+I. There are two ways of dealing with every vice.+--One is to set to
work directly to destroy the vice; that is the negative way. The
other is to bring in as overwhelmingly as possible the opposite
virtue, and so to crowd and stifle and drown out the vice; that is
the positive way. Everywhere the negative and positive methods of
treatment stand over against each other, and men choose between them.
A Church is full of errors and foolish practices. It is possible to
attack those follies outright, showing conclusively how foolish they
are; or it is possible, and it is surely better, to wake up the true
spiritual life in that Church which shall itself shed those follies
and cast them out, or at least rob them of their worst harmfulness.
The application of the same principle is seen in matters of taste,
matters of reform, and in matters of opinion.
+II. In St. Paul and in all the New Testament there is nothing more
beautiful than the clear, open, broad way in which the positive
culture of human character is adopted and employed.+--We can conceive
of a God standing over His moral creatures, and, whenever they did
anything wrong, putting a heavy hand on the malignant manifestation
and stifling it, and so at last bringing them to a tight, narrow,
timid goodness--the God of repression. The God of the New Testament
is not that. We can conceive of another God who shall lavish and pour
upon His children the chances and temptations to be good; in every
way shall make them see the beauty of goodness; shall so make life
identical with goodness that every moment spent in wickedness shall
seem a waste, almost a death; shall so open His Fatherhood and make
it real to them that the spontaneousness of the Father's holiness is
re-echoed in the child; not the God of restraint, but the God whose
symbols are the sun, the light, the friend, the fire--everything that
is stimulating, everything that fosters, encourages, and helps. When
we read in the New Testament, lo, that is the God whose story is
written there, the God whose glory we see in the face of Jesus
Christ. The distinction is everywhere. Not merely by trying not to
sin, but by entering further and further into the new life in which,
when it is completed, sin becomes impossible; not by merely weeding
out wickedness, but by a new and supernatural cultivation of
holiness, does the saint of the New Testament walk on the
ever-ascending pathway of growing Christliness and come at last
perfectly to Christ.
+III. This character of the New Testament must be at bottom in
conformity with human nature.+--The Bible and its Christianity are
not in contradiction against the nature of the man they try to save.
They are at war with his corruptions, and, in his own interest, they
are for ever labouring to assert and re-establish his true self.
Man's heart is always rebelling against repression as a continuous
and regular thing. There is a great human sense that not suppression,
but expression is the true life. It is the self-indulgence of the
highest and not the self-surrender of the lowest that is the great
end of the Gospel. The self-sacrifice of the Christian is always an
echo of the self-sacrifice of Christ. Nothing can be more unlike the
repressive theories of virtue in their methods and results than the
way in which Christ lived His positive life, full of force and
salvation. The way to get out of self-love is to love God. "Walk in
the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the
flesh."--_Phillips Brooks._
_The Flesh and the Spirit._
I. When St. Paul talks of man's flesh +he means by it man's body,
man's heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers+--what
we call a man's constitution, the animal part of man. Man is an
animal with an immortal spirit in it, and this spirit can feel more
than pleasure and pain; it can feel trust, hope, peace, love, purity,
nobleness, independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong.
There is the infinite difference between an animal and man, between
our flesh and our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong.
+II. There has been many a man in this life, who had every fleshly
enjoyment which this world can give, and yet whose spirit was in hell
all the while, and who knew it;+ hating and despising himself for a
mean, selfish villain, while all the world round was bowing down to
him and envying him as the luckiest of men. A man's flesh can take no
pleasure in spiritual things, while man's spirit of itself can take
no pleasure in fleshly things. Wickedness, like righteousness, is a
spiritual thing. If a man sins, his body is not in fault; it is his
spirit, his weak, perverse will, which will sooner listen to what his
flesh tells him is pleasant than to what God tells him is right. This
is the secret of the battle of life.
+III. Because you are all fallen creatures there must go on in you
this sore lifelong battle between your spirit and your flesh+--your
spirit trying to be master and guide, and your flesh rebelling and
trying to conquer your spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox
in cunning, a peacock in vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. It is your
sin and your shame if your spirit does not conquer your flesh, for
God has promised to help your spirit. Ask Him, and His Spirit will
fill you with pure, noble hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and with
deep, unselfish love to God and man; and instead of being the
miserable slave of your own passions, and of the opinions of your
neighbours, you will find that where the Spirit of the Lord is there
is liberty, true freedom, not only from your neighbours' sins, but,
what is far better, freedom from your own.--_C. Kingsley._
_Walking in the Spirit._
+I. The Spirit is a Divine nature, quality, or condition whereby we
are made conformable to Christ.+--1. _It is a rich and liberal grace
of God._ It contains the seeds of all virtues. 2. _Its largeness._
The Spirit is in all the powers of them who are regenerate in mind,
conscience, will, affections, and in the sensual appetite. 3. _Its
sincerity._ The grace of God is without falsehood or guile. 4. _Its
excellency._ The spirit of grace in Christians is more excellent than
the grace of creation, in respect of the beginning thereof, and in
respect of constancy. 5. _Its liveliness,_ whereby the Spirit is
effectual in operation. (1) The Spirit works in and by the Word of
God. (2) Works by degrees, to make us feel our need of Christ, and to
kindle in us a desire for reconciliation with God. (3) Works to write
the law in our hearts.
+II. Walking in the Spirit is to order our lives according to the
direction and motion of the Spirit.+--1. _The Spirit renews our
nature._ (1) Makes us put a further beginning to our actions than
nature can, causing us to do them in faith. (2) To do our actions in
a new manner, in obedience to the Word. (3) Makes us put on a new end
to our actions--to intend and desire to honour God. 2. _We must
become spiritual men._ Must do things lawful in a spiritual manner.
3. _We must not judge any man's estate before God by any one or some
few actions,_ good or bad, but by his walking, by the course of his
life.--_Perkins._