2. St. Paul fixed his mind next on the reality and greatness of his present resources. — " By Christ redeemed " — yes, but that is only the Alpha and not the Omega of the work of grace. " By Christ redeemed ; in Christ restored." St. Paul's mental and spiritual outlook comprehended a great army of positive forces labouring in the interests of the Kingdom of God. Look at some of his auxiliaries : " Christ liveth in me." " Christ liveth in me ! He breathes through all my aspirations. He thinks through all my thinking. He wills through all my willing. He loves through all my loving. He travails in all my labours. He works within me ' to will and to do of his good pleasm'e.' " That is the primary faith of the hopeful life. But see what follows in swift and immediate succession. "If Christ is in you, the spirit is life." " The spirit is life ! " And therefore we find that in the Apostle's thought dispositions are powers. They are not passive entities. They are positive forces vitalizing and energizing the common life of men. To St. Paul love expressed more than a relationship. It was an energy productive of abundant labours. Faith was more than an attitude. It was an energy creative of mighty endeavour. Hope was more than a posture. It was an
1 J. H. Jowett.
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energy generative of a most enduring patience. All these are dynamics, to be counted as active allies, co-operating in the ministry of the Kingdom. And bo the Epistles abound in the recital of mystic ministries at work. The Holy Spirit worketh ! Grace worketh ! Faith worketh ! Love worketh ! Prayer worketh ! And there are other allies robed in less attractive garb. " Tribulation worketh ! " " Godly sorrow worketh ! "
^ St. Paul never mentions the enemy timidly. He never seeks to underestimate his strength. Nay, again and again he catalogues all possible antagonisms in a spirit of buoyant and exuberant triumph. However numerous the enemy, however towering and well-established the iniquity, however black the gathering clouds, so sensitive is the Apostle to the wealthy resources of God that amidst it all he remains a sunny optimist, " rejoicing in hope," labouring in the spirit of a conqueror even when the world was exulting in his supposed discomfiture and defeat.
3. And, thirdly, he fixed his thoughts on the wonder of the glory to come. — Can we safely exile this thought from our moral and spiritual culture ? We know that this particular contempla- tion is largely absent from modern religious life, and we know the nature of the recoil in which our present impoverishment began. " Let us hear less about the mansions of the blest, and more about the housing of the poor ! " Men revolted against an effeminate contemplation which had run to seed, in favour of an active philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life. But we have lost' immeasurably by the uprooting of this plant of heavenly contemplation. We have built on the erroneous assumption that the contemplation of future glory inevitably unfits us for the service of man.
^ Were Eichard Baxter's labours thinned or impoverished by his contemplation of " the saints' everlasting rest " ? When we consider his mental output, his abundant labours as Father- confessor to a countless host, his pains and persecutions and imprisonments, we cannot but think he received some of the powers of his optimistic endurance from contemplations such as he counsels in his incomparable book. " Kuu familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem; visit the patriarchs and prophets, salute the apostles, and admire the armies of martyrs ; lead on the heart from street to street, bring it into the palace of
3oS FOR THE BATTLE
the great King ; lead it, as it were, from chamber to chamber. Say to it, ' Hear must I lodge, here must I die, here must I praise, here must I love and be loved. My tears will then be wiped away, my groans be turned to another tune, my cottage of clay be changed to this palace, my prison rags to these splendid robes ' ; ' for the former things are passed away.' "
Hope, though slow she be, and late, Yet outruns swift time and fate ; And aforehand loves to be With remote futurity.
Hope is comfort in distress, Hope is in misfortune bliss, Hope in sorrow is delight, Hope is day in darkest night.
Hope cast upward is to where Storms do never domineer; Trust and hope will welcome thee There to full security.^
Our thought of future glory must have several elements in it if it is to nourish our hope as it nourished his.
(1) It must have an element of personality in it. It must be a hope which means future fulfilment to me. It must not, like Buddhism, represent the loss of personality — annihilation — as the reward. It must not offer us even the stimulus of the positivists. " You desire hope," they say ; " there is hope ; we will grant immortality — an immortality of influence. The good you do shall live after you." No. There must be an immortality in the vision and communion of Him whom to serve is eternal life.