2. But not only does St. Paul say it is God that sanctifies us, he says also that it is " the God of peace." The use of this epithet is perhaps intended to teach us two truths.
(1) It teaches us this great lesson, that sanctification, like every other blessing of redemption, comes to us from God through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Previously to the atonement God could neither pardon nor sanctify. God is light as well as love. He would, to speak with reverence, have become unholy Himself had He consented to make the sinner holy before atonement was made. Now the great work is finished. God, as the God of peace, has "brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant," and is ready to make us perfect
^ T. S. Evans, Body, Soul, and Spirit, 4.
58 A PRAYER FOR SANCTITY
in every good work to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight.
^ Suppose a rich and fertile country from which alone we derived the supply of our tables, the clothing of our persons, the ornaments of our houses, were alienated from us by war, and by war of our own provoking. It would need some atonement, some reconciliation, to reopen our lost sources of improvement or even of subsistence. And suppose another powerful nation were to mediate on our behalf and restore pacific relations ; then it would be possible for the old supplies to flow in, not because there was any pleasure in withholding them, but because, till then, the honour of the nation we had provoked was not satisfied. Such is a faint image of the change which has come over our relations to God by the interposition of Jesus Christ. Now, as the very God of peace. He can bestow what before His heart yearned to confer, but for which an honourable way was not found. Now the richest treasures of heaven may be brought down to us by the Holy Spirit. Heaven and earth are leagued in friendship, and there is no Christian who desires these ornaments of the soul, better far than the choicest productions found beneath the skies, that will not find the God of peace prepared to impart them, and to do unto him exceeding abundantly above all that he can ask or think.i
(2) But, again, the calmness He gives when we cease our own efforts, and trust Him, is our truest might to maintain this com- plete consecration. While the calm and holy light of that peace shines in the soul, the storm may roar without and be unheeded; and the phantoms of temptation beckon and allure us in vain. It was the power of that peace that gave St. Paul strength to control the temptations which assailed his vehement, sarcastic, fiery soul, and to bear the burdens of the weak, and submit silently to the slanders and scorns of the Church and the world.
Power that is not of God, however great,
Is but the downward rushing and the glare
Of a swift meteor that hath lost its share
In the one impulse which doth animate
The parent mass : emblem to me of fate !
Which through vast nightly wastes doth onward fare,
Wild-eyed and headlong, rent away from prayer —
A moment brilliant, then most desolate!
' I'liucipal Cairns, Sanctijkation, 20.
I THESSALONIANS v. 23 59
And, 0 my brothers, shall we ever learn From all the things we see continually That pride is but the empty mockery Of what is strong in man ! Not so the stern And sweet repose of soul which we can earn Only through reverence and humility ! ^
3. The words of the Apostle are chosen with the utmost care. He prays that they may be kept, not without fault, but without blame. Many blameless things are faulty, and many faulty things are blameless. A work done from purest love and to the utmost capacity may be full of faults but entirely free from blame. A picture is often hung in the home that has a value apart altogether from the judgment of the Academy. Faultless ? Not by a long way. But a pure soul put its best into it, and soul is more than precision. Faultless ? Nay, for though the sanctifica- tion be entire, it is not final. The glorification is not yet. Until it comes the spirit will be beset with limitations and infirmities, the soul will be hampered in its aspirations, and the body will continue to be an imperfect instrument preventing with its weakness the will of the spirit. Not faultless but blameless. Without reproach, without condemnation, and in all things acceptable before God!
^ To a person who was troubled at her imperfections, St. Francis de Sales wrote thus : " We should, indeed, like to be without imperfections, but, my dearest daughter, we must submit patiently to the trial of having a human, rather than an angelic, nature. Our imperfections ought not, indeed, to please us ; od the contrary, we should say with the holy Apostle : Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ! But, at the same time, they ought not to astonish us, nor to discourage us : we should draw from them submission, humility, and mistrust of ourselves ; never discouragement and loss of heart, far less distrust of God's love for us ; for though He loves not our imperfections and venial sins. He loves us, in spite of them. The weakness and backwardness of a child displeases its mother, but she does not for that reason love it less. On the contrary, she loves it more fondly, because she compassionates it. So, too, is it with God, who cannot, as I have said, love our imper- fections and venial sins, but never ceases to love us, so that