The conclusion of chapter 2:
We have thus touched some few points which, in the experience of active and earnest Christians, if I do not mistake the case, call not seldom for a recollection of the law of the Total Abstinence of Jesus Christ. Let us recur in closing to the brief, searching, sentences of the Apostle. They penetrate in their simplicity to the centre of our being. They interdict, with the same totality of intention, not only the expression of ungoverned anger but the least swelling of internal irritation; * not only the act of the adulterer, but the faintest movement of impure ideas. They prescribe an abstinence indeed. And how, oh how, in a practical sense, shall we totally abstain? There is but one reply: “In Him that strengtheneth me.” In Him the feeblest believer is, and He is in him, in the eternal covenant. Our need is to turn that unalterable fact into the practice of the ever-varying day and hour.
Let us look off, then, to the Lord; to the infinity of His supply. “Our sufficiency” for an abstinence total in purpose, and in humble hope, “is of God.” It is not concocted within; it is derived from above, and it is derived above all in that most wonderful way, the embosoming of Jesus Christ in the very hearts of His people by the power of the Holy Comforter, through faith. With this for our secret, we may even venture to say, in sober reality, and fully alive to the realities of human life; “My Master bids me totally abstain from this or from that besetting sin. I recognize its guilt, its power. Too often have I thought it a thing for indulgence and allowance; but now I think that thought no more. And my secret for obedience, in the light of His truth, is in Himself. I lay myself, in the name of His own redemption, beneath His sacred feet. With no boastful anticipations, I yet know that for the next step He is able to keep me from stumbling, as well as hereafter to present me, as He will, faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, Amen.”
* Most certainly there is such a thing in Christian life as just and wholesome indignation. The Christian is united to Him who not only “loveth righteousness” but “hateth wickedness” (Psal. xiv.7). Only, in this as in all things let the holy Union be remembered; there will always be need to do so.
We have thus touched some few points which, in the experience of active and earnest Christians, if I do not mistake the case, call not seldom for a recollection of the law of the Total Abstinence of Jesus Christ. Let us recur in closing to the brief, searching, sentences of the Apostle. They penetrate in their simplicity to the centre of our being. They interdict, with the same totality of intention, not only the expression of ungoverned anger but the least swelling of internal irritation; * not only the act of the adulterer, but the faintest movement of impure ideas. They prescribe an abstinence indeed. And how, oh how, in a practical sense, shall we totally abstain? There is but one reply: “In Him that strengtheneth me.” In Him the feeblest believer is, and He is in him, in the eternal covenant. Our need is to turn that unalterable fact into the practice of the ever-varying day and hour.
Let us look off, then, to the Lord; to the infinity of His supply. “Our sufficiency” for an abstinence total in purpose, and in humble hope, “is of God.” It is not concocted within; it is derived from above, and it is derived above all in that most wonderful way, the embosoming of Jesus Christ in the very hearts of His people by the power of the Holy Comforter, through faith. With this for our secret, we may even venture to say, in sober reality, and fully alive to the realities of human life; “My Master bids me totally abstain from this or from that besetting sin. I recognize its guilt, its power. Too often have I thought it a thing for indulgence and allowance; but now I think that thought no more. And my secret for obedience, in the light of His truth, is in Himself. I lay myself, in the name of His own redemption, beneath His sacred feet. With no boastful anticipations, I yet know that for the next step He is able to keep me from stumbling, as well as hereafter to present me, as He will, faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, Amen.”
* Most certainly there is such a thing in Christian life as just and wholesome indignation. The Christian is united to Him who not only “loveth righteousness” but “hateth wickedness” (Psal. xiv.7). Only, in this as in all things let the holy Union be remembered; there will always be need to do so.
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