What is greatly to be desired is that, in the lives of those who follow Jesus, there should be a large measure of the enthusiasm that glowed in His own — a serious, intelligent, glowing sympathy with God, a supreme thankfulness because of the purposes of grace He entertains towards our race, and a great readiness to spend and be spent in the carrying on of these so far as oppor- tunity offers to every man. That is Christian enthusiasm — Christ's own enthusiasm, which He shares with all in whom His influence has free play. As for the forms it will take, they will be endless ; for men are endlessly different, nor is there any need why any
1 A. Maclaren.
44 THE TWO BAPTISMS
man should violate his own nature in order to serve God faithfully. In the world there are all sorts of men and women, possessed of all Borts of temperaments and dispositions, and in the work of building up God's Kingdom on earth there is a place and a work for every one of them. What is imperative is that at the bottom of all our hearts there should be this deep, unchanging, burning desire to help that great work on for Jesus' sake.
TJ Suppose we saw an army silting down before a granite fort, and they told us that they intended to batter it down : we might ask them, "How?" They point to a cannon-ball. Well, but there is no power in that; it is heavy, but if all the men in the army hurled it against the fort, they would make no impression. They say, " No ; but look at the cannon." Well, there is no power in that. A child may ride upon it, a bird may perch in its mouth ; it is a machine, and nothing more. " But look at the powder." Well, there is no power in that; a child may spill it, a sparrow may peck it. Yet this powerless powder and powerless ball are put into a powerless cannon ; one spark of fire enters it — and then, in the twinkling of an eye, that powder is a flash of lightning, and that ball a thunderbolt, which smites as if it had been sent from heaven. So is it with our Church machinery at this day : we have all the instruments necessary for pulling down strongholds, and oh for the baptism of fire ! 1
1. Passionate religious enthusiasm attaches itself to a person ; and the more near and real our intercourse with the person, the more beautiful will be our holiness, and the more fiery-hearted will be our service and devotion. Just think for a moment what magnificent import this revelation in the Person of Jesus had for those Jews who became His disciples. The religion of the Jews had become an obedience to precept and law. The germ of their national faith is to be found in those ten laws which we call the Ten Commandments. But to these ten laws the Kabbis had made countless additional laws — petty, trying, and irritating laws, which had come to be regarded as of equal importance with the original ten. To the earnest Jew, the warm, loving purpose of God had become buried in a mountainous mass of man-made traditions. It was no longer God with whom the Jew was dealing, but this 1-weight of Uabbinical law. God had become to them an earlli-born system, a burdensome " ism," a heavy and smothering
1 William Arthur, The Tongue of Fire, 809.
ST. MATTHEW in. n 45
tradition. Then came the Christ, and the first thing He did was to tear these miles of wrappages away.
Christ gives fervour by bringing the warmth of His own love to bear upon our hearts through the Spirit, and that kindles ours. Where His great work for men is believed and trusted in, there, and there only, is excited an intensity of consequent affection to Him which glows throughout the life. It is not enough to say that Christianity is singular among religious and moral systems in exalting fervour into a virtue. Its peculiarity lies deeper — in its method of producing that fervour. It is kindled by that Spirit using as His means the truth of the dying love of Christ. The secret of the gospel is not solved by saying that Christ excites love in our souls. The question yet remains — How ? There is but one answer to that : He loved us to the death. That truth laid on hearts by the Spirit, who takes of Christ's and shows them to us, and that truth alone, makes fire burst from their coldness.
Tf In the times of the Crusaders a band of valiant knights traversed the sunny plains of France, to sail from Marseilles for the Holy Land. There, along with others who were bound on the same enterprise, they embarked on the stately vessel that was to carry them across the sea. But, eager as they were to do, day after day they lay helplessly becalmed. The hot sun beat upon them, and was flashed back from the unbroken surface of the waves. They lounged wearily upon the deck ; they scanned the heavens in vain for the signs of an approaching breeze. It seemed as though some adverse fate resolved to hold them 'back. But in the stillness of an even tide, from a group of warriors assembled at the prow, there rose the swelling strains of the Veni Creator Spiritus — " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire." And straightway a breath came upon them from the dying sun ; the smooth, shining surface of the sea was ruffled, the cordage rattled, the sails were filled, and the vessel sped joyously over the dancing waves. Whether the story is true or not, it contains a very grand truth. Without the Spirit of Love all is dark and dead.