mightily. Labor more abundantly than they all, and God's grace is laboring in you. You are not to wait for God, but to work; for God is beforehand with you, all the while. You are to wait upon God, but you are not to wait for God, before you obey his command to work, for God is already waiting for you, and always working. Work while the day lasts, work in reliance upon God, work in expectation of a glorious harvest, and the more you work, and the more earnestly you work, the easier it will be; and by and by your reward and your rejoicing shall be great in the Lord.

And you who do not hope; if ever such a one shall read this chapter; you see your calling also. If you ever do hope, it cannot be without your own efforts; not your efforts without God, nor your efforts before God, but your efforts according to God's working. God is always working, working while the day lasts, as he tells you to work. But the night cometh. God's time of working lasts no longer than your time of probation, and you know not when that may close. Therefore begin at once, for if God ceases to work, you never will begin. You are not to wait for God, for you cannot tell, you never will be able to tell, except from God's Word, in your first efforts, whether it is God or you. If you should go for the first time, and begin to pray, it might seem to you that you are alone, that there is nothing of God in that, that it is your miserably poor impulse and effort, not God's; and yet, if you thus really begin to work, in reliance on God in Christ, it is God working in you, and the first discovery of God, the very first proof of God working, is your work. The first hope of God's work begun for you, is your working after God. After God in two senses; seeking for him, and working because he works, because he begins the work and you follow. But if you wait for him, instead of working for him, then there is no hope. Begin, and it is your proof that God has begun; work, and work on, trusting in the Lamb of God, and you may be sure that he is working in you,

178

GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS.

both to will and to do. Work, trusting, and you may sing,

rejoicing :

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared
(Unworthy though I be)

For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

"Tis strung and tuned for endless years,
And formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father's ears

No other Name but Thine.

CHAPTER XVII.

Faith working by Love.-Assurance not an attainment, but a result.-Not a direct gift, but the consequence of Christ in the affections.-Not a direct duty, but the companion of duty, and its after-part.

DR. MALAN Somewhere says beautifully, in giving an account of his own earliest Christian experience, that the Lord Jesus awakened him, as a mother does her sleeping babe, with a kiss. So sweet and gentle were the Saviour's dealings with his soul. He was taught faith, as it were, by a kiss, and looking up, beheld the face of love divine bending over him; and then that language of faith and submission began to be taught him, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? This is always the language of faith, hope, and love, which graces, if either of them be genuine, all go together, and all carry the soul not merely to Christ's feet, but to Christ's service. And the soul's disposition and desire to serve Christ, and delight in that service, are the best genuine proofs and fruits of faith, hope, and love. These graces are bestowed and kept alive, for self-discipline, for exercise, for results, from glory to glory, till we reach the church above.

There are two cases of conversion in the Scriptures of the New Testament, strikingly similar in some points of view, and illustrative of divine grace, the one before, the other after, the ascension of our Blessed Lord. The one is of a man whose Pagan name, under the baptism of Satan, was Legion; the other is of Saul of Tarsus. They

both were possessed of many devils; they both met Christ unexpectedly, not knowing him; they both were brought to their right mind with a word; they both were at once set to work in Christ's service; they both caused all men to marvel at their preaching; they both were illustrations of the purpose of God in the bestowment of faith, and of the happiness and glory of self-denying love.

Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves.

If we ever think otherwise, think we are lighted for ourselves, then if we are really lighted, our Lord will show us our mistake, and teach us how to let our light shine for others; and if it do not shine for others, it is not lighted at all.

It is said of that wild man among the mountains, in the swinish country of the Gadarenes, that when our Saviour, after healing him, was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. He would have gone with Christ to the ends of the earth, to stay with him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them all how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. Our first lesson in this case is of the certainty and earnestness of desire with which a new-converted soul turns to Christ, and longs after him. Christ is its first happiness. But our second lesson is of the way in which this first desire, if genuine, will certainly work, and the way which the Lord Jesus has appointed for proving and sustaining it. The lessons from Paul's case are similar, but the wild man of the mountains saw Christ before him in the ship; Paul did not.

There are two things in the Christian Life; labor and happiness. We put labor first, happiness second. This is the true order, the great principle, at least for depraved

beings, under a necessity of coming back to God, denying themselves, and seeking happiness in his service. Labor in heaven is unknown, in the sense in which we think of it in this world, connecting it as we do with ideas of weariness, painfulness, and difficulty. But all the saints in heaven have done with labor in this sense, and there they all rest from their labors. In the celestial world all labor, work, business, all activity for God, is mere sacred, unmingled, absorbing delight; it is happiness itself, and not an introduction to it, or mere preparation for it. But in this world labor is labor, and as such it goes before happiness, must go before it. It is the only gate to happiness. There is no green lane. A man must labor to get into the kingdom of heaven. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." A man labors under the burden of his sins, when he sees and feels himself to be out of the kingdom of heaven. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

But when a man is once in the kingdom of heaven, even in this world, then the order seems to be reversed. Then, ordinarily, the first thing he experiences is happiness. It is not always so, for sometimes in the soul's very first experience in the Christian life there is more of conflict than relief, more of labor than rest, more of fear than hope. But generally, and in proportion to the clearness with which the soul sees Christ, and the hearty faith with which it throws itself upon him, there is happiness uppermost in the man's heart. There is the healing of his diseases, the deliverance from his burden, the pardon of sin, a calmed and holy conscience, a peaceful heart, a sweet stillness after the tempest, a clear, soft, lovely sky, Christ shining the world beneath his feet, the power of temptation broker, Satan and his angels withdrawn, heaven opening, the path way of the soul traced clear, bright, blissful, into the gates of the New Jerusalem.