The spoken or written Word of God is the mirror. When we hear it preached, or study it for ourselves, we can find the reflexion of ourselves in it, our temptations and weaknesses, our failings and sins, the influences of God's Spirit upon us, and the impress of His grace. It is here that we notice one marked difference between the inspiration of the sacred writers and the inspiration of the poet and the dramatist. The latter show us _other people_ to the life; Scripture shows us _ourselves_.
"Our mirror is a blessed book, Where out from each illumined page We see one glorious image look, All eyes to dazzle and engage,
The Son of God; and that indeed We see Him as He is we know, Since in the same bright glass we read The very life of things below.
Eye of God's Word, where'er we turn Ever upon us! thy keen gaze Can all the depths of sin discern, Unravel every bosom's maze.
Who that has felt thy glance of dread Thrill through his heart's remotest cells, About his path, about his bed, Can doubt what Spirit in thee dwells?"[51]
Keble's metaphor is somewhat more elaborate than St. James's. He represents the Bible as a mirror, out of which the reflected image of the Son of God looks upon us and reads our inmost selves. St. James supposes that in the mirror we see ourselves reflected. But the thought is the same, that through hearing or reading God's Word our knowledge of our characters is quickened. But does this quickened knowledge last? does it lead to action, or influence our conduct? Too often we leave the church or our study, and the impression produced by the recognition of the features of our own case is obliterated. "We straightway forget what manner of men we are," and the insight which has been granted to us into our own true selves is just one more wasted experience.
But this need not be so, and in some cases a very different result may be noticed. Instead of merely looking attentively for a short time, he may _stoop down and pore over it_. Instead of forthwith going away, he may _continue_ in the study of it. And instead of straightway forgetting, he may prove a mindful _doer that worketh_. Thus the three parts of the two pictures are made exactly to balance. The word for "looking into" is an interesting one (παρακύπτειν). It indicates bending forward to examine earnestly. It is used of Peter looking into the sepulchre (Luke xxiv. 12, a verse of doubtful genuineness); and of Mary Magdalene doing the same (John xx. 11); and of the angels desiring to look into heavenly mysteries (1 Peter i. 12). He who does this recognizes God's Word as being "the perfect law, the law of liberty." The two things are the same. It is when the law is seen to be perfect that it is found to be the law of liberty. So long as the law is not seen in the beauty of its perfection, it is not loved, and men either disobey it or obey it by constraint and unwillingly. It is then a law of bondage. But when its perfection is recognized men long to conform to it; and they obey, not because they must, but because they choose. To do what one likes is freedom, and they like to obey. It is in this way that the moral law of the Gospel becomes "the law of liberty," not by imposing fewer obligations than the moral law of the Jew or of the Gentile, but by infusing into the hearts of those who welcome it a disposition and a desire to obey. Christian liberty is never licence. It is not the relaxation of needful restraints, but the spontaneous acceptance of them as excellent in themselves and beneficial to those who observe them. It is the difference between a code imposed by another, and a constitution voluntarily adopted. To be made to work for one whom one fears is slavery and misery; to choose to work for one whom one loves is freedom and happiness. The Gospel has not abolished the moral law; it has supplied a new and adequate motive for fulfilling it.