The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 496

doing which you will please him whose pleasure in you will fill your nature with glad- ness; it is given to you to increase your Lord's goods. See, then, that you bo not burying your ta.lent, Money is made for circulation; so is grace. Yet some men might as well have no grace for all the good H does ; it is carefully wrapped up, as if encounter with the world would fret its edges and lower its value. What, then, is the result of this? The great le.w is enforced, "To him that bath shall be given, anrl he shall have abundance: but from him that he.th not shall be taken away even that which he he.th." And in the kingdom of Christ this law is self-acting, as it is also in our own bodies e.nd in all matters physical. The muscle that is unused dwindles and disap- pears; no one needs to come e.nd remove it; want of use removes it. So it is with every faculty-bodily, mental, or spiritual. Yet how many think they can retain just so much godliness and no more I How many think they are hitting the right mean between over-righteousness e.nd worldliness I This is proof that there is something radically wrong in their notion of the kingdom and work of Christ. You car,not possibly he.ve just so much grace and no more; it must grow, or it will die. The reward is as certain, e.nd provided for by the same great law, as the punishment. Beginning with such grace as you have, there lies before you the possibility of indefinite increase, if you do what you have power to do-resolutely crush out what you know to be your weaknesses e.nd faults, e.nd seek to have your whole life gathered up into some ascertained and intelligible connection with Christ. This increase of grace is itself the reward, or at any rate the essential part of it. The talents gained are left in the hands that gained them, and wider opportunities for their use afforded. The faithful servant of Christ is always entering upon hie reward, and entrance into heaven only marks the point at which his Lord expresses hie approval, and raises him to a position of acknow- ledged trustworthiness, the position of one who has acquired an interest in the work, whose joy is his Lord's joy-joy in advancing man's best interests, joy in the sight of others made righteously happy. There can be no reward more certain, for it begins here. No one need tell you there is no heaven; the kingdom of heaven is within you. It is also the best you could picture to yourself. The reward a person in sickness receives for careful attention to every prescription of his physician is that he becomes healthy. If you ask-What is it that makes life worth living, which we can set before us as our sufficient reward and aim? the answer can only be that we have the hope of becoming satisfactory persons, of becoming perfect as our Father is perfect, who needs no reward, but delights in being and doing good, who loves, and is therefore blessed.-D Vere. 31-46.-The judgment. No human imagination avails to grasp the con- ception of the judgment of a world-the great white throne, the voice of the archangel, the generations of all time gathering from all quarters. There is one feature of the judgment which is here and elsewhere made prominent-that Christ himself is to be Judge. The Father hath given him authority to executejudgment also," because b.e is the Son of man." Jesus Christ is that Person through whom God has seen fit to transact with men from the first, and it will be so to the end. It is in the Person of Christ that God has been accepted or rejected of men; and it is fit that in this Person also men be accepted or rejected of God. We shall be judged by One who can read our soul with hie own human knowledge of men and their ways. There are only two points in this great subject which will now be taken up: (1) the duration. of the doom pronounced; (2) the grounds on which it proceeds. I. Round these words of our Lord a sea of controversy has continually raged. In every generation there are numbers who explicitly declare that they cannot believe in the everlasting punishment of any of their fellow-creatures. And although many do so from mere thoughtlessness, in others it arises from the feeling that it would be inconsistent with their own expectation of happiness, and with their best ideas of God. Men of feeble imagination, to whom the doctrine is little more than a form of words, have little temptation to rebel against it. But there are others to whom it makes life an intolerable misery; e.nd rather than resign all mente.l comfort and happiness, they resign their belief in eternal punishment. But belief is not to be determined by our wish but by Scripture and reason. If we tum to our Lord's teaching, and try to make out ~hcther he taught universal restoration, the distinct conclusion seems to be that be did not. His words here aro I\ friir sRmple of his teachiug rn this point, a.nd 602 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [oH. xxv. 1-46.