseries that come upon him, of which he complains as sohard and unfair: they are for the compelling of the truth he will notyield--a painful suasion to be himself, to be a truth. 

But suppose, for the sake of my progressive unfolding, that a man dideverything required of him--fulfilled all the relations to his fellowsof which I have been speaking, was toward them at least, a true man; hewould yet feel, doubtless would feel it the more, that something waslacking to him--lacking to his necessary well-being. Like a liveflower, he would feel that he had not yet blossomed, and could not tellwhat the blossom ought to be. In this direction the words of the Lordpoint, when he says to the youth, 'If thou wouldst be perfect. ' The manwhom I suppose, would feel that his existence was not yet justified toitself, that the truth of his being and nature was not yet revealed tohis consciousness. He would remain unsatisfied; and the cause would bethat there was in him a relation, and that the deepest, closest, andstrongest, which had not yet come into live fact, which had not yetbecome a truth in him, toward which he was not true, whereby his beingremained untrue, he was not himself, was not ripened into the divineidea, which alone can content itself. A child with a child's heart whodoes not even know that he has a father, yet misses him--with his wholenature, even if not with his consciousness. This relation has not yetso far begun to be fulfilled in him, as that the coming blossom shouldsend before it patience and hope enough to enable him to live by faithwithout sight. When the flower begins to come, the human plant beginsto rejoice in the glory of God not yet revealed, the inheritance of thesaints in light; with uplifted stem and forward-leaning bud expects thehour when the lily of God's field shall know itself alive, with Godhimself for its heart and its atmosphere; the hour when God and the manshall be one, and all that God cares for shall be the man's. But againI forget my progression. 

The highest truth to the intellect, the abstract truth, is the relationin which man stands to the source of his being--his will to the willwhence it became a will, his love to the love that kindled his power tolove, his intellect to the intellect that lighted his. If a man dealwith these things only as things to be dealt with, as objects ofthought, as ideas to be analysed and arranged in their due order andright relation, he treats them as facts and not as truths, and is nobetter, probably much the worse, for his converse with them, for heknows in a measure, and is false to all that is most worthy of hisfaithfulness. 

But when the soul, or heart, or spirit, or what you please to call thatwhich is the man himself and not his body, sooner or later becomesaware that he needs some one above him, whom to obey, in whom to rest, from whom to seek deliverance from what in himself is despicable, disappointing, unworthy even of his own interest; when he is aware ofan opposition in him, which is not harmony; that, while he hates it, there is yet present with him, and seeming to be himself, whatsometimes he calls _the old Adam_, sometimes _the flesh_, sometimes_his lower nature_, sometimes _his evil self_; and sometimes recognizesas simply that part of his being where God is not; then indeed is theman in the region of truth, and beginning to come true in himself. Norwill it be long ere he discover that there is no part in him with whichhe would be at strife, so God were there, so that it were true, what itought to be--in right relation to the whole; for, by whatever namecalled, the old Adam, or antecedent horse, or dog, or tiger, it wouldthen fulfil its part holily, intruding upon nothing, subject utterly tothe rule of the higher; horse or dog or tiger, it would be good horse, good dog, good tiger. 

When the man bows down before a power that can account for him, a powerto whom he is no mystery as he is to himself; a power that knows whencehe came and whither he is going; who knows why he loves this and hatesthat, why and where he began to go wrong; who can set him right, longsindeed to set him right, making of him a creature to look up to himselfwithout shadow of doubt, anxiety or fear, confident as a child whom hisfather is leading by the hand to the heights of happy-making truth, knowing that where he is wrong, the father is right and will set himright; when the man feels his whole being in the embrace ofself-responsible paternity--then the man is bursting into his flower;then the truth of his being, the eternal fact at the root of his newname, his real nature, his idea--born in God at first, and responsiveto the truth, the being of God, his origin--begins to show itself; thenhis nature is almost in harmony with itself. For, obeying the will thatis the cause of his being, the cause of that which demands of itself tobe true, and that will being righteousness and love and truth, hebegins to stand on the apex of his being, to know himself divine. Hebegins to feel himself free. The truth--not as known to his intellect, but as revealed in his own sense of being true, known by his essentialconsciousness of his divine condition, without which his nature isneither his own nor God's--trueness has made him free. Not any abstracttruth, not all abstract truth, not truth its very metaphysical self, held by purest insight into entity, can make any man free; but thetruth done, the truth loved, the truth lived by the man; the truth _of_and not merely _in_ the man himself; the honesty that makes the manhimself a child of the honest God. 

When a man is, with his whole nature, loving and willing the truth, heis then a live truth. But this he has not originated in himself. He hasseen it and striven for it, but not originated it. The one originating, living, visible truth, embracing all truths in all relations, is JesusChrist. He is true; he is the live Truth. His truth, chosen and willedby him, the ripeness of his being, the flower of his sonship which ishis nature, the crown of his one topmost perfect relation acknowledgedand gloried in, is his absolute obedience to his father. The obedientJesus is Jesus the Truth. He is true and the root of all truth anddevelopment of truth in men. Their very being, however far from thetrue human, is the undeveloped Christ in them, and his likeness toChrist is the truth of a man, even as the perfect meaning of a floweris the truth of a flower. Every man, according to the divine idea ofhim, must come to the truth of that idea; and under every form ofChrist is the Christ. The truth of every man, I say, is the perfectedChrist in him. As Christ is the blossom of humanity, so the blossom ofevery man is the Christ perfected in him. The vital force of humanityworking in him is Christ; he is his root--the generator and perfecterof his individuality. The stronger the pure will of the man to be true;the freer and more active his choice; the more definite hisindividuality, ever the more is the man and all that is his, Christ's. Without him he could not have been; being, he could not have becomecapable of truth; capable of truth, he could never have loved it;loving and desiring it, he could not have attained to it. Nothing butthe heart-presence, the humanest sympathy, and whatever deeper thingelse may be betwixt the creating Truth and the responding soul, couldmake a man go on hoping, until at last he forget himself, and keep openhouse for God to come and go. He gives us the will wherewith to will, and the power to use it, and the help needed to supplement the power, whatever in any case the need may be; but we ourselves must will thetruth, and for that the Lord is waiting, for the victory of God hisfather in the heart of his child. In this alone can he see of thetravail of his soul, in this alone be satisfied. The work is his, butwe must take our willing share. When the blossom breaks forth in us, the more it is ours the more it is his, for the highest creation of theFather, and that pre-eminently through the Son, is the being that can, like the Father and the Son, of his own self will what is right. Thegroaning and travailing, the blossom and the joy, are the Father's andthe Son's and ours. The will, the power of willing, may be created, butthe willing is begotten. Because God wills first, man wills also. 

When my being is consciously and willedly in the hands of him whocalled it to live and think and suffer and be glad--given back to himby a perfect obedience--I thenceforward breathe the breath, share thelife of God himself. Then I am free, in that I am true--which means onewith the Father. And freedom knows itself to be freedom. When a man istrue, if he were in hell he could not be miserable. He is right withhimself because right with him whence he came. To be right with God isto be right with the universe; one with the power, the love, the willof the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the lord of laughter, whoseare all glories, all hopes, who loves everything, and hates nothing butselfishness, which he will not have in his kingdom. 

Christ then is the Lord of life; his life is the light of men; thelight mirrored in them changes them into the image of him, the Truth;and thus _the truth, who is the Son, makes them free_. 

 FREEDOM. 

 _The Truth shall make you free. .. . Whosoever committeth sin, is theservant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: butthe Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, yeshall be free indeed. _--John viii. 32, 34-36. 

As this passage stands, I have not been able to make sense of it. Noman could be in the house of the Father in virtue of being the servantof sin; yet this man is in the house as a servant, and the house inwhich he serves is not the house of sin, but the house of the Father. The utterance is confused at best, and the reasoning faulty. He must bein the house of the Father on some other ground than sin. This, had nohelp come, would have been sufficient cause for leaving the passagealone, as one where, perhaps, the words of the Lord weremisrepresented--where, at least, perceiving more than one fundamentaltruth involved in the passage, I failed to follow the argument. I donot see that I could ever have suggested where the corruption, if any, lay. Most difficulties of similar nature have originated, like this, Ican hardly doubt, with some scribe who, desiring to explain what he didnot understand, wrote his worthless gloss on the margin: the nextcopier took the words for an omission that ought to be replaced in thebody of the text, and inserting them, falsified the utterance, andgreatly obscured its intention. What do we not owe to the critics whohave searched the scriptures, and found what really was written! In thepresent case, Dr. Westcott's notation gives us to understand that thereis another with 'a reasonable probability of being the true reading. 'The difference is indeed small to the eye, but is great enough to giveus fine gold instead of questionable ore. In an alternative of thekind, I must hope in what seems logical against what seems illogical;in what seems radiant against what seems trite. 

What I take for the true reading then, I English thus: 'Every onecommitting sin is a slave. But the slave does not remain in the housefor ever; the son remaineth for ever. If then the son shall make youfree, you shall in reality be free. ' The authorized version gives, 'Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of _sin_; 'the revisedversion gives, 'Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of_sin_;' both accepting the reading that has the words, '_of sin_. ' Thestatement is certainly in itself true, but appears to me useless forthe argument that follows. And I think it may have been what I take tobe the true reading, that suggested to the apostle Paul what he says inthe beginning of the fourth chapter of his Epistle to theGalatians--words of spirit and life from which has been mistakenlydrawn the doctrine of adoption, merest poison to the child-heart. Thewords of the Lord here are not that he who sins is the slave of sin, true utterly as that is; but that he is a slave, and the argument showsthat he means a slave to God. The two are perfectly consistent. Noamount of slavery to sin can keep a man from being as much the slave ofGod as God chooses in his mercy to make him. It is his sin makes him aslave instead of a child. His slavery to sin is his ruin; his slaveryto God is his only hope. God indeed does not love slavery; he hates it;he will have children, not slaves; but he may keep a slave in his housea long time in the hope of waking up the poor slavish nature to aspireto the sonship which belongs to him, which is his birthright. But theslave is not to be in the house for ever. The father is not bound tokeep his son a slave because the foolish child prefers it. 

Whoever will not do what God desires of him, is a slave whom God cancompel to do it, however he may bear with him. He who, knowing this, orfearing punishment, obeys God, is still a slave, but a slave who comeswithin hearing of the voice of his master. There are, however, farhigher than he, who yet are but slaves. Those to whom God is not all inall, are slaves. They may not commit great sins; they may be trying todo right; but so long as they _serve_ God, as they call it, from duty, and do not know him as their father, the joy of their being, they areslaves--good slaves, but slaves. If they did not try to do their duty, they would be bad slaves. They are by no means so slavish as those thatserve from fear, but they are slaves; and because they are but slaves, they can fulfil no righteousness, can do no duty perfectly, but mustever be trying after it wearily and in pain, knowing well that if theystop trying, they are lost. They are slaves indeed, for they would beglad to be adopted by one who is their own father! Where then are thesons? I know none, I answer, who are yet utterly and entirely sons ordaughters. There may be such--God knows; I have not known them; or, knowing them, have not been myself such as to be able to recognizethem. But I do know some who are enough sons and daughters to be at warwith the slave in them, who are not content to be slaves to theirfather. Nothing I have seen or known of sonship, comes near the gloryof the thing; but there are thousands of sons and daughters, thoughtheir number be yet only a remnant, who are siding with the father oftheir spirits against themselves, against all that divides them fromhim from whom they have come, but out of whom they have never come, seeing that in him they live and move and have their being. Such arenot slaves; they are true though not perfect children; they arefighting along with God against the evil separation; they are breakingat the middle wall of partition. Only the rings of their fetters areleft, and they are struggling to take them off. They are children--withmore or less of the dying slave in them; they know it is there, andwhat it is, and hate the slavery in them, and try to slay it. The realslave is he who does not seek to be a child; who does not desire to endhis slavery; who looks upon the claim of the child as presumption; whocleaves to the traditional authorized service of forms and ceremonies, and does not know the will of him who made the seven stars and Orion, much less cares to obey it; who never lifts up his heart to cry'Father, what wouldst thou have me to do?' Such are continuallybetraying their slavery by their complaints. 'Do we not well to beangry?' they cry with Jonah; and, truly, being slaves, I do not knowhow they are to help it. When they are sons and daughters, they will nolonger complain of the hardships, and miseries, and troubles of life;no longer grumble at their aches and pains, at the pinching of theirpoverty, at the hunger that assails them; no longer be indignant attheir rejection by what is called Society. Those who believe in theirown perfect father, can ill blame him for anything they do not like. Ah, friend, it may be you and I are slaves, but there _are_ such sonsand daughters as I speak of. 

The slaves of sin rarely grumble at that slavery; it is their slaveryto God they grumble at; of that alone they complain--of the painfulmessengers he sends to deliver them from their slavery both to sin andto himself. They must be sons or slaves. They cannot rid themselves oftheir owner. Whether they deny God, or mock him by acknowledging andnot heeding him, or treat him as an arbitrary, formal monarch; whether, taking no trouble to find out what pleases him, they do dull things forhis service he cares nothing about, or try to propitiate him byassuming with strenuous effort some yoke the Son never wore, and nevercalled on them to wear, they are slaves, and not the less slaves thatthey are slaves to God; they are so thoroughly slaves, that they do notcare to get out of their slavery by becoming sons and daughters, byfinding the good of life where alone it can or could lie. Could acreator make a creature whose well-being should not depend on himself?And if he could, would the creature be the greater for that? Which, thecreature he made more, or the creature he made less dependent onhimself, would be the greater? The slave in heart would immediately, with Milton's Satan, reply, that the farthest from him who made himmust be the freest, thus acknowledging his very existence a slavery, and but two kinds in being--a creator, and as many slaves as he pleasesto make, whose refusal to obey is their unknown protest against theirown essence. _Being_ itself must, for what they call liberty, berepudiated! Creation itself, to go by their lines of life, is aninjustice! God had no right to create beings less than himself; and ashe could not create equal, he ought not to have created! But they donot complain of having been created; they complain of being required todo justice. They will not obey, but, his own handiwork, ravish from hiswork every advantage they can! They desire to be free with another kindof freedom than that with which God is free; unknowing, they seek amore complete slavery. There is, in truth, no mid way between absoluteharmony with the Father and the condition of slaves--submissive, orrebellious. If the latter, their very rebellion is by the strength ofthe Father in them. Of divine essence, they thrust their existence inthe face of their essence, their own nature. 

Yet is their very rebellion in some sense but the rising in them of hisspirit against their false notion of him--against the lies they holdconcerning him. They do not see that, if his work, namely, theythemselves, are the chief joy to themselves, much more might the lifethat works them be a glory and joy to them the work--inasmuch as it isnearer to them than they to themselves, causing them to be, andextends, without breach of relation, so infinitely above and beyondthem. For nothing can come so close as that which creates; the nearest, strongest, dearest relation possible is between creator and created. Where this is denied, the schism is the widest; where it isacknowledged and fulfilled, the closeness is unspeakable. But everremains what cannot be said, and I sink defeated. The very protest ofthe rebel against slavery, comes at once of the truth of God in him, which he cannot all cast from him, and of a slavery too low to lovetruth--a meanness that will take all and acknowledge nothing, as if hisvery being was a disgrace to him. The liberty of the God that wouldhave his creature free, is in contest with the slavery of the creaturewho would cut his own stem from his root that he might call it his ownand love it; who rejoices in his own consciousness, instead of the lifeof that consciousness; who poises himself on the tottering wall of hisown being, instead of the rock on which that being is built. Such a oneregards his own dominion over himself--the rule of the greater by theless, inasmuch as the conscious self is less than the self--as afreedom infinitely greater than the range of the universe of God'sbeing. If he says, 'At least I have it my own way!' I answer, You donot know what is your way and what is not. You know nothing of whenceyour impulses, your desires, your tendencies, your likings come. Theymay spring now from some chance, as of nerves diseased; now from someroar of a wandering bodiless devil; now from some infant hate in yourheart; now from the greed or lawlessness of some ancestor you would beashamed of if you knew him; or it may be now from some far-piercingchord of a heavenly orchestra: the moment it comes up into yourconsciousness, you call it your own way, and glory in it! Two devilsamusing themselves with a duet of inspiration, one at each ear, mightsoon make that lordly _me_ you are so in love with, rejoice in thefreedom of willing the opposite each alternate moment; and at lengthdrive you mad at finding that you could not, will as you would, makechoice of a way and its opposite simultaneously. The whole questionrests and turns on the relation of creative and created, of whichrelation few seem to have the consciousness yet developed. To livewithout the eternal creative life is an impossibility; freedom from Godcan only mean an incapacity for seeing the facts of existence, anincapability of understanding the glory of the creature who makescommon cause with his creator in his creation of him, who wills thatthe lovely will calling him into life and giving him choice, shouldfinish making him, should draw him into the circle of the creativeheart, to joy that he lives by no poor power of his own will, but isone with the causing life of his life, in closest breathing andwilling, vital and claimant oneness with the life of all life. Such acreature knows the life of the infinite Father as the very flame of hislife, and joys that nothing is done or will be done in the universe inwhich the Father will not make him all of a sharer that it is possiblefor perfect generosity to make him. If you say this is irreverent, Idoubt if you have seen the God manifest in Jesus. But all will be well, for the little god of your poor content will starve your soul tomisery, and the terror of the eternal death creeping upon you, willcompel you to seek a perfect father. Oh, ye hide-bound Christians, theLord is not straitened, but ye are straitened in your narrow unwillingsouls! Some of you need to be shamed before yourselves; some of youneed the fire. 

But one who reads may call out, in the agony and thirst of a childwaking from a dream of endless seeking and no finding, 'I am bound likeLazarus in his grave-clothes! what am I to do?' Here is the answer, drawn from this parable of our Lord; for the saying is much like aparable, teaching more than it utters, appealing to the conscience andheart, not to the understanding: You are a slave; the slave has no holdon the house; only the sons and daughters have an abiding rest in thehome of their father. God cannot have slaves about him always. You mustgive up your slavery, and be set free from it. That is what I am herefor. If I make you free, you shall be free indeed; for I can make youfree only by making you what you were meant to be, sons like myself. That is how alone the Son can work. But it is you who must become sons;you must will it, and I am here to help you. ' It is as if he said, 'Youshall have the freedom of my father's universe; for, free fromyourselves, you will be free of his heart. Yourselves are your slavery. That is the darkness which you have loved rather than the light. Youhave given honour to yourselves, and not to the Father; you have soughthonour from men, and not from the Father! Therefore, even in the houseof your father, you have been but sojourning slaves. We in his familyare all one; we have no party-spirit; we have no self-seeking: fall inwith us, and you shall be free as we are free. '

If then the poor starved child cry--'How, Lord?' the answer will dependon what he means by that _how_. If he means, 'What plan wilt thouadopt? What is thy scheme for cutting my bonds and setting me free?'the answer may be a deepening of the darkness, a tightening of thebonds. But if he means, 'Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?' theanswer will not tarry. 'Give yourself to me to do what I tell you, tounderstand what I say, to be my good, obedient little brother, and Iwill wake in you the heart that my father put in you, the same kind ofheart that I have, and it will grow to love the Father, altogether andabsolutely, as mine does, till you are ready to be torn to pieces forhim. Then you will know that you are at the heart of the universe, atthe heart of every secret--at the heart of the Father. Not till thenwill you be free, then free indeed!'

Christ died to save us, not from suffering, but from ourselves; notfrom injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust. He diedthat we might live--but live as he lives, by dying as he died who diedto himself that he might live unto God. If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God, and he that does not live to God, is dead. 'Yeshall know the truth, ' the Lord says, 'and the truth shall make youfree. I am the truth, and you shall be free as I am free. To be free, you must be sons like me. To be free you must _be_ that which you haveto be, that which you are created. To be free you must give the answerof sons to the Father who calls you. To be free you must fear nothingbut evil, care for nothing but the will of the Father, hold to him inabsolute confidence and infinite expectation. He alone is to betrusted. ' He has shown us the Father not only by doing what the Fatherdoes, not only by loving his Father's children even as the Father lovesthem, but by his perfect satisfaction with him, his joy in him, hisutter obedience to him. He has shown us the Father by the absolutedevotion of a perfect son. He is the Son of God because the Father andhe are one, have one thought, one mind, one heart. Upon this truth--Ido not mean the dogma, but the truth itself of Jesus to hisfather--hangs the universe; and upon the recognition of thistruth--that is, upon their becoming thus true--hangs the freedom of thechildren, the redemption of their whole world. 'I and the Father areone, ' is the centre-truth of the Universe; and the circumfering truthis, 'that they also may be one in us. '

The only free man, then, is he who is a child of the Father. He is aservant of all, but can be made the slave of none: he is a son of thelord of the universe. He is in himself, in virtue of his truth, free. He is in himself a king. For the Son rests his claim to royalty onthis, that _he was born and came into the world to bear witness to thetruth_. 

 KINGSHIP. 

 _Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king!To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, thatI should bear witness unto the truth: every one that is of the truthheareth my voice. _--John xviii. 37. 

Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king. The question is called forth by whatthe Lord had just said concerning his kingdom, closing with thestatement that it was not of this world. He now answers Pilate that heis a king indeed, but shows him that his kingdom is of a very differentkind from what is called kingdom in this world. The rank and rule ofthis world are uninteresting to him. He might have had them. Callinghis disciples to follow him, and his twelve legions of angels to helpthem, he might soon have driven the Romans into the abyss, piling themon the heap of nations they had tumbled there before. What easier forhim than thus to have cleared the way, and over the tributary worldreigned the just monarch that was the dream of the Jews, never seen inIsrael or elsewhere, but haunting the hopes and longings of the poorand their helpers! He might from Jerusalem have ruled the world, notmerely dispensing what men call justice, but compelling atonement. Hedid not care for government. No such kingdom would serve the ends ofhis father in heaven, or comfort his own soul. What was perfect empireto the Son of God, while he might teach one human being to love hisneighbour, and be good like his father! To be love-helper to one heart, for its joy, and the glory of his father, was the beginning of truekingship! The Lord would rather wash the feet of his weary brothers, than be the one only perfect monarch that ever ruled in the world. Itwas empire he rejected when he ordered Satan behind him like a dog tohis heel. Government, I repeat, was to him flat, stale, unprofitable. 

What then is the kingdom over which the Lord cares to reign, for hesays he came into the world to be a king? I answer, A kingdom of kings, and no other. Where every man is a king, there and there only does theLord care to reign, in the name of his father. As no king in Europewould care to reign over a cannibal, a savage, or an animal race, sothe Lord cares for no kingdom over anything this world calls a nation. A king must rule over his own kind. Jesus is a king in virtue of noconquest, inheritance, or election, but in right of essential being;and he cares for no subjects but such as are his subjects in the sameright. His subjects must be of his own kind, in their very nature andessence kings. To understand his answer to Pilate, see wherein consistshis kingship; what it is that makes him a king; what manifestation ofhis essential being gives him a claim to be king. The Lord's is akingdom in which no man seeks to be above another: ambition is of thedirt of this world's kingdoms. He says, 'I am a king, for I was bornfor the purpose, I came into the world with the object of bearingwitness to the truth. Everyone that is of my kind, that is of thetruth, hears my voice. He is a king like me, and makes one of mysubjects. ' Pilate thereupon--as would most Christians nowadays, insteadof setting about being true--requests a definition of truth, apresentation to his intellect in set terms of what the word 'truth'means; but instantly, whether confident of the uselessness of theinquiry, or intending to resume it when he has set the Lord at liberty, goes out to the people to tell them he finds no fault in him. Whateverinterpretation we put on his action here, he must be far less worthy ofblame than those 'Christians' who, instead of setting themselves to bepure 'even as he is pure, ' to be their brother and sister's keeper, andto serve God by being honourable in shop and counting-house andlabour-market, proceed to 'serve' him, some by going to church orchapel, some by condemning the opinions of their neighbours, some byteaching others what they do not themselves heed. Neither Pilate northey ask the one true question, 'How am I to be a true man? How am I tobecome a man worth being a man?' The Lord is a king because his life, the life of his thoughts, of his imagination, of his will, of everysmallest action, is true--true first to God in that he is altogetherhis, true to himself in that he forgets himself altogether, and true tohis fellows in that he will endure anything they do to him, nor ceasedeclaring himself the son and messenger and likeness of God. They willkill him, but it matters not: the truth is as he says!

Jesus is a king because his business is to bear witness to the truth. What truth? All truth; all verity of relation throughout theuniverse--first of all, that his father is good, perfectly good; andthat the crown and joy of life is to desire and do the will of theeternal source of will, and of all life. He deals thus the death-blowto the power of hell. For the one principle of hell is--'I am my own. Iam my own king and my own subject. _I_ am the centre from which go outmy thoughts; _I_ am the object and end of my thoughts; back upon _me_as the alpha and omega of life, my thoughts return. My own glory is, and ought to be, my chief care; my ambition, to gather the regards ofmen to the one centre, myself. My pleasure is _my_ pleasure. My kingdomis--as many as I can bring to acknowledge my greatness over them. Myjudgment is the faultless rule of things. My right is--what I desire. The more I am all in all to myself, the greater I am. The less Iacknowledge debt or obligation to another; the more I close my eyes tothe fact that I did not make myself; the more self-sufficing I feel orimagine myself--the greater I am. I will be free with the freedom thatconsists in doing whatever I am inclined to do, from whatever quartermay come the inclination. To do my own will so long as I feel anythingto be my will, is to be free, is to live. To all these principles ofhell, or of this world--they are the same thing, and it matters nothingwhether they are asserted or defended so long as they are actedupon--the Lord, the king, gives the direct lie. It is as if hesaid:--'I ought to know what I say, for I have been from all eternitythe son of him from whom you issue, and whom you call your father, butwhom you will not have your father: I know all he thinks and is; and Isay this, that my perfect freedom, my pure individuality, rests on thefact that I have not another will than his. My will is all for hiswill, for his will is right. He is righteousness itself. His very beingis love and equity and self-devotion, and he will have his childrensuch as himself--creatures of love, of fairness, of self-devotion tohim and their fellows. I was born to bear witness to the truth--in myown person to be the truth visible--the very likeness and manifestationof the God who is true. My very being is his witness. Every fact of mewitnesses him. He is the truth, and I am the truth. Kill me, but whileI live I say, Such as I am he is. If I said I did not know him, Ishould be a liar. I fear nothing you can do to me. Shall the king whocomes to say what is true, turn his back for fear of men? My Father islike me; I know it, and I say it. You do not like to hear it becauseyou are not like him. I am low in your eyes which measure things bytheir show; therefore you say I blaspheme. I should blaspheme if I saidhe was such as anything you are capable of imagining him, for you loveshow, and power, and the praise of men. I do not, and God is like me. Icame into the world to show him. I am a king because he sent me to bearwitness to his truth, and I bear it. Kill me, and I will rise again. You can kill me, but you cannot hold me dead. Death is my servant; youare the slaves of Death because you will not be true, and let the truthmake you free. Bound, and in your hands, I am free as God, for God ismy father. I know I shall suffer, suffer unto death, but if you knew myfather, you would not wonder that I am ready; you would be ready too. He is my strength. My father is greater than I. '

Remember, friends, I said, 'It is as if he said. ' I am daring topresent a shadow of the Lord's witnessing, a shadow surely cast by hisdeeds and his very words! If I mistake, he will forgive me. I do notfear him; I fear only lest, able to see and write these things, Ishould fail of witnessing, and myself be, after all, a castaway--noking, but a talker; no disciple of Jesus, ready to go with him to thedeath, but an arguer about the truth; a hater of the lies men speak forGod, and myself a truth-speaking liar, not a doer of the word. 

We see, then, that the Lord bore his witness to the Truth, to the oneGod, by standing just what he was, before the eyes and the lies of men. The true king is the man who stands up a true man and speaks the truth, and will die but not lie. The robes of such a king may be rags orpurple; it matters neither way. The rags are the more likely, butneither better nor worse than the robes. Then was the Lord dressed mostroyally when his robes were a jest, a mockery, a laughter. Of the menwho before Christ bare witness to the truth, some were sawn asunder, some subdued kingdoms; it mattered nothing which: they witnessed. 

The truth is God; the witness to the truth is Jesus. The kingdom of thetruth is the hearts of men. The bliss of men is the true God. Thethought of God is the truth of everything. All well-being lies in truerelation to God. The man who responds to this with his whole being, isof the truth. The man who knows these things, and but knows them; theman who sees them to be true, and does not order life and action, judgment and love by them, is of the worst of lying; with hand, andfoot, and face he casts scorn upon that which his tongue confesses. 

Little thought the sons of Zebedee and their ambitious mother what theearthly throne of Christ's glory was which they and she begged theymight share. For the king crowned by his witnessing, witnessed then tothe height of his uttermost argument, when he hung upon the cross--likea sin, as Paul in his boldness expresses it. When his witness istreated as a lie, then most he witnesses, for he gives it still. Highand lifted up on the throne of his witness, on the cross of historture, he holds to it: 'I and the Father are one. ' Every mockeryborne in witnessing, is a witnessing afresh. Infinitely more than hadhe sat on the throne of the whole earth, did Jesus witness to the truthwhen Pilate brought him out for the last time, and perhaps made him siton the judgment-seat in his mockery of kingly garments and royalinsignia, saying, 'Behold your king!' Just because of those robes andthat crown, that sceptre and that throne of ridicule, he was the onlyreal king that ever sat on any throne. 

Is every Christian expected to bear witness? A man content to bear nowitness to the truth is not in the kingdom of heaven. One who believesmust bear witness. One who sees the truth, must live witnessing to it. Is our life, then, a witnessing to the truth? Do we carry ourselves inbank, on farm, in house or shop, in study or chamber or workshop, asthe Lord would, or as the Lord would not? Are we careful to be true? Dowe endeavour to live to the height of our ideas? Or are we mean, self-serving, world-flattering, fawning slaves? When contempt is caston the truth, do we smile? Wronged in our presence, do we make no signthat we hold by it? I do not say we are called upon to dispute, anddefend with logic and argument, but we are called upon to show that weare on the other side. But when I say _truth, _ I do not mean _opinion_:to treat opinion as if that were truth, is grievously to wrong thetruth. The soul that loves the truth and tries to be true, will knowwhen to speak and when to be silent; but the true man will never lookas if he did not care. We are not bound to say all we think, but we arebound not even to look what we do not think. The girl who said before acompany of mocking companions, 'I believe in Jesus, ' bore true witnessto her Master, the Truth. David bore witness to God, the Truth, when hesaid, '_Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to everyman according to his work_. '

 JUSTICE. 

 _Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to everyman according to his work_. --Psalm lxii. 12. 

Some of the translators make it _kindness_ and _goodness_; but Ipresume there is no real difference among them as to the character ofthe word which here, in the English Bible, is translated mercy. 

The religious mind, however, educated upon the theories yet prevailingin the so-called religious world, must here recognize a departure fromthe presentation to which they have been accustomed: to make the psalmspeak according to prevalent theoretic modes, the verse would have tobe changed thus:--'To thee, O Lord, belongeth justice, for thourenderest to every man according to his work. '

Let the reason of my choosing this passage, so remarkable in itself, for a motto to the sermon which follows, remain for the presentdoubtful. I need hardly say that I mean to found no logical argumentupon it. 

Let us endeavour to see plainly what we mean when we use the word_justice, _ and whether we mean what we ought to mean when we useit--especially with reference to God. Let us come nearer to knowingwhat we ought to understand by justice, that is, the justice of God;for his justice is the live, active justice, giving existence to theidea of justice in our minds and hearts. Because he is just, we arecapable of knowing justice; it is because he is just, that we have theidea of justice so deeply imbedded in us. 

What do we oftenest mean by _justice_? Is it not the carrying out ofthe law, the infliction of penalty assigned to offence? By a just judgewe mean a man who administers the law without prejudice, without favouror dislike; and where guilt is manifest, punishes as much as, and nomore than, the law has in the case laid down. It may not be thatjustice has therefore been done. The law itself may be unjust, and thejudge may mistake; or, which is more likely, the working of the law maybe foiled by the parasites of law for their own gain. But even if thelaw be good, and thoroughly administered, it does not necessarilyfollow that justice is done. 

Suppose my watch has been taken from my pocket; I lay hold of thethief; he is dragged before the magistrate, proved guilty, andsentenced to a just imprisonment: must I walk home satisfied with theresult? Have I had justice done me? The thief may have had justice donehim--but where is my watch? That is gone, and I remain a man wronged. Who has done me the wrong? The thief. Who can set right the wrong? Thethief, and only the thief; nobody but the man that did the wrong. Godmay be able to move the man to right the wrong, but God himself cannotright it without the man. Suppose my watch found and restored, is theaccount settled between me and the thief? I may forgive him, but is thewrong removed? By no means. But suppose the thief to bethink himself, to repent. He has, we shall say, put it out of his power to return thewatch, but he comes to me and says he is sorry he stole it and begs meto accept for the present what little he is able to bring, as abeginning of atonement: how should I then regard the matter? Should Inot feel that he had gone far to make atonement--done more to make upfor the injury he had inflicted upon me, than the mere restoration ofthe watch, even by himself, could reach to? Would there not lie, in thethief's confession and submission and initial restoration, an appeal tothe divinest in me--to the eternal brotherhood? Would it not indeedamount to a sufficing atonement as between man and man? If he offeredto bear what I chose to lay upon him, should I feel it necessary, forthe sake of justice, to inflict some certain suffering as demanded byrighteousness? I should still have a claim upon him for my watch, butshould I not be apt to forget it? He who commits the offence can makeup for it--and he alone. 

One thing must surely be plain--that the punishment of the wrong-doermakes no atonement for the wrong done. How could it make up to me forthe stealing of my watch that the man was punished? The wrong would bethere all the same. I am not saying the man ought not to bepunished--far from it; I am only saying that the punishment nowisemakes up to the man wronged. Suppose the man, with the watch in hispocket, were to inflict the severest flagellation on himself: wouldthat lessen my sense of injury? Would it set anything right? Would itanyway atone? Would it give him a right to the watch? Punishment may dogood to the man who does the wrong, but that is a thing as different asimportant. 

Another thing plain is, that, even without the material rectificationof the wrong where that is impossible, repentance removes the offencewhich no suffering could. I at least should feel that I had no morequarrel with the man. I should even feel that the gift he had made me, giving into my heart a repentant brother, was infinitely beyond therestitution of what he had taken from me. True, he owed me both himselfand the watch, but such a greater does more than include such a less. If it be objected, 'You may forgive, but the man has sinned againstGod!'--Then it is not a part of the divine to be merciful, I return, and a man may be more merciful than his maker! A man may do that whichwould be too merciful in God! Then mercy is not a divine attribute, forit may exceed and be too much; it must not be infinite, thereforecannot be God's own. 

'Mercy may be against justice. ' Never--if you mean by justice what Imean by justice. If anything be against justice, it cannot be calledmercy, for it is cruelty. '_To thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thourenderest to every man according to his work_. ' There is _no_opposition, _no_ strife whatever, between mercy and justice. Those whosay justice means the punishing of sin, and mercy the not punishing ofsin, and attribute both to God, would make a schism in the very idea ofGod. And this brings me to the question, What is meant by divinejustice?

Human justice may be a poor distortion of justice, a mere shadow of it;but the justice of God must be perfect. We cannot frustrate it in itsworking; are we just to it in our idea of it? If you ask any ordinarySunday congregation in England, what is meant by the justice of God, would not nineteen out of twenty answer, that it means his punishing ofsin? Think for a moment what degree of justice it would indicate in aman--that he punished every wrong. A Roman emperor, a Turkish cadi, might do that, and be the most unjust both of men and judges. Ahabmight be just on the throne of punishment, and in his garden themurderer of Naboth. In God shall we imagine a distinction of office andcharacter? God is one; and the depth of foolishness is reached by thattheology which talks of God as if he held different offices, anddiffered in each. It sets a contradiction in the very nature of Godhimself. It represents him, for instance, as having to do that as amagistrate which as a father he would not do! The love of the fathermakes him desire to be unjust as a magistrate! Oh the folly of any mindthat would explain God before obeying him! that would map out thecharacter of God, instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me todo? God is no magistrate; but, if he were, it would be a position towhich his fatherhood alone gave him the right; his rights as a fathercover every right he can be analytically supposed to possess. Thejustice of God is this, that--to use a boyish phrase, the best thelanguage will now afford me because of misuse--he gives every man, woman, child, and beast, everything that has being, _fair play_; herenders to every man according to his work; and therein lies hisperfect mercy; for nothing else could be merciful to the man, andnothing but mercy could be fair to him. God does nothing of which anyjust man, the thing set fairly and fully before him so that heunderstood, would not say, 'That is fair. ' Who would, I repeat, say aman was a just man because he insisted on prosecuting every offender? Ascoundrel might do that. Yet the justice of God, forsooth, is hispunishment of sin! A just man is one who cares, and tries, and alwaystries, to give fair play to everyone in every thing. When we speak ofthe justice of God, let us see that we do mean justice! Punishment ofthe guilty may be involved in justice, but it does not constitute thejustice of God one atom more than it would constitute the justice of aman. 

'But no one ever doubts that God gives fair play!'

'That may be--but does not go for much, if you say that God does thisor that which is not fair. '

'If he does it, you may be sure it is fair. '

'Doubtless, or he could not be God--except to devils. But you say hedoes so and so, and is just; I say, he does not do so and so, and isjust. You say he does, for the Bible says so. I say, if the Bible saidso, the Bible would lie; but the Bible does not say so. The lord oflife complains of men for not judging right. To say on the authority ofthe Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lieagainst God; to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against thevery spirit of God. To uphold a lie for God's sake is to be againstGod, not for him. God cannot be lied for. He is the truth. The truthalone is on his side. While his child could not see the rectitude of athing, he would infinitely rather, even if the thing were right, havehim say, God could not do that thing, than have him believe that he didit. If the man were sure God did it, the thing he ought to say wouldbe, 'Then there must be something about it I do not know, which if Idid know, I should see the thing quite differently. ' But where an evilthing is invented to explain and account for a good thing, and a loverof God is called upon to believe the invention or be cast out, he needsnot mind being cast out, for it is into the company of Jesus. Wherethere is no ground to believe that God does a thing except that men whowould explain God have believed and taught it, he is not a true man whoaccepts men against his own conscience of God. I acknowledge noauthority calling upon me to believe a thing of God, which I could notbe a man and believe right in my fellow-man. I will accept noexplanation of any way of God which explanation involves what I shouldscorn as false and unfair in a man. If you say, That may be right ofGod to do which it would not be right of man to do, I answer, Yes, because the relation of the maker to his creatures is very differentfrom the relation of one of those creatures to another, and he hastherefore duties toward his creatures requiring of him what no manwould have the right to do to his fellow-man; but he can have no dutythat is not both just and merciful. More is required of the maker, byhis own act of creation, than can be required of men. More and higherjustice and righteousness is required of him by himself, theTruth;--greater nobleness, more penetrating sympathy; and _nothing_but what, if an honest man understood it, he would say was right. If itbe a thing man cannot understand, then man can say nothing as towhether it is right or wrong. He cannot even know that God does _it_, when the _it_ is unintelligible to him. What he calls _it_ may be butthe smallest facet of a composite action. His part is silence. If it besaid by any that God does a thing, and the thing seems to me unjust, then either I do not know what the thing is, or God does not do it. Thesaying cannot mean what it seems to mean, or the saying is not true. If, for instance, it be said that God visits the sins of the fathers onthe children, a man who takes _visits upon_ to mean _punishes, _ and_the children_ to mean _the innocent children, _ ought to say, 'Either Ido not understand the statement, or the thing is not true, whoever saysit. ' God _may_ do what seems to a man not right, but it must so seem tohim because God works on higher, on divine, on perfect principles, tooright for a selfish, unfair, or unloving man to understand. But leastof all must we accept some low notion of justice in a man, and arguethat God is just in doing after that notion. 

The common idea, then, is, that the justice of God consists inpunishing sin: it is in the hope of giving a larger idea of the justiceof God in punishing sin that I ask, '_Why is God bound to punish sin_?'

'How could he be a just God and not punish sin?'

'Mercy is a good and right thing, ' I answer, 'and but for sin therecould be no mercy. We are enjoined to forgive, to be merciful, to be asour father in heaven. Two rights cannot possibly be opposed to eachother. If God punish sin, it must be merciful to punish sin; and if Godforgive sin, it must be just to forgive sin. We are required toforgive, with the argument that our father forgives. It must, I say, beright to forgive. Every attribute of God must be infinite as himself. He cannot be sometimes merciful, and not always merciful. He cannot bejust, and not always just. Mercy belongs to him, and needs nocontrivance of theologic chicanery to justify it. '

'Then you mean that it is wrong to punish sin, therefore God does notpunish sin?'

'By no means; God does punish sin, but there is no opposition betweenpunishment and forgiveness. The one may be essential to the possibilityof the other. Why, I repeat, does God punish sin? That is my point. '

'Because in itself sin deserves punishment. '

'Then how can he tell us to forgive it?'

'He punishes, and having punished he forgives?'

'That will hardly do. If sin demands punishment, and the righteouspunishment is given, then the man is free. Why should he be forgiven?'

'He needs forgiveness because no amount of punishment will meet hisdeserts. '

I avoid for the present, as anyone may perceive, the probable expansionof this reply. 

'Then why not forgive him at once if the punishment is not essential--if part can be pretermitted? And again, can that be required which, according to your showing, is not adequate? You will perhaps answer, 'God may please to take what little he can have;' and this brings me tothe fault in the whole idea. 

Punishment is _nowise_ an _offset_ to sin. Foolish people sometimes, ina tone of self-gratulatory pity, will say, 'If I have sinned I havesuffered. ' Yes, verily, but what of that? What merit is there in it?Even had you laid the suffering upon yourself, what did that do to makeup for the wrong? That you may have bettered by your suffering is wellfor you, but what atonement is there in the suffering? The notion is afalse one altogether. Punishment, deserved suffering, is no equipoiseto sin. It is no use laying it in the other scale. It will not move ita hair's breadth. Suffering weighs nothing at all against sin. It isnot of the same kind, not under the same laws, any more than mind andmatter. We say a man deserves punishment; but when we forgive and donot punish him, we do not _always_ feel that we have done wrong;neither when we do punish him do we feel that any amends has been madefor his wrongdoing. If it were an offset to wrong, then God would bebound to punish for the sake of the punishment; but he cannot be, forhe forgives. Then it is not for the sake of the punishment, as a thingthat in itself ought to be done, but for the sake of something else, asa means to an end, that God punishes. It is not directly for justice, else how could he show mercy, for that would involve injustice?

Primarily, God is not bound to _punish_ sin; he is bound to _destroy_sin. If he were not the Maker, he might not be bound to destroy sin--Ido not know; but seeing he has created creatures who have sinned, andtherefore sin has, by the creating act of God, come into the world, Godis, in his own righteousness, bound to destroy sin. 

'But that is to have no mercy. '

You mistake. God does destroy sin; he is always destroying sin. In himI trust that he is destroying sin in me. He is always saving the sinnerfrom his sins, and that is destroying sin. But vengeance on the sinner, the law of a tooth for a tooth, is not in the heart of God, neither inhis hand. If the sinner and the sin in him, are the concrete object ofthe divine wrath, then indeed there can be no mercy. Then indeed therewill be an end put to sin by the destruction of the sin and the sinnertogether. But thus would no atonement be wrought--nothing be done tomake up for the wrong God has allowed to come into being by creatingman. There must be an atonement, a making-up, a bringing together--anatonement which, I say, cannot be made except by the man who hassinned. 

Punishment, I repeat, is not the thing required of God, but theabsolute destruction of sin. What better is the world, what better isthe sinner, what better is God, what better is the truth, that thesinner should suffer--continue suffering to all eternity? Would therebe less sin in the universe? Would there be any making-up for sin?Would it show God justified in doing what he knew would bring sin intothe world, justified in making creatures who he knew would sin? Whatsetting-right would come of the sinner's suffering? If justice demandit, if suffering be the equivalent for sin, then the sinner mustsuffer, then God is bound to exact his suffering, and not pardon; andso the making of man was a tyrannical deed, a creative cruelty. Butgrant that the sinner has deserved to suffer, no amount of suffering isany atonement for his sin. To suffer to all eternity could not make upfor one unjust word. Does that mean, then, that for an unjust word Ideserve to suffer to all eternity? The unjust word is an eternally evilthing; nothing but God in my heart can cleanse me from the evil thatuttered it; but does it follow that I saw the evil of what I did soperfectly, that eternal punishment for it would be just? Sorrow andconfession and self-abasing love will make up for the evil word;suffering will not. For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. Itis eternally evil. But I may be saved from it by learning to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. The onlyvengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself itsexecutioner. Sin and punishment are in no antagonism to each other inman, any more than pardon and punishment are in God; they can perfectlyco-exist. The one naturally follows the other, punishment being born ofsin, because evil exists only by the life of good, and has no life ofits own, being in itself death. Sin and suffering are not naturalopposites; the opposite of evil is good, not suffering; the opposite ofsin is not suffering, but righteousness. The path across the gulf thatdivides right from wrong is not the fire, but repentance. If my friendhas wronged me, will it console me to see him punished? Will that be arendering to me of my due? Will his agony be a balm to my deep wound?Should I be fit for any friendship if that were possible even in regardto my enemy? But would not the shadow of repentant grief, the light ofreviving love on his countenance, heal it at once however deep? Takeany of those wicked people in Dante's hell, and ask wherein is justiceserved by their punishment. Mind, I am not saying it is not right topunish them; I am saying that justice is not, never can be, satisfiedby suffering--nay, cannot have any satisfaction in or from suffering. Human resentment, human revenge, human hate may. Such justice asDante's keeps wickedness alive in its most terrible forms. The life ofGod goes forth to inform, or at least give a home to victorious evil. Is he not defeated every time that one of those lost souls defies him?All hell cannot make Vanni Fucci say 'I was wrong. ' God is triumphantlydefeated, I say, throughout the hell of his vengeance. Although againstevil, it is but the vain and wasted cruelty of a tyrant. There is nodestruction of evil thereby, but an enhancing of its horrible power inthe midst of the most agonizing and disgusting tortures a _divine_imagination can invent. If sin must be kept alive, then hell must bekept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitelyloathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to seethe essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to _deserve_ suchpunishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of theduration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; andwould only say in passing, that the notion that a creature bornimperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face ofGod was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as couldfind place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, andtoo low to look up into the face of Jesus. It never in truth foundplace in any heart, though in many a pettifogging brain. There is butone thing lower than deliberately to believe such a lie, and that is toworship the God of whom it is believed. The one deepest, highest, truest, fittest, most wholesome suffering must be generated in thewicked by a vision, a true sight, more or less adequate, of thehideousness of their lives, of the horror of the wrongs they have done. Physical suffering may be a factor in rousing this mental pain; but 'Iwould I had never been born!' must be the cry of Judas, not because ofthe hell-fire around him, but because he loathes the man that betrayedhis friend, the world's friend. When a man loathes himself, he hasbegun to be saved. Punishment tends to this result. Not for its ownsake, not as a make-up for sin, not for divine revenge--horrible word, not for any satisfaction to justice, can punishment exist. Punishmentis for the sake of amendment and atonement. God is bound by his love topunish sin in order to deliver his creature; he is bound by his justiceto destroy sin in his creation. Love is justice--is the fulfilling ofthe law, for God as well as for his children. This is the reason ofpunishment; this is why justice requires that the wicked shall not gounpunished--that they, through the eye-opening power of pain, may cometo see and do justice, may be brought to desire and make all possibleamends, and so become just. Such punishment concerns justice in thedeepest degree. For Justice, that is God, is bound in himself to seejustice done by his children--not in the mere outward act, but in theirvery being. He is bound in himself to make up for wrong done by hischildren, and he can do nothing to make up for wrong done but bybringing about the repentance of the wrong-doer. When the man says, 'Idid wrong; I hate myself and my deed; I cannot endure to think that Idid it!' then, I say, is atonement begun. Without that, all that theLord did would be lost. He would have made no atonement. Repentance, restitution, confession, prayer for forgiveness, righteous dealingthereafter, is the sole possible, the only true make-up for sin. Fornothing less than this did Christ die. When a man acknowledges theright he denied before; when he says to the wrong, 'I abjure, I loatheyou; I see now what you are; I could not see it before because I wouldnot; God forgive me; make me clean, or let me die!' then justice, thatis God, has conquered--and not till then. 

'What atonement is there?'

Every atonement that God cares for; and the work of Jesus Christ onearth was the creative atonement, because it works atonement in everyheart. He brings and is bringing God and man, and man and man, intoperfect unity: 'I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfectin one. '

'That is a dangerous doctrine!'

More dangerous than you think to many things--to every evil, to everylie, and among the rest to every false trust in what Christ did, instead of in Christ himself. Paul glories in the cross of Christ, buthe does not trust in the cross: he trusts in the living Christ and hisliving father. 

Justice then requires that sin should be put an end to; and not thatonly, but that it should be atoned for; and where punishment can doanything to this end, where it can help the sinner to know what he hasbeen guilty of, where it can soften his heart to see his pride andwrong and cruelty, justice requires that punishment shall not bespared. And the more we believe in God, the surer we shall be that hewill spare nothing that suffering can do to deliver his child fromdeath. If suffering cannot serve this end, we need look for no morehell, but for the destruction of sin by the destruction of the sinner. That, however, would, it appears to me, be for God to suffer defeat, blameless indeed, but defeat. 

If God be defeated, he must destroy--that is, he must withdraw life. How can he go on sending forth his life into irreclaimable souls, tokeep sin alive in them throughout the ages of eternity? But then, Isay, no atonement would be made for the wrongs they have done; Godremains defeated, for he has created that which sinned, and which wouldnot repent and make up for its sin. But those who believe that God willthus be defeated by many souls, must surely be of those who do notbelieve he cares enough to do his very best for them. He _is_ theirFather; he had power to make them out of himself, separate fromhimself, and capable of being one with him: surely he will somehow saveand keep them! Not the power of sin itself can close _all_ the channelsbetween creating and created. 

The notion of suffering as an offset for sin, the foolish idea that aman by suffering borne may get out from under the hostile claim towhich his wrong-doing has subjected him, comes first of all, I think, from the satisfaction we feel when wrong comes to grief. Why do we feelthis satisfaction? Because we hate wrong, but, not being righteousourselves, more or less hate the wronger as well as his wrong, henceare not only righteously pleased to behold the law's disapprovalproclaimed in his punishment, but unrighteously pleased with hissuffering, because of the impact upon us of his wrong. In this way theinborn justice of our nature passes over to evil. It is no pleasure toGod, as it so often is to us, to see the wicked suffer. To regard anysuffering with satisfaction, save it be sympathetically with itscurative quality, comes of evil, is inhuman because undivine, is athing God is incapable of. His nature is always to forgive, and justbecause he forgives, he punishes. Because God is so altogether alien towrong, because it is to him a heart-pain and trouble that one of hislittle ones should do the evil thing, there is, I believe, no extremeof suffering to which, for the sake of destroying the evil thing inthem, he would not subject them. A man might flatter, or bribe, or coaxa tyrant; but there is no refuge from the love of God; that love will, for very love, insist upon the uttermost farthing. 

'That is not the sort of love I care about!'

No; how should you? I well believe it! You cannot care for it until youbegin to know it. But the eternal love will not be moved to yield youto the selfishness that is killing you. What lover would yield his ladyto her passion for morphia? You may sneer at such love, but the Son ofGod who took the weight of that love, and bore it through the world, iscontent with it, and so is everyone who knows it. The love of theFather is a radiant perfection. Love and not self-love is lord of theuniverse. Justice demands your punishment, because justice demands, andwill have, the destruction of sin. Justice demands your punishmentbecause it demands that your father should do his best for you. God, being the God of justice, that is of fair-play, and having made us whatwe are, apt to fall and capable of being raised again, is in himselfbound to punish in order to deliver us--else is his relation to us poorbeside that of an earthly father. 'To thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work. ' A man's work ishis character; and God in his mercy is not indifferent, but treats himaccording to his work. 

The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from theconsequences of our sins, is a false, mean, low notion. The salvationof Christ is salvation from the smallest tendency or leaning to sin. Itis a deliverance into the pure air of God's ways of thinking andfeeling. It is a salvation that makes the heart pure, with the will andchoice of the heart to be pure. To such a heart, sin is disgusting. Itsees a thing as it is, --that is, as God sees it, for God seeseverything as it is. The soul thus saved would rather sink into theflames of hell than steal into heaven and skulk there under the shadowof an imputed righteousness. No soul is saved that would not preferhell to sin. Jesus did not die to save us from punishment; he wascalled Jesus because he should save his people from their sins. 

If punishment be no atonement, how does the fact bear on the populartheology accepted by every one of the opposers of what they callChristianity, as representing its doctrines? Most of us have been moreor less trained in it, and not a few of us have thereby, thank God, learned what it is--an evil thing, to be cast out of intellect andheart. Many imagine it dead and gone, but in reality it lies at theroot (the intellectual root only, thank God) of much the greater partof the teaching of Christianity in the country; and is believed in--sofar as the false _can_ be believed in--by many who think they have leftit behind, when they have merely omitted the truest, most offensivemodes of expressing its doctrines. It is humiliating to find how manycomparatively honest people think they get rid of a falsehood bysoftening the statement of it, by giving it the shape and placing it inthe light in which it will least assert itself, and so have a goodchance of passing both with such as hold it thoroughly, and such asmight revolt against it more plainly uttered. 

Once for all I will ease my soul regarding the horrid phantasm. I havepassed through no change of opinion concerning it since first I beganto write or speak; but I have written little and spoken less about it, because I would preach no mere negation. My work was not to destroy thefalse, except as it came in the way of building the true. Therefore Isought to speak but what I believed, saying little concerning what Idid not believe; trusting, as now I trust, in the true to cast out thefalse, and shunning dispute. Neither will I now enter any theologicallists to be the champion for or against mere doctrine. I have no desireto change the opinion of man or woman. Let everyone for me hold what hepleases. But I would do my utmost to disable such as think correctopinion essential to salvation from laying any other burden on theshoulders of true men and women than the yoke of their Master; and suchburden, if already oppressing any, I would gladly lift. Let the Lordhimself teach them, I say. A man who has not the mind of Christ--and noman has the mind of Christ except him who makes it his business to obeyhim--cannot have correct opinions concerning him; neither, if he could, would they be of any value to him: he would be nothing the better, hewould be the worse for having them. Our business is not to thinkcorrectly, but to live truly; then first will there be a possibility ofour thinking correctly. One chief cause of the amount of unbelief inthe world is, that those who have seen something of the glory ofChrist, set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obeyhim. In teaching men, they have not taught them Christ, but taught themabout Christ. More eager after credible theory than after doing thetruth, they have speculated in a condition of heart in which it wasimpossible they should understand; they have presumed to explain aChrist whom years and years of obedience could alone have made themable to comprehend. Their teaching of him, therefore, has beenrepugnant to the common sense of many who had not half theirprivileges, but in whom, as in Nathanael, there was no guile. Such, naturally, press their theories, in general derived from them of oldtime, upon others, insisting on their thinking about Christ as theythink, instead of urging them to go to Christ to be taught by himwhatever he chooses to teach them. They do their unintentional worst tostop all growth, all life. From such and their false teaching I wouldgladly help to deliver the true-hearted. Let the dead bury their dead, but I would do what I may to keep them from burying the living. 

If there be no satisfaction to justice in the mere punishment of thewrong-doer, what shall we say of the notion of satisfying justice bycausing one to suffer who is not the wrong-doer? And what, moreover, shall we say to the notion that, just because he is not the person whodeserves to be punished, but is absolutely innocent, his sufferinggives perfect satisfaction to the perfect justice? That the injusticebe done with the consent of the person maltreated makes no difference:it makes it even worse, seeing, as they say, that justice requires thepunishment of the _sinner_, and here is one far more than innocent. They have shifted their ground; it is no more punishment, but meresuffering the law requires! The thing gets worse and worse. I declaremy utter and absolute repudiation of the idea in any form whatever. Rather than believe in a justice--that is, a God--to whoserighteousness, abstract or concrete, it could be any satisfaction forthe wrong-doing of a man that a man who did no wrong should suffer, Iwould be driven from among men, and dwell with the wild beasts thathave not reason enough to be unreasonable. What! God, the father ofJesus Christ, like that! His justice contented with direst injustice!The anger of him who will nowise clear the guilty, appeased by thesuffering of the innocent! Very God forbid! Observe: the evil fancyactually substitutes for punishment not mere suffering, but thatsuffering which is farthest from punishment; and this when, as I haveshown, punishment, the severest, can be no satisfaction to justice! Howdid it come ever to be imagined? It sprang from the trustless dreadthat cannot believe in the forgiveness of the Father; cannot believethat even God will do anything for nothing; cannot trust him without alegal arrangement to bind him. How many, failing to trust God, fallback on a _text_, as they call it! It sprang from the pride that willunderstand what it cannot, before it will obey what it sees. He thatwill understand _first_ will believe a lie--a lie from which obediencealone will at length deliver him. If anyone say, 'But I believe whatyou despise, ' I answer, To believe it is your punishment for being ableto believe it; you may call it your reward, if you will. You ought notto be able to believe it. It is the merest, poorest, most shamelessfiction, invented without the perception that it was an invention--fitto satisfy the intellect, doubtless, of the inventor, else he could nothave invented it. It has seemed to satisfy also many a humble soul, content to take what was given, and not think; content that anothershould think for him, and tell him what was the mind of his Father inheaven. Again I say, let the person who can be so satisfied be sosatisfied; I have not to trouble myself with him. That he can becontent with it, argues him unready to receive better. So long as hecan believe false things concerning God, he is such as is capable ofbelieving them--with how much or how little of blame, God knows. Opinion, right or wrong, will do nothing to save him. I would that hethought no more about this or any other opinion, but set himself to dothe work of the Master. With his opinions, true or false, I havenothing to do. It is because such as he force evil things upon theirfellows--utter or imply them from the seat of authority orinfluence--to their agony, their paralysation, their unbelief, theirindignation, their stumbling, that I have any right to speak. I wouldsave my fellows from having what notion of God is possible to themblotted out by a lie. 

If it be asked how, if it be false, the doctrine of substitution canhave been permitted to remain so long an article of faith to so many, Ianswer, On the same principle on which God took up and made use of thesacrifices men had, in their lack of faith, invented as a way ofpleasing him. Some children will tell lies to please the parents thathate lying. They will even confess to having done a wrong they have notdone, thinking their parents would like them to say they had done it, because they teach them to confess. God accepted men's sacrifices untilhe could get them to see--and with how many has he yet not succeeded, in the church and out of it!--that he does not care for such things. 

'But, ' again it may well be asked, 'whence then has sprung theundeniable potency of that teaching?'

I answer, From its having in it a notion of God and his Christ, poorindeed and faint, but, by the very poverty and untruth in itspresentation, fitted to the weakness and unbelief of men, seeing it wasby men invented to meet and ease the demand made upon their ownweakness and unbelief. Thus the leaven spreads. The truth is there. Itis Christ the glory of God. But the ideas that poor slavish souls breedconcerning this glory the moment the darkness begins to disperse, isquite another thing. Truth is indeed too good for men to believe; theymust dilute it before they can take it; they must dilute it before theydare give it. They must make it less true before they can believe itenough to get any good of it. Unable to believe in the love of the LordJesus Christ, they invented a mediator in his mother, and so were ableto approach a little where else they had stood away; unable to believein the forgivingness of their father in heaven, they invented a way tobe forgiven that should not demand of him so much; which might make itright for him to forgive; which should save them from having to believedownright in the tenderness of his father-heart, for that they foundimpossible. They thought him bound to punish for the sake of punishing, as an offset to their sin; they could not believe in clear forgiveness;that did not seem divine; it needed itself to be justified; so theyinvented for its justification a horrible injustice, involving all thatwas bad in sacrifice, even human sacrifice. They invented asatisfaction for sin which was an insult to God. He sought nosatisfaction, but an obedient return to the Father. What satisfactionwas needed he made himself in what he did to cause them to turn fromevil and go back to him. The thing was too simple for complicatedunbelief and the arguing spirit. Gladly would I help their followers toloathe such thoughts of God; but for that, they themselves must growbetter men and women. While they are capable of being satisfied withthem, there would be no advantage in their becoming intellectuallyconvinced that such thoughts were wrong. I would not speak a word topersuade them of it. Success would be worthless. They would but remainwhat they were--children capable of thinking meanly of their father. When the heart recoils, discovering how horrible it would be to havesuch an unreality for God, it will begin to search about and seewhether it must indeed accept such statements concerning God; it willsearch after a real God by whom to hold fast, a real God to deliverthem from the terrible idol. It is for those thus moved that I write, not at all for the sake of disputing with those who love the lie theymay not be to blame for holding; who, like the Jews of old, would castout of their synagogue the man who doubts the genuineness of theirmoral caricature of God, who doubts their travesty of the grandesttruth in the universe, the atonement of Jesus Christ. Of such a manthey will unhesitatingly report that he does not believe in theatonement. But a lie for God is against God, and carries the sentenceof death in itself. 

Instead of giving their energy to do the will of God, men of power havegiven it to the construction of a system by which to explain why Christmust die, what were the necessities and designs of God in permittinghis death; and men of power of our own day, while casting from them nota little of the good in the teaching of the Roman Church, have clung tothe morally and spiritually vulgar idea of justice and satisfactionheld by pagan Rome, buttressed by the Jewish notion of sacrifice, andin its very home, alas, with the mother of all the western churches!Better the reformers had kept their belief in a purgatory, and partedwith what is called vicarious sacrifice!

Their system is briefly this: God is bound to punish sin, and to punishit to the uttermost. His justice requires that sin be punished. But heloves man, and does not want to punish him if he can help it. JesusChrist says, 'I will take his punishment upon me. ' God accepts hisoffer, and lets man go unpunished--upon a condition. His justice ismore than satisfied by the punishment of an infinite being instead of aworld of worthless creatures. The suffering of Jesus is of greatervalue than that of all the generations, through endless ages, becausehe is infinite, pure, perfect in love and truth, being God's owneverlasting son. God's condition with man is, that he believe inChrist's atonement thus explained. A man must say, 'I have sinned, anddeserve to be tortured to all eternity. But Christ has paid my debts, by being punished instead of me. Therefore he is my Saviour. I am nowbound by gratitude to him to turn away from evil. ' Some would doubtlessinsist on his saying a good deal more, but this is enough for mypurpose. 

As to the justice of God requiring the punishment of the sinner, I havesaid enough. That the mere suffering of the sinner can be nosatisfaction to justice, I have also tried to show. If the suffering ofthe sinner be indeed required by the justice of God, let it beadministered. But what shall we say adequate to confront the baserepresentation that it is not punishment, not the suffering of thesinner that is required, but suffering! nay, as if this were not depthenough of baseness to crown all heathenish representation of the waysof God, that the suffering of the innocent is unspeakably preferable inhis eyes to that of the wicked, as a make-up for wrong done! nay, again, 'in the lowest deep a lower deep, ' that the suffering of theholy, the suffering of the loving, the suffering of the eternally andperfectly good, is supremely satisfactory to the pure justice of theFather of spirits! Not all the suffering that could be heaped upon thewicked could buy them a moment's respite, so little is their sufferinga counterpoise to their wrong; in the working of this law ofequivalents, this _lex talionis_, the suffering of millions of yearscould not equal the sin of a moment, could not pay off one farthing ofthe deep debt. But so much more valuable, precious, and dear, is thesuffering of the innocent, so much more of a satisfaction--observe--tothe _justice_ of God, that in return for that suffering another wrongis done: the sinners who deserve and ought to be punished are set free. 

I know the root of all that can be said on the subject; the notion isimbedded in the gray matter of my Scotch brains; and if I reject it, Iknow what I reject. For the love of God my heart rose early against thelow invention. Strange that in a Christian land it should need to besaid, that to punish the innocent and let the guilty go free is unjust!It wrongs the innocent, the guilty, and God himself. It would be theworst of all wrongs to the guilty to treat them as innocent. The wholedevice is a piece of spiritual charlatanry--fit only for a fraudulentjail-delivery. If the wicked ought to be punished, it were the worstpossible perversion of justice to take a righteous being howeverstrong, and punish him instead of the sinner however weak. To thepoorest idea of justice in punishment, it is essential that the sinner, and no other than the sinner, should receive the punishment. The strongbeing that was willing to bear such punishment might well be regardedas worshipful, but what of the God whose so-called justice he thusdefeats? If you say it is justice, not God that demands the suffering, I say justice cannot demand that which is unjust, and the whole thingis unjust. God is absolutely just, and there is no deliverance from hisjustice, which is one with his mercy. The device is an absurdity--agrotesquely deformed absurdity. To represent the living God as a partyto such a style of action, is to veil with a mask of cruelty andhypocrisy the face whose glory can he seen only in the face of Jesus;to put a tirade of vulgar Roman legality into the mouth of the Lord Godmerciful and gracious, who will by no means clear the guilty. Ratherthan believe such ugly folly of him whose very name is enough to makethose that know him heave the breath of the hart panting for thewaterbrooks; rather than think of him what in a man would make me avoidhim at the risk of my life, I would say, 'There is no God; let usneither eat nor drink, that we may die! For lo, this is not our God!This is not he for whom we have waited!' But I have seen his face andheard his voice in the face and the voice of Jesus Christ; and I saythis is our God, the very one whose being the Creator makes it aninfinite gladness to be the created. I will not have the God of thescribes and the pharisees whether Jewish or Christian, protestant, Roman, or Greek, but thy father, O Christ! He is my God. If you say, 'That is our God, not yours!' I answer, 'Your portrait of your God isan evil caricature of the face of Christ. '

To believe in a vicarious sacrifice, is to think to take refuge withthe Son from the righteousness of the Father; to take refuge with hiswork instead of with the Son himself; to take refuge with a theory ofthat work instead of the work itself; to shelter behind a false quirkof law instead of nestling in the eternal heart of the unchangeable andrighteous Father, who is merciful in that he renders to every manaccording to his work, and compels their obedience, nor admits judicialquibble or subterfuge. God will never let a man off with any fault. Hemust have him clean. He will excuse him to the very uttermost of truth, but not a hair's-breadth beyond it; he is his true father, and willhave his child true as his son Jesus Christ is true. He will impute tohim nothing that he has not, will lose sight of no smallest good thathe has; will quench no smoking flax, break no bruised reed, but sendforth judgment unto victory. He is God beyond all that heart hungriestfor love and righteousness could to eternity desire. 

If you say the best of men have held the opinions I stigmatize, Ianswer, 'Some of the best of men have indeed held these theories, andof men who have held them I have loved and honoured some heartily andhumbly--but because of what they _were_, not because of what they_thought_; and they were what they were in virtue of their obedientfaith, not of their opinion. They were not better men because ofholding these theories. In virtue of knowing God by obeying his son, they rose above the theories they had never looked in the face, and sohad never recognized as evil. Many have arrived, in the naturalprogress of their sacred growth, at the point where they must abandonthem. The man of whom I knew the most good gave them up gladly. Good toworshipfulness may be the man that holds them, and I hate them the moretherefore; they are lies that, working under cover of the truth mingledwith them, burrow as near the heart of the good man as they can go. Whoever, from whatever reason of blindness, may be the holder of a lie, the thing is a lie, and no falsehood must mingle with the justice wemete out to it. There is nothing for any lie but the pit of hell. Yetuntil the man sees the thing to be a lie, how shall he but hold it! Arethere not mingled with it shadows of the best truth in the universe? Solong as a man is able to love a lie, he is incapable of seeing it is alie. He who is true, out and out, will know at once an untruth; and tothat vision we must all come. I do not write for the sake of those whoeither make or heartily accept any lie. When they see the glory of God, they will see the eternal difference between the false and the true, and not till then. I write for those whom such teaching as theirs hasfolded in a cloud through which they cannot see the stars of heaven, sothat some of them even doubt if there be any stars of heaven. For theholy ones who believed and taught these things in days gone by, all iswell. Many of the holiest of them cast the lies from them long ere thepresent teachers of them were born. Many who would never have inventedthem for themselves, yet receiving them with the seals affixed of somany good men, took them in their humility as recognized truths, instead of inventions of men; and, oppressed by authority, theauthority of men far inferior to themselves, did not dare dispute them, but proceeded to order their lives by what truths they found in theircompany, and so had their reward, the reward of obedience, in being bythat obedience brought to know God, which knowledge broke for them thenet of a presumptuous self-styled orthodoxy. Every man who tries toobey the Master is my brother, whether he counts me such or not, and Irevere him; but dare I give quarter to what I see to be a lie, becausemy brother believes it? The lie is not of God, whoever may hold it. 

'Well, then, ' will many say, 'if you thus unceremoniously cast to thewinds the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice, what theory do you proposeto substitute in its stead?'

'In the name of the truth, ' I answer, _None_. I will send out no theoryof mine to rouse afresh little whirlwinds of dialogistic dust mixedwith dirt and straws and holy words, hiding the Master in talk abouthim. If I have any such, I will not cast it on the road as I walk, butpresent it on a fair patine to him to whom I may think it well to showit. Only eyes opened by the sun of righteousness, and made single byobedience, can judge even the poor moony pearl of formulated thought. Say if you will that I fear to show my opinion. Is the man a coward whowill not fling his child to the wolves? What faith in this kind I have, I will have to myself before God, till I see better reason for utteringit than I do now. 

'Will you then take from me my faith, and help me to no other?'

Your faith! God forbid. Your theory is not your faith, nor anythinglike it. Your faith is your obedience; your theory I know not what. Yes, I will gladly leave you without any of what you call faith. Trustin God. Obey the word--every word of the Master. That is faith; and sobelieving, your opinion will grow out of your true life, and be worthyof it. Peter says the Lord gives the spirit to them that obey him: thespirit of the Master, and that alone, can guide you to any theory thatit will be of use to you to hold. A theory arrived at any other way isnot worth the time spent on it. Jesus is the creating and saving lordof our intellects as well as of our more precious hearts; nothing thathe does not think, is worth thinking; no man can think as he thinks, except he be pure like him; no man can be pure like him, except he gowith him, and learn from him. To put off obeying him till we find acredible theory concerning him, is to set aside the potion we know itour duty to drink, for the study of the various schools of therapy. Youknow what Christ requires of you is right--much of it at least youbelieve to be right, and your duty to do, whether he said it or not:_do it_. If you do not do what you know of the truth, I do not wonderthat you seek it intellectually, for that kind of search may well be, as Milton represents it, a solace even to the fallen angels. But do notcall anything that may be so gained, _The Truth_. How can you, notcaring to _be_ true, judge concerning him whose life was to do for verylove the things you confess your duty, yet do them not? Obey the truth, I say, and let theory wait. Theory may spring from life, but never lifefrom theory. 

I will not then tell you what I think, but I will tell any man whocares to hear it what I believe. I will do it now. Of course what I saymust partake thus much of the character of theory that I cannot proveit; I can only endeavour to order my life by it. 

I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my elder brother, mylord and master; I believe that he has a right to my absolute obediencewhereinsoever I know or shall come to know his will; that to obey himis to ascend the pinnacle of my being; that not to obey him would be todeny him. I believe that he died that I might die like him--die to anyruling power in me but the will of God--live ready to be nailed to thecross as he was, if God will it. I believe that he is my Saviour frommyself, and from all that has come of loving myself, from all that Goddoes not love, and would not have me love--all that is not worthloving; that he died that the justice, the mercy of God, might have itsway with me, making me just as God is just, merciful as he is merciful, perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. I believe and pray that hewill give me what punishment I need to set me right, or keep me fromgoing wrong. I believe that he died to deliver me from all meanness, all pretence, all falseness, all unfairness, all poverty of spirit, allcowardice, all fear, all anxiety, all forms of self-love, all trust orhope in possession; to make me merry as a child, the child of ourfather in heaven, loving nothing but what is lovely, desiring nothing Ishould be ashamed to let the universe of God see me desire. I believethat God is just like Jesus, only greater yet, for Jesus said so. Ibelieve that God is absolutely, grandly beautiful, even as the highestsoul of man counts beauty, but infinitely beyond that soul's highestidea--with the beauty that creates beauty, not merely shows it, oritself exists beautiful. I believe that God has always done, is alwaysdoing his best for every man; that no man is miserable because God isforgetting him; that he is not a God to crouch before, but our father, to whom the child-heart cries exultant, 'Do with me as thou wilt. '

I believe that there is nothing good for me or for any man but God, andmore and more of God, and that alone through knowing Christ can we comenigh to him. 

I believe that no man is ever condemned for any sin except one--that hewill not leave his sins and come out of them, and be the child of himwho is his father. 

I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing;without justice to the full there can be no mercy, and without mercy tothe full there can be no justice; that such is the mercy of God that hewill hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until theypay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishnesswith all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and theSon, and the many brethren--rush inside the centre of the life-givingfire whose outer circles burn. I believe that no hell will be lackingwhich would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children. 

I believe that to him who obeys, and thus opens the doors of his heartto receive the eternal gift, God gives the spirit of his son, thespirit of himself, to be in him, and lead him to the understanding ofall truth; that the true disciple shall thus always know what he oughtto do, though not necessarily what another ought to do; that the spiritof the father and the son enlightens by teaching righteousness. Ibelieve that no teacher should strive to make men think as he thinks, but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, of whomalone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves knowwhat is true by the very seeing of it. I believe that the inspirationof the Almighty alone gives understanding. I believe that to be thedisciple of Christ is the end of being; that to persuade men to be hisdisciples is the end of teaching. 

'The sum of all this is that you do not believe in the atonement?'

I believe in Jesus Christ. Nowhere am I requested to believe _in_ anything, or _in_ any statement, but everywhere to believe in God and inJesus Christ. In what you call _the atonement_, in what you mean by theword, what I have already written must make it plain enough I do notbelieve. God forbid I should, for it would be to believe a lie, and alie which is to blame for much non-acceptance of the gospel in this andother lands. But, as the word was used by the best English writers atthe time when the translation of the Bible was made--with all my heart, and soul, and strength, and mind, I believe in the atonement, call itthe _a-tone-ment_, or the _at-one-ment_, as you please. I believe thatJesus Christ _is_ our atonement; that through him we are reconciled to, made one with God. There is not one word in the New Testament aboutreconciling God to us; it is we that have to be reconciled to God. I amnot writing, neither desire to write, a treatise on the atonement, mybusiness being to persuade men to be atoned to God; but I will go sofar to meet my questioner as to say--without the slightest expectationof satisfying him, or the least care whether I do so or not, for his_opinion_ is of no value to me, though his truth is of endless value tome and to the universe--that, even in the sense of the atonement beinga making-up for the evil done by men toward God, I believe in theatonement. Did not the Lord cast himself into the eternal gulf of evilyawning between the children and the Father? Did he not bring theFather to us, let us look on our eternal Sire in the face of his trueson, that we might have that in our hearts which alone could make uslove him--a true sight of him? Did he not insist on the one truth ofthe universe, the one saving truth, that God was just what he was? Didhe not hold to that assertion to the last, in the face of contradictionand death? Did he not thus lay down his life persuading us to lay downours at the feet of the Father? Has not his very life by which he diedpassed into those who have received him, and re-created theirs, so thatnow they live with the life which alone is life? Did he not foil andslay evil by letting all the waves and billows of its horrid sea breakupon him, go over him, and die without rebound--spend their rage, falldefeated, and cease? Verily, he made atonement! _We_ sacrifice toGod!--it is God who has sacrificed his own son to us; there was no wayelse of getting the gift of himself into our hearts. Jesus sacrificedhimself to his father and the children to bring them together--all thelove on the side of the Father and the Son, all the selfishness on theside of the children. If the joy that alone makes life worth living, the joy that God is such as Christ, be a true thing in my heart, howcan I but believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ? I believe itheartily, as God means it. 

Then again, as the power that brings about a making-up for any wrongdone by man to man, I believe in the atonement. Who that believes inJesus does not long to atone to his brother for the injury he has donehim? What repentant child, feeling he has wronged his father, does notdesire to make atonement? Who is the mover, the causer, the persuader, the creator of the repentance, of the passion that restoresfourfold?--Jesus, our propitiation, our atonement. He is the head andleader, the prince of the atonement. He could not do it without us, buthe leads us up to the Father's knee: he makes us make atonement. Learning Christ, we are not only sorry for what we have done wrong, wenot only turn from it and hate it, but we become able to serve both Godand man with an infinitely high and true service, a soul-service. Weare able to offer our whole being to God to whom by deepest right itbelongs. Have I injured anyone? With him to aid my justice, new risenwith him from the dead, shall I not make good amends? Have I failed inlove to my neighbour? Shall I not now love him with an infinitelybetter love than was possible to me before? That I will and can makeatonement, thanks be to him who is my atonement, making me at one withGod and my fellows! He is my life, my joy, my lord, my owner, theperfecter of my being by the perfection of his own. I dare not say withPaul that I am the slave of Christ; but my highest aspiration anddesire is to be the slave of Christ. 

'But you do not believe that the sufferings of Christ, as sufferings, justified the supreme ruler in doing anything which he would not havebeen at liberty to do but for those sufferings?'

I do not. I believe the notion as unworthy of man's belief, as it isdishonouring to God. It has its origin doubtless in a salutary sense ofsin; but sense of sin is not inspiration, though it may lie not farfrom the temple-door. It is indeed an opener of the eyes, but uponhome-defilement, not upon heavenly truth; it is not the revealer ofsecrets. Also there is another factor in the theory, and that isunbelief--incapacity to accept the freedom of God's forgiveness;incapacity to believe that it is God's chosen nature to forgive, thathe is bound in his own divinely willed nature to forgive. No atonementis necessary to him but that men should leave their sins and come backto his heart. But men cannot believe in the forgiveness of God. Therefore they need, therefore he has given them a mediator. And yetthey will not know him. They think of the father of souls as if he hadabdicated his fatherhood for their sins, and assumed the judge. If heput off his fatherhood, which he cannot do, for it is an eternal fact, he puts off with it all relation to us. He cannot repudiate theessential and keep the resultant. Men cannot, or will not, or dare notsee that nothing but his being our father gives him any right overus--that nothing but that could give him a perfect right. They regardthe father of their spirits as their governor! They yield the idea ofthe Ancient of Days, 'the glad creator, ' and put in its stead amiserable, puritanical martinet of a God, caring not for righteousness, but for his rights; not for the eternal purities, but the goodyproprieties. The prophets of such a God take all the glow, all thehope, all the colour, all the worth, out of life on earth, and offeryou instead what they call eternal bliss--a pale, tearless hell. Of allthings, turn from a mean, poverty stricken faith. But, if you atestraitened in your own mammon-worshipping soul, how shall you believein a God any greater than can stand up in that prison-chamber?

I desire to wake no dispute, will myself dispute with no man, but forthe sake of those whom certain _believers_ trouble, I have spoken mymind. I love the one God seen in the face of Jesus Christ. From allcopies of Jonathan Edwards's portrait of God, however faded by time, however softened by the use of less glaring pigments, I turn withloathing. Not such a God is he concerning whom was the message Johnheard from Jesus, _that he is light, and in him is no darkness at all_. 

 LIGHT. 

 _This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. _--1 John i. 5. 

 _And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light; because their deeds were evil. _--John iii. 19. 

We call the story of Jesus, told so differently, yet to my mind soconsistently, by four narrators, _the gospel_. What makes this tale_the good news_? Is everything in the story of Christ's life on earthgood news? Is it good news that the one only good man was served by hisfellow-men as Jesus was served--cast out of the world in torture andshame? Is it good news that he came to his own, and his own receivedhim not? What makes it fit, I repeat, to call the tale _good news_? Ifwe asked this or that theologian, we should, in so far as he was a trueman, and answered from his own heart and not from the tradition of theelders, understand what he saw in it that made it good news to him, though it might involve what would be anything but good news to some ofus. The deliverance it might seem to this or that man to bring, mightbe founded on such notions of God as to not a few of us contain aslittle of good as of news. To share in the deliverance which some menfind in what they call the gospel--for all do not apply the word to thetale itself, but to certain deductions made from the epistles and theirown consciousness of evil--we should have to believe such things of Godas would be the opposite of an evangel to us--yea, a message from hellitself; we should have to imagine that whose possibility would be worsethan any ill from which their 'good news' might offer us deliverance:we must first believe in an unjust God, from whom we have to seekrefuge. True, they call him just, but say he does that which seems tothe best in me the essence of injustice. They will tell me I judgeafter the flesh: I answer, Is it then to the flesh the Lord appealswhen he says, 'Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what isright?' Is he not the light that lighteth every man that cometh intothe world? They tell me I was born in sin, and I know it to be true;they tell me also that I am judged with the same severity as if I hadbeen born in righteousness, and that I know to be false. They make it aconsequence of the purity and justice of God that he will judge us, born in evil, for which birth we were not accountable, by oursinfulness, instead of by our guilt. They tell me, or at least give meto understand, that every wrong thing I have done makes me subject tobe treated as if I had done that thing with the free will of one whohad in him no taint of evil--when, perhaps, I did not at the timerecognize the thing as evil, or recognized it only in the vaguestfashion. Is there any gospel in telling me that God is unjust, but thatthere is a way of deliverance from him? Show me my God unjust, and youwake in me a damnation from which no power can deliver me--least of allGod himself. It may be good news to such as are content to have a Godcapable of unrighteousness, if only he be on their side!

Who would not rejoice to hear from Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, what, ina few words, he meant by the word _gospel_--or rather, what in thestory of Jesus made him call it _good news_! Each would probably give adifferent answer to the question, all the answers consistent, and eacha germ from which the others might be reasoned; but in the case ofJohn, we have his answer to the question: he gives us in one sentenceof two members, not indeed the gospel according to John, but the gospelaccording to Jesus Christ himself. He had often told the story ofJesus, the good news of what he was, and did, and said: what in it alldid John look upon as the essence of the goodness of its news? In hisgospel he gives us all _about_ him, the message _concerning_ him; nowhe tells us what in it makes it to himself and to us good news--tellsus the very goodness of the good news. It is not now his own messageabout Jesus, but the soul of that message--that which makes itgospel--the news Jesus brought concerning the Father, and gave to thedisciples as his message for them to deliver to men. Throughout thestory, Jesus, in all he does, and is, and says, is telling the newsconcerning his father, which he was sent to give to John and hiscompanions, that they might hand it on to their brothers; but here, in so many words, John tells us what he himself has heard from TheWord--what in sum he has gathered from Jesus as the message he has todeclare. He has received it in no systematic form; it is what a life, _the_ life, what a man, _the_ man, has taught him. The Word is theLord; the Lord is the gospel. The good news is no fagot of sticks of aman's gathering on the Sabbath. 

Every man must read the Word for himself. One may read it in one shape, another in another: all will be right if it be indeed the Word theyread, and they read it by the lamp of obedience. He who is willing todo the will of the Father shall know the truth of the teaching ofJesus. The spirit is 'given to them that obey him. '

But let us hear how John reads the Word--near what is John's version ofthe gospel. 

'This then is the message, ' he says, 'which we have heard of him, anddeclare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 'Ah, my heart, this is indeed the good news for thee! This is a gospel!If God be light, what more, what else can I seek than God, than Godhimself! Away with your doctrines! Away with your salvation from the'justice' of a God whom it is a horror to imagine! Away with your ironcages of false metaphysics! I am saved--for God is light! My God, Icome to thee. That thou shouldst be thyself is enough for time andeternity, for my soul and all its endless need. Whatever seems to medarkness, that I will not believe of my God. If I should mistake, andcall that darkness which is light, will he not reveal the matter to me, setting it in the light that lighteth every man, showing me that I sawbut the husk of the thing, not the kernel? Will he not break open theshell for me, and let the truth of it, his thought, stream out upon me?He will not let it hurt me to mistake the light for darkness, while Itake not the darkness for light. The one comes from blindness of theintellect, the other from blindness of heart and will. I love thelight, and will not believe at the word of any man, or upon theconviction of any man, that that which seems to me darkness is in God. Where would the good news be if John said, 'God is light, but youcannot see his light; you cannot tell, you have no notion, what lightis; what God means by light, is not what you mean by light; what Godcalls light may be horrible darkness to you, for you are of anothernature from him!' Where, I say, would be the good news of that? It istrue, the light of God may be so bright that we see nothing; but thatis not darkness, it is infinite hope of light. It is true also that tothe wicked 'the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light;' but isthat because the conscience of the wicked man judges of good and eviloppositely to the conscience of the good man? When he says, 'Evil, bethou my good, ' he means by _evil_ what God means by evil, and by _good_he means _pleasure_. He cannot make the meanings change places. To saythat what our deepest conscience calls darkness may be light to God, isblasphemy; to say light in God and light in man are of differing kinds, is to speak against the spirit of light. God is light far beyond whatwe can see, but what we mean by light, God means by light; and what islight to God is light to us, or would be light to us if we saw it, andwill be light to us when we do see it. God means us to be jubilant inthe fact that he is light--that he is what his children, made in hisimage, mean when they say _light_; that what in him is dark to them, isdark by excellent glory, by too much cause of jubilation; that, howeverdark it may be to their eyes, it is light even as they mean it, lightfor their eyes and souls and hearts to take in the moment they areenough of eyes, enough of souls, enough of hearts, to receive it in itsvery being. Living Light, thou wilt not have me believe anything darkof thee! thou wilt have me so sure of thee as to dare to say that isnot of God which I see dark, see unlike the Master! If I am not honestenough, if the eye in me be not single enough to see thy light, thouwilt punish me, I thank thee, and purge my eyes from their darkness, that they may let the light in, and so I become an inheritor, with thyother children, of that light which is thy Godhead, and makes thycreatures need to worship thee. 'In thy light we shall see light. '

All man will not, in our present imperfection, see the same light; butlight is light notwithstanding, and what each does see, is his safetyif he obeys it. In proportion as we have the image of Christ mirroredin us, we shall know what is and is not light. But never will anythingprove to be light that is not of the same kind with that which we meanby light, with that in a thing which makes us call it light. Thedarkness yet left in us makes us sometimes doubt of a thing whether itbe light or darkness; but when the eye is single, the whole body willbe full of light. 

To fear the light is to be untrue, or at least it comes of untruth. Nobeing, for himself or for another, needs fear the light of God. Nothingcan be in light inimical to our nature, which is of God, or to anythingin us that is worthy. All fear of the light, all dread lest thereshould be something dangerous in it, comes of the darkness still inthose of us who do not love the truth with all our hearts; it willvanish as we are more and more interpenetrated with the light. In aword, there is no way of thought or action which we count admirable inman, in which God is not altogether adorable. There is no loveliness, nothing that makes man dear to his brother man, that is not in God, only it is infinitely better in God. He is God our saviour. Jesus isour saviour because God is our saviour. He is the God of comfort andconsolation. He will soothe and satisfy his children better than anymother her infant. The only thing he will not give them is--leave tostay in the dark. If a child cry, 'I want the darkness, ' and complainthat he will not give it, yet he will not give it. He gives what hischild needs--often by refusing what he asks. If his child say, 'I willnot be good; I prefer to die; let me die!' his dealing with that childwill be as if he said--'No; I have the right to content you, notgiving you your own will but mine, which is your one good. You shallnot die; you shall live to thank me that I would not hear your prayer. You know what you ask, but not what you refuse. ' There are good thingsGod must delay giving until his child has a pocket to hold them--tillhe gets his child to make that pocket. He must first make him fit toreceive and to have. There is no part of our nature that shall not besatisfied--and that not by lessening it, but by enlarging it to embracean ever-enlarging enough. 

Come to God, then, my brother, my sister, with all thy desires andinstincts, all thy lofty ideals, all thy longing for purity andunselfishness, all thy yearning to love and be true, all thy aspirationafter self-forgetfulness and child-life in the breath of the Father;come to him with all thy weaknesses, all thy shames, all thyfutilities; with all thy helplessness over thy own thoughts; with allthy failure, yea, with the sick sense of having missed the tide of trueaffairs; come to him with all thy doubts, fears, dishonesties, meannesses, paltrinesses, misjudgments, wearinesses, disappointments, and stalenesses: be sure he will take thee and all thy miserable brood, whether of draggle-winged angels, or covert-seeking snakes, into hiscare, the angels for life, the snakes for death, and thee for libertyin his limitless heart! For he is light, and in him is no darkness atall. If he were a king, a governor; if the name that described him were_The Almighty_, thou mightst well doubt whether there could be lightenough in him for thee and thy darkness; but he is thy father, and morethy father than the word can mean in any lips but his who said, 'myfather and your father, my God and your God;' and such a father islight, an infinite, perfect light. If he were any less or any otherthan he is, and thou couldst yet go on growing, thou must at lengthcome to the point where thou wouldst be dissatisfied with him; but heis light, and in him is no darkness at all. If anything seem to be inhim that you cannot be content with, be sure that the ripening of thylove to thy fellows and to him, the source of thy being, will make theeat length know that anything else than just what he is would have beento thee an endless loss. Be not afraid to build upon the rock Christ, as if thy holy imagination might build too high and heavy for thatrock, and it must give way and crumble beneath the weight of thy divineidea. Let no one persuade thee that there is in him a little darkness, because of something he has said which his creature interprets intodarkness. The interpretation is the work of the enemy--a handful oftares of darkness sown in the light. Neither let thy cowardlyconscience receive any word as light because another calls it light, while it looks to thee dark. Say either the thing is not what it seems, or God never said or did it. But, of all evils, to misinterpret whatGod does, and then say the thing as interpreted must be right becauseGod does it, is of the devil. Do not try to believe anything thataffects thee as darkness. Even if thou mistake and refuse somethingtrue thereby, thou wilt do less wrong to Christ by such a refusal thanthou wouldst by accepting as his what thou canst see only as darkness. It is impossible thou art seeing a true, a real thing--seeing it as itis, I mean--if it looks to thee darkness. But let thy words be few, lest thou say with thy tongue what thou wilt afterward repent with thyheart. Above all things believe in the light, that it is what thoucallest light, though the darkness in thee may give thee cause at atime to doubt whether thou art verily seeing the light. 

'But there is another side to the matter: God is light indeed, butthere _is_ darkness; darkness is death, and men are in it. '

Yes; darkness is death, but not death to him that comes out of it. 

It may sound paradoxical, but no man is condemned for anything he hasdone; he is condemned for continuing to do wrong. He is condemned fornot coming out of the darkness, for not coming to the light, the livingGod, who sent the light, his son, into the world to guide him home. Letus hear what John says about the darkness. 

For here also we have, I think, the word of the apostle himself: at the13th verse he begins, I think, to speak in his own person. In the 19thverse he says, 'And this is the condemnation, '--not that men aresinners--not that they have done that which, even at the moment, theywere ashamed of--not that they have committed murder, not that theyhave betrayed man or woman, not that they have ground the faces of thepoor, making money by the groans of their fellows--not for any hideousthing are they condemned, but that they will not leave such doingsbehind, and do them no more: 'This is the condemnation, that light iscome into the world, and men' would not come out of the darkness to thelight, but 'loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds wereevil. ' Choosing evil, clinging to evil, loving the darkness because itsuits with their deeds, therefore turning their backs on the inbreakinglight, how can they but be condemned--if God be true, if he be light, and darkness be alien to him! Whatever of honesty is in man, whateverof judgment is left in the world, must allow that their condemnation isin the very nature of things, that it must rest on them and abide. 

But if one happens to utter some individual truth which another man hasmade into one of the cogs of his system, he is in danger of beingsupposed to accept all the toothed wheels and their relations in thatsystem. I therefore go on to say that it does not follow, because lighthas come into the world, that it has fallen upon this or that man. Hehas his portion of the light that lighteth every man, but therevelation of God in Christ may not yet have reached him. A man mightsee and pass the Lord in a crowd, nor be to blame like the Jews ofJerusalem for not knowing him. A man like Nathanael might have startedand stopped at the merest glimpse of him, but all growing men are notyet like him without guile. Everyone who has not yet come to the lightis not necessarily keeping his face turned away from it. We dare notsay that this or that man would not have come to the light had he seenit; we do not know that he will not come to the light the moment hedoes see it. God gives every man time. There is a light that lightenssage and savage, but the glory of God in the face of Jesus may not haveshined on this sage or that savage. The condemnation is of those who, having seen Jesus, refuse to come to him, or pretend to come to him butdo not the things he says. They have all sorts of excuses at hand; butas soon as a man begins to make excuse, the time has come when he mightbe doing that from which he excuses himself. How many are there notwho, believing there is something somewhere with the claim of lightupon them, go on and on to get more out of the darkness! Thisconsciousness, all neglected by them, gives broad ground for theexpostulation of the Lord--'Ye will not come unto me that ye might havelife!'

'All manner of sin and blasphemy, ' the Lord said, 'shall be forgivenunto men; but the blasphemy against the spirit shall not be forgiven. 'God speaks, as it were, in this manner: 'I forgive you everything. Nota word more shall be said about your sins--only come out of them; comeout of the darkness of your exile; come into the light of your home, ofyour birthright, and do evil no more. Lie no more; cheat no more;oppress no more; slander no more; envy no more; be neither greedy norvain; love your neighbour as I love you; be my good child; trust inyour father. I am light; come to me, and you shall see things as I seethem, and hate the evil thing. I will make you love the thing which nowyou call good and love not. I forgive all the past. '

'I thank thee, Lord, for forgiving me, but I prefer staying in thedarkness: forgive me that too. '

'No; that cannot be. The one thing that cannot be forgiven is the sinof choosing to be evil, of refusing deliverance. It is impossible toforgive that sin. It would be to take part in it. To side with wrongagainst right, with murder against life, cannot be forgiven. The thingthat is past I pass, but he who goes on doing the same, annihilatesthis my forgiveness, makes it of no effect. Let a man have committedany sin whatever, I forgive him; but to choose to go on sinning--howcan I forgive that? It would be to nourish and cherish evil! It wouldbe to let my creation go to ruin. Shall I keep you alive to do thingshateful in the sight of all true men? If a man refuse to come out ofhis sin, he must suffer the vengeance of a love that would be no loveif it left him there. Shall I allow my creature to be the thing my soulhates?'

There is no excuse for this refusal. If we were punished for everyfault, there would be no end, no respite; we should have no quietwherein to repent; but God passes by all he can. He passes by andforgets a thousand sins, yea, tens of thousands, forgiving themall--only we must begin to be good, begin to do evil no more. Hewho refuses must be punished and punished--punished through all theages--punished until he gives way, yields, and comes to the light, thathis deeds may be seen by himself to be what they are, and be by himselfreproved, and the Father at last have his child again. For the man whoin this world resists to the full, there may be, perhaps, a whole ageor era in the history of the universe during which his sin shall not beforgiven; but _never_ can it be forgiven until he repents. How can theywho will not repent be forgiven, save in the sense that God does andwill do all he can to make them repent? Who knows but such sin may needfor its cure the continuous punishment of an aeon?

There are three conceivable kinds of punishment--first, that of mereretribution, which I take to be entirely and only human--therefore, indeed, more properly inhuman, for that which is not divine is notessential to humanity, and is of evil, and an intrusion upon the human;second, that which works repentance; and third, that which refines andpurifies, working for holiness. But the punishment that falls on whomthe Lord loveth because they have repented, is a very different thingfrom the punishment that falls on those whom he loveth in deed butcannot forgive because they hold fast by their sins. 

There are also various ways in which the word _forgive_ can be used. Aman might say to his son--'My boy, I forgive you. You did not know whatyou were doing. I will say no more about it. ' Or he might say--'My boy, I forgive you; but I must punish you, for you have done the same thingseveral times, and I must make you remember. ' Or, again, he mightsay--'I am seriously angry with you. I cannot forgive you. I mustpunish you severely. The thing was too shameful! I cannot pass it by. 'Or, once more, he might say--'Except you alter your ways entirely, Ishall have nothing more to do with you. You need not come to me. I willnot take the responsibility of anything you do. So far from answeringfor you, I shall feel bound in honesty to warn my friends not to putconfidence in you. Never, never, till I see a greater difference in youthan I dare hope to see in this world, will I forgive you. I can nomore regard you as one of the family. I would die to save you, but Icannot forgive you. There is nothing in you now on which to restforgiveness. To say, I forgive you, would be to say, Do anything youlike; I do not care what you do. ' So God may forgive and punish; and hemay punish and not forgive, that he may rescue. To forgive the sinagainst the holy spirit would be to damn the universe to the pit oflies, to render it impossible for the man so forgiven ever to be saved. He cannot forgive the man who will not come to the light because hisdeeds are evil. Against that man his fatherly heart is _moved withindignation_. 

 THE DISPLEASURE OF JESUS. 

 _When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled_. --John xi. 33. 

Grimm, in his lexicon to the New Testament, after giving as theequivalent of the word [Greek: embrimaomai] in pagan use, 'I am movedwith anger, ' 'I roar or growl, ' 'I snort at, ' 'I am vehemently angry orindignant with some one, ' tells us that in Mark i. 43, and Matthew ix. 30, it has a meaning different from that of the pagans, namely, 'Icommand with severe admonishment. ' That he has any authority for sayingso, I do not imagine, and believe the statement a blunder. TheTranslators and Revisers, however, have in those passages used the wordsimilarly, and in one place, the passage before us, where a trueversion is of yet more consequence, have taken another liberty andrendered the word 'groaned. ' The Revisers, at the same time, place inthe margin what I cannot but believe its true meaning--'was moved withindignation. '

Let us look at all the passages in which the word is used of the Lord, and so, if we may, learn something concerning him. The only place inthe gospel where it is used of any but the Lord is Mark xiv. 5. Hereboth versions say of the disciples that they 'murmured at' the waste ofthe ointment by one of the women who anointed the Lord. With regard tothis rendering I need only remark that surely 'murmured at' can hardlybe strong enough, especially seeing 'they had indignation amongthemselves' at the action. 

It is indeed right and necessary to insist that many a word must differin moral weight and colour as used of or by persons of differentcharacter. The anger of a good man is a very different thing from theanger of a bad man; the displeasure of Jesus must be a very differentthing from the displeasure of a tyrant. But they are both anger, bothdispleasure, nevertheless. We have no right to change a root-meaning, and say in one case that a word means _he was indignant_, in anotherthat it means _he straitly or strictly charged_, and in a third that itmeans _he groaned_. Surely not thus shall we arrive at the truth! Ifany statement is made, any word employed, that we feel unworthy of theLord, let us refuse it; let us say, 'I do not believe that;' or, 'Theremust be something there that I cannot see into: I must wait; it cannotbe what it looks to me, and be true of the Lord!' But to accept theword as used of the Lord, and say it means something quite differentfrom what it means when used by the same writer of some one else, appears to me untruthful. 

We shall take first the passage, Mark i. 43--in the authorized version, 'And he straitly charged him;' in the revised, 'And he strictly chargedhim, ' with '_sternly_' in the margin. Literally, as it seems to me, itreads, and ought to be read, 'And being angry' or 'displeased' or'vexed' 'with him, he immediately dismissed him. ' There is even somedissatisfaction implied, I think, in the word I have translated'dismissed. ' The word in John ix. 34, 'they cast him out, ' is the same, only a little intensified. 

This adds something to the story, and raises the question, Why shouldJesus have been angry? If we can find no reason for his anger, we mustleave the thing as altogether obscure; for I do not know where to findanother meaning for the word, except in the despair of a would-beinterpreter. 

Jesus had cured the leper--not with his word only, which would havebeen enough for the mere cure, but was not enough without the touch ofhis hand--the Sinaitic version says '_his hands_'--to satisfy the heartof Jesus--a touch defiling him, in the notion of the Jews, but howcleansing to the sense of the leper! The man, however, seems to havebeen unworthy of this delicacy of divine tenderness. The Lord, whocould read his heart, saw that he made him no true response--that therewas not awaked in him the faith he desired to rouse: he had not drawnthe soul of the man to his. The leper was jubilant in the removal ofhis pain and isolating uncleanness, in his deliverance from sufferingand scorn; he was probably elated with the pride of having had amiracle wrought for _him_. In a word, he was so full of himself that hedid not think truly of his deliverer. 

The Lord, I say, saw this, or something of this kind, and was notsatisfied. He had wanted to give the man something so much better thana pure skin, and had only roused in him an unseemly delight in his owncleanness--_unseemly_, for it was such that he paid no heed to theLord, but immediately disobeyed his positive command. The moralposition the man took was that which displeased the Lord, made himangry. He saw in him positive and rampant self-will and disobedience, an impertinent assurance and self-satisfaction. Filled, not with puredelight, or the child-like merriment that might well burst forth, mingled with tears, at such deliverance; filled, not with gratitude, but gratification, the keener that he had been so long an object ofloathing to his people; filled with arrogance because of the favourshown to him, of all men, by the great prophet, and swelling with boastof the same, he left the presence of the healer to thwart his will, and, commanded to tell no man, at once 'began'--the frothy, volatile, talking soul--'to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but waswithout in desert places. '

Let us next look at the account of the healing of the two blind men, given in the ninth chapter of Matthew's gospel. In both the versionsthe same phrases are used in translation of the word in question, as inthe story of the leper in Mark's gospel--'straitly, ' 'strictly, ''sternly charged them. ' I read the passage thus: 'And Jesus wasdispleased'--or, perhaps, 'much displeased'--'with them, saying, Seethat no man know it. '

'But they went forth, and spread abroad his fame in all that land. 'Surely here we have light on the cause of Jesus' displeasure with theblind men! it was the same with them as with the leper: they showedthemselves bent on their own way, and did not care for his. Doubtlessthey were, in part, all of them moved by the desire to spread abroadhis fame; that may even have seemed to them the best acknowledgmentthey could render their deliverer. They never suspected that a greatman might desire to avoid fame, laying no value upon it, knowing it fora foolish thing. They did not understand that a man desirous of helpinghis fellows might yet avoid a crowd as obstructive to his object. 'Whatis a prophet without honour?' such virtually ask, nor understand theanswer, 'A man the more likely to prove a prophet. ' These men wouldrepay their healer with trumpeting, not obedience. By them he shouldhave his right--but as they not he judged fit! In his modesty heobjected, but they would take care he should not go without his reward!Through them he should reap the praises of men! 'Not tell!' theyexclaim. 'Indeed, we will tell!' They were too grateful not to rumourhim, not grateful enough to obey him. 

We cannot surely be amazed at their self-sufficiency. How many arethere not who seem capable of anything for the sake of the church orChristianity, except the one thing its Lord cares about--that theyshould do what he tells them! He would deliver them from themselvesinto the liberty of the sons of God, make them his brothers; they leavehim to vaunt their church. His commandments are not grievous; theyinvent commandments for him, and lay them, burdens grievous to beborne, upon the necks of their brethren. God would have us sharers inhis bliss--in the very truth of existence; they worship from afar, andwill not draw nigh. It was not, I think, the obstruction to his work, not the personal inconvenience it would cause him, that made the Lordangry, but that they would not be his friends, would not do what hetold them, would not be the children of his father, and help him tosave their brethren. When Peter in his way next--much the same way astheirs--opposed the will of the Father, saying, 'That be far from thee, Lord!' he called him Satan, and ordered him behind him. 

Does it affect anyone to the lowering of his idea of the Master that heshould ever be angry? If so, I would ask him whether his wholeconscious experience of anger be such, that he knows but one kind ofanger. There is a good anger and a bad anger. There is a wrath of God, and there is a wrath of man that worketh not the righteousness of God. Anger may be as varied as the colour of the rainbow. God's anger can benothing but Godlike, therefore divinely beautiful, at one with hislove, helpful, healing, restoring; yet is it verily and truly what wecall anger. How different is the anger of one who loves, from that ofone who hates! yet is anger anger. There is the degraded human anger, and the grand, noble, eternal anger. Our anger is in general degrading, because it is in general impure. 

It is to me an especially glad thought that the Lord came so near us asto be angry with us. The more we think of Jesus being angry with us, the more we feel that we must get nearer and nearer to him--get withinthe circle of his wrath, out of the sin that makes him angry, and nearto him where sin cannot come. There is no quenching of his love in theanger of Jesus. The anger of Jesus is his recognition that we are toblame; if we were not to blame, Jesus could never be angry with us; weshould not be of his kind, therefore not subject to his blame. Torecognize that we are to blame, is to say that we ought to be better, that we are able to do right if we will. We are able to turn our facesto the light, and come out of the darkness; the Lord will see to ourgrowth. 

It is a serious thought that the disobedience of the men he had setfree from blindness and leprosy should be able to hamper him in hiswork for his father. But his best friends, his lovers did the same. That he should be crucified was a horror to them; they would have madehim a king, and ruined his father's work. He preferred the cruelty ofhis enemies to the kindness of his friends. The former with evil intentwrought his father's will; the latter with good intent would havefrustrated it. His disciples troubled him with their unbelievingexpostulations. Let us know that the poverty of our idea of Jesus--howmuch more our disobedience to him!--thwarts his progress to victory, delays the coming of the kingdom of heaven. Many a man valiant forChrist, but not understanding him, and laying on himself and hisfellows burdens against nature, has therein done will-worship andwould-be service for which Christ will give him little thanks, whichindeed may now be moving his holy anger. Where we do that we ought not, and could have helped it, be moved to anger against us, O Christ! donot treat us as if we were not worth being displeased with; let not ourfaults pass as if they were of no weight. Be angry with us, holybrother, wherein we are to blame; where we do not understand, havepatience with us, and open our eyes, and give us strength to obey, until at length we are the children of the Father even as thou. Forthough thou art lord and master and saviour of them that are growing, thou art perfect lord only of the true and the safe and the free, wholive in thy light and are divinely glad: we keep thee back from thyperfect lordship. Make us able to be angry and not sin; to be angry norseek revenge the smallest; to be angry and full of forgiveness. We willnot be content till our very anger is love. 

The Lord did not call the leprosy to return and seize again upon theman who disobeyed him. He may have deserved it, but the Lord did not doit. He did not wrap the self-confident seeing men in the cloud of theirold darkness because they wrapped themselves in the cloud ofdisobedience. He let them go. Of course they failed of their well-beingby it; for to say a man might disobey and be none the worse, would beto say that _no_ may be _yes_, and light sometimes darkness; it wouldbe to say that the will of God is not man's bliss. But the Lord did notdirectly punish them, any more than he does tens of thousands of wrongsin the world. Many wrongs punish themselves against the bosses of armedlaw; many wrong-doers cut themselves, like the priests of Baal, withthe knives of their own injustice; and it is his will it should be so;but, whether he punish directly or indirectly, he is always working todeliver. I think sometimes his anger is followed, yea, accompanied byan astounding gift, fresh from his heart of grace. He knows what to do, for he is love. He is love when he gives, and love when he withholds;love when he heals, and love when he slays. Lord, if thus thou lookestupon men in thine anger, what must a full gaze be from thine eyes oflove!

Let us now look at the last case in which this word [Greek:embrimaomai] is used in the story of our Lord--that form of it, atleast, which we have down here, for sure they have a fuller gospel inthe Father's house, and without spot of blunder in it: let us so usethat we have that we be allowed at length to look within the leaves ofthe other!

In the authorized version of the gospel of John, the eleventh chapter, the thirty-third verse, we have the words: 'When Jesus therefore sawher weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groanedin the spirit and was troubled;'--according to the margin of therevised version, 'he was moved with indignation in the spirit, andtroubled himself. ' Also in the thirty-eighth verse we read, accordingto the margin of the revised version, 'Jesus therefore again beingmoved with indignation in himself cometh to the tomb. '

Indignation--anger at the very tomb! in the presence of hearts torn bythe loss of a brother four days dead, whom also he loved! Yes, verily, friends! such indignation, such anger as, at such a time, in such aplace, it was eternally right the heart of Jesus should be movedwithal. I can hardly doubt that he is in like manner moved by what hesees now at the death-beds and graves of not a few who are not hisenemies, and yet in the presence of death seem no better than pagans. What have such gained by being the Christians they say they are? Theyfix their eyes on a grisly phantasm they call Death, and never liftthem to the radiant Christ standing by bed or grave! For them Christhas not conquered Death:

 Thou art our king, O Death! to thee we groan!

They would shudder at the thought of saying so in words; they say it inthe bitterness of their tears, in their eyes of despair, in their blackgarments, in their instant retreat from the light of day to burrow inthe bosom of darkness? 'What, would you have us not weep?' Weep freely, friends; but let your tears be those of expectant Christians, nothopeless pagans. Let us look at the story. 

The Lord had all this time been trying to teach his friends about hisfather--what a blessed and perfect father he was, who had sent him thatmen might look on his very likeness, and know him greater than anylikeness could show him; and all they had gained by it seemed not toamount to an atom of consolation when the touch of death came. He hadsaid hundreds of things to Martha and Mary that are not down in the fewpages of our earthly gospel; but the fact that God loves them, and thatGod has Lazarus, seems nothing to them because they have not Lazarus!The Lord himself, for all he has been to them, cannot console them, even with his bodily presence, for the bodily absence of their brother. I do not mean that God would have even his closest presence make usforget or cease to desire that of our friend. God forbid! The love ofGod is the perfecting of every love. He is not the God of oblivion, butof eternal remembrance. There is no past with him. So far is he fromsuch jealousy as we have all heard imputed to him, his determination isthat his sons and daughters shall love each other perfectly. He gave usto each other to belong to each other for ever. He does not give totake away; with him is no variableness or shadow of turning. But if myson or daughter be gone from me for a season, should not the coming oftheir mother comfort me? Is it nothing that he who is the life shouldbe present, assuring the well-being of the life that has vanished, andthe well-being of the love that misses it? Why should the Lord havecome to the world at all, if these his friends were to take no moregood of him than this? Having the elder brother, could they not do fora little while without the younger? Must they be absolutely miserablewithout him? All their cry was, 'Lord, if thou hadst been here, mybrother had not died!' You may say they did not know Christ well enoughyet. That is plain--but Christ had expected more of them, and wasdisappointed. You may say, 'How could that be, seeing he knew what wasin man?' I doubt if you think rightly how much the Lord gave up incoming to us. Perhaps you have a poor idea of how much the Son was ableto part with, or rather could let the Father take from him, without hissonship, the eternal to the eternal, being touched by it, save to showit deeper and deeper, closer and closer. That he did not in this worldknow everything, is plain from his own words, and from signs as well: Ishould scorn to imagine that ignorance touching his Godhead, that hisGodhead could be hurt by what enhances his devotion. It enhances in myeyes the idea of his Godhead. Here, I repeat, I cannot but think thathe was disappointed with his friends Martha and Mary. Had he done nomore for them than this? Was his father and their father no comfort tothem? Was this the way his best friends treated his father, who wasdoing everything for them possible for a father to do for his children!He cared so dearly for their hearts that he could not endure to seethem weeping so that they shut out his father. His love was vexed withthem that they would sit in ashes when they ought to be out in hisfather's sun and wind. And all for a lie!--since the feeling in theirhearts that made them so weep, was a false one. Remember, it was nottheir love, but a false notion of loss. Were they no nearer the lightof life than that? To think they should believe in death and the grave, not in him, the Life! Why should death trouble them? Why grudge thefriendly elements their grasp on the body, restoring it whence it came, because Lazarus was gone home to God, and needed it no more? I suspectthat, looking into their hearts, he saw them feeling and acting just asif Lazarus had ceased to exist. 

'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. '

'Thy brother shall rise again. '

'I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. '

'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, thoughhe were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth, and believeth inme, shall never die. '

I will not now endeavour to disclose anything of the depth of this wordof the Lord. It will suffice for my present object to say that thesisters must surely have known that he raised up the daughter of Jairusand the son of the widow of Nain; and if the words he had just spoken, 'Thy brother shall rise again, ' seemed to Martha too good to be true inthe sense that he was going to raise him now, both she and Marybelieving he could raise him if he would, might at least have knownthat if he did not, it must be for reasons as lovely as any for whichhe might have done it. If he could, and did not, must it not be as wellas, yes, better than if he did?

Martha had gone away, for the moment at least, a little comforted; andnow came Mary, who knew the Lord better than her sister--alas, with thesame bitter tears flowing from her eyes, and the same hopeless words, almost of reproach, falling from her lips! Then it was--at the sight ofher and the Jews with her weeping, that the spirit of the Lord wasmoved with indignation. They wept as those who believe in death, not inlife. Mary wept as if she had never seen with her eyes, never handledwith her hands the Word of life! He was troubled with their unbelief, and troubled with their trouble. What was to be done with his brothersand sisters who _would_ be miserable, who would not believe in hisfather! What a life of pain was theirs! How was he to comfort them?They would not be comforted! What a world was it that would go onthus--that would not free itself from the clutch of death, even afterdeath was dead, but would weep and weep for thousands of years to come, clasped to the bosom of dead Death! Was existence, the gloriousout-gift of his father, to be the most terrible of miseries, becausesome must go home before others? It was all so sad!--and all becausethey would not know his father! Then came the reaction from hisindignation, and the labouring heart of the Lord found relief in tears. 

The Lord was standing, as it were, on the watershed of life. On oneside of him lay what Martha and Mary called the world of life, on theother what he and his father and Lazarus called more abundant life. TheLord saw into both worlds--saw Martha and Mary on the one side weeping, on the other Lazarus waiting for them in peace. He would do his bestfor them--for the sisters--not for Lazarus! It was hard on Lazarus tobe called back into the winding-sheet of the body, a sacrifice to theirfaithlessness, but it should be done! Lazarus should suffer for hissisters! Through him they should be compelled to believe in the Father, and so be delivered from bondage! Death should have no more dominionover them!

He was vexed with them, I have said, for not believing in God, his andtheir father; and at the same time was troubled with their trouble. Thecloud of his loving anger and disappointed sympathy broke in tears; andthe tears eased his heart of the weight of its divine grief. He turned, not to them, not to punish them for their unbelief, not even to chidethem for their sorrow; he turned to his father to thank him. 

He thanks him for hearing a prayer he had made--whether a momentbefore, or ere he left the other side of the Jordan, I cannot tell. What was the prayer for having heard which he now thanks his father?Surely he had spoken about bringing Lazarus back, and his father hadshown himself of one mind with him. 'And I knew that thou hearest mealways, but because of the multitude which standeth around I said it, that they may believe that thou didst send me. ' 'I said it:' said what?He had said something for the sake of the multitude; what was it? Thethanksgiving he had just uttered. He was not in the way of thanking hisfather in formal words; and now would not naturally have spoken histhanks aloud; for he was always speaking to the Father, and the Fatherwas always hearing him; but he had a reason for doing so, and was nowgoing to give his reason. He had done the unusual thing for the sake ofbeing heard do it, and for holy honesty-sake he tells the fact, speaking to his father so as the people about him may hear, and therebe no shadow of undisclosed doubleness in the action--nothing covert, however perfect in honesty. His design in thus thanking aloud must bemade patent! 'I thank thee, father, for hearing me; and I say it, notas if I had had any doubt of thy hearing me, but that the people mayunderstand that I am not doing this thing of myself, but as thymessenger. It is thou, father, art going to do it; I am doing it as thyright hand. --Lazarus, come forth. '

I have said the trouble of the Lord was that his friends would nottrust his father. He did not want any reception of himself that was nota reception of his father. It was his father, not he, that did theworks! From this disappointment came, it seems to me, that sorrowfulsigh, 'Nevertheless, when the son of man cometh, shall he find faith onthe earth?'

The thought of the Lord in uttering this prayer is not his ownjustification, but his father's reception by his children. If ever theLord claims to be received as a true man, it is for the sake of hisfather and his brethren, that in the receiving of him, he may bereceived who sent him. Had he now desired the justification of his ownclaim, the thing he was about to do would have been powerful to thatend; but he must have them understand clearly that the Father was onewith him in it--that they were doing it together--that it was the willof the Father--that he had sent him. 

Lazarus must come and help him with these sisters whom he could not getto believe! Lazarus had tasted of death, and knew what it was: he mustcome and give his testimony! 'They have lost sight of you, Lazarus, andfancy you gone to the nowhere of their unbelief. Come forth; come outof the unseen. We will set them at rest. ' It was hard, I repeat, uponLazarus; he was better where he was; but he must come and bear the Lordcompany a little longer, and then be left behind with his sisters, thatthey and millions more like them might know that God is the God of theliving, and not of the dead. 

The Jews said, 'Behold how he loved him!' but can any Christian believeit was from love to Lazarus that Jesus wept? It was from love to God, and to Martha and Mary. He had not lost Lazarus; but Martha and Marywere astray from their father in heaven. 'Come, my brother; witness!'he cried; and Lazarus came forth, bound hand and foot. 'Loose him andlet him go, ' he said--a live truth walking about the world: he hadnever been dead, and was come forth; he had not been lost, and wasrestored! It was a strange door he came through, back to his own--adoor seldom used, known only to one--but there he was! Oh, the heartsof Martha and Mary! Surely the Lord had some recompense for histrouble, beholding their joy!

Any Christian woman who has read thus far, I now beg to reflect on whatI am going to put before her. 

Lazarus had to die again, and thanked God, we may be sure, for the gladfact. Did his sisters, supposing them again left behind him in theworld, make the same lamentations over him as the former time he went?If they did, if they fell again into that passion of grief, lamentingand moaning and refusing to be comforted, what would you say of them? Iimagine something to this effect: 'It was most unworthy of them to beno better for such a favour shown them. It was to behave like thenaughtiest of faithless children. Did they not know that he was notlost?--that he was with the Master, who had himself seemed lost for afew days, but came again? He was no more lost now than the time he wentbefore! Could they not trust that he who brought him back once wouldtake care they should have him for ever at last!' Would you not speakafter some such fashion? Would you not remember that he who is theshepherd of the sheep will see that the sheep that love one anothershall have their own again, in whatever different pastures they mayfeed for a time? Would it not be hard to persuade you that they everdid so behave? They must have felt that he was but 'gone for aminute . .. From this room into the next;' and that, however they mightmiss him, it would be a shame not to be patient when they knew therewas nothing to fear. It was all right with him, and would soon be allright with them also!

'Yes, ' I imagine you saying, 'that is just how they would feel!'

'Then, ' I return, 'why are _you_ so miserable? Or why is it but thecold frost of use and forgetting that makes you less miserable than youwere a year ago?'

'Ah, ' you answer, 'but I had no such miracle wrought for me! Ah, if Ihad such a miracle wrought for me, you should see then!'

'You mean that if your husband, your son, your father, your brother, your lover, had been taken from you once and given to you again, youwould not, when the time came that he must go once more, dream ofcalling him a second time from the good heaven? You would not be cruelenough for that! You would not bemoan or lament! You would not make theheart of the Lord sad with your hopeless tears! Ah, how little you knowyourself! Do you not see that, so far as truth and reason areconcerned, you are now in precisely the position supposed--the positionof those sisters after Lazarus was taken from them the second time? Youknow now all they knew then. They had no more of a revelation by therecall of Lazarus than you have. For you profess to believe the story, though you make that doubtful enough by your disregard of the very soulof it. Is it possible that, so far as you are concerned, Lazarus mightas well not have risen? What difference is there between your positionnow and theirs? Lazarus was with God, and they knew he had gone, comeback, and gone again. You know that he went, came, and went again. Yourfriend is gone as Lazarus went twice, and you behave as if you knewnothing of Lazarus. You make a lamentable ado, vexing Jesus that youwill not be reasonable and trust his father! When Martha and Marybehaved as you are doing, they had not had Lazarus raised; you have hadLazarus raised, yet you go on as they did then!

'You give too good reason to think that, if the same thing were donefor you, you would say he was only in a cataleptic fit, and in truthwas never raised from the dead. Or is there another way ofunderstanding your behaviour: you do not believe that God isunchangeable, but think he acts one way one time and another wayanother time just from caprice? He might give back a brother to sisterswho were favourites with him, but no such gift is to be counted upon?Why then, I ask, do you worship such a God?'

'But you know he does _not_ do it! That was a mere exceptional case. '

'If it was, it is worthless indeed--as worthless as your behaviourwould make it. But you are dull of heart, as were Martha and Mary. Doyou not see that he is as continually restoring as taking away--thatevery bereavement is a restoration--that when you are weeping with voidarms, others, who love as well as you, are clasping in ecstasy ofreunion?'

'Alas, we know nothing about that!'

'If you have learned no more I must leave you, having no ground in youupon which my words may fall. You deceived me; you called yourself aChristian. You cannot have been doing the will of the Father, or youwould not be as you are. '

'Ah, you little know my loss!'

'Indeed it is great! it seems to include God! If you knew what he knowsabout death you would clap your listless hands. But why should I seekin vain to comfort you? You must be made miserable, that you may wakefrom your sleep to know that you need God. If you do not find him, endless life with the living whom you bemoan would become and remain toyou unendurable. The knowledge of your own heart will teach you this--not the knowledge you have, but the knowledge that is on its way to youthrough suffering. Then you will feel that existence itself is theprime of evils, without _the righteousness which is of God by faith_. '

 RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

--_that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine ownrighteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faithof Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith_. --Ep. To thePhilippians iii. 8, 9. 

What does the apostle mean by the righteousness that is of God byfaith? He means the same righteousness Christ had by his faith in God, the same righteousness God himself has. 

In his second epistle to the Corinthians he says, 'He hath made him tobe sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousnessof God in him;'--'He gave him to be treated like a sinner, killed andcast out of his own vineyard by his husbandmen, that we might in him bemade righteous like God. ' As the antithesis stands it is rhetoricallycorrect. But if the former half means, 'he made him to be treated as ifhe were a sinner, ' then the latter half should, in logical precision, mean, 'that we might be treated as if we were righteous. '

'That is just what Paul does mean, ' insist not a few. 'He means thatJesus was treated by God as if he were a sinner, our sins being imputedto him, in order that we might be treated as if we were righteous, hisrighteousness being imputed to us. '

That is, that, by a sort of legal fiction, Jesus was treated as what hewas not, in order that we might be treated as what we are not. This isthe best device, according to the prevailing theology, that the God oftruth, the God of mercy, whose glory is that he is just to men byforgiving their sins, could fall upon for saving his creatures!

I had thought that this most contemptible of false doctrines had nighceased to be presented, though I knew it must be long before it ceasedto exercise baneful influence; but, to my astonishment, I came upon itlately in quite a modern commentary which I happened to look into in afriend's house. I say, to my astonishment, for the commentary was thework of one of the most liberal and lovely of Christians, a dignitaryhigh in the church of England, a man whom I knew and love, and hope erelong to meet where there are no churches. In the comment that cameunder my eye, he refers to the doctrine of imputed righteousness as thepossible explanation of a certain passage--refers to it as to adoctrine concerning whose truth was no question. 

It seems to me that, seeing much duplicity exists in the body ofChrist, every honest member of it should protest against any wordtending to imply the existence of falsehood in the indwelling spirit ofthat body. I now protest against this so-called _doctrine_, counting itthe rightful prey of the foolishest wind in the limbo of vanities, whither I would gladly do my best to send it. It is a mean, nauseousinvention, false, and productive of falsehood. Say it is a figure, Ianswer it is not only a false figure but an embodiment of untruth; sayit expresses a reality, and I say it teaches the worst of lies; saythere is a shadow of truth in it, and I answer it may be so, but thereis no truth touched in it that could not be taught infinitely betterwithout it. It is the meagre misshapen offspring of the legalism of apoverty-stricken mechanical fancy, unlighted by a gleam of divineimagination. No one who knows his New Testament will dare to say thatthe figure is once used in it. 

I have dealt already with the source of it. They say first, God mustpunish the sinner, for justice requires it; then they say he does notpunish the sinner, but punishes a perfectly righteous man instead, attributes his righteousness to the sinner, and so continues just. Wasthere ever such a confusion, such an inversion of right and wrong!Justice _could not_ treat a righteous man as an unrighteous; neither, if justice required the punishment of sin, _could_ justice let thesinner go unpunished. To lay the pain upon the righteous in the name ofjustice is simply monstrous. No wonder unbelief is rampant. Believe inMoloch if you will, but call him Moloch, not Justice. Be sure that thething that God gives, the righteousness that is of God, is a realthing, and not a contemptible legalism. Pray God I have norighteousness imputed to me. Let me be regarded as the sinner I am; fornothing will serve my need but to be made a righteous man, one thatwill no more sin. 

We have the word _imputed_ just once in the New Testament. Whether theevil doctrine may have sprung from any possible misunderstanding of thepassage where it occurs, I hardly care to inquire. The word as Pauluses it, and the whole of the thought whence his use of it springs, appeals to my sense of right and justice as much as the common use ofit arouses my abhorrence. The apostle says that a certain thing wasimputed to Abraham for righteousness; or, as the revised version hasit, 'reckoned unto him:' what was it that was thus imputed to Abraham?The righteousness of another? God forbid! It was his own faith. Thefaith of Abraham is reckoned to him for righteousness. To impute therighteousness of one to another, is simply to act a falsehood; to callthe faith of a man his righteousness is simply to speak the truth. Wasit not righteous in Abraham to obey God? The Jews placed righteousnessin keeping all the particulars of the law of Moses: Paul says faith inGod was counted righteousness before Moses was born. You may answer, Abraham was unjust in many things, and by no means a righteous man. True; he was not a righteous man in any complete sense; hisrighteousness would never have satisfied Paul; neither, you may besure, did it satisfy Abraham; but his faith was neverthelessrighteousness, and if it had not been counted to him for righteousness, there would have been falsehood somewhere, for such faith as Abraham's_is righteousness_. It was no mere intellectual recognition of theexistence of a God, which is consistent with the deepest atheism; itwas that faith which is one with action: 'He went out, not knowingwhither he went. ' The very act of believing in God after such fashionthat, when the time of action comes, the man will obey God, is thehighest act, the deepest, loftiest righteousness of which man iscapable, is at the root of all other righteousness, and the spirit ofit will work till the man is perfect. If you define righteousness inthe common-sense, that is, in the divine fashion--for religion isnothing if it be not the deepest common-sense--as a giving to everyonehis due, then certainly the first due is to him who makes us capable ofowing, that is, makes us responsible creatures. You may say this is notone's first feeling of duty. True; but the first in reality is seldomthe first perceived. The first duty is too high and too deep to comefirst into consciousness. If any one were born perfect, which I countan eternal impossibility, then the highest duty would come first intothe consciousness. As we are born, it is the doing of, or at least thehonest trying to do many another duty, that will at length lead a manto see that his duty to God is the first and deepest and highest ofall, including and requiring the performance of all other dutieswhatever. A man might live a thousand years in neglect of duty, andnever come to see that any obligation was upon him to put faith in Godand do what he told him--never have a glimpse of the fact that he owedhim something. I will allow that if God were what he thinks him hewould indeed owe him little; but he thinks him such in consequence ofnot doing what he knows he ought to do. He has not come to the light. He has deadened, dulled, hardened his nature. He has not been a manwithout guile, has not been true and fair. 

But while faith in God is the first duty, and may therefore well becalled righteousness in the man in whom it is operative, even though itbe imperfect, there is more reason than this why it should be countedto a man for righteousness. It is the one spiritual act which bringsthe man into contact with the original creative power, able to help himin every endeavour after righteousness, and ensure his progress toperfection. The man who exercises it may therefore also well be calleda righteous man, however far from complete in righteousness. We maycall a woman beautiful who is not perfect in beauty; in the Bible menare constantly recognized as righteous men who are far from perfectlyrighteous. The Bible never deals with impossibilities, never demands ofany man at any given moment a righteousness of which at that moment heis incapable; neither does it lay upon any man any other law than thatof perfect righteousness. It demands of him righteousness; when heyields that righteousness of which he is capable, content for themoment, it goes on to demand more: the common-sense of the Bible islovely. 

To the man who has no faith in God, faith in God cannot look likerighteousness; neither can he know that it is creative of all otherrighteousness toward equal and inferior lives: he cannot know that itis not merely the beginning of righteousness, but the germ of life, theactive potency whence life-righteousness grows. It is not like somesingle separate act of righteousness; it is the action of the wholeman, turning to good from evil--turning his back on all that is opposedto righteousness, and starting on a road on which he cannot stop, inwhich he must go on growing more and more righteous, discovering moreand more what righteousness is, and more and more what is unrighteousin himself. In the one act of believing in God--that is, of givinghimself to do what he tells him--he abjures evil, both what he knowsand what he does not yet know in himself. A man may indeed have turnedto obey God, and yet be capable of many an injustice to his neighbourwhich he has not yet discovered to be an injustice; but as he goes onobeying, he will go on discovering. Not only will he grow more and moredetermined to be just, but he will grow more and more sensitive to theidea of injustice--I do not mean in others, but in himself. A man whocontinues capable of a known injustice to his neighbour, cannot bebelieved to have turned to God. At all events, a man cannot be nearGod, so as to be learning what is just toward God, and not be near hisneighbour, so as to be learning what is unfair to him; for his will, which is the man, lays hold of righteousness, chooses to be righteous. If a man is to be blamed for not choosing righteousness, for notturning to the light, for not coming out of the darkness, then the manwho does choose and turn and come out, is to be justified in his deed, and declared to be righteous. He is not yet thoroughly righteous, butis growing in and toward righteousness. He needs creative God, and timefor will and effort. Not yet quite righteous, he cannot yet act quiterighteously, for only the man in whom the image of God is perfected canlive perfectly. Born into the world without righteousness, he cannotsee, he cannot know, he is not in touch with perfect righteousness, andit would be the deepest injustice to demand of him, with a penalty, atany given moment, more than he knows how to yield; but it is thehighest lore constantly to demand of him perfect righteousness as whathe must attain to. With what life and possibility is in him, he mustkeep turning to righteousness and abjuring iniquity, ever aiming at theperfection of God. Such an obedient faith is most justly and fairly, being all that God himself can require of the man, called by Godrighteousness in the man. It would not be enough for the righteousnessof God, or Jesus, or any perfected saint, because they are capable ofperfect righteousness, and, knowing what is perfect righteousness, choose to be perfectly righteous; but, in virtue of the life and growthin it, it is enough at a given moment for the disciple of the Perfect. The righteousness of Abraham was not to compare with the righteousnessof Paul. He did not fight with himself for righteousness, as didPaul--not because he was better than Paul and therefore did not need tofight, but because his idea of what was required of him was not withinsight of that of Paul; yet was he righteous in the same way as Paul wasrighteous: he had begun to be righteous, and God called hisrighteousness righteousness, for faith is righteousness. His faith wasan act recognizing God as his law, and that is not a partial act, butan all-embracing and all-determining action. A single righteous deedtoward one's fellow could hardly be imputed to a man as righteousness. A man who is not trying after righteousness may yet do many a righteousact: they will not be forgotten to him, neither will they be imputed tohim as righteousness. Abraham's action of obedient faith wasrighteousness none the less that his righteousness was far behindPaul's. Abraham started at the beginning of the long, slow, disappointing preparation of the Jewish people; Paul started at itsclose, with the story of Jesus behind him. Both believed, obeying God, and therefore both were righteous. They were righteous because theygave themselves up to God to make them righteous; and not to call suchmen righteous, not to impute their faith to them for righteousness, would be unjust. But God is utterly just, and nowise resembles alegal-minded Roman emperor, or a bad pope formulating the doctrine ofvicarious sacrifice. 

What, then, is the righteousness which is of God by faith? It is simplythe thing that God wants every man to be, wrought out in him byconstant obedient contact with God himself. It is not an attributeeither of God or man, but a fact of character in God and in man. It isGod's righteousness wrought out in us, so that as he is righteous wetoo are righteous. It does not consist in obeying this or that law; noteven the keeping of every law, so that no hair's-breadth did we runcounter to one of them, would be righteousness. To be righteous is tobe such a heart, soul, mind, and will, as, without regard to law, wouldrecoil with horror from the lightest possible breach of any law. It isto be so in love with what is fair and right as to make it impossiblefor a man to do anything that is less than absolutely righteous. It isnot the love of righteousness in the abstract that makes anyonerighteous, but such a love of fairplay toward everyone with whom wecome into contact, that anything less than the fulfilling, with a clearjoy, of our divine relation to him or her, is impossible. For therighteousness of God goes far beyond mere deeds, and requires of uslove and helping mercy as our highest obligation and justice to ourfellow men--those of them too who have done nothing for us, those evenwho have done us wrong. Our relations with others, God first and thenour neighbour in order and degree, must one day become, as in truenature they are, the gladness of our being; and nothing then will everappear good for us, that is not in harmony with those blessedrelations. Every thought will not merely be just, but will be justbecause it is something more, because it is live and true. What heartin the kingdom of heaven would ever dream of constructing ametaphysical system of what we owed to God and why we owed it? Thelight of our life, our sole, eternal, and infinite joy, is simplyGod--God--God--nothing but God, and all his creatures in him. He is alland in all, and the children of the kingdom know it. He includes allthings; not to be true to anything he has made is to be untrue to him. God is truth, is life; to be in God is to know him and need no law. Existence will be eternal Godness. 

You would not like that way of it? There is, there can be, no other;but before you can judge of it, you must know at least a little of Godas he is, not as you imagine him. I say _as you imagine him_, becauseit cannot be that any creature should know him as he is and not desirehim. In proportion as we know him we must desire him, until at lengthwe live in and for him with all our conscious heart. That is why theJews did not like the Lord: he cared so simply for his father's will, and not for anything they called his will. 

The righteousness which is of God by faith in the source, the prime ofthat righteousness, is then just the same kind of thing as God'srighteousness, differing only as the created differs from the creating. The righteousness of him who does the will of his father in heaven, isthe righteousness of Jesus Christ, is God's own righteousness. Therighteousness which is of God by faith in God, is God's righteousness. The man who has this righteousness, thinks about things as God thinksabout them, loves the things that God loves, cares for nothing that Goddoes not care about. Even while this righteousness is being born inhim, the man will say to himself, 'Why should I be troubled about thisthing or that? Does God care about it? No. Then why should I care? Imust not care. I will not care! 'If he does not know whether God caresabout it or not, he will say, 'If God cares I should have my desire, hewill give it me; if he does not care I should have it, neither will Icare. In the meantime I will do my work. ' The man with God'srighteousness does not love a thing merely because it is right, butloves the very rightness in it. He not only loves a thought, but heloves the man in his thinking that thought; he loves the thought alivein the man. He does not take his joy from himself. He feels joy inhimself, but it comes to him from others, not from himself--from Godfirst, and from somebody, anybody, everybody next. He would rather, inthe fulness of his content, pass out of being, rather himself cease toexist, than that another should. He could do without knowing himself, but he could not know himself and spare one of the brothers or sistersGod had given him. The man who really knows God, is, and always willbe, content with what God, who is the very self of his self, shallchoose for him; he is entirely God's, and not at all his own. Hisconsciousness of himself is the reflex from those about him, not theresult of his own turning in of his regard upon himself. It is not thecontemplation of what God has made him, it is the being what God hasmade him, and the contemplation of what God himself is, and what he hasmade his fellows, that gives him his joy. He wants nothing, and feelsthat he has all things, for he is in the bosom of his father, and thethoughts of his father come to him. He knows that if he needs anything, it is his before he asks it; for his father has willed him, in themight and truth of his fatherhood, to be one with himself. 

This then, or something like this, for words are poor to tell the bestthings, is the righteousness which is of God by faith--so far frombeing a thing built on the rubbish heap of legal fiction calledvicarious sacrifice, or its shadow called imputed righteousness, thatonly the child with the child-heart, so far ahead of and so differentfrom the wise and prudent, can understand it. The wise and prudentinterprets God by himself, and does not understand him; the childinterprets God by himself, and does understand him. The wise andprudent must make a system and arrange things to his mind before he cansay, _I believe_. The child sees, believes, obeys--and knows he must beperfect as his father in heaven is perfect. If an angel, seeming tocome from heaven, told him that God had let him off, that he did notrequire so much of him as that, but would be content with less; that hecould not indeed allow him to be wicked, but would pass by a greatdeal, modifying his demands because it was so hard for him to be quitegood, and he loved him so dearly, the child of God would at oncerecognize, woven with the angel's starry brilliancy, the flicker of theflames of hell, and would say to the shining one, 'Get thee behind me, Satan. ' Nor would there be the slightest wonder or merit in his doingso, for at the words of the deceiver, if but for briefest momentimagined true, the shadow of a rising hell would gloom over the face ofcreation; hope would vanish; the eternal would be as the carcase of adead man; the glory would die out of the face of God--until the groanof a thunderous _no_ burst from the caverns of the universe, and thetruth, flashing on his child's soul from the heart of the Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, withered up the lie of the messenger of darkness. 

'But how can God bring this about in me?'

Let him do it, and perhaps you will know; if you never know, yet thereit will be. Help him to do it, or he cannot do it. He originates thepossibility of your being his son, his daughter; he makes you able towill it, but you must will it. If he is not doing it in you--that is, if you have as yet prevented him from beginning, why should I tell you, even if I knew the process, how he would do what you will not let himdo? Why should you know? What claim have you to know? But indeed howshould you be able to know? For it must deal with deeper and higherthings than you _can_ know anything of till the work is at least begun. Perhaps if you approved of the plans of the glad creator, you wouldallow him to make of you something divine! To teach your intellect whathas to be learned by your whole being, what cannot be understoodwithout the whole being, what it would do you no good to understandsave you understood it in your whole being--if this be the province ofany man, it is not mine. Let the dead bury their dead, and the deadteach their dead; for me, I will try to wake them. To those who areawake, I cry, 'For the sake of your father and the first-born amongmany brethren to whom we belong, for the sake of those he has given usto love the most dearly, let patience have her perfect work. Statueunder the chisel of the sculptor, stand steady to the blows of hismallet. Clay on the wheel, let the fingers of the divine potter modelyou at their will. Obey the Father's lightest word; hear the Brotherwho knows you, and died for you; beat down your sin, and trample it todeath. 

Brother, when thou sittest at home in thy house, which is the temple ofthe Lord, open all thy windows to breathe the air of his approach; setthe watcher on thy turret, that he may listen out into the dark for thesound of his coming, and thy hand be on the latch to open the door athis first knock. Shouldst thou open the door and not see him, do notsay he did not knock, but understand that he is there, and wants theeto go out to him. It may be he has something for thee to do for him. Goand do it, and perhaps thou wilt return with a new prayer, to find anew window in thy soul. 

Never wait for fitter time or place to talk to him. To wait till thougo to church, or to thy closet, is to make _him_ wait. He will listenas thou walkest in the lane or the crowded street, on the common or inthe place of shining concourse. 

Remember, if indeed thou art able to know it, that not in any church isthe service done that he requires. He will say to no man, 'You neverwent to church: depart from me; I do not know you;' but, 'Inasmuch asyou never helped one of my father's children, you have done nothing forme. ' Church or chapel is _not_ the place for divine service. It is aplace of prayer, a place of praise, a place to feed upon good things, aplace to learn of God, as what place is not? It is a place to look inthe eyes of your neighbour, and love God along with him. But the worldin which you move, the place of your living and loving and labour, notthe church you go to on your holiday, is the place of divine service. Serve your neighbour, and you serve him. 

Do not heed much if men mock you and speak lies of you, or in goodwilldefend you unworthily. Heed not much if even the righteous turn theirbacks upon you. Only take heed that you turn not from them. Takecourage in the fact that _there is nothing covered, that shall not berevealed; and hid, that shall not be known_. 

 THE FINAL UNMASKING. 

_For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known_. --Matthew x. 26; Luke xii. 2. 

God is not a God that hides, but a God that reveals. His whole work inrelation to the creatures he has made--and where else can lie hiswork?--is revelation--the giving them truth, the showing of himself tothem, that they may know him, and come nearer and nearer to him, and sohe have his children more and more of companions to him. That we are inthe dark about anything is never because he hides it, but because weare not yet such that he is able to reveal that thing to us. 

That God could not do the thing at once which he takes time to do, wemay surely say without irreverence. His will cannot finally bethwarted; where it is thwarted for a time, the very thwarting subservesthe working out of a higher part of his will. He gave man the power tothwart his will, that, by means of that same power, he might come atlast to do his will in a higher kind and way than would otherwise havebeen possible to him. God sacrifices his will to man that man maybecome such as himself, and give all to the truth; he makes man able todo wrong, that he may choose and love righteousness. 

The fact that all things are slowly coming into the light of theknowledge of men--so far as this may be possible to the created--isused in three different ways by the Lord, as reported by hisevangelist. In one case, with which we will not now occupyourselves--_Mark_ iv. 22; _Luke_ viii. 16--he uses it to enforce theduty of those who have received light to let it shine: they must dotheir part to bring all things out. In _Luke_ xii. 2, is recorded howhe brought it to bear on hypocrisy, showing its uselessness; and, inthe case recorded in _Matthew_ x. 25, he uses the fact to enforcefearlessness as to the misinterpretation of our words and actions. 

In whatever mode the Lord may intend that it shall be wrought out, hegives us to understand, as an unalterable principle in the governmentof the universe, that all such things as the unrighteous desire toconceal, and such things as it is a pain to the righteous to haveconcealed, shall come out into the light. 

'Beware of hypocrisy, ' the Lord says, 'for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, neither hid, that shall not be known, ' Whatis hypocrisy? The desire to look better than you are; the hiding ofthings you do, because you would not be supposed to do them, becauseyou would be ashamed to have them known where you are known. The doingof them is foul; the hiding of them, in order to appear better than youare, is fouler still. The man who does not live in his ownconsciousness as in the open heavens, is a hypocrite--and for most ofus the question is, are we growing less or more of such hypocrites? Arewe ashamed of not having been open and clear? Are we fighting the evilthing which is our temptation to hypocrisy? The Lord has not a thoughtin him to be ashamed of before God and his universe, and he will not becontent until he has us in the same liberty. For our encouragement tofight on, he tells us that those that hunger and thirst afterrighteousness shall be filled, that they shall become as righteous asthe spirit of the Father and the Son in them can make them desire. 

The Lord says also, 'If they have called the master of the houseBeelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household! Fearthem not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not berevealed; and hid, that shall not be known. ' To a man who lovesrighteousness and his fellow men, it must always be painful to bemisunderstood; and misunderstanding is specially inevitable where heacts upon principles beyond the recognition of those around him, who, being but half-hearted Christians, count themselves the law-givers ofrighteousness, and charge him with the very things it is the aim of hislife to destroy. The Lord himself was accused of being a drunkard and akeeper of bad company--and perhaps would in the present day be soregarded by not a few calling themselves by his name, and teachingtemperance and virtue. He lived upon a higher spiritual platform thanthey understand, acted from a height of the virtues they wouldinculcate, loftier than their eyes can scale. His Himalays are notvisible from their sand-heaps. The Lord bore with their evil tongues, and was neither dismayed nor troubled; but from this experience of hisown, comforts those who, being his messengers, must fare as he. 'Ifthey have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shallthey call them of his household!'--'If they insult a man, how much morewill they not insult his servants!' While men count themselvesChristians on any other ground than that they are slaves of JesusChrist, the children of God, and free from themselves, so long willthey use the servants of the Master despitefully. 'Do not hesitate, 'says the Lord, 'to speak the truth that is in you; never mind what theycall you; proclaim from the housetop; fear nobody. '

He spoke the words to the men to whom he looked first to spread thenews of the kingdom of heaven; but they apply to all who obey him. Fewwho have endeavoured to do their duty, have not been annoyed, disappointed, enraged perhaps, by the antagonism, misunderstanding, andfalse representation to which they have been subjected therein--issuingmainly from those and the friends of those who have benefited by theirefforts to be neighbours to all. The tales of heartlessness andingratitude one must come across, compel one to see more and moreclearly that humanity, without willed effort after righteousness, ismean enough to sink to any depth of disgrace. The judgments also ofimagined superiority are hard to bear. The rich man who will screw hisworkmen to the lowest penny, will read his poor relation a solemnlecture on extravagance, because of some humblest little act ofgenerosity! He takes the end of the beam sticking out of his eye topick the mote from the eye of his brother withal! If, in the endeavourto lead a truer life, a man merely lives otherwise than his neighbours, strange motives will be invented to account for it. To the honest soulit is a comfort to believe that the truth will one day be known, thatit will cease to be supposed that he was and did as dull heads andhearts reported of him. Still more satisfactory will be the unveilingwhere a man is misunderstood by those who ought to know himbetter--who, not even understanding the point at issue, take it forgranted he is about to do the wrong thing, while he is crying forcourage to heed neither himself nor his friends, but only the Lord. Howmany hear and accept the words, 'Be not conformed to this world, 'without once perceiving that what they call Society and bow to assupreme, is the World and nothing else, or that those who mind whatpeople think, and what people will say, are conformed to--that is, takethe shape of--the world. The true man feels he has nothing to do withSociety as judge or lawgiver: he is under the law of Jesus Christ, andit sets him free from the law of the World. Let a man do right, nortrouble himself about worthless opinion; the less he heeds tongues, theless difficult will he find it to love men. Let him comfort himselfwith the thought that the truth must out. He will not have to passthrough eternity with the brand of ignorant or malicious judgment uponhim. He shall find his peers and be judged of them. 

But, thou who lookest for the justification of the light, art thouverily prepared for thyself to encounter such exposure as the generalunveiling of things must bring? Art thou willing for the truth whateverit be? I nowise mean to ask, Have you a conscience so void of offence, have you a heart so pure and clean, that you fear no fullest exposureof what is in you to the gaze of men and angels?--as to God, he knowsit all now! What I mean to ask is, Do you so love the truth and theright, that you welcome, or at least submit willingly to the idea of anexposure of what in you is yet unknown to yourself--an exposure thatmay redound to the glory of the truth by making you ashamed and humble?It may be, for instance, that you were wrong in regard to those, forthe righting of whose wrongs to you, the great judgment of God is nowby you waited for with desire: will you welcome any discovery, even ifit work for the excuse of others, that will make you more true, byrevealing what in you was false? Are you willing to be made glad thatyou were wrong when you thought others were wrong? If you can with suchsubmission face the revelation of things hid, then you are of thetruth, and need not be afraid; for, whatever comes, it will and canonly make you more true and humble and pure. 

Does the Lord mean that everything a man has ever done or thought mustbe laid bare to the universe?

So far, I think, as is necessary to the understanding of the man bythose who have known, or are concerned to know him. For the time tocome, and for those who are yet to know him, the man will henceforth, if he is a true man, be transparent to all that are capable of readinghim. A man may not then, any more than now, be intelligible to thosebeneath him, but all things will be working toward revelation, nothingtoward concealment or misunderstanding. Who in the kingdom will desireconcealment, or be willing to misunderstand? Concealment is darkness;misunderstanding is a fog. A man will hold the door open for anyone towalk into his house, for it is a temple of the living God--with somethings worth looking at, and nothing to hide. The glory of the trueworld is, that there is nothing in it that needs to be covered, whileever and ever there will be things uncovered. Every man's light willshine for the good and glory of his neighbour. 

'Will all my weaknesses, all my evil habits, all my pettinesses, allthe wrong thoughts which I cannot help--will all be set out before theuniverse?'

Yes, if they so prevail as to constitute your character--that is, ifthey are you. But if you have come out of the darkness, if you arefighting it, if you are honestly trying to walk in the light, you mayhope in God your father that what he has cured, what he is curing, whathe has forgiven, will be heard of no more, not now being a constituentpart of you. Or if indeed some of your evil things must yet be seen, the truth of them will be seen--that they are things you are at strifewith, not things you are cherishing and brooding over. God will be fairto you--so fair!--fair with the fairness of a father loving hisown--who will have you clean, who will neither spare you any needfulshame, nor leave you exposed to any that is not needful. The thing wehave risen above, is dead and forgotten, or if remembered, there is Godto comfort us. 'If any man sin, we have a comforter with the Father. 'We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future. It willnot hurt us so long as we do not try to hide things, so long as we areready to bow our heads in hearty shame where it is fit we should beashamed. For to be ashamed is a holy and blessed thing. Shame is athing to shame only those who want to appear, not those who want to be. Shame is to shame those who want to pass their examination, not thosewho would get into the heart of things. In the name of God let ushenceforth have nothing to be ashamed of, and be ready to meet anyshame on its way to meet us. For to be humbly ashamed is to be plungedin the cleansing bath of the truth. 

As to the revelation of the ways of God, I need not speak; he has beenalways, from the first, revealing them to his prophet, to his child, and will go on doing so for ever. But let me say a word about anotherkind of revelation--that of their own evil to the evil. 

The only terrible, or at least the supremely terrible revelation isthat of a man to himself. What a horror will it not be to a vileman--more than all to a man whose pleasure has been enhanced by thesuffering of others--a man that knew himself such as men of ordinarymorals would turn from with disgust, but who has hitherto had noinsight into what he is--what a horror will it not be to him when hiseyes are opened to see himself as the pure see him, as God sees him!Imagine such a man waking all at once, not only to see the eyes of theuniverse fixed upon him with loathing astonishment, but to see himselfat the same moment as those eyes see him! What a waking!--into the fullblaze of fact and consciousness, of truth and violation!

 To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself!

Or think what it must be for a man counting himself religious, orthodox, exemplary, to perceive suddenly that there was no religion inhim, only love of self; no love of the right, only a great love ofbeing in the right! What a discovery--that he was simply ahypocrite--one who loved to _appear_, and _was_ not! The rich seem tobe those among whom will occur hereafter the sharpest reverses, if Iunderstand aright the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Who has notknown the insolence of their meanness toward the poor, all the timecounting themselves of the very elect! What riches and fanciedreligion, with the self-sufficiency they generate between them, canmake man or woman capable of, is appalling. Mammon, the mostcontemptible of deities, is the most worshipped, both outside and inthe house of God: to many of the religious rich in that day, the greatdamning revelation will be their behaviour to the poor to whom theythought themselves very kind. 'He flattereth himself in his own eyesuntil his iniquity is found to be hateful. ' A man may loathe a thing inthe abstract for years, and find at last that all the time he has been, in his own person, guilty of it. To carry a thing under our cloakcaressingly, hides from us its identity with something that standsbefore us on the public pillory. Many a man might read this and assentto it, who cages in his own bosom a carrion-bird that he never knowsfor what it is, because there are points of difference in its plumagefrom that of the bird he calls by an ugly name. 

Of all who will one day stand in dismay and sickness of heart, with theconsciousness that their very existence is a shame, those will fare theworst who have been consciously false to their fellows; who, pretendingfriendship, have used their neighbour to their own ends; and especiallythose who, pretending friendship, have divided friends. To such Dantehas given the lowest hell. If there be one thing God hates, it must betreachery. Do not imagine Judas the only man of whom the Lord wouldsay, 'Better were it for that man if he had never been born!' Did theLord speak out of personal indignation, or did he utter a spiritualfact, a live principle? Did he speak in anger at the treachery of hisapostle to himself, or in pity for the man that had better not havebeen born? Did the word spring from his knowledge of some fearfulpunishment awaiting Judas, or from his sense of the horror it was to besuch a man? Beyond all things pitiful is it that a man should carryabout with him the consciousness of being such a person--should knowhimself and not another that false one! 'O God, ' we think, 'howterrible if it were I!' Just so terrible is it that it should be Judas!And have I not done things with the same germ in them, a germ which, brought to its evil perfection, would have shown itself thecanker-worm, treachery? Except I love my neighbour as myself, I may oneday betray him! Let us therefore be compassionate and humble, and hopefor every man. 

A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, hemay go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter, and thinkinghimself a good Christian. Continuously repeated sin against the poorestconsciousness of evil must have a dread rousing. There are men whonever wake to know how wicked they are, till, lo, the gaze of themultitude is upon them!--the multitude staring with self-righteouseyes, doing like things themselves, but not yet found out; sinningafter another pattern, therefore the hardest judges, thinking bycondemnation to escape judgment. But there is nothing covered thatshall not be revealed. What if the only thing to wake the treacherous, money-loving thief, Judas, to a knowledge of himself, was to let thething go on to the end, and his kiss betray the Master? Judas did nothate the Master when he kissed him, but not being a true man, his verylove betrayed him. 

The good man, conscious of his own evil, and desiring no refuge but thepurifying light, will chiefly rejoice that the exposure of evil makesfor the victory of the truth, the kingdom of God and his Christ. Hesees in the unmasking of the hypocrite, in the unveiling of thecovered, in the exposure of the hidden, God's interference, for him andall the race, between them and the lie. 

The only triumph the truth can ever have is its recognition by theheart of the liar. Its victory is in the man who, not content withsaying, 'I was blind and now I see, ' cries out, 'Lord God, just andtrue, let me perish, but endure thou! Let me live because thou livest, because thou savest me from the death in myself, the untruth I havenourished in me, and even called righteousness! Hallowed be thy name, for thou only art true; thou only lovest; thou only art holy, for thouonly art humble! Thou only art unselfish; thou only hast never soughtthine own, but the things of thy children! Yea, O father, be thou true, and every man a liar!'

There is no satisfaction of revenge possible to the injured. Theseverest punishment that can be inflicted upon the wrong-doer is simplyto let him know what he is; for his nature is of God, and the deepestin him is the divine. Neither can any other punishment than thesinner's being made to see the enormity of his injury, givesatisfaction to the injured. While the wronger will admit no wrong, while he mocks at the idea of amends, or while, admitting the wrong, herejoices in having done it, no suffering could satisfy revenge, farless justice. Both would continually know themselves foiled. Therefore, while a satisfied justice is an unavoidable eternal event, a satisfiedrevenge is an eternal impossibility. For the moment that the soleadequate punishment, a vision of himself, begins to take true effectupon the sinner, that moment the sinner has begun to grow a righteousman, and the brother human whom he has offended has no choice, hasnothing left him but to take the offender to his bosom--the moretenderly that his brother is a repentant brother, that he was dead andis alive again, that he was lost and is found. Behold the meeting ofthe divine extremes--the extreme of punishment, the embrace of heaven!They run together; 'the wheel is come full circle. ' For, I venture tothink, there can be no such agony for created soul, as to see itselfvile--vile by its own action and choice. Also I venture to think therecan be no delight for created soul--short, that is, of being one withthe Father--so deep as that of seeing the heaven of forgiveness open, and disclose the shining stair that leads to its own natural home, where the eternal father has been all the time awaiting this return ofhis child. 

So, friends, how ever indignant we may be, however intensely andhowever justly we may feel our wrongs, there is no revenge possible forus in the universe of the Father. I may say to myself with heartiestvengeance, 'I should just like to let that man see what a wretch heis--what all honest men at this moment think of him!' but, the momentcome, the man will loathe himself tenfold more than any other mancould, and that moment my heart will bury his sin. Its own ocean ofpity will rush from the divine depths of its God-origin to overwhelmit. Let us try to forethink, to antedate our forgiveness. Dares any mansuppose that Jesus would have him hate the traitor through whom he cameto the cross? Has he been pleased through all these ages with themanner in which those calling themselves by his name have treated, andare still treating his nation? We have not yet sounded the depths offorgiveness that are and will be required of such as would be hisdisciples!

Our friends will know us then: for their joy, will it be, or theirsorrow? Will their hearts sink within them when they look on the reallikeness of us? Or will they rejoice to find that we were not so muchto be blamed as they thought, in this thing or that which gave themtrouble?

Let us remember, however, that not evil only will be unveiled; thatmany a masking misconception will uncover a face radiant with theloveliness of the truth. And whatever disappointments may fall, thereis consolation for every true heart in the one sufficing joy--that itstands on the border of the kingdom, about to enter into ever fuller, ever-growing possession _of the inheritance of the saints in light_. 

 THE INHERITANCE. 

_Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to bepartakers of the inheritance of the saints in light_. --Ep. To theColossians i. 12. 

To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share ofthe other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which eachhas, goes to increase the possession of the rest. Hear what Dante putsin the mouth of his guide, as they pass through Purgatory:--

 Perche s'appuntano i vostri desiri Dove per compagnia parte si scema, Invidia muove il mantaco a' sospiri. Ma se l'amor della spera suprema Torcesse 'n suso 'l desiderio vostro, Non vi sarebbe al petto quella tema; Che per quanto si dice piu li nostro, Tanto possiede piu di ben ciascuno, E piu di caritade arde in quel chiostro. 

 Because you point and fix your longing eyes On things where sharing lessens every share, The human bellows heave with envious sighs. But if the loftiest love that dwelleth there Up to the heaven of heavens your longing turn, Then from your heart will pass this fearing care: The oftener there the word _our_ they discern, The more of good doth everyone possess, The more of love doth in that cloister burn. 

Dante desires to know how it can be that a distributed good should makethe receivers the richer the more of them there are; and Virgilanswers--

 Perocche tu rificchi La mente pure alle cose terrene, Di vera luce tenebre dispicchi. Quello 'nfinito ed ineffabil bene, Che lassu e, cosi corre ad amore, Com' a lucido corpo raggio viene. Tanto si da, quanto trova d' ardore: Si che quantunque carita si stende, Cresce sovr' essa l' eterno valore. E quanta gente pin lassu s' intende, Piu v' e da bene amare, e pin vi s' ama, E come specchio, l' uno all' altro rende. 

 Because thy mind doth stick To earthly things, and on them only brood, From the true light thou dost but darkness pick. That same ineffable and infinite Good, Which dwells up there, to Love doth run as fleet As sunrays to bright things, for sisterhood. It gives itself proportionate to the heat: So that, wherever Love doth spread its reign, The growing wealth of God makes that its seat. And the more people that up thither strain, The more there are to love, the more they love, And like a mirror each doth give and gain. 

In this inheritance then a man may desire and endeavour to obtain hisshare without selfish prejudice to others; nay, to fail of our share init, would be to deprive others of a portion of theirs. Let us look alittle nearer, and see in what the inheritance of the saints consists. 

It might perhaps be to commit some small logical violence on the termsof the passage to say that 'the inheritance of the saints in light'_must_ mean purely and only 'the possession of light which is theinheritance of the saints. ' At the same time the phrase is literally'the inheritance of the saints _in the light_;' and this perhaps makesit the more likely that, as I take it, Paul had in his mind the lightas itself the inheritance of the saints--that he held the verysubstance of the inheritance to be the light. And if we remember thatGod is light; also that the highest prayer of the Lord for his friendswas that they might be one in him and his father; and recall what theapostle said to the Ephesians, that 'in him we live and move and haveour being, ' we may be prepared to agree that, although he may not meanto include all possible phases of the inheritance of the saints in theone word _light_, as I think he does, yet the idea is perfectlyconsistent with his teaching. For the one only thing to make existencea good, the one thing to make it worth having, is just that thereshould be no film of separation between our life and the life of whichours is an outcome; that we should not only _know_ that God is ourlife, but be aware, in some grand consciousness beyond anythingimagination can present to us, of the presence of the making God, inthe very process of continuing us the live things he has made us. Thisis only another way of saying that the very inheritance upon which, asthe twice-born sons of our father, we have a claim--which claim hissole desire for us is that we should, so to say, enforce--that thisinheritance is simply the light, God himself, the Light. If you thinkof ten thousand things that are good and worth having, what is it thatmakes them good or worth having but the God in them? That theloveliness of the world has its origin in the making will of God, wouldnot content me; I say, the very loveliness of it is the loveliness ofGod, for its loveliness is his own lovely thought, and must be arevelation of that which dwells and moves in himself. Nor is this all:my interest in its loveliness would vanish, I should feel that the soulwas out of it, if you could persuade me that God had ceased to care forthe daisy, and now cared for something else instead. The faces of someflowers lead me back to the heart of God; and, as his child, I hope Ifeel, in my lowly degree, what he felt when, brooding over them, hesaid, 'They are good;' that is, 'They are what I mean. '

The thing I am reasoning toward is this: that, if everything were thusseen in its derivation from God, then the inheritance of the saints, whatever the form of their possession, would be seen to be light. Allthings are God's, not as being in his power--that of course--but ascoming from him. The darkness itself becomes light around him when wethink that verily he hath created the darkness, for there could havebeen no darkness but for the light Without God there would not evenhave been nothing; there would not have existed the idea of nothing, any more than any reality of nothing, but that he exists and called_something_ into being. 

Nothingness owes its very name and nature to the being and reality ofGod. There is no word to represent that which is not God, no word forthe _where_ without God in it; for it is not, could not be. So I thinkwe may say that the inheritance of the saints is the share each has inthe Light. 

But how can any share exist where all is open?

The true share, in the heavenly kingdom throughout, is not what youhave to keep, but what you have to give away. The thing that is mine isthe thing I have with the power to give it. The thing I have _no_ powerto give a share in, is nowise mine; the thing I cannot share witheveryone, cannot be essentially my own. The cry of the thousandsplendours which Dante, in the fifth canto of the 'Paradiso, ' tells ushe saw gliding toward them in the planet Mercury, was--

 Ecco chi crescera li nostri amori!

 Lo, here comes one who will increase our loves!

All the light is ours. God is all ours. Even that in God which wecannot understand is ours. If there were anything in God that was notours, then God would not be one God. I do not say we must, or can everknow all in God; not throughout eternity shall we ever comprehend God, but he is our father, and must think of us with every part of him--soto speak in our poor speech; he must know us, and that in himself whichwe cannot know, with the same thought, for he is one. We and that whichwe do not or cannot know, come together in his thought. And this helpsus to see how, claiming all things, we have yet shares. For theinfinitude of God can only begin and only go on to be revealed, throughhis infinitely differing creatures--all capable of wondering at, admiring, and loving each other, and so bound all in one in him, eachto the others revealing him. For every human being is like a facet cutin the great diamond to which I may dare liken the father of him wholikens his kingdom to a pearl. Every man, woman, child--for theincomplete also is his, and in its very incompleteness reveals him as aprogressive worker in his creation--is a revealer of God. I have mymessage of my great Lord, you have yours. Your dog, your horse tellsyou about him who cares for all his creatures. None of them came fromhis _hands_. Perhaps the precious things of the earth, the coal and thediamonds, the iron and clay and gold, may be said to have come from hishands; but the live things come from his heart--from near the sameregion whence ourselves we came. How much my horse may, in his ownfashion--that is, God's equine way--know of him, I cannot tell, becausehe cannot tell. Also, we do not know what the horses know, because theyare horses, and we are at best, in relation to them, only horsemen. Theways of God go down into microscopic depths, as well as up intotelescopic heights--and with more marvel, for there lie the beginningsof life: the immensities of stars and worlds all exist for the sake ofless things than they. So with mind; the ways of God go into the depthsyet unrevealed to us; he knows his horses and dogs as we cannot knowthem, because we are not yet pure sons of God. When through oursonship, as Paul teaches, the redemption of these lower brothers andsisters shall have come, then we shall understand each other better. But now the lord of life has to look on at the wilful torture ofmultitudes of his creatures. It must be that offences come, but woeunto that man by whom they come! The Lord may seem not to heed, but hesees and knows. 

I say, then, that every one of us is something that the other is not, and therefore knows some thing--it may be without knowing that he knowsit--which no one else knows; and that it is every one's business, asone of the kingdom of light, and inheritor in it all, to give hisportion to the rest; for we are one family, with God at the head andthe heart of it, and Jesus Christ, our elder brother, teaching us ofthe Father, whom he only knows. 

We may say, then, that whatever is the source of joy or love, whateveris pure and strong, whatever wakes aspiration, whatever lifts us out ofselfishness, whatever is beautiful or admirable--in a word, whatever isof the light---must make a part, however small it may then prove to bein its proportion, of the inheritance of the saints in the light; for, as in the epistle of James, 'Every good gift, and every perfect gift isfrom above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is novariableness, neither shadow of turning. '

Children fear heaven, because of the dismal notions the unchildlikegive them of it, who, without imagination, receive unquestioning whatothers, as void of imagination as themselves, represent concerning it. I do not see that one should care to present an agreeable picture ofit; for, suppose I could persuade a man that heaven was the perfectionof all he could desire around him, what would the man or the truth gainby it? If he knows the Lord, he will not trouble himself about heaven;if he does not know him, he will not be drawn to _him_ by it. I wouldnot care to persuade the feeble Christian that heaven was a place worthgoing to; I would rather persuade him that no spot in space, no hour ineternity is worth anything to one who remains such as he is. But wouldthat none presumed to teach the little ones what they know nothing ofthemselves! What have not children suffered from strong endeavour todesire the things they could not love! Well do I remember the pain ofthe prospect--no, the trouble at not being pleased with theprospect--of being made a pillar in the house of God, and going no moreout! Those words were not spoken to the little ones. Yet are they, literally taken, a blessed promise compared with the notion of acontinuous church-going! Perhaps no one teaches such a thing; butsomehow the children get the dreary fancy: there are ways ofinvoluntary teaching more potent than words. What boy, however fain tobe a disciple of Christ and a child of God, would prefer a sermon tohis glorious kite, that divinest of toys, with God himself for hisplaymate, in the blue wind that tossed it hither and thither in thegolden void! He might be ready to part with kite and wind and sun, andgo down to the grave for his brothers--but surely not that they mightbe admitted to an everlasting prayer-meeting! For my own part, I_rejoice_ to think that there will be neither church nor chapel in thehigh countries; yea, that there will be nothing there called religion, and no law but the perfect law of liberty. For how should there be lawor religion where every throb of the heart says _God_! where everysong-throat is eager with thanksgiving! where such a tumult of gladwaters is for ever bursting from beneath the throne of God, the tearsof the gladness of the universe! Religion? Where will be the room forit, when the essence of every thought must be God? Law? What room willthere be for law, when everything upon which law could lay a _shaltnot_ will be too loathsome to think of? What room for honesty, wherelove fills full the law to overflowing--where a man would rather dropsheer into the abyss, than wrong his neighbour one hair's-breadth?

Heaven will be continuous touch with God. The very sense of being willin itself be bliss. For the sense of true life, there must be actual, conscious contact with the source of the life; therefore mere life--initself, in its very essence good--good as the life of God which is ourlife--must be such bliss as, I think, will need the mitigation of theloftiest joys of communion with our blessed fellows; the mitigation ofart in every shape, and of all combinations of arts; the mitigation ofcountless services to the incomplete, and hard toil for those who donot yet know their neighbour or their Father. The bliss of pure beingwill, I say, need these mitigations to render the intensity of itendurable by heart and brain. 

To those who care only for things, and not for the souls of them, forthe truth, the reality of them, the prospect of inheriting light canhave nothing attractive, and for their comfort--how false acomfort!--they may rest assured there is no danger of their beingrequired to take up their inheritance at present. Perhaps they will beleft to go on sucking _things_ dry, constantly missing the lovelinessof them, until they come at last to loathe the lovely husks, turned tougliness in their false imaginations. Loving but the body of Truth, even here they come to call it a lie, and break out in maudlin moaningover the illusions of life. The soul of Truth they have lost, becausethey never loved her. What may they not have to pass through, whatpurifying fires, before they can even behold her!

The notions of Christians, so called, concerning the state into whichthey suppose their friends to have entered, and which they speak of asa place of blessedness, are yet such as to justify the bitterness oftheir lamentation over them, and the heathenish doubt whether theyshall know them again. Verily it were a wonder if they did! After ayear or two of such a fate, they might well be unrecognizable! One isalmost ashamed of writing about such follies. The nirvana is grandeurcontrasted with their heaven. The early Christians might now and thenplague Paul with a foolish question, the answer to which plagues us tothis day; but was there ever one of them doubted he was going to findhis friends again? It is a mere form of Protean unbelief. They believe, they say, that God is love; but they cannot quite believe that he doesnot make the love in which we are most like him, either a mockery or atorture. Little would any promise of heaven be to me if I might nothope to say, 'I am sorry; forgive me; let what I did in anger or incoldness be nothing, in the name of God and Jesus!' Many such wordswill pass, many a self-humiliation have place. The man or woman who isnot ready to confess, who is not ready to pour out a heartful ofregrets--can such a one be an inheritor of the light? It is the joy ofa true heart of an heir of light, of a child of that God who loves anopen soul--the joy of any man who hates the wrong the more because hehas done it, to say, 'I was wrong; I am sorry. ' Oh, the sweet winds ofrepentance and reconciliation and atonement, that will blow from gardento garden of God, in the tender twilights of his kingdom! Whatever theplace be like, one thing is certain, that there will be endless, infinite atonement, ever-growing love. Certain too it is that whateverthe divinely human heart desires, it shall not desire in vain. Thelight which is God, and which is our inheritance because we are thechildren of God, insures these things. For the heart which desires ismade thus to desire. God is; let the earth be glad, and the heaven, andthe heaven of heavens! Whatever a father can do to make his childrenblessed, that will God do for his children. Let us, then, live incontinual expectation, looking for the good things that God will giveto men, being their father and their everlasting saviour. If the thingsI have here come from him, and are so plainly but a beginning, shall Inot take them as an earnest of the better to follow? How else can Iregard them? For never, in the midst of the good things of this lovelyworld, have I felt quite at home in it. Never has it shown me thingslovely or grand enough to satisfy me. It is not all I should like for aplace to live in. It may be that my unsatisfaction comes from nothaving eyes open enough, or keen enough, to see and understand what hehas given; but it matters little whether the cause lie in the world orin myself, both being incomplete: God is, and all is well. All that isneeded to set the world right enough for me--and no empyrean heavencould be right for me without it--is, that I care for God as he caresfor me; that my will and desires keep time and harmony with his music;that I have no thought that springs from myself apart from him; that myindividuality have the freedom that belongs to it as born of hisindividuality, and be in no slavery to my body, or my ancestry, or myprejudices, or any impulse whatever from region unknown; that I be freeby obedience to the law of my being, the live and live-making will bywhich life is life, and my life is myself. What springs from myself andnot from God, is evil; it is a perversion of something of God's. Whatever is not of faith is sin; it is a stream cut off--a stream thatcuts itself off from its source, and thinks to run on without it. Butlight is my inheritance through him whose life is the light of men, towake in them the life of their father in heaven. Loved be the Lord whoin himself generated that life which is the light of men!

 END OF THE THIRD SERIES.