CHAPTER XXI.

THE LOVE OF GOD A PRINCIPLE RATHER THAN A

SENTIMENT.

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments."-JOHN xiv. 15.

Pathos of Our Lord's last discourses with His disciples-the
entire absence of sentimentality from these discourses-Christ
acknowledges no love but such as takes the form of obedience-His
reiteration of this, in the parting discourses, and the public warning
to the same effect in the Sermon on the Mount-practical use of
the distinction between sentiment and principle-for the detection
of insincere professions-for the consolation of true Christians who
do not find emotion enough in their religion-ordinary life fur-
nishes great scope for the affections, comparatively little for the
emotions-rare appearance of the emotions in modern civilized
life-the affections run still and deep, and only attract observation
when a crisis occurs the same holds good in religious life-the
crises of religious life, but not its normal course, distinguished by
emotion-the safe tests of our loving Christ are such a confidence
in Him, as leads us to pour out our hearts before Him, and an
earnest endeavour to please Him-this endeavour involves a sense
of His living Personality-illustration drawn from natural life and
physical emotion-the love of Christ an affection of the will-
distinction between the spiritual and emotional part of our nature
recognized by St. Paul-South's description of the joy of the
reason the name of love sometimes given to a fancy or a feeling-
but the love of Christ is something deeper than this-why the first
disciples probably needed this warning even more than ourselves—
Our Lord's sole condescension to the love of sentiment-examine
into the genuineness of your love, and how far it is founded in the
will

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262

CHAPTER XXII.

WHAT SHUTS OUT CHRIST FROM OUR HEARTS?

"There was no room for them in the inn."-LUKE ii. 7.

PAGE

Usefulness of investigating the reasons of the backwardness of
religious people in the pursuit of holiness-the cause not in God,
who neither stints His Grace, nor is partial in the distribution of
it-we are straitened in ourselves-images drawn from nature-
Christ can find no room in the heart, because other guests exclude
Him-the crowded inn, a just emblem of the heart-what is it
which occupies the room which He needs for His gracious opera-
tions?-1. self-will-the attempt to exempt certain districts of our
life from God's jurisdiction-want of a delicate sensibility to God's
inspirations-how the will sets itself in some one quarter, aud
does not hang quite loose-how God illuminates the conscience as
to His will in particular cases-the guidance of the eye-this
guidance seldom experienced where people are not disposed to
follow it unreservedly-2. confidence in the creature for happiness—
difficulty of ascertaining, while we are in possession of earthly bless-
ings, how far our affections are entangled with them-God therefore
removes them occasionally as a trial how far we can do without
them-His mercy and considerateness in inflicting this discipline-
so long as a single earthly blessing is left, there is a risk of its being
too fondly clung to-the lesson of the history of Job-why the
Scriptures ascribe to him the grace of patience-enjoyment of
created good (as distinct from confidence in it) quite permissible-
strong Scriptural repudiation of asceticism-we must learn the art
of tasting blessings without being taken up with them-quotations
from Cecil and George Herbert-exhortation to investigate the
reason of our slow advance in grace

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CHAPTER I.

THAT HOLINESS IS ATTAINABLE.

“Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are."JAMES V. 17.

"Of whom the world was not worthy."-HEB. xi. 38.

T needed an Apostle to give us this assurance.

IT

If

any saint ever seemed to rise above the infirmities of human nature, it was the Prophet Elijah. Elijah was a sort of anchorite or hermit, who dwelt apart from the haunts of men, except when some errand, on which God sent him, drew him for a time into their neighbourhood. He lived, as a rule, not by firesides, but in wildernesses and caverns; his costume was uncouth, his diet simple and austere. which he exerted over the elements

Then the power

our eyes with a supernatural character.

clothes him in

He shut up

the windows of the sky by his prayers, and by his prayers re-opened them. And as he could call down the gracious rain, so could he bid the vengeful fire fall from heaven, and consume those who set themselves against

B

him. And at the close of his career, as if to place a still greater gulf between him and ourselves, his lot was not the common lot of all men. "It is appointed unto men once to die;" but Elijah did not die. He was carried up to heaven by a whirlwind, a chariot of fire and horses of fire appearing as his escort. His was throughout a magnificent and superhuman career.

Yet what is given us of Elijah's history amply bears out the Apostle's assertion that he " was a man of like passions as we are." We read of his being weary of life, and requesting for himself that he might die; of his flying, in a sudden access of terror, from the wrath of Jezebel, though he had bravely confronted Ahab; and of his magnifying himself in prayer as being the only remaining witness for God in Israel, when there were seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee, nor given the kiss of homage, to the image of Baal.

But though the Apostle James instances only in Elias, the truth which he announces, like all truths of Holy Scripture, is one of broad and general import. We are apt to form mistaken notions of God's saints. We are apt to think of them as if they were beings of a different order from ourselves, raised above the level of human infirmity. And from this mistaken notion flows great practical mischief. Not to speak of the manifold evils of saint worship, which may be sup posed to have passed away at the Reformation (though the tendency to it is always alive in the human heart), a wrong estimate of saintliness discourages us for the

pursuit of it, as seeming to put it entirely out of our reach.

I. It will be profitable to inquire, first, whence this wrong estimate comes,

It comes chiefly, I suppose, of our looking at the saints from a distance, of our considering them as creatures of the past, not mixed up with the affairs and troubles of life. Whatever we look at from a distance is beautified by the perspective. It is so in bodily sight. A country which was dull, tame, or harsh, when it lay immediately around us, borrows soft and mellow tints from the atmosphere as we recede from it; the blue distance conceals its plain features. It is so with the mental retrospect, which we call memory. Memory has a notorious trick of dropping or smoothing over disagreeables. The days of our childhood, which had their rubs, and their tears, and their faults, like all other days, seem to us always beautiful and innocent in virtue of this trick of memory. The same law of the mind operates to throw round the saints a false and an imaginary lustre. We imagine that no man is or can be a saint who is mixed up in the daily intercourse of society, who is fighting hand to hand with us in the battle of life. Why not? What one sound reason can be assigned why there should not be now-adays men as zealous, as devoted, as simple-minded as the Apostles and saints of the primitive Church? It might perhaps be imagined that Christianity, when it came as a fresh force into human nature, when it pre