• One indispensable test of Christian perfection which some modern theories, e.g. Wesley's, ignore.
PERSEVERANCE
rEKSEVERANCE
189
truth '(1 PI--), they 'abide in the light' (1 Jn 1«- ') and in the love {4'").
Tliese terms of themselves point to further features of the ideal law : it is not only righteous ; it is personal, spiritual, progressive. Its excellency is that it is righteousness primarily and wholly : its highest excellency, that that righteousness is spirit not form, quality not a quantum, and of illimitable outlook — illimitable as tJod Himself. Its realization partakes of the process of a deepen- ing friendship ; the Divine Spirit doiuites itself to the responsive spirit of man, quickening its grow- ing exercise of faculty, gradually and tliroughout the whole circumference of the spirit's possible , activity. The stronger personality does not. over- ride but insjiires. As it sm^ceeds increasingly in transferring its own jiowers to man's, man is con- scious of both revelation and regeneration, fresh knowledge and new character. Is it a jjrocess of conscious ett'ort, a careful fullilnient of already known arrangements? — Scarcely. An acquaint- ance is not the jiroduct of certain rules, but the unconscious result of much association. The Divine life in man's heart is largely an unconscious growth.* The main factor is association with God in self-surrender. At least His best gifts so come, by 'waiting upon Him.' The deliberate seeking of greiit experiences for their own sake is unwise, and likely to be unavailing. It follows further that religious duty is a given task, a ' burden ' laid on the heartjt which is straitened J till it be accom- plished. It does not come by subjective calcula- tions but is put upon man as the objective task of doing God's will in that lot and at that moment, even as the thinker devoted to the spirit of truth learns truths, or the artist in love with beauty paints pictures.
A second consequence is that the ideal life Is to be found in the moral and spiritual realm. God is a Spirit, and they that seek His life in persever- ance must seek Him in the spirit. There is a con- stant tendency to ' seek Him ' by ' searching the Almighty unto perfection' in the grandiose con- structions of the speculative intellect. It is im- perative to have all speculative intimidations! removed from the path of perseverance ; like Bunyan's lion.s, they only frighten the pilgrim.
A third consequence is that the ideal life works itself in the orderly, not in the abnormal. The will of God is essentially law. The life of God is not above law, whether in Him.self or in His mani- festation. His life in the soul of man is not incon- sistent with Himself. When He works in us, He works according to law ; for which reason His working calls for all our etlort. It is His own order of life that He transfers to man ; this can be done only through the laws of man's nature of which He is Himself the author. Spiritual bless- ing is therefore not conferred in any scenic fashion but by power moving along the lines of normal life, and manifesting itself in its products. This is the best of all exaggerated psychological and mystical states : they have no value apart from their moral content and moral ett'ect, they are subject to the law of righteoasness.
A fourth consequence is that the ideal life is a principle for all living, not apart from living interests. 11 Religion that is true is not a techni- cality ; it is the Divine presence and agency in life as a whole. It is not a speciality ; it is the loyal, loving etibrt to make the will of God triumphant in all fields of human interest and activity — the
* Ct. Gal 116, Ph 315.
t Tlie prophetic term. J L1< IJW.
§ Apostolic thought is not speculative ; in this it is true to Its Hehraic ancestry.
II The apostles connect their exhortations to practical duties with their previously detailed principles (cf. Rom., 1 Cor., Eph., Col., 1 Peter).
soul, the famil}', society, art, letters. The difler- ence between the elect and non-elect lies not in their sphere of wor!< : they ditler in their spirit. The worldling loses himself in the life of sense- things ; the believer relates his life to God's or<ler of life and glorifies it by tilling it with heroic devotion. To sum up, the life of perseverance is the life of conscience: a life of communion with God through the conscience and its steady enlight- enment by His law. All exaltations of inner feel- ing, raptures, anomalous experiences must pale before the orderly interaction of religious thought, feeling, moral will which this education of con- science entails. Man's prcdestinarian days are days of con.science,* and aim not at 'religious experiences' but at rightcousness.t They lay un- challenjjeable insistence on the truth that the changed life, the clean heart, the strengthened will, the deeper moral insight, tlie spirit of upright- ness, are alone acceptable to God, the noblest fruits of faith, the prime factors of holiness. This ideal is laid upon men by God, not to impose a harder law, but from His consuming passion to bring them to the fullest life.
(2) Corresponding to the exalted character of the ideal itself is the method ofitsfiiljilmcnt. Its rigour is uncompromising. Its exhortation is incessant. The earnestness with which it is urged and the im- portance attached to it by each a|)ostleare con- spicuous in every Epistle. Kemarkable are the energy of the metaphors and the extent and solemnity of the t-erms employed to characterize it. It is fundamentally the holding fast of a position. Its most notable description is given in Eph 6'""'', an analysis of which will disclose all the parts that here follow, gathered from the other NT writings. Saints are saints — they occupy the jjosi- tion ; they are in the state of grace ; their whole attention, devotion, labour, is to keep it, and to stand (Ro U\ 1 Co 16'% 2 Co l■-^ Eph 6'», Ph 1-" 41,