The true test of penitence is amendment of life, but G.o.d does not require actual amendment before receiving us back into His service.
What He demands is that we have a firm purpose of amendment. No man can say what he will do in the future. The future belongs to G.o.d. It may never be ours at all. It is ours at the present moment to make a resolution of amendment, and then to trust in G.o.d to fulfil in us this resolve.
From the nature of things we can never arrive {196} at any mathematical demonstration of having amended. On the contrary, it is the invariable experience of those who are striving most earnestly in G.o.d"s service, that the more they strive the less they think they are accomplishing.
St. Paul did not think when he was persecuting the Church that he was the chief of sinners. But when he had seen the Lord in the way, after he had been rapt to the third heaven, after he had suffered hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, stripes and imprisonment, for His Name"s sake, after he had given up everything that the world counted dear, after men saw he had attained to such sanct.i.ty that his name was one of power in all the Churches, then came to him the deep sense that he had accomplished nothing. He thought of himself as the chief of sinners, and counted that he had laid hold of nothing for G.o.d; that he must forget the things that were behind and reach forth unto the things that were before if he was to attain the prize of the high calling of G.o.d in Christ Jesus.[12] Men trembled at his words of burning rebuke, while he trembled lest having preached to others he himself should be a castaway.[13]
The experience of the great Apostle is shared by every soul who loves G.o.d, and the reason is plain.
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The nearer we approach to our Lord, the more vivid is the contrast between our sin-stained souls and His perfect life. In the illumination of His near presence every fault stands out in awful prominence, and though there may not be a tenth of the sin that once filled our lives, our consciousness of it is a hundred-fold increased.
This must be the case if we are vigilant; and Satan finds in this condition much occasion for temptation. Let us ill.u.s.trate. A certain man has all his life been a slave to the sin of anger. Every day he has been guilty of it. It becomes so common a thing in his life that he sins habitually, forgetting it five minutes afterward. He kept no account with himself. Had he been questioned about it, he could have given no idea of the frequency of the sin. This man is converted. He now fights hard, and maintains a careful watch over himself. Where sin formerly came and went without attracting notice, now every approach of it is keenly felt. At the end of the day he can recall distinctly a half-dozen falls, and he is tempted to think the case is hopeless. But last week there was a score of falls, though he scarcely remembered two of them at the end of the day. Now he remembers thrice that number with terrible vividness. But the increase of consciousness of sin is not the increase of sin. {198} He is amending his life, though quite the contrary _seems_ the case.
These considerations show us how untrue, of necessity, must be all our estimates of our progress in amendment. We have no outside point of view from the vantage-ground of which we can form a right judgment.
Therefore G.o.d says to the sinner, "Make your resolution in honesty of purpose; commit it to Me; do the best you can; above all things never violate your own conscience; and under no circ.u.mstances try to estimate your progress. If you should see that you had advanced, pride and presumption would arise to imperil you; if you could see no progress, the temptation to despair might unnerve you. Commit your ways unto Me; that will bring a man peace at the last."
V. _The Gainsaying of Satan_
We have said that the true test of penitence is amendment of life. We can hardly read this sentence without being conscious of temptation, for it is here that Satan brings in one of his most subtle suggestions.
We can hear him taunting the soul: "Is this all you have to depend on for your hope of salvation? Have you ever really amended your life?"
And then with that mysterious power that {199} G.o.d has given him for the trial of the Saints, and which he uses so pitilessly, he flashes upon the mirror of the mind old sins, sins of long ago, of which we repented in bitterness and tears, it may be; but which we took again to our hearts time after time. We made our Confession, we said to G.o.d in the presence of His priest (for he could not have absolved us without this), "I firmly purpose amendment." Then we went away and sinned again and yet again. After a time we came back to Confession. The same acknowledgment, the same promise,--and then the same old sin again.
Thus has life gone on, year after year, and yet we dare to look to G.o.d to take us back to our old allegiance. Satan tells us all this; and it loses nothing in the telling. It is very terrible, and the soul shrinks back appalled.
Then swift as thought the voice of the tempter comes again: "What is the use? You will sin again; why not give it all up?" Many a soul has followed his counsel to its eternal loss. It sounded plausible. It seemed to fit exactly into our own experience; and yet it was a lie.
It was a lie because in all that he said the tempter was deceiving us as to the true meaning of amendment. Satan"s knowledge of what perfection is, is a very strange and wonderful thing. {200} An angel from heaven could not set up a higher standard than he is able to do when he is seeking to discourage a struggling soul. _Amendment does not mean perfection of life; it does not mean never committing some particular sin again_. This was not what we resolved; it was not what we told G.o.d we purposed doing. What amendment does mean is, "_to change for the better_."[14] This is to be the spirit and resolution with which we return from the captivity of sin. It is all G.o.d asks.
But the tempter is not yet vanquished. Quick comes the whisper in the soul,--"Have you done even this? Has there been a change in your life for the better? Have you any a.s.surance that your life is in the smallest degree better than it was a year ago?"
Staggering questions these, to the soul that is ignorant; but the soul that is wise, the soul that is really under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has its answer ready.
"I do not know whether I have done this or not. I know not if my life is changed for the better, or if I am living more as Christ would have me live than I did a year ago. Moreover, I am not concerned to give you, G.o.d"s enemy and mine, any answer to these questions. I have no account to render to you. But one thing I know; {201} when I sin I can come back to Him. I kneel at His feet, I put my hands in His, I look up into those eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love, and I say, "Dear Lord, here is my poor heart all full of sin again; I lay it at Thy feet. Wash it in Thy Precious Blood, and make me strong to serve Thee better. I am sorry and I purpose to amend, but I am weak. Be Thou my strength; fight Thou against them that fight against me, and let me be the victor in the end." I speak thus to Him, and leave it all with Him. I sin again, and again I come and kneel at His feet; and though I have to come daily to Him with the same burden, His embrace is never less tender, His words not less sweet, His eyes are ever full of the same old love.
"Am I amending my life? I know not,--He knows. Is my soul a saintlier thing than it was a year ago? I know not,--He knows. All I know is that I love Him, and I want to love Him more; and that when I think on Him my heart is at peace."
[1] 1 Tim. i, 15.
[2] 1 St. John i, 8 and 10.
[3] Ps. xci, 11.
[4] St. Luke xii, 32.
[5] St. John xiv, 27.
[6] Heb. xiii, 5.
[7] Joel ii, 13.
[8] Dan. ix, 9, 10.
[9] St. John vi, 37.
[10] 1 St. John i, 7.
[11] Ps. ciii, 17.
[12] Phil. iii, 13-14.
[13] 1 Cor. ix, 27.
[14] _Vid._ Webster.
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CHAPTER XIII
THE GROUND FOR CHRISTIAN COURAGE
In His instructions to His disciples, while not hiding from them what were to be the hardships and, as the world counts it, loss, that must accompany His service, our Lord was ever full of words of encouragement. He strove always to show them that while the following of Him was not what the natural heart would look for as a flowery path, yet, if understood aright, His yoke was easy and His burden light, and that those who bore it would find rest for their souls.[1]
Particularly in His last discourse to them He sets forth repeated words of encouragement. Twice He used those words of tender a.s.surance, "Let not your heart be troubled," adding, "Neither let it be afraid."[2]
Four times He declares in substance, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do."[3] He a.s.sures them that He Himself will be diligent in praying the Father for them that the Blessed Comforter may {203} abide with them forever.[4] He declares that if they will but abide in Him, they will be able to bring forth eternal fruit of victory.[5] Sorrow indeed shall be theirs, but "Your sorrow shall be turned into joy," a joy that "may be full," a joy that "no man taketh from you."[6] And the great discourse concludes with a pledge of their final victory,--words of lofty encouragement that should ever be in the hearts of His soldiers, sustaining in them the spirit of a divine valour: "These things I have spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."[7]
Let us therefore, as the final study we are to make of the conditions and progress of our spiritual warfare, consider the grounds we have for encouragement at every stage of the battle.
I. _Members One of Another_
The Church of G.o.d, "the Body of Christ,"[8] as St. Paul repeatedly calls it, which is "the blessed company of all faithful people," is a living {204} organism. When the Apostle says it is "the Body of Christ," and speaks of us as members of that Body, he means that the members bear the same relation to every other member as, for example, my hands and my feet, members of my physical body, bear to each other; and that all are partakers of the one life which flows through the whole Body and which const.i.tutes it what it is. The effect of all this he sets forth in a brief saying: "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it."[9] When my hand is diseased my whole body is sick; and when health and strength return to it again, my whole body rejoices in that healing.
If we keep this principle in mind, the tempter will be powerless to discourage us in the conflict. Rather will our hearts be ever full of high hope, which will carry us rejoicing through the darkest hour of the conflict.
Think of our share in every prayer and good work that is being offered to G.o.d anywhere to-day in all the world. Think of the Eucharists in which we share. As the sun follows its course, and looks with each revolving day upon a million altars whose fires ring the world, it looks upon nothing in which I have not my part. Think {205} how many times this day the cry has sounded forth, "Let us pray for the whole state of Christ"s Church Militant!" With each exhortation there ascended to G.o.d a prayer for me, that my soul might be strong, that I might be victor in the end. The great Sacrifice of the Altar is lifted up, and it is for me; and whatever grace comes to those far-off souls of priest and people through their faithful performance of that duty, comes also to me. No grace can enter their souls without flowing on to mine; they could not be lifted up to a higher and G.o.dlier plane of life without drawing me up with them.
Little do we dream of the power of the unknown prayers of G.o.d"s people.
This very day Satan may have planned some deadly snare in which to entrap my feet; and the snare, it may be, was broken and swept from my path through the power of a simple prayer for tempted souls, offered this morning by a little child half-way round the world.