It is not heaven alone,
Which godliness attains ; It makes as much its own The best of worldly gains: Since out of all on earth it draws The ore which of its worth is cause.
From godliness there flows
A current of content : And ill to blessing grows,
By thought of blessing meant: Each lot as sent by God it holds ; And each a bounty straight unfolds.
It keeps the mind from wrong,
And so of peace secure; It keeps the body strong, Because it keeps it pure : And hath enough, on which to wait The heirship of a large estate.
And thus a double bliss To godliness pertains: The world which present is, And that to come it gains: The earthly good is heaven's begun; The promise rolls the two in one.^
* A. Maclareii. ^ Lord Kiulocii, Tivie's Treasure, 28.
TITUS II. II, 12 267
5. " In this present world." St. Paul has told us how to live. It is the question of questions — how to live in this world, with what spirit, and for what end. It is not so simple a matter as it seems, nor are men agreed upon it. It is the question that earnest minds are all the while asking; it underlies education; parents ask it anxiously for their children ; every young man comes to a parting of the ways when he asks what path he shall take. There are vast numbers who do not know how to live in the world. It is one of the mysteries of human life that we should not know how to live it. It is the strange and pathetic thing about life that it is all we have to do, and we do not know how to do it. We come as near finding a true plan of living in these words as can be found anywhere — " denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."
The Christian life lies between the first and the second coming of_Christ. We confess this whenever we sit down at the Lord's Table. " As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." We look backward in memorial and forward in anticipation — backward to that death by which our salvation is secured, and forward to that coming by which our redemption shall be completed. Our life here lies between the two. It is nourished by the memorials of the past, and by the pledges of the future. It may be lowly and common- place in itself, but we can never fail to realize its dignity as long as we remember that from which it begins and that toward which it tends. It may be compared to a highway between two great capitals. The road may be dull and unromantic, leading up toil- some heights and down into cheerless villages, or stretching for weary miles across featureless wastes. It may be dry and dusty and rugged, with nothing to distinguish it from any other high- way of the world ; but from time to time we come to the mile- stones on which we read the names of the great city whence we came, and the great city whither it is leading us. And when, as we rest by the wayside of our Christian pilgrimage, and call up by the Vision of Faith the old Jerusalem with its place called Calvary, where He died amid rending rocks, its empty sepulchre whence He rose in glory, its Olivet from which He ascended into heaven, and its upper room where the Spirit descended; and
268 SAVING AND INSTRUCTING GRACE
when we call up by the Vision of Hope the new Jerusalem with its walls of jasper, its gates of pearl, and its streets of gold, whence He shall come to receive His ransomed people, and whither He shall lead them, that where He is there they may be also — then we feel that the way of our Christian life that stretches out between these two is a royal way indeed, lighted by heavenly light, and guarded by the angels of God.
^ Do you know that as I live I become more and more im- pressed by one word, and that word is " now." Between twilight and sunrise at Peniel Jacob went through what he could never recall. " What saidst thou, 0 Jacob, in that night-long contest ? " Jacob could not have remembered that except in its main lines. The veerings of hope and passion and doubt and fear and intense stringent resolution passed as the rolling night clouds passed, melting into flecks and streaks of morning light.
It is the now that makes the sinner; It is the now that makes the saint.
Satan has great power over the past and over the future ; he has less power over the Now. He has terrified me many a time, as if to the gate of death, by his power over the past, to make it lurid and terrible and inexpiable. He has made heart and flesh fail with the thought of all that lies before me. But he has far less power over the Now. Here 1 am more truly myself. I can dip my pen and go on writing, and he can't compel me to do nothing or to do wrong. Oh that I " could sport the oak " between the past and the future very frequently and dwell in the shrine of the present, forgetting the things that are behind as far as they cloud the great work of the Now ! ^