we must learn, as in a storm, to throw self overboard, and then the ship is safe. Where Christ abides and reigns, there is nothing but peace and happiness. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose soul is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. This humble, unquestioning, submissive confidence in Christ is the reign of Christ. It is the leaving of everything with Christ, and the seeking to do his will. But to do this, to get rid of self in this manner, we must come to Christ only. We cannot do this, establish this victory, of ourselves. If Christ does not reign, self will reign. There is, moreover, a counterfeit of this losing sight of self, without Christ; but it is all vain, no better than before, counterfeit money. It may cost much, and men may look upon it as very precious coin, but it is worthless apart from Christ. Any one might think that a man taking a vow of perpetual poverty, and going about in hospitals and prisons, to feed the sick, to watch beside the dying, had thoroughly abnegated himself, lost sight of self. But no, not unless Christ be there. If Christ be not there, such abnegation of self is only a more perfect exaltation of self, a subtle form of self-seeking and of pride. If such abnegation be done out of love, done for Christ, then indeed it is goodness; but if from an eye to reward, if to be seen of men, if from the terrors of an angry conscience, then there is no soundness in it. Men have sometimes committed crimes, for which they have condemned themselves to years of penance, and have gone about the world apparently dead to the world, because the fire within them has calcined the temptations without. The fire within them has burned up the delusions of the world and of sense around them, and made self-denial itself an intense though delusive relief, delusive, because not united with Christ, not practised for Christ, but really for self. Undoubtedly, in this way there may be much apparent virtue manufactured by sin, and much deliverance from sin effected by selfishness. On the prairies it is said that the Indians, when caught by a fire, when the roaring sound of a fire sweeping towards them is heard, just light a fire themselves in the centre where they are, and fire meets fire, so that they stand unscathed by the danger. Just so it may be with human passion. Passion against passion is strong. Many a man has escaped the fires of intemperance and sensuality consuming others around him, only because he had lighted another fire, the fire of another ruling passion in his soul. And so the fire of an angry conscience may burn up everything around it, and produce marvels of apparent self-denial and conquest over sin, and yet not bring the soul to Christ, but rather leave it like a blasted heath in the desert. Now on the other hand, if the fire of Christ's love be lighted in the soul, not only will the fires of temptation and of sinful passion go out, but the fruits of real holiness, the fruits of love will abound, and the soul will be like a watered garden, and Christ's love like the Tree of Life in the midst of it. What a mistake do men make in the attempt to produce holiness without coming to Christ! It is painful effort, that ends in vanity and painfulness. As the prophet says, it is ploughing upon the rock, it is gathering wages to put them into a bag with holes, it is feeding on the wind, and following after the East wind. There can be neither freedom, nor peace, nor the fruits of genuine piety, away from Christ, but nothing but bondage and fear. Joy is a fruit that will not grow In nature's barren soil; All we can boast, till Christ we know, Is vanity and toil. O that God would impress this lesson upon us! It is worth thousands of gold and silver, this deep sense of our own poverty, helplessness, guilt, and misery out of Christ. The knowledge of his own poverty that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. Indeed, the sense of our vanity, sinfulness, and misery out of 354 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL. Christ is itself great riches. If out of this vanity and poverty you would rise into the riches of eternity, come to Christ. If out of this bondage of sin you would rise into the liberty of holiness, come to Christ. If from this prison of selfishness, where your soul is rusting in chains for the Judgment of the Great Day, you would go forth at large into the air of love and heaven, come to Christ. If in the Judgment of the Great Day you would stand safe and happy, with heaven within your soul, Come to Christ! O save me from myself, Saviour Divine! Turn Thou mine eye, my heart, my life to Thee, Fain would I make my Lord my only aim, Lord, Thou canst conquer self, but Thou alone! Then will I flee on angels' wings abroad, CHAPTER XXXI. Justification by Faith.-The religion of Faith and the system of Works delineated.-Faith producing Works.-Justification followed by glorifi cation. A MAN of great intellectual powers, and ardent but not perfect piety, once heard two Pilgrims of Apostolical authority conversing in the way to Heaven. One of them said, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the law. The other said, Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. The man went away and reported that there was a quarrel between those two, and that the latter of the two was strawy in his sayings. The mistaken man was Martin Luther. Now there is so far from being a quarrel between Paul and James, that there is not even a difference. The two passages are only opposite sides of the same great truth. We were once travelling with a little company of missionaries in Turkey, when we came in sight of a beautiful distant olive-orchard on the side of a hill, with the wind agitating the branches, and turning the under side of the leaves to the sun. There arose quite a contest among us as to the color of those olive-leaves. Some asserted that it was pure dark green, for that was universally the color of the olive. Others said as confidently that it was a silvery grey, appealing to the sight before us. When we came to the orchard itself, we found both assertions to be true, the under side of the leaves turned up by the wind to the sun in our first position showing them of a silvery grey, while the upper side, with the sun falling on that, in our next position, showed their natural color of a beautiful fresh green. So here in these two texts are the two sides of the same precious olive-branch of truth, the great distinguishing truth of the gospel, the truth of justification and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. One text shows the side towards God in Christ, the other the side towards man; both are equally true, indeed are one and the same truth. It is at one and the same time an undeniable truth, that faith without works is the only true religion, and yet that faith without works is no religion at all, and also, that works without faith are no better than sin. A religion of works is a selfish, self-seeking, bargaining, distrustful religion. A religion of faith is a disinterested, self-denying, self-forgetting, confiding religion. A religion of works is scrupulous, fearful, cramping, prison-like, and superstitious. A religion of faith is unsuspicious, fearless, open-hearted, generous, and free. A religion of works is like waxen flowers, or like fruits wrought and colored in stone, and it may be with such exquisite pains and skill, that a bee would light upon them and a bird peck at them. So may the fruits of genuine piety be imitated in a religion of works, and they may successfully deceive mankind, not knowing the inward fountain, but not God, who looketh on the heart. A religion of faith is like the natural, spontaneous fruits and flowers in Eden, not only fresh and fair to the sight, but good for medicine and food, and of a sweet and wholesome fragrance. Now there are only these two religions in the world, the true and the counterfeit, faith without works and works without faith. The religion of faith is the only true, the only possible religion for fallen beings. For such there can be no such thing as a religion of justifying works, such beings having no works to offer but works of sin, or works mingled with sin, and therefore works needing to be |