_THE GARMENTS OF THE RENEWED SOUL._
"Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing
one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint
against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: and above
all these things put on love, which is the bond of
perfectness."--COL. iii.12-14 (Rev. Ver.).
We need not repeat what has been already said as to the logic of the
inference, You have put off the "old man," therefore put off the vices
which belong to him. Here we have the same argument in reference to the
"new man" who is to be "put on" because he has been put on. This
"therefore" rests the exhortation both on that thought, and on the
nearer words, "Christ is all and in all." Because the new nature has
been assumed in the very act of conversion, therefore array your souls
in vesture corresponding. Because Christ is all and in all, therefore
clothe yourselves with all brotherly graces, corresponding to the great
unity into which all Christians are brought by their common possession
of Christ. The whole field of Christian morality is not traversed here,
but only so much of it as concerns the social duties which result from
that unity.
But besides the foundation for the exhortations which is laid in the
possession of the "New Man," consequent on participation in Christ,
another ground for them is added in the words, "as God's elect, holy and
beloved." Those who are in Christ and are thus regenerated in Him, are
of the chosen race, are consecrated as belonging especially to God, and
receive the warm beams of the special paternal love with which He
regards the men who are in some measure conformed to His likeness and
moulded after His will. That relation to God should draw after it a life
congruous with itself--a life of active goodness and brotherly
gentleness. The outcome of it should be not mere glad emotion, nor a
hugging of one's self in one's happiness, but practical efforts to turn
to men a face lit by the same dispositions with which God has looked on
us, or as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, "Be imitators of
God, as beloved children." That is a wide and fruitful principle--the
relation to men will follow the relation to God. As we think God has
been to us, so let us try to be to others. The poorest little fishing
cobble is best guided by celestial observations, and dead reckoning
without sun or stars is but second best. Independent morality cut loose
from religion will be feeble morality. On the other hand, religion which
does not issue in morality is a ghost without substance. Religion is the
soul of morality. Morality is the body of religion, more than ceremonial
worship is. The virtues which all men know, are the fitting garments of
the elect of God.