So God makes fruitfulness the test. Not leaf, not colour, not wood, but fruit. In other words, God's great test is not profession, not privilege, not apparent power, but the fruit of the Spirit in the life and character. If there is no fruit there is no life. If there is fruit, it is an evidence that Christ is abiding in the soul. He acts, therefore, on the same principle that He laid down for the guidance of His people when He said, " Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
^ We are not created in Christ Jesus out of good works, but unto good works. We do not make ourselves Christians any more than we make ourselves human beings. Works are the fruit of life, not the root. The works of the flesh are uncleanness, hatred, and their bad train ; the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and their good train. Life works from root to fruit ; logic argues from fruit to root. We grow from our roots ; we are known by our fruits.^
1 Principal Story, 146. 'J. Sharp.
* M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 10.
ST. JOHN XV. I, 2 195
(1) The husbandman takes away the branches that bear no fruit. Christ's words are : " Every branch in me that beareth not fruit"; so the question arises, How can a branch be in Christ and bear no fruit ? Calvin's explanation that " in me " is equiva- lent to "supposed to be in me" is inadmissible. It does not explain Christ's words, but substitutes others for them. Alford's explanation is better, but it labours under the serious disad- vantage of substituting for Christ's declaration, " I am the vine," the very different declaration that the visible Church is the vine. "The vine is the visible Church here, of which Christ is the inclusive head ; the vine contains the branches, hence the unfruitful as well as the fruitful are in me." But to be in the visible Church and to be in living communion with Christ are very different things. We should rather say that Christ here lays down, in a simile, the general law that to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. If the soul, in the measure in which it has knowledge of Christ, bears Christian fruit, it will grow more and more into oneness with and likeness to Christ ; if, on the other hand, it does not realize the fruits of its knowledge in a life fruitful in Christian works, it will gradually lose its knowledge and become separated from Christ. Thus both the grafting into and the separating from the vine are in the spiritual experience gradual processes, and they depend on the fidelity with which the conscious branch avails itself of its privileges, and shows itself worthy of larger privilege.^
^ Life is given to us on probation. Whatever be our outward circumstances, the supernatural life is capable of making them fruitful. The fruitfulness of the spiritual vine may be found in the richest or the poorest soil. It is not dependent upon the soil like the earthly tree, which naturally grows there. It has an indestructible life, capable of bringing forth its fruit in every soil, and the life must assert itself by turning to account every condition of outward accident. Eiches and poverty, health and sickness, praise and blame, are equally capable of being used to nourish this supernatural fruitfulness. We may not despise earthly gifts, as if we could do without them. If we have them we are responsible for them. But neither may we desire earthly gifts, as if they would enable us to glorify God better than what
* Lyman Abbott.
196 THE TRUE VINE
He has given. We are to rise superior to them, knowing that God expects us to show His fructification under the conditions of difficulty which that outward lack may occasion. The branch that is in Christ possesses all that is necessary to become fruitful ; and if it be unfruitful, the supernatural virtue will be withdrawn. The branch will be left to its natural deadness and will be cut off. There is one vocation common to us all in Christ. We are called to be saints. This is a vocation that we can all of us fulfil, for the grace of God will not be wanting to us if we seek it rightly ; but if we do not fulfil this vocation, so as to have our " fruit unto holiness, and the ejid everlasting life," we must be cut off from Christ by the unsparing hand of the Great Husbandman.^
(2) The husbandman "cleanseth" the fruitful branches that they may bear laore fruit. The vine is a tree of rampant growth ; its branches easily outgrow its power to fill and ripen the fruit. In a fertile soil, and under genial skies, it spreads out its boughs, puts forth a lavish growth of leaves, and forms many a cluster which a wise hand will cut away. If it were allowed to run unchecked, many of the blossoms would never fruit; they would form tendrils instead of clusters ; the bunches that might form would be hardly worth the gathering. The husbandman early fixes on the bunches he will preserve, and devotes all his care to the swelling and ripening of these. He stops the branches on which they grow, that the sap may fill the clusters ; many a grape is cut out that those which remain may grow large and rich. All the summer through the pruning is continued ; the leaves fall that the sun and air may play among the ripening branches, and that the roots may feel the genial warmth in which the tree delights. It seems at first like reckless waste, this constant use of the knife ; but it is the prevention of waste, the husbanding of the strength of the vine for fruit that shall be worth the gathering.