^ The Journal of John Wesley (Standard Edition), iii. 449.
^ G. Campbell Morgan, The Siniple Things of Die Christian Life, 58.
202 GROWTH
^ Much work is done on board a ship crossing the Atlantic. Yet none of it is spent on making the ship go. The sailor but harnesses his vessel to the wind. He puts his sail and rudder in position, and lo, the miracle is wrought. So everywhere God creates, man utilizes. All the work of the world is merely a taking advantage of energies already there. God gives the wind, and the water, and the heat ; man but puts himself in the way of the wind, fixes his water-wheel in the way of the river, puts his piston in the way of the steam ; and so holding himself in position before God's Spirit, all the energies of Omnipotence course within his soul. He is like a tree planted by a river whose leaf is green and whose fruits fail not.^
3. And yet this growth is commanded. The will is involved. And the fact that it is a command teaches us that we are not to take this one metaphor as if it exhausted the whole of the facts of the case in reference to Christian progress. You would never think of telling a child to grow any more than you would think of telling a plant to grow, but Peter does tell Christian men and women to grow. Why ? Because they are not plants, but men with wills which can resist, and can either further or hinder their progress.
Lo ! in the middle of the wood. The folded leaf is wooed from out the bud,
and there Grows green and broad, and takes no care.
But that is not how we grow. The desire of the soul to be like Christ, the constant longing to imitate Him, the imagination ever picturing Him, the emotions ever clinging to Him, the will ever gladly obedient to Him — all this if cherished must naturally and inevitably lead to Christian growth. We can resolve to wish and long for an object until it becomes in us the supreme, uncontrol- lable desire, a mighty and commanding passion, a passion which, like Aaron's rod, shall swallow up all competitors; and when Christ is that object — a living, present Christ — then we easily and gladly declare : " I do not live, Christ lives in me " ; "I count all things but loss that I may know Him and be like Him." Any man can form the wish and cherish the desire, for the Holy Fire ever waits to kindle each living soul. And we can either try to make the spark burn, or we can put it out, or let it die.
* H. Drummond, Natural Law in the S^iiritual World, 140.
2 PETER III. i8 203
^ Two children resolved to share the night between them in watching by a mother's sick-bed. The command to each of them was most imperative: whatever else they did they were not to let the fire go out, and not to make the room too heated ; life depended on their watchful obedience ; ample fuel was close by for each. The first, a thoughtful, loving nature, watched and fed that fire with unsleeping vigilance. The second made the fire up once, and with morning light slept, neglected it, and let it go out, with a fatal issue. Your heart is the hearth, prepared to receive the Holy Fire ; the fuel is abundant ; the command is imperative that you feed life's spiritual flame and force. Neglect, want of interest, or unsuitable fuel are the secret of life's spiritual coldness, poverty, and death.^
4. Growth is of course a gradual process. The great change from sin to righteousness is not the work of a day, but the slow and patient process of a lifetime. There may seem to be no progress as measured by the eye ; but the soul comes to its maturity as the babe becomes a man — fed and furthered by the experience of the moment, and helped by the grace of God to grow.
^ What does moral perfection legin in ? It begins in the dis- position, in the will, in the heart. If you are urged to escape from polar winter, with its ice, and snow, and frost, and barrenness, to tropical summer, with its warmth, and flowers, and geniality, and luxuriance, is it meant that you are to accomplish the journey at one long stride, or that it is to be completed step by step, little by little ? When a child is required to become perfect as a musician, is it intended that in one day his uncrafty fingers shall liberate the angel-strains that are jailed in the musical instrument ? Or is it meant that he shall master the gamut, and grope his way through the scale, and gently touch the unknown notes to ascertain, as if by a whisper, whether they are the strains of which he is in quest, and proceed with all diligence and zeal until the instrument shall tell all its secrets, and shake with many- voiced delight at the touch of his friendly hand ? Were you to tell an acorn to become perfect as an oak, would you mean that all the growing was to be completed in a night, or that the development was to proceed gradually, unfolding branch after branch, bud after bud, leaf after leaf, till it became a great cathedral-tree, in which the feathered choristers should pour out their songs in the hearing of God ? It is even so with our Saviour. When He tells us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect,