Of

we will do so by remarking that if an examination of conscience should show that we are not growing in grace, there is but one alternative, which is that we are falling back. An awful truth; but one as infallibly certain as any other phenomenon of our moral state. Neither in mind nor body does man ever "continue in one stay." His body, as we have seen, is constantly throwing off old particles of matter, and appropriating new ones. Every breath he breathes, every exertion of his muscles and limbs, every particle of food he swallows, makes some minute change in the bodily framework, so that it is never entirely the same. each individual among us it may be said with truth at any given moment, that he is either rising to, or declining from, the prime of life and the maturity of his physical powers. And the mind no less than the body is in a continual flux. It too has its moral element, the society in which it lives,-it too has its nourishment, which it is constantly imbibing,-the influences. of the world and the lower nature, or those of the Spirit of God. One or other of those influences is always imperceptibly passing into the mind and effecting a gradual change. And the awful thought is, that if the change is not for the better, it must be for the worse; if the mind is not appropriating the higher, it must be appropriating the lower influences; if there is no growth in grace, there must be a growth in worldliness and sin. Strictly speaking, nothing is morally indifferent; every moral action leaves its impress upon moral character. Our fireside conversations, our thoughts as we pass along the streets to our daily work, our spirit in the transaction of business, all have some amount, small though it be, of moral value; all are tending more or less remotely to form the character; amid all, and through all, we are either making spiritual progress or falling back from the mark. With what solemnity do these thoughts invest even the most trifling incidents of life! It is impossible to pass through them and come out the same; we are changed either for the better or for the

worse.

We will look to it, then, that in future at least it shall be for the better. If it have been hitherto for the worse, we will this very hour embrace that already purchased pardon, which obliterates in an instant the guilt of a whole past career of sin, and that grace proffered by Christ no less gratuitously, which renews the will unto newness of life. And tomorrow we will, in the strength of that grace, make a new beginning, taking up this anthem into our mouths; "All my fresh springs shall be in Thee."

CHAPTER III.

OF THE ENTIRE DEPENDENCE OF SANCTITY ON CHRIST, AND OF THE RELATION WHICH THE MEANS OF

GRACE HOLD TO HIM.

"Abide in Me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot

bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in

Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.”—ST. JOHN xv. 4, 5.

THE subject of this treatise is Personal Religion, or, in other words, that " holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." It is evident that we shall be liable to misapprehend the subject fundamentally, unless we have at the outset a clear notion of the nature of Christian holiness. It is to give the reader this clear notion that the present Chapter will be devoted.

In the passage which stands at the head of it, there is a slight inaccuracy of translation, which requires to be set right before the force of Our Lord's words can be thoroughly appreciated. "Without Me ye can do nothing," should rather be rendered," Apart from Me," "separate from Me," "in a state of independence on

Me, ye can do nothing." "Apart from Me," by no means conveys the same idea as 66 Without Me." The latter would imply merely that unless Christ concurred with His people in their efforts, they could do nothing. "Apart from Me," goes beyond this. It implies that He is the alone originating Source of all sanctity in them. "Without" the concurrence and assistance of a strong person, a weak one cannot lift a heavy weight; but the dependence of the weak person on the strong in order to lift the weight, is not the dependence which the word here employed indicates. "Apart from" the soul (or principle of life) the body is motionless, and cannot stir a finger. This is the sort of dependence indicated in the passage before us. Christ is to the Christian the alone source of sanctification or spiritual life, just as the soul is to the body the alone source of natural life.

I do not know that any other prefatory observation is needed, except that "the fruit" mentioned in this passage generically is specifically, and in detail, those fruits of the Spirit which are enumerated by St. Paul in Gal. v., "Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." The fruit consists in certain holy tempers and affections of heart, the possession of which will uniformly ensure right conduct, but which are much more easily seen to be absolutely dependent upon Christ's working than right conduct itself is. If a man be commanded by God to do any action whatsoever, he can string up his will to do it. But when certain sentiments and dispositions are required of him, which involve a thorough change of the heart's natural propensities, that is another matter. The affections are far less under the will's control than the actions are.-That these gracious sentiments and dispositions are called by the Apostle, fruits of the Spirit, and by His Divine Master, fruit proceeding from Himself, the true Vine, need not cause any difficulty. In Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He is the smitten Rock of the wilderness, through whom alone the living

His

waters force their passage to polluted man. glorified humanity is the appointed receptacle of Grace, from which Grace emanates into all the moral universe. Hence the Spirit is called the Spirit of God's Son.

The great subject brought before us by the passage is, that THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE CHRISTIAN, LIKE HIS JUSTIFICATION, IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT UPON OUR LORD.

As regards our Justification, this is clearly seen (at least in the Reformed Churches) and generally admitted. That Christ alone can atone for sin; that His Blood and nothing else can procure the pardon of it; that on the ground of His merit exclusively we can find acceptance with God, reinstatement in His favour, and admission to His Presence; that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," and that therefore we must look out of ourselves for a righteousness which can stand the scrutiny of GOD's judgment, and that such a righteousness, white as the driven snow, is to be found in Christ only, all this, whatever reception such a doctrine might have met with half a century ago, is now so thoroughly established, and has gained such a footing in the minds of religious people, that to prove it from Holy Scripture to persons of ordinary religious acquirements would be altogether superfluous.

But it is thought that, unlike Justification (which is something that passes on the sinner externally to him, a sentence of acquittal pronounced on him by God, in consideration of Our Lord's merits), Sanctification is a process within us (which no doubt is true); and hence it is erroneously inf-rred that it is carried on much more independently of Christ than Justification is; that human will, effort, and exertion contribute very mainly to it, and that Christ is not the all in all of it, not our strength" in the same way and to the same extent as He is " our righteousness." And hence a false notion of holiness springs up in many minds, and finds such a lodgment that it is very difficult to disHoliness is supposed to be an achievement

66

possess it.

mastered at length-much as a lesson is mastered-by a variety of exercises, prayers, fastings, meditations, almsdeeds, self-discipline, Sacraments; and when mastered, a sort of permanent acquisition, which goes on increasing as the stock of these spiritual exercises accumulates. It is not regarded in its true light as a momentary receiving out of Christ's fulness grace for grace, as the result of His inworking in a heart, which finds the task of self-renewal hopeless, and makes itself over to Him, to be moulded by His plastic hands, resigning, of course, its will to Him in all things, without which resignation such a surrender would be a horrible hypocrisy.

Now let us take up the illustrations of this truth ; and first His own illustration, the wisest, profoundest, and most beautiful of all. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me;" Apart from Me ye can do nothing." The circulating sap, which is the life of the tree, is indeed in the vinebranch, so long as it holds of the stem; but in no sense whatever, is it from the vine-branch. Cut off the branch from the stem, and it ceases instantaneously to live, for it has no independent life. Even so the fruits of the Spirit, while of course our hearts are the sphere of their manifestation, are in no sense from our hearts; they are not the result of the energizing of our own will; they are not a righteousness of our own, built up by a series of endeavours, or a laborious process of self-discipline, but a righteousness outflowing continually from the fulness of Grace which is in Christ.

Another illustration may perhaps help to impress the truth. When we walk abroad on a beautiful day, and survey a landscape lit up by the beams of a summer sun, our eye catches a variety of colours lying on the surface of this landscape, there is the yellow of the golden grain, the green of the pasture-land, the dark brown of those thick-planted copses, the silver gleam of the stream which winds through them, the