Every believer should knotv the
Secret of Christian Sanctity
By H. C. G. Moule
W hat is the true place, in the life lived by faith in the Son of God for motives, for means, for helps? If it is indeed not I, but Christ who liveth in me, what have external aids, supplies and impulses to do for me? Have I any thing to do but to yield myself, in the deep stillness of an exalted mys ticism, to the play and development of that life within me which is not myself after all? Is it so, that I am to be, more diligently than ever, a student of written pages, a suppliant at a Throne of Grace which is quite ex ternal to me, and a plain, humble dependent on the finished work of a guilt-bearing Cross erected ages ago at a city gate far off; not on a vis ioned inward cross on which, so to speak, an atonement is wrought out in me, but on the Tree of Life and Death at Golgotha? Am I to use the fulcrums of motive? Am I to tread the ladder of a patient use of means? Let us endeavor to give some outline of an answer. Two Great Factors The two great factors, surely, in the walk of Christian sanctity are, on this side, self-surrender, on that side the personal power and influ ence of the Lord Jesus Christ in His vital, spiritual union with His ser vant and child whom He has re deemed and saved. Self-surrender, in one of its brightest and truest aspects, is just the unreserved acceptance, without a mental reservation, with out a misgiving, of this sacred and powerful Personal Influence. And it is well, delightfully well, that the soul should habituate itself to the simplest possible attitude, as its pre vailing consciousness, towards this in finitely real and blessed Person. It is well, divinely well, that in our permanently maintained submission
wholly to His holy will and pleasure, to the ordering of all our doings by His guidance, we should think and act in the main with absolute plain ness and directness; going as straight as it is possible to conceive, as a mat ter of consciousness, to Jesus Christ, and thinking as simply as possible just this—Jt is Jesus Christ who lives for me and in me. It is not well, for it surely will not work, that every such act and thought should demand a separate analysis of reasons why, and a separate use of means. I am under the powerful influence of some dear and admirable earthly friend. I thankfully feel and own the impulses he gives my thought and w ill; the strength of his sympathy, the justness of his counsel. I know, if I stop to think, that these things are what they are to me because he is what he is; and I know if I stop to think, that certain simple condi tions are needful if I would put my self beneath their power and feel their good. But, then, I am not al ways stopping to think this. He has become to me a reality which does not need perpetual analysis. It is just him; and I go to him, and come away strong where I was weak, and happy where I was sad, and pure in purpose where I was wavering. Yet, on the other hand, I am sure to feed and develop this delightful average of habit by some definite stoppings here and there to think; by earnest memory of his conduct in the past, by deliberately watching him in the present, by taking pains to ascertain his mind and will if he has expressed it for me in writing, by freely asking him to put out more and more of his personal power upon me, and by the active meeting of his known wishes. Such things will not disturb, but, as I said, enrich and deepen the happy average, the de lightful rule and habit, of personal and simple intercourse with him.
The Ulessed Average So with the soul and the Lord Jesus Christ. Continual and direct going to Him, or let us call it rest upon Him, is to be the blessed average, rule and habit; not a fitful and intermit tent thing, a glimpse of sunshine through the ponderous clouds of a winter day, but a steady ‘light to shine upon the road’ ; a ‘dwelling in the secret place’ of the Lord. We are to ask, and to expect, that His peace shall habitually keep our heart and thoughts in Him. And we are, for our inner rest and outward work alike, to think as directly and simply as possible, while we deny self and accept the daily cross, that He does the work and not us. Can we lie too simply in His hand, as our place of life and peace? Can we be too thor oughly habituated to the attitude of simply knowing, It is the Lord; I am His; He is mine? I think not. If phrases like these are not conven tional but living things, they repre sent, I believe, just that very ele ment which is needed to transform many a life from a course, may I call it, of earnest friction into one of power and peace, in which the Lord is served with a quiet mind. But, then, this does not mean that we must never stop and think. Far from it. If those blissful formulas of life are to be living things and not to become, in their turn, conven tions full of death, we shall often do well, not always, but sometimes, to stop and think. Who is He, that I should believe on Him? What has He done to me and for me, that I should live because of Him? What has He said about His personal action on me, and its modes and its meas ures? What does that mean— I am His? What does that mean—He is mine? Such stoppings for thought, if made in His presence, what will they do? They will not disturb, they will enrich and develop and pro-
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