^J How is the soul free ? Not, as has been excellently put, " when it is at the mercy of every random impulse, but when it is acted upon by congenial forces, when it is exposed to spiritual pressure, to constraint within itself." Let us take a concrete instance. Take a high-souled man who is injured or insulted by his fellow. How will he act ? What will be here the next thing ? The natural reaction, the instinctive movement, will be one of revolt, of paying back in like coin. That lies nearest to the animal in him, and he feels it all. But will it determine his action ? Will that actually come next ? There is a beautiful story which D'Aguesseau, a French Advocate-General of the seventeenth century, tells of his father: "Naturally of a quick temper," his son says of him, " when under provocation one saw him redden and become silent at the same moment ; the nobler part of his soul allowing the first fire to pass without word said,
62 A QUESTION OF LIFE
in order to re-establish straightway that inner calm and tranquil- lity which reason and religion had combined to make the habit of his soul." There you have the thing taken from the life ; the trained soul caught in the entire fineness of its action. The whole philosophy of the spirit is there ; the higher nature con- structing its next thing, not from the grosser impulses, but from the free obedience it pays to the highest that is in it.1
(2) Obedience is the "proof of sonship. — It was by His obedience to the word of God that Christ proved His Sonship. As there is no doubt, neither is there any wavering in His decision. The life of man is the life of obedience to God. He has bidden me be His son here. The life of a son is the life of obedience, and He has bidden me prove that the life of sonship and the life of man are one, and that I must prove. My sonship — not by claim from the heavens ; not by being exalted with twelve legions of angels ; not with flare of trumpet — I must prove my sonship through obedience. I must prove my sonship by working out the will and carrying out the word of my Father. There is a long, long, fierce struggle before the man who says he will not live by bread alone. But by obedience to the word of God the victory will ultimately be ours, and our title, " sons of God," be approved.
T| You must yield yourselves to be led along by the Spirit, with that leading which is sure to conduct you always away from self and into the will of God. You must welcome the Indweller to have His holy way with your springs of thought and will. So, and only so, will you truly answer the idea, the description, " sons of God " — that glorious term, never to be satisfied by the relation of mere creaturehood, or by that of merely exterior sanctification, mere membership in a community of men, though it be the Visible Church itself. But if you so meet sin by the Spirit, if you are so led by the Spirit, you do show yourselves nothing less than God's own sons. He has called you to nothing lower than sonship; to vital connexion with a Divine Father's life, and to the eternal embraces of His love. For when He gave and you received the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise, who reveals Christ and joins you to Him, what did that Spirit do, in His heavenly operation ? Did He lead you back to the old position, in which you shrunk from God, as from a Master who bound you against your will ? No, He showed you that in the Only Son you are nothing less than sons, welcomed into the inmost home of eternal life and love.2
1 J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 143.
3 H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to (he /,' imam, 223.
ST. MATTHEW iv. 4 63
Tj Francis had conquered, one by one, his love of company, of fine clothes, of rank and wealth ; his aversion to squalor, disease, and misery ; his daintiness in food and surroundings. All were laid upon the altar of obedience, and for all God gave him a thousandfold of their antitypes in the spiritual life — for parents and friends, His own continual presence ; for rank, sonship of the King of kings; for garments, the robe of righteousness; for wealth, " all things " ; for personal fastidiousness, a purity, tender- ness, and joy which lifted him above the annoyances of daily experience. The weapons marked with the cross were gaining him the victory. His vision was in course of fulfilment.1
1 A. M. Stoddart, Francis of Assisi, 91.
The First Beatitude.
ST. MATT. — 5
Literature.
Aineworth (P. C.), The Blessed Life, 61. Brett (J.), The Blessed Life, 7. Dalian (II.), Heart Cures, 18, 27.
uter (W. B.), Tlie Great Cliarter of Christ, 77. Charles (Mrs. B.), The Beatitudes, 21. Deal ion (G.), Sermons for the Ecclesiastical Year, 484. Dudden (F. II.), Christ and Christ's Religion, 47. Dykes (J. 0.), The Manifesto of the King, 25. Kyton (B.), The Beatitudes, 14.