I. Gov’s TREATMENT OF SIN I8 BADICAL. We naturally shrink from the severe method indicated here. Who has not suffered an agony of pain rather than apply to the surgeon or dentist, although it must come to that at last? Nothing short of amputation of evil habit will save the life of the soul, Some are satisfied that they have confessed, received absolution, and done penance at the bidding of a human priest. Others are told to exercise discretion even when the taste and smell of intoxi- cants are sources of peril, and their only hope is to cut them off. Many excuse the young in their follies, and say, “They must sow their wild oats.” Ay, but they will never plough them wp, and no subsequent sowing will alter the effects of the first. “ Whateoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” Now, if we see deformity in a child which will mar its beauty for life, the pain he would immediately suffer would not Hoven our cutting it off; and if there be a moral weakness or an evil habit that
eforms spiritual beauty, the treatment must be as radical. When the moth is in a ieee the careful housewife does not leave s few and run the risk. When a man is itten ty a mad dog, the hot iron will sear the flesh, though it causes agony. When a child dies of diphtheria, the clothes are burnt and the little toys, which the mother would gladly keep, lest the other children should take the infection. The house is urged so as by fire. The treatment is severe, no doubt; but Christ did not come to ead us in the path of ease, but of self-denial. He knew that it was not painless to cut off the hand or the foot and to pluck out the eye, but he declared it was better to suffer what was represented by this than that the man with all his powers should be cast {nto hell. If this word comes as the sword of the Spirit to cut your heart in twain—
“Oh, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half.”
Christ “died to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” and in his Name we are called upon to “crucify the world with its affections and lusts.”
Il. Gop’s CALL To OBEDIENCE I8 URGENT. 1, We are urged to this for the sake of others. What anxiety would be relieved and what joy would be imparted to Christian friends if, by the transforming power of God’s Spirit, you were delivered from evil! Besides this, by delaying repentance you may be causing others to stumble, There is a word in this passage about children—little ones, young people who may be influenced by you for evil. If you laugh at serious impressions, jeer at another as a saint, discourage earnestness, and lead to folly or guilt,—take heed, for it were better that a millstone were hanged about your neck than that such a crime should curse you. Parents especially can hold back their children from evil, and encourage them to good, if they prayerfully seek to do so. By allowing sceptical or immoral literature, by encouraging worldly companionships, they may foster a life of sin, and check the life of God in the souL Still more power have they by example and personal influence, 2. We are urged to this for our own sakes. Christ was the King of Truth. He never deceived, misrepresented, or exaggerated. Ponder, therefore, his solemn words, “It is better for thee to enter life maimed,” etc. This is not a literal description of hell. It is an allusion to Isa. Ixvi. 24, where the prophet describes apostates from Jehovah lying outside the holy city in the ralley of Hinnom, where refuse was cast, and the worm of corruption died not, and the firea of destruction were not extinguivhed. This
82 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. [on. rm. 1—650,
was used as an emblem of “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” Figurative as the language is, it is ominous, and warns us against the untold terrors which await the impenitent—the retribution which follows unrepented ain. A man may escape the consequences of sin here, but the punishment must ultimately come. True, “God is merciful.” But when man on the sea-shore disregards warning, and the tide comes in, his cries and prayers are of no avail, and soon his dead body is flung up as a useless waif. He has defied the merciless law of a merciful God. Put yourself in harmony with that law and it brings benediction, but oppose it and it brings destruction. The amazing sacrifice of Christ is only explicable on the theory that sin has effects beyond those which are visible here. ‘“ How shall we escape, if we neglect ao great salvation?” —A. R. ;
Vers. 1—8.——The Transfiguration. A brief interval of six days occurs, “days of the Son of man,” of which no record remains. How much of even this brief ministry to men seems to be lost! Yet is the account of each day to be given when, to every man favoured with his presence and teaching, it is said, “ Render the account of thy stewardship.” The silence of the record is an appropriate prelude to the sublime event which follows. “He went up into a mountain to pray.” “ Peter, James, and John” —“ the flower and crown of the apostolic band”—were the privileged three who alone witnessed the scene, though the few graphic words of the historian, “ kept and told to no man until after the Son of man had risen from the dead,” have presented to the eye of the Church in all ages a clearly defined picture of it. And yet in viewing it we ere dazzled by excess of light. Few and simple must be our words. “He was trans- figured,” a word which is afterwards explained to apply to “ the fashion of his counte- nance.” It was “altered;” so St. Luke. St. Matthew adds, “his face did shine as the sun ;” while “his garment became glistering, exceeding white,” “ white as the light,” “go as no fuller on earth can whiten them.” Beautiful addition—so naive, so simple! That Divine nature, which in the incarnate body was always transfigured before the eyes of men, now burst forth to view, radiating from within; the hidden divini shining through the veil of the fiesh until its veil of raiment became radient wi
ight.
ner In the history and development of the incarnate Son this event must have had its high import. What is personal to himself, however, is almost entirely hidden. Of the “talking ” we hear only one word, The two men, “ which were Moses and Elijah,” “the founder and the great defender of the old dispensation,” “spake of his decease,” Very soon after “the days were well-nigh come that he should be received up,” and “he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Henceforth his steps tend to the
cross.