in the desert, so he cometh in the moral wilderness and spiritual desert of human life; and though he be nothing but a voice, he crieth out, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, let every valley be filled, and every mountain and hill be brought low, let the crooked be made straight, and the rough places be made smooth." Such a one shall have in his teeth a phalanx of opposition, and he hath need of a heart like a lion's heart, and of a wing like an eagle's wing, and there must be upon his banner, Forward, Forward; and that he may never faint or fail, his banner should be this divine portrait of a perfect Missionary, this safe-conduct and assurance of ultimate success, to flame over the darkness of his path, like the pillar of fire which directed Israel in the watches of the night.

114

CONCLUSION

trine, stated

tended,

From the Missionary Doctrine.

The doc- WHILE I contend with all my might that the above, is in- portraiture of the Missionary given by Messiah, with his instructions for the perilous voyage, should not be hid from the sight and study of the Church, but live in its few grand and simple lineaments, untouched by any mortal hand, and unsoftened by the compromising taste of any age; and that every one who looks to this, the highest preferment in the kingdom of Christ, should be qualified according to the Testament of our King, over which Testament the Church is the guardian to execute it faithfully, not to enlarge or abridge it in one jot or tittle I am far from intending, as the conclusion of the whole matter, that no one shall make trial and experiment of this service until he feel the image of Messiah perfected in his soul, or that God will withhold his blessing from the rude beginnings and mistrustful setnot to dis- tings-out, of this high and holy calling. As awaken men God doth know, and my conscience beareth me witness, it is not to discourage or repel any spirit which feels stirred to attempt the undertaking, but to encourage and attract all Christian spirits by its ethereal excellence and transcendent glory, that I would preserve the standard

courage, but

to the work,

ment of the

lity,

perfection of this character unreduced and unveiled before every eye. And if any one think that by the opposite course of reducing its lofty dimensions, or veiling its heavenly purity, he will recommend this or any other part of the Christian system to the world, he doth err, nothing knowing the end of Christianity, or the nature of the world. By doing so, he shall but by the stateplace the world on good terms with itself, and true nobimislead still further its false estimation of its own wretched conditions, while he prostitutes the great boon of Heaven, which was given not to please the deluded world, but to redeem it out of its present self-satisfaction and self-complacency. The world is to be undeceived with respect to all its ideas of greatness and goodness, its heroism to be despoiled, its virtues put to shame, its boast and glory mocked, by the new school of character and action, which the Gospel introduceth, in order to cast all its conditions into the shade, and force them to confess that they are nothing. The divine stature and heavenly majesty, the unstained purity and tender mercy, and the self-divested, self-devoted disinterestedness of the new man, created in the image of God, are intended to silence the empty boastfulness of the old man, to call forth spiritual faculties from their hiding places of ease and selfishness, and to offer a wisdom and righteousness, an honour and glory of another kind than that whereof nature is ambitious, and wherewithal she is content. It is not by indulging nature, there

to which

this, like

every other work, rais

Christian

eth the soul

of man;

fore, in her false judgments and depraved tastes, but by rebuking her, by exhibiting ideas and forms of higher things, that she is to be led onward to perfection. Her own self-love will draw the standard down, without any help on your part, and in spite of all your endeavours the other way. Your office, therefore, is to propound to her no second edition of the things revealed from heaven for her regeneration, but the very things, if you would humble her, beat her out of her proud refuges, prostrate her in sorrow and repentance, and bring her to be an earnest suitor for the sufficient grace and perfect strength of God. And he who shrinks from the perusal of these new forms of character, because they are too high for him, and cannot be entered into at one attempt, and would therefore have them lowered, doth err no less, than he doth, who, to serve his error, would bring them down to his low desire or faithless timidity. For it is wholly to misstate the nature of this holy operation, to imagine that it is finished at one fiat as creation was at first, and that the child of God starteth at once into being and perfect manhood. We grow in grace as we grow in nature, from the new birth, through the helplessness of babes, the weakness of childhood, the instability of youth, to the maturity of perfect men in Christ. And it is by exercise we grow, for the grace of God is a vital principle which begetteth life and action. By this new life and action of the soul's faculties, we do both discern the presence of that grace which we have received, and our need

gression.

of more, which we receive in due time after we have proved ourselves faithful over the few things already committed to our trust. And so we go on from grace to grace, and from strength to strength, by diligently occupying that which we have, and fulfilling those duties which are meet to our present infirmity. There- not at one step, but by fore, the perfections of holiness presented in gradual proScripture, and the sublimities of character ex'emplified by Christ, ought to be constantly kept full in our view, that we may know what the Lord our God requireth of us, and how far we come short of his glory; whence are fed the fountains of our penitence and humility, at which prayer refresheth her too feeble voice, and the Lord hearing her refreshed voice, supplieth all our wants in due season, out of his inexhaustible fulness. And thus, as in a circle, from the idea of perfection, to the consciousness of weakness, and from the consciousness of weakness, to the increase of strength, and from the increase of strength, to the increase of performance, and from the increase of performance, to the idea of still higher perfection, we approach more and more near to that purity of holiness and sublimity of character, without the knowledge and perusal of which we should not have known our deficiency, and not knowing our deficiency, not have besought for higher aid, and not beseeching the aid of Heaven, should not have received the grace which is sufficient for us, and the strength which is perfected in weakness.