III.
The Agent.
« Through his Spirit."
1. In comparing the characters of Greek and Eoman story de- scribed in Plutarch's "Lives" with those depicted in unfading colours in the Old and New Testaments, one feels that both of these great picture galleries are filled with portraits of men of
* A. Ealeigh, The Way to the City, 9.
EPHESIANS III. i6 125
immense strength and resolution. But there is this difference, that in Phitarch's heroes the human element of strength is supreme, while in the Scripture biograpliies there is added a Divine element of spiritual and moral power arising from vital contact with the Infinite and Eternal God — a spiritual power almost unknown to the Greeks and Eomans, and producing types of men and women who seem to belong to another species through their union with the spiritual realms. This contrast is seen at a glance when we compare the heroes of Homer and of the Greek tragedians with those of the historical books of the Bible, or the poems of Greece and Eome with the remains of Hebrew song collected in the Book of Psalms. Aristotle himself says, when speaking of men's relation to the gods, that all Greece would laugh if any man were to say that he loved Jupiter. How different the tone of David ! " I will love thee, 0 Lord, my strength " ; "I will sing praise to my God while I have any being." The expression in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, chosen as the text of this sermon, describes the quality of such souls. They were " strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man." It is by no merely natural decision or force of character that men and women are made conquerors of death and time. Such new force, exhibiting itself in unfashionable faith, in thought, in purpose, in action, in speech, in suffering, in sacri- fice, in love, is the work of that Almighty Spirit from which all forms of energy proceed, but whose chief work in the universe is the creation of inspired character.
^ Every month seems to reveal to us more fully, in the pro- gress of scientific discovery, the wonderful nature of the invisible energies which pervade and animate the material universe, until we look almost with speechless astonishment at the men whose experimental gifts, and mysterious insight, and mathematical grasp of thought, have unveiled the action of these interior energies of heat, and light, and electricity, and magnetism, and chemical affinity, and subdued them in practical forms to the service of man in the modern world. Hear the words of Dr. Crooke, spoken to his Company on opening the electric light for Ladbroke Square last week : " Before finishing I just want to draw your attention to a little bit of philosophy. We ought to have some philosophy in an electric light installation. Millions of years ago the sun shone upon the earth ; plants grew ; they died,
126 POWER IN THE INWARD MAN
and were converted in the course of time into coal. The light of the sun which v/as shining then was transformed into the latent energy of the coal. That coal has been dug up millions of years afterwards, and is forming the fire under the boiler. The heat of the coal is raising the steam, which, thus produced, passes through the engine and is being converted into motion. That motion is being communicated to the armature of the dynamo, which pro- duces magnetism, and this, in its turn, produces electricity. The electricity is conducted into the secondary batteries and is there changed into chemical action. This chemical action is recon- verted into electric current in the mains, and when human brains and energy are employed to direct the current in the right direc- tion, the ultimate result is evident to you in the form of light. This light is the identical energy of the sun, bottled up in the coal measures countless ages ago, and now reproduced after having undergone more strange transformations than were ever dreamed of in fairyland."
But we live in the midst of still sublimer manifestations of one and the self -same Spirit, in His dealings, not with matter, but with souls — in the work of renewing them in the image of God, to an endless life, a life as indestructible as the Divine. For it is never to be forgotten that it is one and the self-same Spirit who has governed the geological and zoological development of this globe with its physical forces in the past eternities, in whose hand have been the deep places of the earth, and who has directed the gradual evolution of all living things. It is the same almighty Spirit who is now occupied in the work of saving men by " creat- ing them anew " in the image of God for life everlasting ; and whose far more mysterious and glorious energies are employed in " strengthening with might the inner man " for an endless life of power, obedience, and love. "Now if any man have not this Spirit of Christ he is none of his." ^
2. Nothing is more familiar in Scripture than the conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as the source of moral strength. The special power that belongs to the gospel Christ ascribes alto- gether to this cause. " Ye shall receive power," He said to His disciples, " after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Hence is derived the vigour of a strong faith, the valour of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, the courage of the martyrs, the cheerful and indomitable patience of multitudes of obscure sufferers for righteousness' sake.