II.
The Naturalness of Growth.
1. Growth is dependent upon life and health. Grant these conditions, and it follows naturally and without effort. If these be absent there can be no growth.
1 W. Skinner.
200 GROWTH
(1) It is dependent on life. — We nicay sometimes use the word somewhat carelessly in relation to matters which are devoid of life, but, strictly speaking, it always indicates the presence of life. Boys at their play in winter-time will take a small snowball, and, rolling it in the snow, will watch it becoming larger and larger, until one boy says, See how it grows ! No, it is not growing. That is not growth. That is enlargement by accretion from without. Growth is enlargement by development from within. The principle of life is necessary to growth. When the Apostle charges us in his Epistle to " grow in grace " he presupposes the presence of life, and it is of the utmost importance that we emphasize that fact. There can be no growth in Christian character save where the Christ-life exists. The man who is born anew can grow in grace. The man who has not received the gift of life cannot grow. Growth in grace is not the result of the imitation of Christ in the power of the human will. It is the result of the propelling force of the Christ-life in the soul.
(2) If growth is dependent on life it is equally dependent upon health. — Wherever there is arrest of development in the Christian life it is due to the fact that the life principle of Jesus Christ is not active and dominant. Some part of the life — the intellect, the emotion, the will, the chamber of the imagination, the palace of the affection, or the seat of thought — is not wholly handed over to the indwelling Christ, is not answering the call of His life, is not responding to its claims. The tides of that life are excluded from some part of the being, and the result' is spiritual disease. The spiritual faculties become atrophied. They cannot work. Then follows arrest of development. But granted the full rushing tide of the Christ-life in all the depart- ments of the believer's life, granted the presence and dominance of that life in all the complex mystery of his being, then he is in health, and his growth is steady and sure.
^ I saw an uncommon instance both of the justice and mercy of God. Abraham Jones, a serious, thinking man, about fifty years of age, was one of the first members of the society in London, and an early witness of the power of God to forgive sins. He then stood as a pillar for several years, and was a blessing to all that were round about him, till growing wise in his own eyes, he saw this and the other person wrong, and was almost continually
2 PETER III. i8 20I
offended. He then grew colder and colder, till, at length, in order to renew his friendship with the world, he went (which he had refused to do for many years) to a parish feast, and stayed there till midnight. Eeturning home perfectly sober, just by his own door he fell down and broke his leg. When the surgeon came he found the bone so shattered in pieces that it could not be set. Then it was, when he perceived he could not live, that the terrors of the Lord again came about him. I found him in great darkness of soul, owning the just hand of God. We prayed for him, in full confidence that God would return. And He did in part reveal Himself again ; he had many gleams of hope and love, till, in two or three days, his soul was required of him.
So awful a providence was immediately known to all the society, and contributed not a little to the awakening them that slept, and stirring up those that were faint in their mind.^
2. Growth is spontaneous; it does not come by anxiety or effort. A doctor has no prescription for growth. He can tell you how growth may be stunted or impaired, but the process itself is recognized as beyond control — one of the few, and there- fore very significant, things which Nature keeps in her own hands. No physician of souls, in like manner, has any prescrip- tion for spiritual growth. It is the question he is most often asked and most often answers wrongly. He may prescribe more earnestness, more prayer, more self-denial, or more Christian work. These are prescriptions for something, but not for growth. Not that they may not encourage growth; but the soul grows as the lily grows, without trying, without fretting, without ever thinking.
^ I remember, ten years ago, when I first set my face to the other side of the sea, my boy, six years of age, said to me as he bade me good-bye, " How long shall you be away ? " I told him two months. He said, " I am going to try hard to grow as big as you are before you come back." I am not sure that he tred. I suspect he forgot, as children do so blessedly forget their follies. But if he did try, he did not succeed. No child grows by effort. No man "by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature." Growth in Christian stature is never the result of effort. Granted life and holiness, then there will be growth and develop- ment.2