does responsibility cease when we have passed from the carnal to the spiritual mind, even though there may be seasons when the Divine Spirit seems to supersede the efforts of the will, and all is gracious and beautiful within. To whom men have committed much, of him will they demand the more; and growing clearness of insight presents ever new and higher problems of duty. Ideally, he that is born of God cannot sin,1 but becomes a perfect instrument and expression of the Divine righteousness. This lies before us, however, as a distant vision; and meanwhile the inward principle of our life may be spiritual, and yet without the vigilance of duty we may lapse, and offend against that love which has revealed itself amid our darkness.2 In this world we can never dismiss the sentinel that guards the soul; and yet the storm and struggle of a protesting conscience die away as the life born from above grows and strengthens, and a peace which passes understanding rests upon the humble and grateful heart. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jesus, who insisted on the necessity of inward righteousness, demanded with no less emphasis the corresponding 1 1 John iii. 9. 2 See Gal. v. 25. practice. Unless the inward life be taken up by the will, and embodied, through a deliberate effort, in the outward activity, it is apt to drift away into an aimless and feeble sentiment, wasting itself in excited talk, and trying to hide its weakness in the vehemence of its professions. It was not enough, therefore, to receive the word with joy; it was not enough to have titles of honour on the lips, while there was no practical outcome of the assumed reverence; he only who did the things which the new teaching required built his character upon a rock, and would be found unskaken in the day of trial.2 It is related that a rich man, touched apparently by some new sense of spiritual want, once came to Jesus, and asked what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus did not find fault with the question, or point out the need of something more inward, but referred to the great moral commandments. These the man had probably never been tempted to violate; and he intimated that the answer hardly met his case. Jesus then exhorted him to do something which he well knew could be done only under the suasion of heartfelt faith and love, to give 1 Matt. xiii. 20 sq.; Mark iv. 16 sq.; Luke viii. 13. NECESSITY OF PRACTICE. 223 up his pleasures and gains and worldly position, and devote himself to the good of his fellow-men. An admonition to love his neighbours would probably have met with an eager response; the demand that he should do something commensurate with an entire love and self-devotion sent him away in sorrow; and thus Christ may have revealed to him the inward poverty which his untempted comfort had hidden from his conscience.1 Amid the various aspects under which primitive Christianity presents itself, this feature in the teaching of Jesus is never forgotten. The regenerated inward life required a reformed code of morals; and the necessity for good works is insisted upon by the speculative Paul and the mystical John as strongly as by the practical James. For each and all, good works were the only satisfying evidence of inward sincerity and faithfulness. This allegiance to duty involves the most strenuous effort and self-denial. Only as men who struggle through a narrow door and along a narrow path can we hope to secure our true life.2 The follower of Jesus must take up his cross, the symbol of self 1 Mark x. 17 sqq.; Matt. xix. 16 sqq.; Luke xviii. 18 sqq. 2 Matt. vii. 13 sq.; Luke xiii. 24. renunciation, not wearing it as a trinket on his breast, but showing its marks in a life of self-sacrifice, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. The love of parents and children must not stand in the way of discipleship. Hand and foot and eye must be parted with sooner than yield to the seductions of sin. Only thus is our true life preserved. It dies under the chill of selfishness when it would sit at home, nursing its own sweet musings, and shrinking from the labour and the strife without. It grows by the law of self-sacrifice. In imparting itself it becomes richer; and in self-forgetting service, which in the completeness of love would give up all it has, it attains its fullest beauty and power.' In this practice of "good works," while we are to shrink from all selfdisplay,2 we are no less to avoid all unworthy concealment. We must not be ashamed of the principles upon which we act, but allow men to see, and to glorify God for, the beautiful deeds which they pro 1 Mark viii. 34 sqq.; Matt. xvi. 24 sqq.; Luke ix. 23 sqq.; Matt. x. 37 sqq.; Luke xiv. 26 sq., xvii. 33; Matt. xx. 28, Mark x. 45; Mark ix. 43 sqq., Matt. v. 29 sq., xviii. 8 sq. 2 Matt. vi. 1 sqq. WANT OF SYSTEM IN CHRIST'S TEACHING. 225 duce.1 Thus, with braced and resolute will, we must act in the loving simplicity of an honest and good heart. We must pass now from this more general consideration of principles, to notice the more important details of Christian virtue. From the nature of Christ's ethical principles, as well as from the popular method of his teaching, we might expect to find a complete want of system in his presentation of the various duties of life. He did not endeavour to construct either the logically developed theory of a philosophical thinker, or the classified code and definite injunctions of a legislator. The Spirit has, no doubt, a law—that is, a permanent order and authority-of its own, as was clearly recognized even by Paul;2 but still there is no real analogy between an external law, which prescribes or prohibits certain defined and unvarying modes of activity, and the free and spontaneous movements of a "spirit of life," which unfolds itself with infinite variety amid the ceaseless changes of circumstance and opportunity. Jesus, therefore, would have been acting in contravention of his own profoundest teaching if he 1 Matt. v. 14 sqq. 2 See, for instance, Rom. viii. 2. |