SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[Sunday, July 5.]

The Influence of Jesus.—(I note again, as a characteristic of the morality of sonship, the way in which it secures humility by aspiration, and not by depression.) How to secure humility is the hard problem of all systems of duty. He who does work, just in proportion to the faithfulness with which he does it, is always in danger of self-conceit. Very often men seem to have given up the problem in despair, and they lavish unstinted praise upon the vigorous, effective worker, without any qualifying blame of the arrogance with which he flaunts the duty that he does in the world’s face. “The only way to make him humble,” they would seem to say, “would be to make him idle. Let him stop doing duty and then, indeed, he might stop boasting. His arrogance is only the necessary price that the world and he pay for his faithfulness.” To such a problem the Christian morality brings its vast conception of the universe. Above each man it sets the infinite life. The identity of nature between that life and his, while it enables him to emulate that life, compels him, also, to compare himself with it. The more zealously he aspires to imitate it, the more clearly he must encounter the comparison. The higher he climbs the mountain, the more he learns how the high mountain is past his climbing. It is the oneness of the soul’s life with God’s life that at once makes us try to be like him, and brings forth our unlikeness to him. It is the source at once of aspiration and humility. The more aspiration, the more humility. Humility comes by aspiration. If, in all Christian history, it has been the souls which most looked up that were the humblest souls; if to-day the rescue of a soul from foolish pride must be not by a depreciation of present attainment, but by opening more and more the vastness of the future possibility; if the Christian man keeps his soul full of the sense of littleness, even in all his hardest work for Christ, not by denying his own stature, but by standing up at his whole height, and then looking up in love and awe and seeing God tower into infinitude above him—certainly all this stamps the morality which is wrought out within the idea of Jesus with this singular excellence, that it has solved the problem of faithfulness and pride, and made possible humility by aspiration.

And yet, once more, the morality of Jesus involves the only true secret of courage and of the freedom that comes of courage. More and more we come to see that courage is a positive thing. It is not simply the absence of fear. To be brave is not merely not to be afraid. Courage is that compactness and clear coherence of all a man’s faculties and powers which makes his manhood a single operative unit in the world. That is the reason why narrowness of thought and life often brings a kind of courage, and why, as men’s range of thought enlarges and their relations with their fellowmen increase, there often comes a strange timidity. The bigot is often very brave. He is held fast unto a unit, and possesses himself completely in his own selfishness. For such a bravery as that the man and the world pay very dear. But when the grasp that holds a man and his powers is not his self-consciousness, but his obedience to his Father, when loyalty to him surrounds and aggregates the man’s capacities, so that, held in his hand, the man feels his distinctiveness, his distinctive duty, his distinctive privilege, then you have reached the truth of which the bigot’s courage was the imitation. Then you have secured courage, not by the limitation, but by the enlargement of the life. Then the dependence upon God makes the independence of man in which are liberty and courage. The man’s own personality is found only in the household of his Father, and only in the finding of his personality does he come to absolute freedom and perfect fearlessness.—Phillips Brooks.

[Sunday, July 12.]

True Christianity.—Lord Jesus Christ, thou eternal and only Prince of Peace! Thou most blessed and truest rest of faithful souls! Thou hast said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace.

Alas! how often have I sought for rest in this world, but have not found it! For my soul, being immortal, can not rest or be satisfied with anything but thee alone; O immortal God, thou and thou alone art the rest of our souls. The world and all that is in it is hastening to decay; they all wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. How then shall my soul find rest in such fleeting and changeable things?… O God, my soul can not be satisfied but in thee, the supreme good. My soul hungereth and thirsteth after thee, and can not rest till it possess thee.…

O thou rock of my salvation! in which my soul trusteth and is at rest.…

O Lord Jesus, how ardent is thy charity! how pure, how free from deceit! how perfect! how spotless! how great! how exalted! how profound! In a word, how sincere and hearty is thy love! Suffer, I beseech thee, my soul to rest in this thy love.… Here let my poor soul rest free from fear of danger or disquiet. In thee let all my senses rest, that I may hear thee sweetly speaking, O thou highest love! Let my eyes behold thee, O thou celestial beauty! Let my ears hear thee, thou most harmonious music! Let my mouth taste, thou incomparable sweetness! Let the refreshing odors of life breathe upon me from thee, thou most noble flower of paradise!… Let my heart rejoice in thee, my true joy! Let my will desire thee alone, thou only joy of my heart! Let my understanding know thee alone, O eternal wisdom! Lastly, let all my desires, all my affections rest in thee alone, O blessed Jesus, who art my love, my peace, and my joy!

Take out of my heart everything that is not thyself. Thou art my riches in poverty; thou art my honor in contempt; my praise and glory against reproaches; my strength in infirmity; and in a word, my life in death. And how, then, should I not rest in thee, who art my all in all? My righteousness against sin; my wisdom against folly; redemption from condemnation; sanctification from my uncleanness.…

Let me, I beseech thee, surrender my whole heart to thee, since thou hast given me all thine. Let me go out of myself, that I may enter into thee. Let me cleanse my heart and empty it of the world, that thou mayest fill it with thy celestial gifts, O Jesus, the rest of my heart, the Sabbath of my soul! Lead me into the rest of a blessed eternity, where there are pleasures at thy right hand for evermore. Amen.—Arndt, “A prayer for obtaining true rest and tranquility of soul.”

[Sunday, July 19.]

[Sunday, July 26.]

Sermon on Luke iv, 1-13.—The weapons of Jesus?—say we rather the weapon—for he has but one, it is the Word of God. Three times tempted, three times he repels the temptation by a simple quotation from the Scriptures, without explanation or comment. “It is written”—this one expression tells upon the tempter like a tremendous discharge upon an assaulting battalion. “It is written”—the devil withdraws for the first time. “It is written”—the devil withdraws for the second time. “It is written”—the devil gives up the contest. God’s word is the weapon which Satan most dreads—a weapon before which he has never been able to do aught but succumb. Most justly does Paul call it the “Sword of the Spirit;”[A] and John describes it, in the Revelation, as “a sharp, two-edged sword, proceeding out of the mouth of the Son of man.” With that “Sword of the Spirit” in our hands, our cause becomes that of the Holy Spirit himself, and we shall be as superior in strength to our adversary, as is the Spirit of God to the spirit of darkness. Without it, on the contrary, left to ourselves, we shall be as much below him as is man’s nature below that of angels. Adam fell, only because he allowed this sword to drop. Jesus triumphs, because no one can wrest it from his hand. But why is it that the Son of God, instead of meeting the enemy with some new sword brought from the heavens whence he came, took up only our own weapon, from that very earth where Adam had, with such cowardice, left it? This is for our example. From what that weapon accomplished in his hand, we must learn what it can do in ours. Let us, then, take it up in our turn; or, rather, let us receive it from him, resharpened as it were, by his victory, and we shall have nothing to fear. To all the adversary’s attacks let us oppose a simple “It is written,” and we shall render vain his every endeavor.… If after having heard him on the theater of temptation, scoffing at the word of God, we could (allow me the expression) follow him behind the scenes, and hear him confess to his accomplices that he is lost if he can not succeed in wresting from our hands this irresistible weapon! If we did but know all this, and if, like the valiant Eleazar, “we could keep hold of our sword till our hand clove unto it”—oh, then we should be invincible, yea, invincible!—Monod.