God's Perfect Will
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Fleming II. Revell Comi*anv
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
God's Perfect Will
y
BY
Rev. G. CAMPBELL morgan
AUTHOR OF
"GOD'S METHODS WITH MAN," "LIFE PROBLEMS,
"WHEREIN HAVE WE ROBBED GOD?" "THE
SPIRIT OF GOD," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evrxncjelical Literature
THE
KiZvV u,.,:;
PUBLIC LIBRARY i
91
j03i
ASTOR
, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUiN'DATlONS j
R
1919 L
Copyright, iqoi,
BY
Fleming H. Revell Company
(May)
To
MY FOUR CHURCHES
Stone
Rugeley
Birmingham: Westminster Road
l^ondon: New Court
All of which have in varied ways contributed to the
making of the ministry which has endeavoured
to express some of the music wnicn lies
within the inexhaustible theme of
GOD'S PERFECT WILL
For their patience^ their help^ their affect i07t, I shall
thank God — if I rightly understand the
unseen things— for ever
G. Campbell Morgan
" Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of
Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for
you in his prayers, that ye may stand perfect
and fully assured in all the will of God."
COLOSSIANS iv. 12.
Contents
PAGE
Prologue ....
II
GOD'S PERFECT WILL
The Message of the Old Testament
. 19
The Message of the New Testament
. 29
A Threefold Demand
49
Provides Perfection
^S
Procures Pleasure
. 75
Promises Perpetuity
. 87
Practicable because of its Nature
. 99
Practicable becaiise Revealed
. Ill
Practicable by New Life .
. 123
The Ultimate Realization
. 135
Epilogue ... 1
. 151
The Supreme Subject
I worship Thee, sweet Will of God !
And all Thy ways adore ;
And every day I live, I seem
To love Thee more and more.
" Man's weakness, wahing upon God,
Its end can never miss,
For men on earth no work can do
More angel-like than this.
" Ride on, ride on triumphantly,
Thou glorious Will, ride on !
Fa'th's pilgrim sons behind T.-iee takfe
The road that Thou hast gone.
" He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost ;
God's Will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.
** 111, that He blesses, is our good,
And unblcst good is ill ;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet Will."
F. W. Faber.
GOD'S PERFECT WILL
PROLOGUE
THE SUPREME SUBJECT
There is no phrase more often in use
in Christian thought and speech than that
of "The Will of God." It constantly
recurs in our reading of Scripture; our
hymns are very many of them concerned
with it ; and in prayer we give utterance
to it again and again.
This familiarity has in some measure
robbed us of a keen sense of its vital im-
portance. Its meaning is all too little
realized. In common with many of the
most sacred things, it has largely become
a kind of fetish that is worshipped because
TI
God's Perfect Will
it has a sound of piety; while the fact
that it is the supreme subject of revela-
tion, and the one and only abiding law of
life, is forgotten. Notions that are false
in themselves, and, therefore, pernicious
in their effects, are held concerning it.
These are not the result of thought, but
rather of the lack of thought. There are
many who imagine that the Will of God
is something apart from human interests,
to which men are to be resigned whenever
they happen to be brought into contact
with it. Frances Ridley Havergal said
that " there is always a sigh of regret in
resignation." This is perfectly true ; and
that conception of the Will of God which
looks upon it as a Divine interference to
which we are to be resigned, is evil in its
effects. How many there are who only
think of their relation to the Will of God
in times of sorrow and trial. They are
12
The Supreme Subject
perfectly sincere, therefore, when they
sing—
" If Thou shouldst call me to resign
What most I prized — it ne'er was mine ;
I only yield Thee what was Thine :
Thy will be done ! "
Yet the very words of the hymn reveal
the fact that the singer does not truly
understand the safety, the blessedness,
the delight of dwelling in the circle of the
Divine Will.
The one and only law of life that sets
a man free from all the forces that blight
and destroy is the Will of God. Show
me a man who lives for one day wholly,
utterly, in word and thought and deed in
the Will of God, and I will show you a
man who is antedating heaven, and who
for that day reaches the plane of life
which is at once broadest, freest, and
gladdest.
13
God's Perfect Will
The word of God is given to man not
that he may have a correct theory, but
that he may have the truth. Truth is a
sanctifying force, and a man holds the
truth only when he is held by the truth.
When truth possesses a man, all its glory
and beauty are manifested through his
life and character. The truth the Bible
reveals is the Will of God for man.
Sanctification by truth is the bringing of
man into the Will of God.
" The means of grace " are means to
an end, that end being the realization of
the Will of God. Every one of them
tends to that issue.
" The hope of glory " is the hope that
ultimately the Will of God will be done
upon the earth as in the heaven, or that
the spirit of man, passing into the heav-
enly state, shall realize all the full bless-
edness of that Will.
14
The Supreme Subject
All prayer lies within the two petitions
of the pattern prayer the Master taught
His disciples : *' Thy kingdom come ;
Thy will be done." There is no prayer
beyond that. It may be divided into sen-
tences and syllables, and made to fit the
necessity of the hour; but when prayer
moves the heart of God, it is because it is
confined within that compass.
Allow your imagination to carry you
back to the past ages. Amid the silences
of that immeasurable eternity you are
conscious of perfect peace, perfect happi-
ness, perfect love. The explanation is to
be found in the fact that the Will of God
was perfectly done. None can declare
the genesis of evil, but its nature is clearly
known — it is rebellion against the Will of
God. The mystery of how that first came
to be, is absolutely inscrutable, but the
fact is established beyond question.
IS
God's Perfect Will
We are but infinitesimal portions of
the universe of God, but the being of the
smallest particle of created things is con-
ditioned in His Will, and its success or
failure depends upon its realization of, or
failure to realize, that Will. The su-
preme subject in every life, then, is that
His Will should be discovered and
obeyed.
To-day we are hearing much on every
hand on such subjects as the filling of the
Spirit, holiness, power for service. This
is cause for gratitude ; but, after all, these
are means to an end, and that end is the
Will of God. A Spirit-filled man is a
most glorious being; but by that condi-
tion he has not reached the goal, he has
only become equipped for fulfilling the
essential of his life. Holiness is to be
sought and found. A holy man is not,
i6
The Supreme Subject
however, to rest in his hoHness. It is
health for perpetual obedience. Power
for service is a great blessing, but service
as response to the Will of God is the su-
preme matter.
The most vital consideration for every
human life is as to whether we are, and
do, that which accords with the Will of
God.
John declares (i John ii. 17) that the
doing of the Will of God is the condition
of permanence amid the perishing and
passing of the world. We are conscious
that all around is perishing ; yea, and we
ourselves, as to bodily powers, pass away.
We are also conscious of a passionate de-
sire for permanence. The possessive pro-
nouns are at once a revelation of that de-
sire, and a confession of weakness. " My
house " ; and it is gone ! " My child " ;
17
God*s Perfect Will
and it is dead ! There is permanence
only in the Will of God, and there only
can we fully use the possessive pron^^un,
" My Lord and my God."
i8
The Message ot the Old Testament
" When people read, ' The law came by-
Moses, but grace and truth by Christ,' do
they suppose it means that the law was
ungracious and uritrue? The law was given
for a foundation; the grace (or mercy) and
truth for fulfiknent; — the whole forming one
glorious Trinity of judgment, mercy, and
truth. And if people would but read the text
of their Bibles with heartier purpose of under-
standing it, instead of superstitiously, they
would see that throughout the parts which they
are intended to make most personally their own
(the Psalms), it is always the Law which is
spoken of with chief joy. The Psalms respect-
ing mercy are often sorrowful, as in thought of
what it cost; but those respecting the law are
always lull of delight. David cannot contain
himself for joy in thinking of it — he is never
weary of its praise : — * How love I Thy law !
it is my meditation all the day. Thy testi-
monies are my delight and my counsellors ;
sweeter, also, than honey and the honeycomb.' "
RusKiN ("Modern Painters").
THE MESSAGE OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT
The Old Testament declares the be-
ginnings of created things, and gives us
the history of the race from Creation to
four hundred years prior to the coming
of Christ. The underlying current of
truth running through all its pages has
to do with the one subject of the Will of
God. Let the panorama of life move
before the eye of the mind. Note well
its darkness and light, its places of agony
and of rapture. Mark the deeds which
appal, and the heroisms which thrill.
From beginning to end, the character of
the picture is determined by the relation
21
God's Perfect Will
of men or nations to the Will of God.
This is the great message of the Old
Testament, that all the rivers that have
made sad the life of man have had their
source in his departure from that " good
and perfect and acceptable Will of
God " ; and all the streams that have
made glad the probationary pilgrimage
of individuals, or the cities wherein men
have dwelt, have sprung from the throne
of God, which is the seat of His govern-
ment.
The historical books tell the story of
the wandering of man from God again
and again, and show how all such wan-
dering issued in disaster. They also re-
veal the one unending purpose of God to
bring man back into harmony with that
Will. The methods were many ; the in-
tention one. The devout of all the ages
breathed, if not in words yet in spirit, the
22
The Message of the Old Testament
same prayer — " Thy kingdom come ; Thy
will be done." The very essence of evil
lay in the rebellion of the human heart
against that Kingdom and that Will.
The devotional books are all occupied
with the same theme. The songs find
their keynote in the kinghood and throne
of God. *' The Lord reigneth." *' Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever."
These and kindred phrases tell the char-
acter of the music. When the song is of
human experience at its best, it is ever
of the joy and peace to be found in the
law of God. " Oh how I love Thy
law." " Thy commandment is exceeding
broad." When the music becomes a
dirge, it is because in individual or na-
tional life God has been forgotten.
" When I kept silence my bones waxed
old through my roaring." " The fool
hath said in his heart, There is no
23
God's Perfect Will
God." Or, if you read aright the pray-
ers, they are all part and parcel of the
aspiration of man, after a realization of
the Divine purpose and pathway. " Teach
me to do Thy will, O God." "Make
haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation."
The prophetic books have a like sig-
nificance. The burden that oppressed
these men, until they delivered them-
selves in words of flaming fire, was a
burden of Di^'^ne judgment and govern-
ment. Natiotis that had forgotten God
were called back to allegiance. Nations
persisting in their w^aywardness were
told of their doom. The perpetual cry
of the prophets was, " Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts, and let him return to
the Lord." These men spake as the
oracles of God, without fear or faltering,
and their message was ever a '* Thus
24
The Message of the Old Testament
saith the Lord " ; and the secret of their
daring and devotion the fact that each
could say, " The Lord, before Whom I
stand."
Or if we take another method of con-
sidering the message of the Old Testa-
ment, we shall arrive at the same result.
Range before your vision all the hosts of
the men of all the centuries. They stand
now in imagination like a long chain of
hills stretching far back to the first man
Adam — " which was the son of God."
Such an outlook at once reveals certain
men that stand out from among their fel-
lows, their heads raised above them,
capped with the pure snows, and catch-
ing first and keeping last the light of the
sun. Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abra-
ham, Moses, David, Elijah, and others
that space forbids our naming. What
makes the difiference between these and
25
God's Perfect Will
their fellows ? In every case the measure
of their superiority is the measure of
their understanding of, and obedience to,
the Will of God.
Adam erect, is so because he fulfils
the purpose of God. Abel received, is so
because he lives a life God-centred rather
than self-centred. Enoch's distinction is
revealed in his brief biography, " Enoch
walked with God." Noah, also, amid the
most appalling corruption, believed God,
and was saved in the works of obedience
that grew out of his faith. Abraham be-
came the father of the faithful because
he went out, not knowing whither he
went, confident alone in the wisdom and
Tightness of the word of God. Moses,
having himself learned to wait for the
guidance of God, gave the world a code
of ethics which remains the foundation
of morality to this day, because it was
26
The Message of the Old Testament
first written with the finger of God.
David's memory is revered more for his
harp than his crown, and that because,
through it, he sang of the law of his God.
EHjah still stands as the type of rough,
magnificent character, because he was
the messenger of law to an apostate
age. These were all great, inasmuch as
they abode in the Will of God ; and the
things that smirch the escutcheon of
each, were of the nature of disobedience
or wandering from the Divinely-marked
pathway.
Thus, from the song of new-born earth
to the fiery warning of Malachi, the Old
Testament brings us face to face with
the supreme subject.
The Message of the New Testament
Thou wert the end, the blessed rule
Of Jesu's toils and tears;
Thou wert the passion of His heart,
Those three-and-thirty years."
F. W. Faber.
THE MESSAGE OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT
II
If the Old Testament is occupied with
the Will of God as its supreme subject,
the New Testament is in all its parts an
unveiling and exposition thereof, both as
to nature and possibility.
For the purpose of a general survey,
we shall divide the New Testament into
its three principal sections of historic,
didactic, and prophetic books. These in-
clude—
1. Historic. The Gospels and Acts.
2. Didactic. The Epistles.
3. Prophetic. The Revelation.
In the first we have the story of the life
31
God's Perfect Will
of Jesus, and the first chapter in His
larger life resulting from the work He
accomplished. Also His teaching, con-
taining unified truth, which became clear
in the subsequent light of the Spirit's
teaching.
•In the second we have the unfolding
of truth for the individual believer and
the Church, by men indwelt and inspired
by the Holy Spirit.
In the third we have, for the most part,
visions of the closing scenes of the pres-
ent dispensation and the accomplishment
of Divine purposes through Divine
power.
In all of these the subject is the Will of
God.
The life of Jesus realized it, and His
teaching declared its nature and neces-
sity. The men whose doings are recorded
in the Acts lived wholly in, and only for,
32
The Message of the New Testament
that Will. The consummation of all is
the triumph of righteousness and love by
the complete submission of humanity
thereto.
I. Historic.
Taking these in the order named, we
come first to the historic books. The
roots of the New are in the Old. We
therefore go back to the Psalms for the
keynote of these books. " Sacrifice and
oflfering Thou hast no delight in ; mine
ears hast Thou opened: burnt oflfering
and sin oflfering hast Thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I am come; in the roll
of the book it is written of me : I de-
light to do Thy zvill, O my God." None
will deny that this belongs to the New
Testament, for we are agreed that these
words had their perfect fulfilment in the
person and experience of Jesus.
God's Perfect Will
Underlying everything in the fourfold
Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John is the perpetual sounding of this
note of perfect music, " I delight to do
Thy will, O my God." In the life of
Jesus it was the reason for all He did,
and the inspiration of all He said.
Whether living as a boy in His mother's
liome, or working as a man at His trade
of carpenter; whether going to the Jor-
dan for baptism, or to the wilderness for
temptation; whether preaching to the
crowds, or working wonders of love
among the needy — His life was perpetu-
ally filled with delight in the Will of God.
Once only in the history of the human
race has there been a life true to the Di-
vine ideal. That was the life of Jesus.
When His mother found Him in the
Temple, He said to her, " Wist ye not
that T must be in My Father's house ? "
34
The Message of the New Testament
(Luke ii. 49). His Father's Will for
Him was that He should be a disciple
among the teachers of His people, and
that was the explanation of His tarrying
behind at Jerusalem.
When He faced and overcame tempta-
tion, He did so in the strength of the fact
that " Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God" (Matt. iv. 4).
And when His disciples urged Him upon
one occasion to eat, He replied, " My
meat is to do the will of Him that sent
Me, and to accomplish His work " (John
iv. 34). He needed bread; but the su-
preme necessity was that He should do
the Will of God. That was the suste-
nance of His deepest life. In reply to the
criticisms of His enemies. He dared to
say, " He that sent Me is with Me ; He
hath not left Me alone ; for I do always
35
God's Perfect Will
the things that are pleasing to Him "
(John viii. 29).
The Will of God was equally the sum
and substance of His teaching. Indeed,
it is impossible to separate between His
teuching and Himself. He said, " I am
th«^ Truth," not " I teach the truth."
When I see what He is, I know what He
is going to teach me; and when I hear
what He teaches, I know what He is.
His Sermon on the Mount is the
Magna Charta of the Will of God, the
most wonderful words that ever fell on
the ears of man.
'' Happy! " (Matt. v. 3). That is the
first of them, and it is the keynote of all
that follows, declaring immediately what
is the Will of God for man. In solemn
words He sets the doing of that Will at
the very wicket of the kingdom, not as
pass-word — there are no words that will
36
The Message of the New Testament
pass men into heaven's kingdom — but as
the condition upon which men may enter :
'' Not every one that saith unto Me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of
My Father which is in heaven" (Matt,
vii. 21 ) ; and closes with that most won-
derful claim for Himself, " Every one,
therefore, which heareth these words of
Mine, and doeth them, shall be likened
unto a wise man, which built his house
upon the rock" (Matt. vii. 24).
Thus the Gospels unveil the perfect
ideal in life and teaching of the man
who does the Will of God.
The Acts of the Apostles opens with
the significant words, " The former trea-
tise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all
that Jesus began both to do and to
teach" (Acts i. i). The reference Luke
makes to a " former treatise " is of
God's Perfect Will
course to his Gospel, and he declares
\hat Gospel to be the story of begin-
nings only. The inference is that the
second treatise is a story of continuation ;
and this we discover to be so as we read,
for the history is one of the doing of the
Will of God by Spirit-filled men. What
men they were ! They moved the world !
Study that wonderful fifth chapter. What
a state the priests were in! Nothing so
troubles the priest as to come in contact
with men doing the Will of God. They
said to Peter and the rest, " We straitly
charged you not to teach in this name:
and behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with
your teaching" (Acts v. 28). There is
no finer testimony to apostolic work on
record. A mere handful of men had
filled Jerusalem with their teaching, and
it was teaching that gripped, for the
priests continued — '* and intend to bring
38
The Message of the New Testament
this Man's blood upon us " (Acts v.
28).
In Peter's answer, in a brief sentence
he reveals the secret of these phenomena
that so perplexed and baffled the priests,
''We must obey God!" (Acts v. 29).
That is the secret. These men shook
kingdoms to their foundations and
turned the world upside down, their ene-
mies being witness ; and the reason of
their success lay in their abandonment to
the Will of God.
II. Didactic.
Turning to the didactic writings, we
find the same great theme in all. Take
illustrations from the writings of Peter,
James, and John.
I. Peter. " Forasmuch then as Christ
sufifered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves
also with the same mind; for he that
30
God's Perfect Will
hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased
from sin ; that ye no longer should live
the rest of your time in the flesh to the
lusts of men, but to the will of God"
(i Pet. iv. I, 2). That is Peter's concep-
tion of the meaning of the Christ-life.
2. James. '" Go to now, ye that say,
To-day or to-morrow we will go into this
city, and spend a year there, and trade,
and get gain : whereas ye know not what
shall be on the morrow. What is your
life? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
For that ye ought to say, // the Lord
zvill, we shall both live^ and do this or
that" (James iv. 13-15). James does
not deny that we have to make arrange-
ments for to-day and to-morrow. He
insists that concerning them all we should
say, " If the Lord will."
3. John. '^'The world passeth away,
40
The Message of the New Testament
and the lust thereof: but he that doeth
the zvill of God abideth for ever " ( i
John ii. 17). John declares the Will of
God to be the place of permanence, and
all outside that Will is doomed to perish.
From these turn to the Pauline letters,
and still the theme is the same : " I be-
seech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
v^hich is your reasonable service. And
be not fashioned according to this world :
but be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that ye may prove what is
the good and acceptable and perfect will
of God" (Rom. xii. i, 2). The apostle's
object in calling us to surrender our-
selves is that wr may prove the goodness,
acceptability, and perfectness of the Will
of God.
" For this cause we also, since the day
41
God's Perfect Will
we heard it, do not cease to pray and
make request for you, that ye may be
filled with the knozvicdgc of His icill in
all spiritual wisdom and understanding "
(Col. i. 9). That is the burden of his
prayer — not for Colossian believers only,
but also for all those in whom he was
interested.
The distinctive glory of the letter to
the Hebrews is that it deals with the
bringing in of " better things " which
shall make men " perfect in every good
thing to do His zvill" (Heb. xiii. 21).
Jude looks forward in his doxology to
that day in which the Church shall be
presented '' before the presence of His
glory without blemish in exceeding joy "
(Jude 24).
All these writers agree, that the Will
of God fulfilled in human life is the pur-
42
The Message of the New Testament
pose of Christ in His people, and through
His people in the world.
HI. Prophetic.
Lastly, we turn to the prophetic book
of the Revelation. Of this there are
many interpretations, but there are points
of perfect agreement. To one of these
we now come. " And the four and
twenty elders and the four living crea-
tures fell down and worshipped God that
sitteth on the throne, saying, Amen;
Hallelujah. And a voice came forth
from the throne, saying. Give praise to
our God, all ye His servants, ye that fear
Him, the small and the great. And I
heard as it were the voice of a great mul-
titude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thunders, say-
ing. Hallelujah ; for the Lord our God.
43
God's Perfect Will
the Almighty, reign eth " (Rev. xix. 4-
6). Differences of opinion exist as to
the methods by which that glorious con-
summation is to be reached, but we all
believe the time is coming when the Lord
God Omnipotent shall reign and His
Will be done. "Amen; Hallelujah."
These words reveal the source of the
blessedness of that glad day. God on the
throne, and humanity saying " Amen "
in consent, and " Hallelujah " in praise.
We commenced this study in the
Psalms. Let us return there for a mo-
ment in conclusion. " Save us, O Lord
our God, and gather us from among the
nations, to give thanks unto Thy holy
name, and to triumph in Thy praise.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting even to everlasting : and
let all the people say, Amen, Hallelujah "
(Ps. cvi. 47, 48, margin). Now read
44
The Message of the New Testament
again the song of the Apocalypse, " And
the four and twenty elders and the four
living creatures fell down and wor-
shipped God that sitteth on the throne,
saying. Amen; Hallelujah" (Rev. xix.
4). Ransomed and redeemed humanity
saying " Amen " — so be it, to the Will of
God ; and after the Amen, *' Hallelu-
jah " — praise the Lord.
That is the consummation. The Old
prays for it; the New predicts and pre-
pares for it. We may dream dreams of
its splendour, but no dream can compass
the reality, it is too great. Humanity,
in every beating pulse, every fibre of its
being, every drawing breath, saying
" Amen " to the Will of God, " Hallelu-
jah " to His government.
Thus Old and New, the one Bible,
declares that the Divine Will is the only
law of human life that satisfies the heart
45
God's Perfect Will
of God and ensures the well-being of
man.
This very fact is that which gives su-
preme importance to Holy Scripture, and
should condition all attempts to study it.
There is, undoubtedly, room for devout
criticism, study of the question of dates,
and authorship ; and there should ever be
the widest toleration for different inter-
pretations of many of the mysteries dealt
with, which are, after all, beyond the
possibility of full and final statement.
To treat the Bible, however, as literature
merely, or to read it with a view to for-
mulating certain systems of belief, is to
fail to realize its highest value, or to
touch its deepest significance.
On its every page there is unfolded
something of the Divine order, method,
and purpose in the government of man.
While the chronicles reveal the fault and
46
The Message of the New Testament
failures of sinning men, all through
there moves the Spirit of God, revealing
the fact of His Kingship; and in every
message of Psalmist, Seer, or Prophet,
there is the unmistakable call to loyalty
and obedience.
It is only as this is remembered, and
the study of the Book is approached
with sincere desire to discover the pur-
pose of God in human life, and the laws
which make that purpose possible of real-
ization, that the Book answers its high-
est intention.
47
A Threefold Demand
** The steps of the way I know not,
But my Leader I know full well ;
My hand is in His, I fear not —
In the depths of His peace I dwell.
He knows where He leads ; I know not,
But I trust in His love each day :
My heart is His own ; I fear not,
For the way is my Lord's highway.
" The hours may seem dark and dreary,
But His presence my life shall cheer;
The night may seem sad and weary.
But I know that my Lord is near.
One step at a time He shows me,
And I know that the rest He hides,
That love may the better show me
How in safety His mercy guides,
"I wait, in His will abiding;
I rejoice, for His strength sustains;
I trust in His word confiding ;
And of doubt not one trace remains.
And never comes pain or sadness
But to hasten the sunlit morn ;
Then grief shall give way to gladness,
Then never a sigh be born."
E. G. Wellesley- Wesley
("Songs of the Heart").
A THREEFOLD DEMAND
III
In our previous studies we have seen
that the supreme subject of Scripture is
the Will of God. As a revelation to man,
it declares that human life is only per-
fectly conditioned as it discovers that
Will, and yields implicit obedience
thereto. In the present study we shall
ask certain questions from the standpoint
of conscious human need. Let it be
granted that law in some form is a neces-
sity ; that anarchy of individual or social
being is chaos and confusion; the ques-
tion at once arises as to the highest and
best law possible. A rough-and-ready
division of the mass of men to-day will
reveal three classes.
-SI
God's Perfect Will
First, there are those who are the
slaves of others. Human opinion is the
test of all their doing and speaking. Con-
ventionality holds them in an iron grip.
They will do, or refuse to do, anything
according to the opinion of some one
else. The habit of the crowd becomes
the rule of life. Or it may be that some
one person is looked to as lawgiver ; that
person being sometimes called priest, at
others teacher. The craving is for au-
thority outside one's own personality;
and this is sought in many ways.
Then there are those who affect to de-
spise the opinion of others, and are
openly and avowedly self-confident.
They care not what others do, they are
capable of making their own programme,
conducting their own affairs. These are
the people who make time-tables for
themselves and form resolutions and sur-
52
A Threefold Demand
round themselves with a whole sy.stem of
self-created safety laws.
Lastly, there are those who decHne to
be governed by the opinion of others,
and who have absolutely abandoned at-
tempting to control themselves by self-
made programmes and regulations, and
whose whole lives are conditioned in the
prayer of the Psalmist of old : " Teach
me to do Thy Will; for Thou art my
God" (Psa. cxHii. lo).
The test as to which of these is really
the highest law of life is to be found
within the consciousness of man himself.
There are certain aspirations of the hu-
man heart which are ever present. They
may be distorted or dwarfed, but in some
form they abide as the necessary and
unalterable desires of human nature.
The law of life which realizes and satis-
fies these, to the fullest possible extent,
53
God's Perfect Will
iimst of necessity be the best. These
aspirations may be summarized under
three heads — Perfection, Pleasure, Per-
petuity.
I. Perfection.
The first aspiration of every human
life is for Perfection. How strange and
inexplicable, by the way, is the fear some
excellent people have of the word. With
what bated breath, and what aloofness
of fear, is one often asked if one really
believes in Christian perfection. And
yet what else can one believe in who be-
lieves in Christ? Try other phrases —
Christian imperfection, for instance.
Will not some one explain that for us?
Or. if you prefer, take another form of
the negative — imperfect Christianity.
Alas, yes, there is much of it ; but who
will say they believe in it? Let us have
done with this unholy fear of a phrase,
54
A Threefold Demand
and at once say that nothing can satisfy
the deepest demand of our human nature
except its perfection. It is the common
passion of the race, often partially real-
ized and constantly abused, but perpetu-
ally present.
Who is there that would not immedi-
ately secure physical perfection if that
were possible? To be vigorous, propor-
tioned, and beautiful, would be a bless-
ing no sane person would despise. Men-
tal perfection is much less coveted be-
cause harder to attain, yet none would
refuse to make some effort to attain it
if it were within measurable distance.
Spiritual perfection is alas most neg-
lected, probably because it moves on the
highest plane ; yet no person, upon calm
reflection, would deUberately reject this
if they were once convinced of its ac-
cessibility.
55
God's Perfect Will
This, then, is the first demand by
which we propose to test any law or
philosophy of life. It must be of such a
nature as to ensure the ultimate perfec-
tion of our being, not on one side merely,
but in its tripartite character of spirit,
soul, and body.
II. Pleasure.
The second demand is for Pleasure.
This is a perfectly legitimate demand,
because it comes out of the deepest ne-
cessities of human nature, and is common
to men everywhere, under most diversi-
fied conditions of life. In all ages, in all
lands, and under all circumstances of
life, man desires and seeks after happi-
ness. It is very doubtful if a single ex-
ception can be found to this rule in the
ranks of the human family. We occa-
sionally hear of such a thing as misan-
56
A Threefold Demand
thropy; and some there are who even
venture to affirm that they have seen a
misanthrope. Some of us have never
had such a sorrowful experience, thank
God!
There are men who seem to have no
fellowship with the ordinary pursuits of
pleasure, and are devoid of humor of a
certain kind; but it has been discovered
often that in some hidden and least ex-
pected place they have had their treasure-
house of happiness. That it was not of
the nature of the things that make other
men happy does not matter for a mo-
ment. Even if it be granted that there
are some human beings who are all that
is intended by the word misanthrope,
the true facts of their condition are
quaintly revealed in the saying that they
are only happy when miserable, for out
of their discontent they are attempting
57
God's Perfect Will
to minister to the universal craving for
pleasure.
Man v^as not made for sorrow. It is,
we believe, a Divine ministrant of bless-
ing, and in many cases precedes glad-
ness ; but the transient character of sor-
row in the purpose of God is marked by
the glorious promise that He will wipe
all tears away. The heart of man was
made for peace, and joy, and love; and
through all the foolish blundering of
popular pleasure-seeking, it is after these
men seek.
By this also, therefore, we test the
laws of life that are proposed to us.
They must secure for us the highest and
fullest pleasure ; not that which is unsub-
stantial and evanescent, but the deep and
the abiding; and the law which most per-
fectly does this is the best, and to it we
will yield our wholehearted allegiance.
58
A Threefold Demand
III. Perpetuity.
The last demand is that of Perpetuity.
Man is everywhere, and at all times, and
in every way, at war w^ith decay. The
hatred of death, and the loathing of the
grave, mark the fact that man has capa-
city for life, and therefore feels rebellious
against the faintest suggestion of its ces-
sation.
How men strive after perpetuity ! The
search of old for the elixir of life was a
pathetic proof of this craving; and in
cases where men have been unable to
hope for actual continuity of being, they
have sought to perpetuate their exist-
ence in the memory of others by writ-
ings and works, and even by monuments
erected.
We cry out for the beyond. Horizons
are always a menace to our peace. We
crave the infinite. Deeply conscious of
59
God's Perfect Will
the perishing nature of everything
around us ; seeing the dark sentence,
*' passing away," writ large upon our
most valued treasures, and feeling our-
selves ceaselessly moving through the
pages of our life's story to the dreaded
word FINIS — we sigh, and sob, and fret,
and demand some place that passes not;
some treasure that vanishes not away;
some secret of being that will enable us
to say. We abide, masters of death.
True it is, that thousands of us seem
to float easily through the days, uncon-
scious of these cravings, content to drift
and not to know. Yet this is but false
seeming. Carefully observe the first or-
dinary, every-day, matter-of-fact man
in any crowd in any city, in any land.
Keep close to him, that you may watch
him. Presently, in a moment of loneli-
ness, when the things unseen come near
60
A Threefold Demand
in overwhelming reahty, or when he
faces death and feels it imminent, or
when some cherished hope is suddenly
blighted, that man will lift his eyes and
gaze wistfully toward the future. In
those eyes shine the light of his true be-
ing, and the passion for perpetuity is re-
vealed as being the true and perpetual
sub-consciousness of his life.
That law of life which could answer
that demand, and make man master of
all the forces of disintegration and de-
cay, is assuredly the highest and the best ;
and when we find it, to it we will aban-
don ourselves with whole-hearted devo-
tion.
Thus standing within the realm of my
own being, turning a deaf ear for the
moment to all the babel of outside voices,
I hear the speech of my true life, and
learn its deepest demands ; and I sol-
6i
God's Perfect Will
emnly, deliberately, and positively de-
clare that if the Will of God for man be,
as the Bible declares it to be, the highest
philosophy of human life, it must meet
this threefold demand, and secure to me
the perfection of my being, the highest
and abiding pleasure, and that victory
over the elements of death and decay
which shall ensure my perpetuity.
In three subsequent chapters we shall
endeavour to show that this is exactly
what the Will of God does, and what
any other law of life fails to do. In con-
cluding the present study, it will be suffi-
dent to summarize the subjects of the
next three thus :
I. God's Will is perfect, because by
Him man was created, and He
therefore is alone able to make
such laws as shall ensure man's
perfection.
62
A Threefold Demand
2. God's Will is perfect, because He is
love, and Love only can make
laws for man which will provide
him with perfect pleasure.
3. God's Will is perfect, because He is,
and the Eternal alone can make
laws which take in all the past,
present, and future, so as to se-
cure perpetuity.
63
Provides Perfection
*' Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, who have not seen Thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace.
Believing where we cannot prove.
" Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute ;
Thou madest Death : and lo, Thy foot
Is on the skull which Thou hast made.
*' Thou wilt not leave us in the dust :
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die ;
And Thou hast made him : Thou art just.
'* Thou seemest human and divine.
The highest, holiest manhood, Thou;
Our wills are ours, we know not how ;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."
Tennyson ("In Memoriam").
PROVIDES PERFECTION
IV
In considering the threefold demand
dealt with in the last chapter, we come
first in order to the demand for perfec-
tion. The answer of the Will of God to
that demand may be briefly stated.
God's Will is perfect, because by
Him man was created, and He,
therefore, is alone able to make
such laws as shall ensure man's
perfection.
This is coming down to a statement of
the simplest kind. We all profess to be-
lieve that God has given us our being,
and in a deep conviction of that truth
lies the reason why we should yield our-
67
God's Perfect Will
selves wholly to His government in order
that we may attain perfection of being.
Perhaps it is necessary to emphasize
this initial fact, for oftentimes the teach-
er's greatest difficulty is to get men to ac-
cept the truth of the truth they accept.
When Daniel, as the interpreter of the
Divine message to Belshazzar, named the
sin of that monarch which was about to
be punished, he did not mention the sins
of impurity, drunkenness, or sacrilege,
though of all these he had been guilty.
He declared the sin which lies at the root
of all sins, because it has to do with
man's relation to God — " The God in
Whose hand thy breath is, and Whose
are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified "
(Dan. V. 23). In that charge we are
reminded of the fact that our very being,
in all its powers and possibiHties, is of
Divine origin.
68
Provides Perfection
Paul, preaching to the Athenians on
Mars' Hill, makes the same statement, in
terms, if possible, more explicit — " In
Him we live, and move, and have our
being" (Acts xvii. 28). We are the
creation of God. Spirit, soul, and body,
each in its own possibility; and the one
being, resulting from the union, is the
result of Divine conception and creation.
Every human being is a concrete thought
of God. God therefore knows the po-
tentiality of each of us, and the line of
our development, and it is only as we are
able to discover His Will and obey it,
that we shall move along the one to the
full realization of the other.
The folly of conditioning conduct by
the thoughts or wishes of other human
beings is apparent in the light of this
fact. To the declaration of John that
*' No man hath seen God at any time "
69
God's Perfect Will
(John i. i8), we all agree. Not so
readily do we assent to the assertion that
no man hath seen man at any time, yet it
is equally true. The outward form and
tone of voice are familiar, but my essen-
tial friend who tabernacles in the body
I touch, and conveys his thought through
the medium of the speech I hear, I have
never yet seen. No man knows perfectly
and completely his fellow-man. The
mother that bore me, the wife of my
heart, the children of my love, do not
know me. They are all familiar with
the sound of my voice, the touch of my
hand, and the fall of my foot on the stair ;
but all the deeps that lie behind, held for
ever sacred from the possibility of in-
trusion, of these they have no final and
complete knowledge.
And yet, forsooth, we are perpetually
in danger of taking our law of life from
70
Provides Perfection
the opinion of some mortal who has no
adequate knowledge of the perils and
possibiHties of our complex nature. Oh,
the folly of it! As well let the black-
smith repair our watch, or the collier
tune our harp, as allow man, ignorant
of the essence and intention of our com-
plex life, to arrange for its conduct. The
interference of a human being between
another and God is an impertinence and a
blasphemy, whatever the name by which
the interferer is called, whether it be
priest, or teacher, or friend.
Equally foolish is man's attempt to
govern himself, for it is equally true that
no man has seen himself, neither does
any man know himself. The old Greek
philosopher said his last and best thing
when he said, '' Man, know thyself," be-
cause he thus brought man face to face
with the impossible; and when a man is
71
God's Perfect Will
brought there, he is in the place where it
is possible for him to acquaint himself
with God and be at peace.
In our younger days we imagine that
we know the possibilities of our being,
and are able to plan and arrange the
whole line of progress. The years are
startling revealers. As they pass, we dis-
cover new powers for good and evil that
had lain dormant within, and of which
we had absolutely no consciousness until
some crisis aroused and called forth to
action the sleeping forces. How we
trembled when we found that there v/as
the power of murder lying hidden in our
heart ! How we suffered when we came
to know of a surety that, in spite of all
our earlier boasting, we too had the mak-
ing of the traitor within, and might have
kissed the Master to His death!
Ah, those days of time-tables, and
72
Provides Perfection
programmes, and pledges, and promises,
when we proudly said we were masters
of ourselves. Through what disappoint-
ments, and agonies, and wounds, some of
us have come to our first real knowledge,
that we are ignorant of ourselves, and
cannot therefore govern ourselves.
This drives us to one conclusion. Our
demand for perfection can only be met
by our living, and moving, and having
our being wholly within the Will of God.
Our neighbour's law fails through the
limitation of his knowledge. Our own
programme collapses because of our ig-
norance. The Will of God moving
within the realm of His perfect knowl-
edge leads us on to perfection, and will
at last set us in His presence unafraid.
IZ
Procures Pleasure
*' ' Though he slay me,' I would rest
In His Sovereign Will,
For the joy to feel His arms
Wrapped about me still.
" * Though he slay me,' I would sing
Alleluia lays ;
For the Master's slaying-place
Is the gate of praise.
" ' Though He slay me,' I would cry,
' Lord, our wills are one ;
Spare or slay me as Thou wilt;
Let Thy Will be done ! '
" ' Though He slay me,' yet in Him
All my soul would trust,
Not, alone, because it may.
But because it must! "
L. A. Bennett (" Alleluia Songs").
PROCURES PLEASURE
V
Man^s nature is such that, in addition
to perfection^ it demands pleasure. How
that demand is met in the Will of God
may thus be declared : —
God's Will is perfect, because He is
love, and only Love can, and Love
can only, make laws for man
which will provide him with per-
fect pleasure.
That is a double proposition. Let us
consider it.
I. Only love can make laws for man
zvhich will provide him with perfect
pleasure. — Disinterestedness lies at the
77
God's Perfect Will
heart of all pure love. " Love . . . seek-
eth not its own." It is almost impossible
to discuss the true nature of love from
the midst of the limitations of human life
as we know it. It is so easy to judge
love by the partial realization of it that
has come within our consciousness. We
love those that love us, those that please
us, those that like us ; and at the root of
all this, in the last analysis, there is but
a refined form of selfishness.
The Divine fact of love is infinitely
greater than these human imitations.
Occasionally it seems to take possession
of a human heart, and is then the subject
of wonder to all men. Love, however,
must ever be judged from its essential
being and manifestation in the character
of God. There it is wholly unselfish,
and consists of perfect aflfection for an
object, without ulterior motive. There
78
Procures Pleasure
only is Shakespeare's description of it
fully realized.
" Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no ! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken."
When love becomes the motive of law,
then law conditions the true happiness
of the one that is loved. To do this, love
is never blind, but takes the largest pos-
sible outlook, and acts in its government
not only for the present moment, but for
all the issues of that moment ; not only
for the final issues, but also for all the
present moments that contribute to its
making. No other motive for law is
equal to meeting the demand for pleas-
ure. Righteousness, apart from its re-
lation to love, may do many cruel things.
The doctrine of the survival of the fittest,
79
God's Perfect Will
in its higher aspect, is a protest against
unrightness; but it has within itself no
remedy for failure, and ruthlessly sweeps
away all the weak and fallen. The maj-
esty and dignity of kingship will not en-
sure the pleasure of the subject in all
cases. Law growing from selfishness
will, in the nature of things, only bring
happiness to those who minister to the
self-seeking propensity of the law-giver.
No law that my fellow-man can make
for me is perfectly to be trusted to en-
sure my pleasure, because I am never
certain of the hidden and yet powerful
motive that may give birth to that law.
Love only can condition the life of the
subject in perfect happiness.
IL Love can only make lazvs for man
ivhich zvill provide him zvifh perfect
pleasure. — Its very nature, as we have
80
Procures Pleasure
already seen, makes this a necessity.
Herein lies the proof our present prop-
osition. The Will of God ensures the
pleasure of man, because God is love.
This is, perhaps, at once the simplest and
sublimest statement that revelation has
made concerning the nature of God.
Theologians have spoken of love as an
attribute of Deity. Should it not rather
be spoken of as the essence of the Divine,
of which the attributes are the com-
ponent parts? As a man's character is
the sum and substance of his character-
istics, so is the essence of the Divine the
sum and substance of Divine attributes.
Holiness, justice, beneficence — all these
and others lie within the compass of love.
To deny either is to deny love. To deny
love is to contradict all. If, then, God
is love, His Will is the Will of love ; and
the common mistake that law and love
8i
God's Perfect Will
are in any sense antagonistic must be
once and for ever abandoned. There is
no divergence between the two. Brown-
ing sang truly —
" I report, as a man may, of God's work :
All's love, but all's law."
In the economy of God, love is law, and
law is love.
The twofold denomination of John is
not without significance. We speak of
him as the Apostle of Love. Jesus called
him a Son of Thunder. There is no con-
tradiction in the thoughts. There was
never yet an apostle of love who was not
also a son of thunder. In the writings
of John, the two words most often oc-
curring are the words " commandment "
and " love," and there is no contradic-
tion, but rather unity of thought in the
fact.
82
Procures Pleasure
The law of God being then the expres-
sion of His love, seeks the perfect hap-
piness of all those who obey it. When
Jesus upon the Mount enunciated the
ethics of His kingdom, the first word that
fell from His lips indicated the purpose
of His heart. It was the word " Happy."
To make man happy is the purpose of
God, and for the realization of that pur-
pose Jesus came to live, to teach, to die.
The law He enunciated was the most
stringent and exacting that humanity
had ever heard, and it was so because
love makes no peace with aught that
harms, and is the most relentless foe of
every foe of the loved one.
Every prohibition of God, and every
command He lays upon men, have their
reason in His good-will toward men.
Nothing is denied to the subjects of His
kingdom capriciously, or merely for the
83
God's Perfect Will
satisfaction of some motive outside these
subjects. Love prohibits that which, if
permitted, would blight the life and mar
the pleasure. It is also true that every
commandment calling to paths of duty
is the outbreathing of love. There are
moments when such pathways are rough
and thorny and tortuous ; but love never
sends men along them save when, in the
way, something is to be gained w^hich
will more than compensate for the suffer-
ing, and which can only be gained
through the suffering.
" Every joy or trial
Falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial
By the Sun of love."
Man's capacity for pleasure finds its
full satisfaction when his Hfe is surren-
dered to the Will of God. There is first
the immediate delight of obedience. The
84
Procures Pleasure
response to love is in itself the essence of
delight. This is illustrated from all that
we know of love in the human relation,
but its highest realization is to be found
in this realm of submission to the govern-
ment of God. Infinite meaning lies
within the words of Christ, " I delight to
do Thy will, O my God."
Not only is there this joy of love's re-
sponse to love, there is also the hope of
consummation : for if the present will of
love be delightful, the perfect issue of
love will be the perfection of delight.
Consequently, through all the mystery
that often surrounds the obedience of
to-day, there shines the glow of the per-
fect consummation which alone can sat-
isfy the Eternal Love.
The heaven towards which we look is,
as to our own condition, realized capacity
and realized functions of being. The
God's Perfect Will
powers which are to-day suggestions,
prophecies, will then be possessions ; and
these all, moving within the realm of the
Divine intention, will create the highest
delight of which the spirit of man is
capable. It is in this sense that the old
word of the Psalmist is true : " In Thy
presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right
hand are pleasures for evermore."
Not, however, to the future merely do
we look for this answer to the second de-
mand of our nature. Here and now, to
abide in the Will of God is to find the se-
cret of happiness in all life. Submission
to the King involves the finding of the
mystic key that opens every avenue of
pure delight, for in His Will the powers
which He in love created are no longer
prostituted to ignoble purposes, but serve
the purpose of that love creation.
86
Promises Perpetuity
" Not built with hands is that fair radiant
chamber
Of God's untroubled rest.
Where Christ awaits to lay his weary -hearted
In stillness on His breast.
Not built on sands of time or place to perish,
When tempests roar —
But on the mighty Rock of Ages founded,
It stands for evermore —
Not only in the day of distant dawning,
When past are desert years,
But now, amidst the turmoil and the battle,
The mocking and the tears.
That Chamber still and stately waits us ever.
That sacred pure retreat —
That rest in Arms of tenderest enfoldings,
That welcome passing sweet.
O Home of God, my Father's joy and glad-
ness,
O riven Veil, whereby I enter in !
There can my soul forget the grave, the
weeping,
The weariness and sin.
O Chamber, all thine agate windows opened
To face the radiant east —
O holy Temple, where the saints are singing,
Where Jesus is the Priest —
Illumined with the everlasting glory.
Still with the peace of God's eternal Now,
Thou, God, my Rest, my Refuge, and my
Tower —
My Home art Thou "
T. S. M.
("Hymns oi Ter Stcegcn and others")-
PROMISES PERPETUITY
VI
The third demand of man is for per-
petuity. That also is secured by those
who dwell wholly within the Will of
God.
The argument may be simply stated
thus : —
God's Will is perfect, because He is,
and the Eternal alone can make
laws which include the past, pres-
ent, and future, so as to secure
perpetuity.
Nothing is more restful to the heart
of man than the sense of the eternity of
God. The thought is utterly beyond our
perfect comprehension, for the mind of
man cannot grasp the thought of eter-
89
God's Perfect Will
nity. The very fact, however, of our in-
ability to do so is the reason of the se-
curity we feel when we remember that
God is Himself eternal. The secrets of
the past, all unknown to us, are ever pres-
ent to His omniscient mind. Upon the
mystery of the future the light of His
perfect knowledge rests; and the prob-
lems of to-day that fret and trouble us
are seen by Him in their relation to the
past and to the future, and for that rea-
son cease to be to Him perplexing, as
they are to us.
In the eternity of God, time has but
one significance, it is perpetually and
unceasingly " Now." The name by
which He revealed Himself to Moses at
the burning bush is full of significance.
He is the " I AM." Combining this fact
with those considered in previous chap-
ters, of His Creatorship and His love,
90
Promises Perpetuity
we argue at once that the laws He makes
for the creatures of His hand and the
children of His love, are laws that will
take in the sum of things, and so con-
dition the present, that it shall hold
within it the power and the promise of
the future.
Every present law of God for man is
based upon the fact of the past, and
moves towards the purpose of the future.
What He wills for each person to-day
takes into account all the forces and facts
of the past. Previous failings in the in-
dividual life; tendencies inherited from
the generations that have gone; the ac-
cumulated forces that propel men from
the dead centuries — are all present to the
mind of God, when He arranges the
programme of individual lives.
So also the future is known to Him.
The true line of life's development, with
91
God's Perfect Will
all the lines that cross and thwart it.
Words that we often have to make use of
are never required in the vocabulary of
God. We speak of contingency, exi-
gency, accident. He cannot be surprised.
Nothing happens, in the sense in which
we use that word. He marks the ap-
proach of every foe, knows whence it
comes, sets the limit of its opposition;
saying ever to Satan, as He said in the
case of Job, " So far mayest thou go ;
only here and there thou shalt stay thy
hand."
It follows, necessarily, that where life
is governed only within the Will of God,
every date and every event become links
in the chain of a perfect whole. All con-
tribute to a finality. It is impossible
here and now for us to discover the re-
lation of the present moment either to
past or to future. But that relation is
92
Promises Perpetuity
always present to the mind of God. We
are permitted occasional gleams of light
upon this truth as the years of our life
pass on. The light falls in the act of retro-
spection. Looking back to-day to the
events of years that have passed, we be-
gin to discover their meaning. They are
seen to be part of the Divine mosaic. The
keen disappointment, the whelming sor-
row, came after all as a necessity out of
the past, and hold within themselves the
elements that make the present, and
colour all the future. The present place
of service and of blessing could not have
been but for the events that seemed to
create confusion.
From this distance we see how God
was moving in the infinite order of His
ceaseless love, and what we thought con-
fusion was but the sign of His progress.
What light is flung upon the pathway of
93
God's Perfect Will
each day if once diis fact is understood.
The day is not done with when its sun
sets. The deeds of any given hour are
not fully comprehended in the passing
of its sixty minutes. If the deeds of the
days have been those planned by God,
then they are days, the full blossoming
of which will be found in the perfect
light of the everlasting day. It has been
said that every flower that decks the sod
has its root far back in eternity. So also
every human life, in the Will and pur-
pose of God, is linked to the past and to
the future, and His laws for it forget no
fact of all the ages.
Need anything further be written to
prove the wisdom of abandoning life to
His Will? See how all other laws fail
when placed in comparison with this.
The best-loved friend I have cannot com-
pass within the facts of certain knowl-
94
Promises Perpetuity
edge the events of the next hour. They
may advise, but their advice is neces-
sarily tentative. They would go this way
if — and how much depends upon the if.
A thousand chances may prove the folly
of their wisdom, the shortsightedness of
their policy.
This is never so with the soul that has
no law save that of the Divine Will.
" He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost."
The same criticism will apply to self-
made programmes. One might, per-
chance, make a programme for one's own
life for a week if one knew all that could
possibly happen within that week. See-
ing, however, that that knowledge does
not extend to the next minute, the folly
of a self-governed Hfe becomes apparent.
Of course it is necessary that we should
95
God's Perfect Will
have our programme and our plan and
our arrangement, but the more necessary
thing is that all such should be prefaced
by the old-fashioned and almost obsolete
letters D.V. " If the Lord will, we shall
both live, and do this or that. ... To
him therefore that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Thus
James states the true attitude of man to-
wards his future and his God. If our
plans are made with this reservation, how
often we shall have to thank God for
their spoiling; how perpetually has He
broken up our programm.e in order that
His Will should be done, and how true
we have found it to be that —
" God's Will is sweetest to us when
It triumphs at our cost."
The restfulness and peace of this atti-
tude of surrender to the Divine Will lies
96
Promises Perpetuity
in the fact that the Eternal God, Who in
infinite love has created us, has done so
for eternal comradeship with Himself;
and if He govern the life, He will bring-
it, notwithstanding all the forces that
seem to be against it, to the place of full
and undying existence. There is no
other law of life that will secure this.
" The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof, but he that doeth the Will of God
abideth for ever." From the centre of
that Will man may look out upon change
and decay, upon death and destruction,
and know that he is perfectly safe from
them all ; yea, master of every one.
" Things that once were wild alarms
Cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms,
Pillowed on the loving breast.
Oh to lie for ever here,
Doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear —
I am His, and He is mine !
97
God's Perfect Will
His for ever, only His,
Who the Lord and me shall part ;
Ah, with what a rest of bliss
Christ can fill the loving heart !
Heaven and earth may fade and flee,
First-born light in gloom decline.
But while God and I shall be,
I am His and He is mine."
98
Practicable Because of Its Nature
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1S19 L
91 ; O'M
" Thus is Christianity concerned, not with
merely a section of life — with the ' affairs of the
soul ' — but with all of it. No life — as I think
Luther has said somewhere — is more worldly
than a Christian's. It embraces everything that
makes us what we are — all that, lived in a cer-
tain light and treated from a certain point of
view. One of the great wrongs that ecclesi-
astical Christianity has done religion is to
disparage or deny this, to give us the impres-
sion that a Christian life lived in the cloister
is higher and holier than one lived in the fam-
ily, the market, the secular arena of the world,
and to bid us look to types of the former rather
than the latter for saintship. I cannot find any
meaning such as this in the fact of Christ. The
carpenter of Nazareth, who was among men
* eating and drinking ' — He is ' our only Saint.'
We must secularize saintship by sanctifying the
secular life." — P. Carnegie Simpson (" The
Fact of Christ").
PRACTICABLE BECAUSE OF ITS
NATURE
VII
For the reasons as stated, we grant
that the Will of God should be the best
law of life for man. Having granted so
much, a new question immediately arises :
Is the doing of the Will possible to man ?
An ideal that cannot be realized may be a
vision of beauty, but it lacks the essen-
tial element that creates the true ideal —
that, namely, of practicability. Men do
not climb after the inaccessible. Men
make no effort to mount to the moon.
Grant the accessibility, and distance be-
comes an incentive to climbing. The
Will of God is practicable for three rea-
sons : —
lOI
God's Perfect Will
1. Because of its nature.
2. Because it is revealed.
3. Because of supernatural power,
communicated to those who will
to do it.
We proceed to deal with these three
statements in these three chapters.
The Will of God includes and condi-
tions all that God has created. Doing the
Will of God does not consist in the de-
velopment of the spiritual side of man's
nature, at the expense of the other sides.
The apostle prayed for the Thessalonian
Christians, that their '' spirit and soul
and body " might " be preserved entire,
without blame, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ."
We are suffering from the art of the
Old Masters. They gave men a wrong
conception of God and of sainthood.
102
/
Practicable Because of Its Nature
Take, for instance, what Ruskin speaks
of as " that infinite monstrosity and hy-
pocrisy, Raphael's cartoon of the charge
to Peter." Let me give you an analysis
of his criticism on the picture: —
(i) Twelve apostles, when only seven
were present.
(2) Curled hair and sandals, after a
night in sea mists.
(3) Dresses with trains — an apostolic
fishing costume.
(4) No fire of coals, but an Italian
landscape with villas and
churches.
(5) The apostles not round Christ, but
in a line to be shown.
That is a fair sample of the conception
of sainthood which the Old Masters gave
the world. They lifted men and women
out of the ordinary experiences of human
103
God's Perfect Will
life, and put them upon impossible planes.
This was due to a misconception of the
Will of God. These Old Masters did
not understand that God does not call
men away from the commonplaces of the
busy days, but conditions their life within
them, until the meanest thing flashes and
gleams with the glory of the heavens.
Another illustration is that offered by
Monasticism. The monastic system was
the outcome of a pure and holy desire,
but it was based upon a misconception of
God. Men desired to serve their age by
prayer; and to do so, retired from the
Hurry and rush of life, turning their back
upon marriage, parenthood, home, and
friendship. It was a fatal mistake.
When men retire from the conflict to
pray, they cut the nerves of prayer. Men
only pray with prevailing power, who do
so amid the sobs and sighing of the race.
104
(
Practicable Because of Its Nature
If the genesis of monasticism was a pure
desire, its history proves that it ended in
lewd and awful corruption.
These illustrations are given to show
that any conception of God that makes it
necessary for man to depart from the
commonplaces of Hfe to find Him, are
wrong. The Old Masters saw no pos-
sibility of the identity of an actual fisher-
man and an apostle. The monks went
alone to pray, because they thought that
God was out of the midst of the strife.
The parish priest, of austerity,
Climbed up in the high church-steeple,
To be nearer God, so that he might
Hand His word down to the people.
And in sermon script he daily wrote
What he thought was sent from heaven ;
And he dropped it down on the people's
heads
Two times one day in seven.
105
God's Perfect Will
In his age God said, ' Come down and die ' ;
And he cried out from the steeple,
* Where art Thou, Lord ? ' and the Lord re-
plied,
' Down here among My people.' "
The Will of God touches us at every
point in our life, because He is interested
in all its details. This is illustrated by
some of the most simple and exquisite
statements of Scripture.
*' Put Thou my tears into Thy bot-
tle."
** The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord."
" Thou knowest my going out and my
coming in."
" Thou knowest my down-sitting and
mine uprising."
God among His people gathering up
their tears, ordering their steps, know-
ing their going out. their coming in, their
io6
Practicable Because of Its Nature
down-sitting, their uprising. Then hear
the words of Jesus.
" The very hairs of your head are
numbered."
" Not a sparrow faUeth to the ground
without your Father."
" Take no anxious thought ; . . . your
Father knoweth that you have need."
■If these sentences teach anything, they
teach the intense interest of God in the
smallest detail of the life of His children,
in what we eat, in what wx wear, in our
recreation, in our homes, in the hidden
facts of character. He is so interested,
that He takes us one by one, and thinks
of, and arranges for, every detail of our
life. To Him there are no little things.
What we call great things are but the
perfect union of the small ones, and every
small one has the element which makes
the greatness of the great ones.
107
God's Perfect Will
"... Nothing's small :
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim."
By this interest in, and arrangement
for, all the details of every individual life,
God makes His Will the simplest, the
easiest, the most practical law of life. It
is within that Will that man, in the best
sense of the word, may be natural, true
to the possibilities of his own being, un-
afraid.
One other word as to the nature of the
Will of God. Not only does it include
and condition all that He has created in
infinite wisdom, it also manipulates all
circumstances. The proof of this is to be
found, in the majority of cases, by ret-
rospection. Looking back, how mar-
vellous is the mosaic of the Divine ar-
rangement! In the midst of the dark-
io8
Practicable Because of Its Nature
ness yonder we thought the Hght had for
ever failed, and yet we were but in the
ante-chamber of clearer vision. Another
day we counted ourselves defeated, but
to-day we see that the defeat was in
itself the greatest victory. God's trans-
mutations run through the years. He is
ever bringing gold for brass, silver for
iron, brass for wood, iron for stones. All
contradictory circumstances He presses
into the service of progression. It
was not idly written in the Song of Solo-
mon, " As the lily among the thorns, so
is my love among the daughters." The
thorn and the lily both live in the same
soil, in the same atmosphere. Both re-
ceive the same ministry from without,
and yet how different the result. To
those outside the Will of God, sorrow,
trouble, disappointment, come; and the
tendency is to harden and embitter. To
109
God's Perfect Will
those living in the Will of God, the same
sorrow, the same trouble, the same dis-
appointment, come; and the effect is that
of transformation into new grace, and
tenderness, and beauty. Sorrow is a
minister, creating character for those
who dwell in the Will of God ; for such,
sorrow is turned into joy. The Will of
God, including and conditioning all God
has created, and manipulating all circum-
stances, is a possible and practicable law
of life for man.
no
Practicable Because Revealed
" Every man knows that the sun is the true
light, feels it to be such, and without hesitation
affirms it to be supreme. There is no debate as
to whether the sun or the moon is the light of
the world. Imagine a dark night, and an ob-
server who has never seen the sun : a star sud-
denly shows itself, and the observer hails it
with delight; presently the moon shines with
all her gentle strength, and the observer says:
* This is the fulfilment of the promise ; can
ought be lovelier, can the sky possibly be
brighter?' In due course the sun comes up;
every cloud is filled with light; every mountain
is crowned with a strange glory ; every leaf in
the forest is silvered; the sea becomes as bur-
nished glass, and secrecy is chased from the
face of the earth : under such a vision, the ob-
server knows that this is the true light — the
sovereign, all-dominating flame. It is so in
the revelation of Jesus Christ. When the eyes
of men are opened to see Him in all His grace
and wisdom i.nd sympathy — in all the suffi-
ciency of His sacrifice and the comfort of His
Spirit — the heart is satisfied, and every rival
light is lost in the infinite splendour of God
the Son." — ^Joseph Parker.
PRACTICABLE BECAUSE
REVEALED
VIII
While the fact that the Will of God
includes and conditions all His creation
is a most blessed one, yet it is not suffi-
cient to prove its practicability. One per-
son may be deeply interested in the his-
tory of another, but this fact is of little
practical use to the one in whom this in-
terest is taken, unless it is made known.
I may have plans which are the very best
possible for my children, but the first
conditions of their being carried into ef-
fect by these children is that I should
make them known to them. In the very
nature of the case, the Will of God for
every human life must be the best; and
113
God's Perfect Will
because of His intimate acquaintance
with, and interest in, every part of the
being He has created, it must be possible
to do that Will if it can be known.
That this Will may be discovered by
every human being is the distinct claim
of Christianity. The central verity of
Christianity is Christ, and He is the rev-
elation in a Person of God's Will for
man. Moreover, the perpetual method
of God with man is that of revealing to
him immediately the Divine intention and
purpose concerning him. We say, there-
fore, that the Will of God is practicable
because it is revealed.
In the life of Jesus there was a perfect
unfolding of the thought that was in
the heart of God when He said " Let Us
make man in Our image" (Gen. i. 26).
He was indeed the " image of the invis-
ible God " (Col. i. 15) ; " the very image
114
Practicable Because Revealed
of His substance" (Heb. i. 3). ''The
Word became flesh, and dwelt among us
(and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the only begotten from the Father),
full of grace and truth" (John i. 14).
This is John's testimony concerning Him.
It is a sad commentary upon the blind-
ness of the human heart through sin, that
the vast mass of the people who came
into contact with Him during the years
of His sojourn upon the earth, saw no
beauty in Him that they should desire
Him. Through the process of the cen-
turies, and by the teaching of the Spirit,
men are coming to understand the won-
derful glory and beauty of His Person
and character, and are now recognizing
that all perfection of life, individually,
socially, religiously, finds in Him its first
and chief expression.
Individually, He yielded Himself
115
God's Perfect Will
wholly to the claim of God, and then
faced Hfe's duties and responsibilities
with a courage and devotion that trans-
muted the common things of the passing
days into service so sacred, that it con-
tributed to the final glories of the ages to
come. He toiled upon the earth as a
man, interested in the flowers of the field,
and the birds of the air, and the children
of the street. Gentle and strong, trusted
of the weakest, feared of all tyrants. He
moved without strife of words, or lifting
up the voice in self-advertisement,
through the Divinely marked programme
of the waiting years, to the cross of ulti-
mate pain, which He made the centre and
source of all healing for wounded and
broken humanity. He was the supreme
illustration of the possibilities of indi-
vidual life conditioned ever and only in
the Will of God.
ii6
Practicable Because Revealed
•In all social relationships His action
was such as to reveal God's Will in an
entirely new light to men, thus revolu-
tionizing human thought and human
society. Without staying for a single il-
lustration, let the mind dwell for one mo-
ment on His unvarying attitude towards
women; and then remember how, since
the years of His human life, woman the
world over has lived in a new realm, for
the day of her final emancipation dawned
with His appearing. His obedience to
government was exhibited in the paying
of taxes, and was startlingly proved by
the fact that when they would encompass
His Death, His enemies had to fall back
upon a religious charge, having no civil
one to prefer against Him. His attitude
of tenderness towards all sinners incur-
red the condemnation of the religious
enthusiasts of His day, who had so mis-
117
God's Perfect Will
read the heart of God as to imagine that
love was for the good, and nothing but
stern anger and vindictiveness for the
fallen.
Religiously He gave us a radiant rev-
elation of the truth so hard for men to
learn, that religion is not an addendum
to life, but is life itself. With Him God
was first ; and there was no second. The
critics of the ages may be challenged to
discover a single action of His life as
chronicled that was not true to the key-
word of that life, " I must be about My
Father's business."
In that perfect life God revealed His
Will for every human being. It was
not the life of an angel visitor. Its glory
lay in the fact of its humanness, and that
fact brings it within the realm of the pos-
sible to every son and daughter of the
human race.
ii8
Practicable Because Revealed
Not only once in a person has the Will
been revealed; it is perpetually and im-
mediately revealed to all such as desire
to know it. The work of the Holy Spirit
is ever that of indicating to man the in-
tention and purpose of God for him.
This may be stated in another way.
The Holy Spirit is to " take of the things
of Christ and reveal them to men ; " and
this is infinitely more than explaining the
doctrines concerning Him. It is the
showing to individual souls of the way
in which, under all the circumstance of
life, Christ would think, or act, or speak.
Jesus was, and is, the " Light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the
world," and thus He is perpetually the
revelation of the Divine Will to men.
It does not necessarily follow that
when the light falls upon the spirit of
man, he understands the source of the
119
God's Perfect Will
light. The light is the first fact; the
understanding of the source follows.
The little child may play with the golden
sunshine, and yet have no knowledge of
the sun. That will come in the process of
the years. Let any person, if it be pos-
sible, go back in life to that moment when
the conscience first detected the differ-
ence between right and wrong. That
shining of the light of right was the out-
shining of the glory of Christ's perfec-
tion upon the spirit, and the consequent
revelation of the Will of God.
All this was not then understood, but
enough was understood to make man re-
sponsible. If in that moment the right
was chosen, Christ was obeyed, and the
Will of God was done. If the wrong
was chosen, the light was insulted, and
the government of God rebelled against.
120
Practicable Because Revealed
Thus God does reveal His Will to man,
and man chooses between obedience and
disobedience. The measure and clear-
ness of personal revelation depends upon
this act of man. To obedient souls the
light becomes perpetually brighter, for he
" that doeth the Will shall know of the
teaching." To those who disobey, the
light dies away, until they stumble in
darkness upon the mountains, and im-
agine God does not reveal His Will to
man; whereas the truth is, that having
" loved the darkness rather than the
light," they have become blind.
To the soul new-born the will of God
is revealed again, not as a perfect and
final programme of life, but in a claim
demanding immediate obedience, and
then by successive revelations concerning
the pathway of life. So that a man
121
God's Perfect Will
may say, as he steps out upon his new
life,
" One step I see before me,
'Tis all I need to see."
When Saul of Tarsus was appre-
hended of Jesus Christ, he was not told
that he was to become the apostle to the
Gentiles, the mightiest missionary of the
Cross, the greatest theologian of the
Church. Jesus said to him, " Rise, enter
into the city, and it shall be told thee
what thou must do." The next step was
marked. Taking this, another was re-
vealed; and so ever on, until at last,
saying, " I have fought a good fight ;
I have finished my course; I have kept
the faith " — he passed to the place of per-
fect light and perfect life.
122
Practicable by New Life
" O blessed life ! the heart at rest
When all without tumultuous seems,
That trusts a higher will, and deems
That higher will, not mine, the best.
" O blessed life ; the mind that sees
Whatever change the years may bring;
A mercy still in everything,
And shining through all mysteries.
" O blessed life ! the soul that soars,
When sense of mortal sight is dim,
Beyond the sense — beyond to Him
Whose love unlocks the heavenly doors.
" O blessed life ! heart, mind and soul
From self-born aims and wishes free
In all — at one with Deity
And loyal to the Lord's control.
" O life ! how blessed, how divine !
High life, the earnest of a higher !
Saviour, fulfil my deep desire.
And let this blessed life be mine."
W. TiDD Matson.
PRACTICABLE BY NEW LIFE
IX
In writing to the Philippians, Paul
says, " For it is God which worketh
in you both to will and to work, for
His good pleasure " (ii. 13). This state-
ment occurs between two injunctions.
The first has reference to personal salva-
tion, and the second declares the duty of
man in relation to the world. The first
reads, " Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling " ; and the sec-
ond, " Do all things without murmurings
and disputings; that ye may be blame-
less and harmless, children of God with-
out blemish, in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, among whom
125
God's Perfect Will
ye are seen as lights in the world." The
declaration referred to brings both the
positive and relative statements within
the realm of practical possibility, " For
it is God which worketh in you." This
Divine inworking makes the human out-
working easy, and simple, and delight-
ful. For every demand made upon us
as Christian men and women, there is
sufficient, overwhelming supply in the
communication of Divine energy.
" God worketh in you." This implies
the actual presence of God at the centre
of our being. The very simplicity of
these words renders them difficult of
understanding; for no man understands
the complex and marvellous mechanism
of his own personality. God worketh in
you — not outside, but in — in the place
where thought is born, and the throne of
the will is set up, and the affections have
126
Practicable by New Life
their seat; in the inward shrine of the
being God worketh.
Put emphasis now on another word.
" God zvorketh in you." He is there, not
merely holding possession while we
work, but also to
" Direct, control, suggest each day,
All we design, or do, or say ;
That all our powers, with all their might,
In His sole glory may unite."
** God worketh in you." The value of
this statement may be learned by insert-
ing another word in place of " in." " For
it is God which worketh for you." By
this alteration the message is robbed of
its power in a moment. To work for
us, may be to work apart from us, with-
out consultation with us. This is sug-
gestive of duality, which is not always
necessarily a harmony.
Try another preposition. "It is God
127
God's Perfect Will
which worketh with you." That would
indicate some one by the side of us, will-
ing, when the burden becomes too heavy,
to help to bear it ; willing when the path-
way becomes difficult, to come into con-
sultation. This also is suggestive of dual
personality, and perchance conflict.
" God which worketh in you " implies
perfect union. God in you, creating de-
sire, energizing the will, so that the will
becomes, not merely as a poetical senti-
ment, but as a glorious fact, the Will
of God. That is, indeed, the supreme
glory of the Christian position — " it is
God which worketh," not " for " merely ;
not " with " only ; but " it is God which
worketh in you."
" It is God which worketh in you both
to will and to do." Two facts are here
stated which are yet one, for willing and
doing are always united. " To will " —
128
Practicable by New Life
that touches the inner Hfe, the springs of
action ; " to do " — that touches the outer
life, the streams of action.
Think first of the inner, " to will."
This word has within it the thought of
active determination of what is to be
done. Not determination apart from
ourselves, but God in us, taking hold of
our wills, creating our desires — some-
times through indirect agencies — giving
us desire in a certain direction, affecting
and moulding our wills, drawing them
into the avenues of true action, by His
own indwelling. " It is God which
worketh in you to will." If this be true,
then the will, so created, must necessarily
result in the harmony of our wills with
His own.
The work of God does not end here.
" It is God which worketh in you to will
and to do." As the thought of the in-
129
God's Perfect Will
working God, wz7//n^, touches the springs
of action, so necessarily the thought of
God doing touches the streams of action.
" It is God which worketh in you to will
and to work." It might truthfully be
translated " to effectually work." The
suggestion is not of the doing that fails,
but of the doing that succeeds : not of
the effort that tries, but of the effort
which triumphs.
This union of the purified will, and the
energized life, is equal to the accom-
plishment of the double purpose : " Work
out your own salvation," and " be blame-
less and harmless ... in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation, among
whom ye shine as lights in the world."
The poor, weak, paralysed, sin-smitten
soul rises into the dignity of a new life,
confronts the future with hope, faces his
enemies with defiance, and says : " I can
130
Practicable by New Life
do all things in Him that strengtheneth
me. I will work out my own salvation :
I will live the life which is blameless,
harmless, without rebuke, because it is
God which worketh in me to will and to
do."
What will be the result ? " His good
pleasure ; " that which gives His heart
satisfaction. If we shrink from that, we
shrink from all the blessedness within
the thought. " His good pleasure," the
thing that pleases Him. Go back to the
story of creation. When God had made
the earth, and put man upon it, " God
saw everything that He had made, and,
behold, it was very good " — God's good
pleasure. God was pleased with His
own work; found delight in its perfec-
tion.
There came a day when God could say
this no more — a day when sin had en-
131
God's Perfect Will
tered. The sigh and sob of humanity be-
gan amid the trees of the garden of God,
and the great surging sorrow of the race
was born amid the hills of perfection.
From then onward the heart of God was
not at rest until, long, weary, and yet
necessary centuries having passed, there
came " the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven, the quickening Spirit."
If we would know the good pleasure
of God, man must be seen in all his per-
fection. In Christ we have the revela-
tion of perfect manhood. Think of His
perfection of tenderness. His beauty of
character, of all the great overwhelming
strength which centred in His sacred
Person. In beholding Him, behold the
" good pleasure of God." " It is God
which worketh in you both to will and to
do of His good pleasure."
To make us what Jesus was, God
132
Practicable by New Life
works within us ; and until that is finally
accomplished, the heart of God will never
be at rest concerning- us : not until that
moment dawns, which must come for all
who put their trust in Him, when the
perfect Son of the living God shall pre-
sent the many sons whom He brings to
glory, in the presence of His glory, with-
out blemish in exceeding joy. That is
the intended issue; that is the consum-
mation ; that is the crowning and the joy.
This view of life contained within vital
Christianity is a declaration of our pos-
sibilities. We are equal to this, because
God is equal to it. We have nothing
which we have not received ; but we have
received something in our creation which
makes us equal to that. Before any be-
ing can reach the altitude of true suc-
cess, there must be within that being the
possibility of reaching the altitude. We
133
God's Perfect Will
are made in the image of the invisible
God, with the stamp of Divine possession
upon us. Shall we not swing the heart's
door widely open that He may come in,
to work in us '' both to will and to work,
for His good pleasure " ?
134
The Ultimate Realization
" 'Twill all be right
At last :
When weary night
Is past,
When light shall dawn
And cometh morn
Upon that peaceful shore.
Where storm and cloud no more
Oppress the soul.
" 'Twill all be shown
Some day;
Each step unknown
Of way
By which Christ led
Where feet oft bled.
Where fell the bitter tear.
As sorrow's doubt and fear
So oft made sad.
" Then shall we see
His throne;
Then shall we be
His own:
When endeth night
And dawneth light.
That day of days so dear
May even now be near,
We watch and pray.
" Dear heart, why sad?
Christ comes.
Dear heart, be glad;
Christ comes.
The hour draws nigh
Of midnight cry.
Then ends our brief life-pain.
Then comes eternal gain,
Where reigns our King."
E. G. Wellesley- Wesley.
(" Songs of the Heart").
THE ULTIMATE REALIZATION
X
So far we have considered the subject
of the Word of God within the compass
of probationary life. The perfection possi-
ble to-day is that of condition which en-
sures progress ; and the possibility of
progress ever speaks of something not
yet attained. The supreme consciousness
of those who to-day are most certainly
living within the Will of God is that of
incompleteness. All is partial, limited.
By comparison with the exceeding worth
and beauty of our Lord, we feel that our
worship is almost worthless, and we are
constantly constrained to say that,
" Hosannas languish on our tongues.
And our devotion dies."
137
God's Perfect Will
And when we have done the fullest day's
work possible to us, having, so far as
we know, filled the hours with sacrificial
service, we yet have to say, " At best we
are unprofitable servants." When we
have walked in the Will as revealed to
us for the present moment, we are always
conscious that His ultimate Will is so
much better than any present realiza-
tion. This sense of shortcoming is in
itself an incentive to diligence. It is be-
cause we have '* not yet apprehended "
. . . that *' forgetting the things which
are behind," we " press on toward the
goal." This pushing towards the goal,
however, does not mark dissatisfaction
with the discipline of the pathway. Abid-
ing in the Will of God, we recognize that
all the circumstances of life are necessary
for our perfecting, and are overruled by
Infinite Love.
138
The Ultimate Realization
" Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blest,
Finding as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest."
The questions yet will arise, What is to
be the issue? whither does the pathway
tend? It is with this subject that the
present chapter deals, not exhaustively,
but by suggestion.
Much has been written on the future
condition of the saints. Richard Baxter
wrote a treatise, in four parts and forty-
six chapters, full of thought and beauty ;
and many others have contributed to the
valuable literature. Our thought in this
chapter is to be confined to the subject
of the doing of the Will of God; and
there are four facts recorded in the New
Testament which are illuminative of the
subject.
139
God's Perfect Will
•I. Unclouded Vision.
Paul says, *' Fcr now we see in a mir-
ror darkly; but then face to face" (i
Cor. xiii. 12) ; and John declares, " We
shall see Him even as He is " ( i John
iii. 2). After faith has had its perfect
work, it will be swallowed up in sight.
To-day we love, not having seen. Con-
scious of His presence, apprehending in
some measure His love and beauty, we
walk by faith amid the mists and mys-
teries, or underneath the blue, which is
also the limitation of vision.
" Soon the whole,
Like a parched scroll,
Shall before my amazed sight uproll;
And, without a screen,
At one burst be seen
The Presence wherein I have ever been."
H. Perfect Correspondence.
The first result of this, according to
John, will be that of perfect corre-
140
The Ultimate Realization
spondence with our Master. " We shall
be like Him" (i John iii. 2). In the
moment of vision^ the word of the Mas-
ter on the Mount of Beatitudes — whether
that word was promise or command, or
both — will be fulfilled in our experience ;
*■' ye shall be perfect, even as your heav-
enly Father is perfect." All the possi-
bilities of our being will be fulfilled.
Everything that was in the thought of
God for us, as to capacity, will be .al-
ized, and we shall thus be prepared to
fulfil the highest functions of our life.
As to-day it is true that where there
is no vision, the people perish ; and the
constant cry of the human heart is that
of Philip, " Show us the Father, and it
sufficeth us " ; and the immediate con-
sciousness of the soul that has even the
partial vision of God, seeing through a
glass darkly, is that of healing; so at
141
God's Perfect Will
last the full and unclouded vision will be
final salvation, perfect healing, and ab-
solute satisfaction. Nay, does not the
thought of the apostle overtake and run
ahead of all these thoughts, glorious as
they are. " We shall be like Him.'*
Nothing can be added to this. It defies
analysis. If an uninspired statement,
it is the most daring blasphemy of the
mind of man. If the word is Spirit-
taught, it is the most gracious unveiling
of the infinite love of God. Like Him,
and therefore fitted for fellowship of
thought and action; Hke Him, and so
falling into line with all His mighty
movements through the unexplored
spaces and the unborn ages.
HI. Full Knowledge.
Paul speaks of another result accruing
from unclouded vision. " Now I know
142
The Ultimate Realization
in part; but then shall I know even as
also I have been known " ( i Cor. xiii.
12). The messages of the Spirit to the
Church, delivered through human agents,
are all messages which met the need of
the writer, and so appeal to thousands of
similar temperaments. The Spirit's dec-
laration of correspondence through John
answers the question of spiritual devo-
tion. The Spirit's message of full
knowledge through Paul answers the
problem of mental activity. Through all
the system of Paul's writing his mind is
discovered active, alert, mighty, pressing
on, desiring to know. He thinks of the
Spirit as " knowing the deep things of
God." His perpetual prayer for his chil-
dren in the faith is that they may have
full knowledge of God ; and here, after
describing in language that seems as
though it might be a part of the poetry
143
God's Perfect Will
of heaven, the nature and the activity of
love, his active mind reasserts itself, and
he seems to lift his eyes and gaze away
to the land of light, and exult in the con-
sciousness that " Then I shall know even
as also I have been known." Thus we
learn that the condition of heaven will be
that of perfect light. The problems that
vex us to-day ; the perpetually recurring
mysteries that demand repeated acts of
faith — these w411 all find their answer,
not so much in the process of teaching
or revealing, but in the vision of the
Master Himself. Seeing, we shall know.
Seeing face to face, we shall know even
as we are known.
IV. Unceasing Service.
Out of these grows the fourth glorious
fact, that of unceasing service. " They
serve Him day and night in His temple "
144
The Ultimate Realization
(Rev. vii. 15). "His servants shall do
Him service; and they shall see His
face " (Rev. xxii. 3, 4). It is not within
the purpose of this volume to discuss
the nature of the service. The fact is
enough. We shall see Him, and want
to serve. We shall be like Him, and be
able to serve. We shall know, and be
prepared to serve. Inspiration for serv-
ice in vision; equipment for service in
correspondence; preparation for service
in knowledge! Thus Himself will be
the reason of all the service of the new
life, and therefore His Will will be the
plane of heaven's activity.
" Then we shall be where we would be ;
Then we shall be what we should be;
Things which are not now, nor could be,
Then shall be our own."
The last words of the fourth book of
the Psalms declare the call of God to
145
God's Perfect Will
men, " Let all the people say, Amen ;
Hallelujah" (Psa. cvi. 48, R. v., viarg.).
Let there be acquiescence in the Divine
Will, followed by a note of praise. This
is the order of faith's activity — first,
Amen; and then in faith, Hallelujah.
Praise grows out of obedience and sub-
mission ; resolute obedience in the power
of faith is ever preparing for the song.
There is nothing better in this world, no
higher experience, than that we should,
to every revelation of the Will of God,
utter our whole-hearted Amen, and
crown it with our joyous Hallelujah.
But presently, in the light of the un-
clouded vision ; in the power of a perfect
correspondence to the likeness of our
Lord ; in the light of full knowledge, and
in the gladness of unceasing service — we
shall reverse the order of these great
words. " After these things I heard as it
146
The Ultimate Realization
were a great voiee of a great multitude
in heaven, saying, Hallelujah. And a
second time they say. Hallelujah. . . .
And the four and twenty elders and the
four living creatures fell down and wor-
shipped God that sitteth on the throne,
saying. Amen ; Hallelujah . . . And I
heard as it were the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of many wa-
ters, and as the voice of mighty thun-
ders, saying. Hallelujah " (Rev. xix. i-
6). Here first the song, and then the
submission, and yet again the song. It
is that vision of the perfect consumma-
tion that inspires the song.
At last all opposing forces are over-
come, and the kingdom of the heavens
is realized through all the vast realms
over which it is God's right to reign.
At last the prayer taught by Christ is
answered, the Name is hallowed, the
147
God's Perfect Will
kingdom come^ the Will is done, and the
unending Hallelujah follows the unHm-
ited Amen.
Then begins the absolutely perfect
service of which all the imperfect service
of these probationary days is the hardly
articulate prophecy. Then life moves
unchecked, unhindered, toward highest
fornis of expression and most glorious
inter-relation, because it is absolutely
homed in the Will of God.
Bear me on Thy rapid wing,
Everlasting Spirit!
Where bright choirs of angels sing,
And Thy saints inherit;
Waiting round the Eternal throne,
Joys immortal are their own :
This the cry of every one —
* Glory to the Incarnate Son ! '
Four and twenty elders rise
From their princely station,
Shout His glorious victories —
Sing His great salvation,
148
The Ultimate Realization
Cast their crowns before the throne,
Cry, in reverential tone,
'' Holy, Holy, Holy One,
Glory be to God alone ! '
Hark ! the thrilling symphonies
Seem within to seize us ;
Add we to their holy lays —
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus !
Sweetest note in angels' song.
Sweetest sound on mortal tongue,
Sweetest anthem ever known,
Jesus, Jesus reigns alone."
149
Epilogue
"God, Who once at Pentecost
Sentest down the Holy Ghost:
Grant ns by that Spirit's light,
Evermore a judgment right;
Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee
In that Spirit's unity.
" God, Who by Thy Spirit taught
Humble souls that asked and sought:
Grant that He to us may bring
All His holy comforting ;
Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee
In that Spirit's unity.
" God, Whose Spirit came to guide
Faithful people to Thy side :
Let Him lead us to that shore,
Whither Christ is gone before ;
Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee
In that Spirit's unity."
Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.
("A Whitsuntide Hymn").
EPILOGUE
All life's urgency is concentrated on
the present moment. To-day is all that
we possess. Yesterday has passed from
us. To-morrow is not ours. God's time
for His people is indicated by the two
words " now " and '* to-day." Our study,
therefore, of the subject of the Will of
God is of practical and immediate im-
portance in its bearing on the interests
of the present. If we remember *' all the
way which the Lord our God hath led
us," it is only in order that, taking warn-
ing from our failures, and deriving en-
couragement from the unfailing faith-
fulness of God, we may " forget the
things that are behind " in our devotion
to present duty. If we contemplate the
153
God's Perfect Will
coming glory, it is only that its light may
be a source of inspiration to us as we
" run with patience the race that is set
before us." The Will of God is the su-
preme subject in every life. The Old
and New Testaments alike testify to its
importance. Within that Will man finds
perfection, pleasure, permanence. It is
practicable because of its nature, its rev-
elation, and the fact of its being accom-
panied with the gift of life, which makes
it possible to obey. It is glorious, indeed,
for heaven itself lies within the compass
of its thought. There remains one sub-
ject of immediate practical moment.
How may we know the Will of God for
to-day, in all the details of the hours as
they come and go; and how may we
discover it in any crises that may arise?
Two preliminary conditions must be
fulfilled, those, namely, of desire and de-
154
Epilogue
votion. The desire must amount to
readiness to obey. The devotion must
be of that practical nature that seeks to
know and at all cost follows to do. These
conditions being fulfilled, light may be
expected in three ways :
From the Word of God.
From the immediate illumination of
the indwelling Spirit.
From the combination of circum-
stances.
Let us examine these separately, and
then in their inter-relation.
I. The Three Indications.
(i) The Word of God. — For the most
part, the Bible does not lay down rules
of human conduct ; it enunciates princi-
ples. There are exceptions to be found,
arising out of some local circumstances
that demanded clear and explicit state-
155
God^s Perfect Will
ment of duty. But as the Bible is a Book
for all time and habits and manners
change, the framing of rules, which
must necessarily change with change of
local conditions, would have defeated the
high end in view. The enunciation of
principles, on the other hand, which
never change with changing circum-
stances, calls forth on the part of man, in
every successive generation, his reason-
ing and reflective powers, and answers
the purpose of righteousness.
In coming to the Word of God, there-
fore, for understanding of the Will of
God, we are not to search for texts to
defend private judgments. Nor are we,
on the other hand, to play tricks with the
Bible, in order to discover accidental
messages to help us in forming judg-
ments. We are regularly, and devotion-
ally, and intelligently, to study, in order
is6
Epilogue
that we may discover the revelation of
principles. Where this is done as a habit
of the life, the mind will act under the
power of these principles, and the conclu-
sions arrived at will be in harmony with
the intention of God.
(2) The Illumination of the Spirit. —
The doctrine of the inner light is not
sufficiently taught. To the individual be-
liever, who is, by the very fact of rela-
tionship to Christ, indwelt by the Holy
Spirit of God, there is granted the direct
impression of the Spirit of God on the
spirit of man, imparting the knowledge
of His Will in matters of the smallest
and greatest importance. This has to be
sought and waited for. It is at this point
that it may be well for the seeker to take
counsel with some fellow-Christian, who
in prayer and conversation may be en-
abled to thrown light upon the problem.
157
God's Perfect Will
It should, however, be remembered
that others can only give testimony as to
their view of the problem suggested.
Such testimony is of great value. It can-
not, however, be final, and should only
be given as contributing thought, which
may aid in solution. No Spirit-taught
man or woman will pretend to be able to
decide for a second person. Each must
at last, having received help, it may be,
from conference with other Christians,
pass into some place of utter loneliness,
where only the voice of the Spirit is
heard. To such waiting, a clear and
definite answer must come.
(3) The Combination of Circum-
stances.— ^In the fact of the Divine gov-
ernment, this may be spoken of as the
opening and shutting of doors. There is
no room for doubt that God does, in in-
finite wisdom and power, manipulate the
158
Epilogue
facts and details of all human lives, in
such a way as to make " all things work
together for good to them that love God/'
The open door does not necessarily mean
the easy pathway. This is a common
mistake. One has often heard persons
say the way is made plain, and by
" plain " they mean easy. And yet, those
who know most of the immediate gov-
ernment of God, will confess that the
most plain pathway has often been the
most difficult.
The open door is an opportunity
created, which is in harmony with the
principles of the Divine government as
declared in Scripture, and the desire for
which has been created in that fellow-
ship with God into which no other inter-
est has been allowed to enter. This is a
most solemn consideration, and needs the
severest caution. There is no realm of
159
God's Perfect Will
human life into which the enemy more
successfully passes, and in which he
works more destruction, than that of mo-
tive. Desires based upon motives other
than the highest will often discover open
doors which are quite other than those
which God would open.
II. The Threefold Indication.
The value of the three indications dealt
with, lies in the fact that not in any one
of them is to be discovered the warrant
for action, but in their combination.
( 1 ) With regard to the Word of God,
many principles of action therein recog-
nized are not meant for all men at all
times. There must also be the inner light
and the open door.
(2) With regard to the leading of the
Spirit, it cannot be too constantly re-
affirmed that such leading is never con-
160
Epilogue
tradictory to the truth of Scripture.
There is so much idle talk to-day about
the leading of the Lord, that at this point
one would desire to speak most strongly
and solemnly. Some awful instances of
gross immorality have resulted from peo-
ple following what they imagined to be
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, even
though the action was in direct disobedi-
ence to the most emphatic statements and
requirements of the law of God. This is
blasphemy of the worst kind. Whenever,
therefore, it is supposed that the Spirit is
leading, it is of the gravest importance
that such leading should be tested by the
principles of the Word.
And again, the Spirit never leads with-
out opening the doors sooner or later.
Tlicre may have been the waiting of long
discipline — and abiding in the Will of
God means rejoicing in all such disci-
pline— and patient waiting for His open-
i6i
God's Perfect Will
ing of the door, even when the light is
clearly shining as to the Spirit's ultimate
intention.
(3) The open door that necessitates
departure from Scriptural teaching is the
work of the devil; and no matter how
remarkable the success that appears to
follow efforts ostensibly made in the in-
terests of the kingdom of God, if the
base of operation is not loyalty to the re-
vealed Will of God in Holy Scripture,
the fabric erected is but " hay, wood,
stubble," to be destroyed in the cleansing
fire at last.
And yet again, the open door, in
harmony with the principles of Scripture,
is not to be entered, save as a personal
call is heard, and one is able to say, I do
this because I have the witness of God's
Spirit with my spirit that He so wills it.
Thus to summarize. We have ever the
162
Epilogue
threefold test, which is invaluable as to
everyday details, and in the crises of life ;
the truth of God, contained in the Word
of God; the purpose of God indicated
by the Spirit of God ; the government of
God exhibited in the opening of doors by
God.
One perpetual condition remains, that
of obedience. This word, it will be seen,
is not here lightly used. It presupposes
a desire to know and to do, expressing
itself in devotion to seek and to obey.
Such obedience will ever be based on the
perfect confidence of the spirit of man
in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and the communion of
the Holy Spirit. Where this confidence
exists, the obedience will be unquestion-
ing, immediate, complete.
The tendency of the age is to softness.
Some may read this final message, and
turning from it say. This is not easy.
163
God's Perfect Will
Easy ! When did Christ suggest ease to
men in the method of their own making?
Did He not solemnly warn those who
would follow Him to count the cost, and
indicate that the pathway of His foot-
prints necessitated the denial of self and
the taking of the Cross? If the perfec-
tion of character, and pleasure of life,
and permanence of being for which we
profess to be desirous, are ever to be real-
ized, it will be by strenuous action ; time,
thought, energy, are all necessary.
Let the end be as the beginning. There
is but one thing that matters. It is that
God's Will should be done. To that end
let every one cast sloth away, and, '' gird-
ing up the loins of the mind, be sober and
set the hope perfectly on the grace that
is to be brought unto you at the revela-
tion of Jesus Christ." The ultimate issue
will be perfect compensation for all the
toil of the pathway tliat leads thereto.
164
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IOC
The Situation
IX Chixa.
A Record of Cause and
Effect, izmo, paper, net
IOC.
FL.EMIXG II. EEVELL COMPANY
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
WORKS BY THE REV.
C. H. TYNDALL, PH., D.
Elkcthicitt and Its
Similitudes
The Analogy of Phenom-
ena, Natural and Spiritual.
Illustrated, izmo, cloth,
net Ji.oo.
Dr. Tyndall holds a mem-
bership in more than one
society of electrical engin-
eers, and speaks with au-
thority. But more, he is
also an expert object les-
son teacher. He points out
the moral and spiritual sig-
nificance of the scientific
facts that he discusses. His
fertility in illustration is
rare. Electricity is the
object out of which he
draws a multitude of les-
sons. Dr. Tyndall has
given us an unworked
mine. The book itself is
an illustration ofamethodj
it is a stimulant to obser-
vation. It helps one to the
habit of looking through
the material to the spirit-
ual.
Object L,essons fob
Childbex
Hooks and Eyes. Truth
Linked to Sight. i2mo,
cloth decorated, illus-
trated, $1.25.
"■The writer was the
pioneer author in this
country in teaching re-
ligious truths by means of
objects. The present work
marks an advance upon all
others of its kind in that
it employs the three suc-
cessful methods of impart-
ing truth, namely, the use
of objects, of the black-
board, and of stories " —
The Presbyterian Journal.
"For busy pastors, Sunday-
school superintendents, and
others, we know no belter
work of its kind on the
market."— The Cumber-
land Presbyterian,
Object Sebmons in
Outline
With an introduction by
Rev. A. F. Schauffler,D.D.
Profusely illustrated with
pictures of the common ar-
ticles of every-day life,
izmo, cloth, ^i.oo.
"This little volume con-
tains outlines of,and direc-
tions for several dozens of
sermons illustrated by dif-
ferent objects, such as
pumps, lamps, bread, a
bird's nest, masks, an an-
chor, etc. There is noth-
ing sensational in them,
and theyare aimed directly
at the making of spiritual
impressions." — The Con-
gregationalist.
Flemixg II. Ke\t:ll Compaxy
NEW YOBK CHICAGO TOBONTO
THE NEW
REF
This book is
tak
YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ERENCE DEPARTMENT
under no circumstances to be
en from the Building
' :■ 1 ' ' i
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