But we must admit that the corruptions of the sacred text are insignificant in comparison with the deviations that we find in our own lives from the original thought of G.o.d concerning us. Registered and chronicled in heaven is the mind and will of our Father about us; registered and chronicled also are the defects which have marred the handiwork of G.o.d in the soul. We do not always set out with the intention of spoiling our souls, and of keeping them from being holy books, in which he that runs may read; but as a matter of fact what self writes in the margin soon creeps into the text; and what we write between the lines soon becomes a part of the ma.n.u.script.
Let who says The soul"s a clean white paper, rather say A palimpsest, a prophet"s holograph, Defiled, erased, and covered by a monk"s-- . . . . . . . we may discern perhaps Some upstroke of an Alpha and Omega Expressing the Old Scripture.
But if we are to undergo a real emendation, it must be by detecting something more than an upstroke of the Divine Will; it must be by reference to the original plan of G.o.d, and by a surrender to the same.
In the chapels at the back of the choir of Cologne Cathedral are preserved the original parchments on which are drawn the plan of the great minster. All the centuries through which this building has been raising, the men that have been working at it have had in reverence the original thoughts of the master-minds at the first: and those who have been chosen to the superintendence of the work have been men who were reckoned the most conversant with the laws of the Gothic architecture.
One can imagine that Archbishop Englebert sleeps the more softly in his silver shrine because of the completed work of to-day. So we speak and think of a great stone-temple, the working out of an idea whose details were at first but scantily given, carried out in ages during which the master-minds that planned it could no more be consulted.
And yet when a greater and more perfect tabernacle is in building, not planned of mortal thought, and whose stones were too heavy to be moved by mortal hands, how little reference there is to the plan of the Founder, how few that are desirous of living according to the counsel and will of G.o.d, and to see in that will, not a mere legal skeleton of the structure, but a pattern, good and acceptable and perfect, with no detail wanting for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Alas!
that our lives should be lived so much at random instead of being so fashioned that it might be said over the completed structure at the last, "Whose architect and craftsman is G.o.d." In Christianity the ideal is to be the actual: there is to be no "shooting at the moon, because by that means you reach higher than by aiming at a tree" (a very doubtful statement even in mechanics); what G.o.d wants us to be that we must be; and if He says, "Be ye perfect," then let us go on to perfection and reach it. The Christian is called upon by his Master to live out and actualise G.o.d"s ideal thought concerning him. Upon the map of his life is already marked out the road by which he is to reach the heavenly city; if, at least, he reaches it, as G.o.d intends, by the shortest way. There are no roundabout roads marked on the map in the Mount, and yet the Divine Plan of our life will be found inclusive of the minutest necessary details, just as an Ordnance map will tell you each feature of interest and importance as you go from place to place.
It is of the utmost importance that we should take counsel"s opinion about our lives, and that we should pray, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" that we should, if need be, weep much, until the Lamb shall take off the seals from that book of life, which, in the archives of the celestial city, is ent.i.tled "The Life of ---- taken from the Pattern in the Mount"; that we should learn to conform ourselves to the Divine original, just as a ma.n.u.script, however deformed by glosses and traditions, is accurately and certainly emended by the discovery of the original text; that we should know, in some sense, as Christ did, whence we come and whither we go; that, as He said, we also might feel that for this end we were born and for this purpose we came into the world, that we might bear witness to the truth; that, with Him, too, we might in some measure be able to say, "The son can do nothing but what he seeth the Father do"; and that at our ending it might be said, "He lived out the secret thought and counsel of the Almighty."
But in thinking of the pattern in the Mount as a pattern of life, it is important for us to see that, in the first instance, this thought was presented to us in connection with that side of life which we call worship; for there was to be a sanctuary made, etc., nor must we omit to get, with regard to our worship, a glimpse into the thought of G.o.d beforehand, consulting the oracle in advance as did men in the old days. We may not take voyage without the very best map that can be had, lest we make shipwreck; nor, because we have not taken pains to obtain the map, may we content ourselves with creeping round sh.o.r.es that we know we ought to leave.
We must not separate the life from the worship; in fact they are one: we learn that from the description of the ceaseless adoration of those nearest the throne; they rest not day nor night saying, "Holy, holy, holy." Are we to suppose from this that their existence is occupied in the mere repet.i.tion of an everlasting Trisagion; or that, as Beecher once said, "they stand like wax candles round the throne, uttering an occasional Hallelujah"? Is it not rather G.o.d"s way of showing us how He is unceasingly glorified in those who live nearest Him, whose lives worship Him?
The worship must be continuous with the life. I have a thermometer which has become perfectly useless because the air has broken up the continuity of the alcohol; it is worth next to nothing as an index of temperature. And little can we learn from any soul in which the continuity of the religious life is broken, and which has become life streaked with worship.
Now let us learn one or two of the characteristics of a pure life-worship.
Out of the worship according to the pattern in the Mount all respectability has been differentiated: the Christian religion will not hold caste in solution; it precipitates it to the bottom; its founder died the death of a slave; how could they give the slave a back seat after that? On the contrary, they gloried in the name; Paul, a slave and an apostle; a slave, and so eligible for the honour of crucifixion; an apostle, and so sent with the good news of life. Respect of persons holds not in heaven; none there will criticise the clay out of which the first raiment of your soul was made. What need is there, then, that we should leave off holding the faith of our Lord Jesus, with respect of persons (there are few churches where the ministers dare to preach on such a text as that). Let us have done with such cla.s.sifications. In Jesus Christ there is neither barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, town nor university, but Christ is all, and in all.
We know, too, that the life-worship to which G.o.d calls us consists in abandonment and surrender to an animating, impelling spirit. "The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy, and thou shalt be turned into another man. And it shall be, when these signs are come upon thee, that thou shalt do as occasion serve thee, for the Lord is with thee." "Whither the Spirit was to go, thither was their spirit to go." The highest life is one in which we realise not merely surrender to the Divine Will, but harmony with it, so that the rails on which the life moves, the human and Divine wills, become strictly parallel.
A surrendered life implies surrendered lips: this is the key of true worship; every one having a psalm, an interpretation; ye may all of you prophesy. The ideal worship becomes the actual when heaven touches earth, as on the day of Pentecost--they were all filled, and, by consequence, they all ran over. Who would venture to tell the woman who had been a sinner, that it was not seemly that her life should proclaim the _magnolia Dei_, the wonders of G.o.d; my lips, she says, have touched His feet, and are consecrated for evermore. Who shall tell these prophesying handmaidens of the Lord that their place is in a different spiritual order: "Are there two inner courts, they will reply, to the New Jerusalem?"
Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him, nor deny; Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.
XIV
MORE LIGHT
"Ye are the light of the world."--MATT. v. 14.
There is a great stir nowadays about improved methods of lighting our streets and houses. Men began with torches and pine splinters; then they advanced to candles and oil lamps; after that to coal gas; and now we are coming to electricity. In Paris they are experimenting with an electrical system, and we shall have it in England before long, the unmistakable cry of the natural world being "More light, more light."
A similar experience prevails in the spiritual life, whether we regard that life in the isolated individual, or fix our attention upon the dealings of G.o.d with the race of which we form a part. We need, in fact, an improved illumination. It is plain that we do so. The light of Moses is not enough for us. His face shines indeed, but with a glory that fades away, so that he must put on a veil lest they should detect its evanescence. The prophets of old days are like the flight of meteors across the sky--very bright while they last, but no settled and abiding glory. John the Baptist is a burning and a shining lamp; but he says of himself, "I must decrease"; and with the words, "He must increase," we are pointed on to Christ, the true Light of the world, which if any man follow he shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life; who gives His own name and character to those whom He receives as disciples, telling them, "Let your light shine." And the individual soul begins with the glimmer of grace and the spark of a respondent love, and the operation of the Lord improves this little fitful glimmer, and develops it, until it becomes a clear and strong illumination, by which we may read something of the heart of G.o.d towards us, and understand that in the spiritual world, as in the natural, the order of this providence is, "More light, more light."
Light, that we may know our way more accurately; light, by which we may work; light, by which we may read; light, by which we may help others to walk and work and read; for "ye are the light of the world, and
"Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves.""
G.o.d makes one man a lamp for another. Every saint should be like a cranny in the walls of heaven or translucent crystal in its foundations, letting the glory through. There is a glory within such a one, because G.o.d has shined in his heart: there is a glory without him, for the Spirit of glory and of G.o.d resteth upon him. Not once nor twice has the Church historian to record, "They beheld his face, as it had been the face of an angel."
Now in any improved system of illumination we have a right to expect that one of its characteristics will be its capability for a general application. It must not be as great a blaze as one"s eyes can bear in the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares, with thick darkness in the back streets and lanes. The improved light must become more sun-like, more catholic, that is, more for everybody, must rise upon just and unjust; and while it partic.i.p.ates in the universality of the sun, it must share also the steadiness of the stars. Such, too, must be the better life to which G.o.d calls us, not narrowing its sphere from day to day, nor fitful, like a star of the first magnitude at one moment and of the ninth a fortnight after, but burning with a steady patient zeal towards all men that G.o.d has made. The light of love will survive the light of enthusiasm, as Christ outlasts John the Baptist; enthusiasm must be swallowed up of love.
A lighted lamp is no respecter of persons; it shines in all directions and upon all people and things, being an imitation, within its measure, of the sun, concerning whom it is said, "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Is there this property of radiation about the light that G.o.d has given you? Have you learnt and practically entered into the truth that the supreme love is also the universal love, and that G.o.d is no respecter of persons? "It gives light unto all that are in the house": every soul truly won for G.o.d is marked with this token, "For the sake of G.o.d and a perishing world." But perhaps you will say, "My light is so small that I cannot be a help or a witness to any; I have not light enough to show any the right way." Not so: a glow-worm in the hedge can tell a man which way to walk, if it will only shine.
We may not all of us have the privilege of saying with John Wesley, "The world is my parish." Our parish may be small, and we may be lights indoors, shining for only one neglected soul in the house, or for young ones who have to be trained for the Lord, or for the men on our own staircase in college, or with whom we walk in afternoons.
They say the problem about the electric light is the difficulty of its subdivision, that is, of its multiplication; and in the spiritual world the corresponding necessity is to multiply and reproduce the image of G.o.d in Jesus Christ. There was a similar difficulty in the early days of photography; they could take one picture, but did not know how to produce copies from it. The Christian religion has in it the means of producing not only one Light of the world but many--a church of men and women of whom it may be said, as to the disciples at the first, "Ye are the light of the world." But will something within us object and say, "Shining means burning up and burning out: the candle will grow shorter, and the battery weaker"? Now here we get at the root of the matter. Truly it is impossible to offer any real devotion to G.o.d, or perform any real service to man, unless we are willing to pay the cost.
We are not to offer, either to G.o.d or man, of that which costs us nothing. The n.o.blest thing in G.o.d"s world is a lavished life; whereof G.o.d has given us plain proof in this--that "He so loved the world that He gave His Son"; and which Paul confirms as he says to some of those to whom he had been the means of bringing light, "I will most gladly spend and be spent for you." "I will burn up for you, and then when I am burnt out, I will be content with the mere candle-end of a life, extinct for the love of Jesus." And let us remember, too, that old proverb, that "You can"t burn a candle at both ends." If our life has been lighted at one end for G.o.d, we must not burn it at the other for selfish enjoyments and ambitions. The work that G.o.d has called you to do is a burner that will take all the gas that you can supply.
Now suppose that every time a candle is lighted here, a star were to shine out up yonder. How eager we should all be to make the face of heaven sparkle! we should take every candle and lamp that we could lay hands on, light them up, and watch for the gleaming of the new wonder in the sky. Does that seem strange? Did you never read that "They that are wise shall shine as the sun, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever"? The lamps and candles in G.o.d"s world do become suns and stars; the illumination that you will have by and by will depend on the little candle that you are to-day; and if you curtail your service for G.o.d and man down here, you will clip the wings and shear away the strength of the angel that you hope to be.
O Lord, that I could waste my life for others, With no ends of my own!
That I could pour myself into my brothers, And live for them alone!
XV
OVER-OVERCOMING
"We are more than conquerors."--ROMANS viii. 37.
The Apostle coins a word to suit his experience. We should render it exactly by saying, "In these things we over-conquer," imitating the formation of similar words in our language, such as "over-master,"
"over-do." More forcibly we might say, "In all these things we over-overcome." Coverdale gives the sense of it well in his translation, "We conquer far." Observe some of the ways in which this excess and extravagance of victory may take place, for it is as if one should win a victory over a foe in such a way as to prevent him from ever troubling us again. Our conquest over special sin is to be of this character. We are not to be content with winning the field while the foe retires to some more secure position from which he will have to be dislodged. It is never meant that we should sin the same sin twice, the Lord"s purpose concerning us being shown in the Exodus of the children of Israel: "The Egyptians which ye see to-day, ye shall see them no more again for ever." "Let him that stole steal no more."
"Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." There is a pa.s.sage in Miss Havergal"s life which narrates how, after having been angry with a servant, the word of comfort came to her through a friend: "Perhaps this may be the last time that you will ever be so overcome."
And then our victories are to leave us stronger than before. This will seem quite contrary to the order of nature, in which seldom is there a battle without garments rolled in blood, and where the victory often costs as much to the victors as to the vanquished. A great general has said that nothing is half so terrible as a battle lost, except a battle gained. But to be more than conquerors! to rise the stronger for the strife even while we strive! this is what is involved in the Christian song of jubilee in the Eighth of Romans.
We over-overcome because of the completeness of the victory. In most campaigns it is by the balance of battles fought that the war is decided. Seldom does it happen that all the victory is on one side: and even then there will be virgin fortresses that never have been stormed, over which no alien flag has ever floated, which may be yielded indeed by treaty, but not taken by force. The over-conquering Christian can say with the invading Israelites, "There was not one city too strong for us: the Lord G.o.d delivered all unto us."
And in the strength of this I rode....
And brake through all, and in the Strength of this come victor.
The triumphant scenes of the Apocalypse are not all future; but even now we know something of living and reigning with Christ in a fellowship above sin and above sorrow. For it was of sorrow rather than of sin that the Apostle was speaking. Our principle is one of holy indifference--an experience far removed from mere apathy. We do not simply say with Buddha that sorrow drops off from him who has finished the path, as water drops from a lotus leaf. We are not sure whether the sorrows always do disappear from the burdened life like that. But when they do not so pa.s.s away, the drop is turned to honey in the cup of the flower; it is really the richer for its burden, and so may well be content.
And now how do we come to this place of triumph? By what means is it granted us to enter so fully into the songs which shall one day resound through the universe? "Through Him that loved us." It is alliance with G.o.d that is the secret. The three steps of the mystics are _Purification_, _Illumination_, and _Union_; and simple as the statement is, it is a better theology than many another of much larger dimensions. Many people do not understand this alliance in which we are led into union with G.o.d, through the Holy Spirit. They think it is more like the old story of the dwarf and the giant, who went a warfare together, in which expedition the dwarf lost his arms and legs, and was only saved from imminent death in each conflict by the happy arrival of the giant. One can scarcely blame the dwarf for breaking up the partnership. We must understand that in Christianity the dwarf is the giant, that the despised deformed puny child of faith is, when he recognises his own weakness and leans upon his own G.o.d, big with the force that rolls the stars along. The might of G.o.d is in him: and though he may have no armour nor sword to match the Philistine, he will come home carrying his head for all that; for
Man"s weakness leaning upon G.o.d, Its end can never miss.
THE END
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