^ Rose leaves, placed within a vase, can influence the atmo- sphere of a room, creating an odour which is pleasing to the sense. Can the spirit of man, placed within its vase of clay, create a moral atmosphere which it will be healthful or injurious for others to breathe ? Your mind has immediately given an affirmative answer. We cannot be in the presence of any man of great and holy force of character and not perceive his influence. How often one has heard a weaker man speak of a stronger man, and say, " As long as he is with me, I feel I can do everything I ought to do ! " If you examine the expression you will find that it is a popular proof of the truth I am now enforcing, that one strong, dominant spirit can pervade a weaker one, and give to the weaker one a sense of confident and conquering might.
Now, let us lift up the argument to its highest application. If human spirit can work upon human spirit, and reinforce it by the impartation of its own strength, is it inconceivable that the
* G. Matheson, Searchings in the Silence, 213.
PHILIPPIANS II. 12, 13 309
great Creative Spirit can work upon created spirit, and impart to it its own unspeakable strength ? Do you detect anything in the assumption which is belittling or degrading to an august conception of God ? The raindrop, hanging at the tip of a rose- leaf, depends by the same power as the largest star. And I am fain to believe, and rejoice in believing, that the ineffable spiritual energy which is implied in what we call the holiness of God, and which empowers seraph and archangel with endurance to bear the " burning bliss " of the Eternal Presence, will also communicate itself to the weakest among the sons of men, and so hold him in his appointed place as to make it impossible for him ever to be moved.^
O power to do ! 0 baffled will !
0 prayer and action ! ye are one.*
4. God works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
(1) What is this " good pleasure " of God towards man ? Not that man should exist as a being endowed with reason, conscience, affection, and will, in merely elementary form, still less in the depraved and corrupted forms with which we are only too familiar. It is that human beings, endowed from the beginning with the germs of Power Divine, human beings now existing as weak, wayward, sinning, shame-stained children, should, through the manifold discipline of life, be educated, built up into all the power, wisdom, and moral beauty of a perfect manhood; that through sore trial, and deep suffering, and awful sacrifice, every heavenly faculty should be daily led forth into larger force and nobler firmness, every taint of moral weakness and impurity be gradually purged away, every virtue, every grace of the Christian character be quickened and ripened into fullest beauty in every human soul ; that all the sons of men should become truly, fully, sons of God — each carrying on in his varied activity the very work of God, the Author of all life and beauty and joy ; and each, in all his richly endowed humanity, standing forth before all worlds the image and the glory of the Eternal.
^ The assurance that the righteous Creator can never cease to desire and urge the righteousness of His creature is the eternal hope for man, and the secure rest for the soul that apprehends it. For if this be His purpose for one, it must be His purpose for all.
^ J. H. Jowett, From Strength to Strength, 20. ^ J. G. Whittier.
3IO WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION
I believe that it is His purpose for all, and that He will persevere in it until it is accomplished in all.^
All things a prophecy contain
Of something higher still; A close relation all sustain,
A place and purpose fill.
Our life on earth is incomplete;
For larger life we plead ; Who made the heart, aspiring, beat
Will answer to its need.
Beyond the bound of time and space
A fairer world we see; Within the soul of man we trace
The sign and prophecy.
We trust the Lord in faith serene,
A ladder He hath given ; The lower rounds on earth are seen,
The higher reach to Heaven.*
(2) By God working in us " to will and to do," we are to understand that He makes us willing, and gives us power, who were formerly unwilling and unable, to surrender ourselves to the work of our own salvation. Nor is there involved in this any violation of the true liberty of the human will. The will is incapable of coercion. There can be no forcing of volition. The very freest act of the human soul is that by which it gives itself under God's grace to Himself, When God works in the soul " to will " there is no violence done to the rational nature. On the contrary, there is the fullest unison with the freedom and re- sponsibility of the moral being. And so is it also when God works in us " to do." Our doing is not compulsory action. It is not a course of conduct to which we are forcibly driven, but one to which we are freely drawn. We are not like slaves, compelled by the lash to do what we have a repugnance to do. We are like freemen, influenced by grace to do what we have the inclination and resolve to do. Thus the carrying out of our salvation is willing action. But the will and the action, though hy us as ^ Ttomas Erskine of Linlathen. * Thomas Brevior,