*\ The Great Teacher has said " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." It is Christ's will that every power God has given to man shall find its full employ. It is His will that we shall have life and that we shall have it more abundantly. It is the Spirit of Power within, energizing with our spirit — the human will in its highest action. The mystery of that union of the Divine will with the human will none can ever explain. But the mystery is no greater than that of the human will energizing from the centre to the circumference of our entire being. Striving to harmonize your will with the will of God, you will learn to make the best use of this greatest and grandest of your unused powers.^
^ The common characteristic of the virtues lies in a state of will — a will in harmony with the good. The harmony may indeed be far from perfect ; but the more nearly it is approached, the higher is the virtue. Still further, we may be only faintly conscious of the nature of the good which is being realized in our own character. By instinct and training a man may show himself brave and his own master, without thinking much of the ends thereby achieved. Yet virtue is a state of consciousness — not mere instinct. It does not, of course, require elaborate reflection upon our own motives ; far less does it involve the morbid self-examination which turns life to bitterness. Its consciousness is not a consciousness of the individual self and its struggles and weaknesses so much as a contemplation of, and firm hold on, the ideal self — the good which we approach in the
^ John Watson, The Mind of the Master. ' S. Fallows, Health and Happiness, 148.
COLOSSIANS III. i6 535
very act of striving after it. From this point of view, the attitude which at once apprehends and wills the good is the root of all the virtues. This may be called the Good Will.i
Thou who mad'st the mighty clock
Of the great world go; Mad'st its pendulum swing and rock,
Ceaseless to and fro; Thou whose will doth push and draw
Every orb in heaven, Help me move by higher law
In my spirit graven.
Like a planet let me swing —
With intention strong; In my orbit rushing sing
Jubilant along; Help me answer in my course
To my seasons due ; Lord of every stayless force,
Make my Willing true.^
5. Let the word of Christ dwell richly in the whole life. — The word should manifest the rich abundance of its dwelling in men by opening their minds to receive " every kind of wisdom." Where the gospel dwells in its power in a man's spirit, and is intelligently meditated on and studied, it will flower in principles of thought and action applicable to all subjects, and touching the whole horizon of human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom which these false teachers promised in their mysteries, is given to the babes and the simple ones who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and the least among them may say, " I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy ^ testimonies are my meditation." That gospel which the child may receive has "infinite riches in a narrow room," and, like some tiny black seed, for all its humble form, has hidden in it the promise and potency of wondrous beauty of flower, and nourish- ment of fruit. Cultured and cared for in the heart where it is sown, it will unfold into all truth which a man can receive or God can give, concerning God and man, our nature, duties,
» W. R. Sorley, The Moral Life, 65.
' George MacDonald, "Yiolin-Son^" {Poetical JVorks, i. 354).
536 THE INDWELLING WORD
hopes and destinies, the tasks of the moment, and the glories o^ eternity.
^ Is it possible that from such a life as Jesus lived so long ago, a life that was lived back in the very dust of history and that has come down to us in records which seem sometimes to be flecked with tradition and obscured with the distance in which they lived — is it possible that I should get from Him a guidance of my daily life here ? Can Jesus really be my Teacher, my Guide, in the actual duties and perplexities of my daily life and lead me ,into the larger land in which I know He lives? Ah! the man knows very little about the everlasting identity of human nature, little of how the world in all these changeless ages is the same, who asks that — very little, also, of how in every largest truth there are all particulars and details of human life involved ; little of how everything that a man is to-day, upon every moment, rests upon some eternal foundation and may be within the power of some everlasting law. The wonder of the life of Jesus is this — and you will find it so and you have found it so if you have ever taken your New Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily fife — that there is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you need be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as to what Jesus Christ, if He were here, would have you do under those circumstances and with the material upon which you are called to act. The soul that takes in Jesus' word, the soul that through the words of Jesus enters into the very person of Jesus, the soul that knows Him as its daily presence and its daily law — it never hesitates. There is no single act of your life, there is no single dilemma in which you find yourself placed, in which the answer is not in Jesus Christ. I do not say that you will find some words in Jesus' teachings in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that will detail exactly the condition in which you find yourself placed ; but I do say that if, with your human sympathies and your devoted love, you can feel the presence of that Jesus behind the words that He said, the personal perfectness, the Divine life manifested in the human life, there is not a single sin or temptation to sin that will not be convicted. There is where we rest when we claim that Jesus Christ is the Master of the world, that He opens the great richness and infinite distances of the human life, that He shows us what it is to be men.^