Thoughts on the Spiritual Life - XLI - H. C. G. Moule

H. C. G. Moule, M.A., Principal of Ridley Hall, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Bishop of Durham

XI.

Concluding Thoughts

In closing these simple pages, let me put before my friend and reader a few remarks, somewhat detached in form.

i. First, an earnest caution against an overdrawn introspection. It may be thought that this book itself looks another way, often suggesting and encouraging a close inward examination. I do indeed seek to press, on myself first, the duty of self-examination, a scrutiny within that shall not stop short of motive, purpose, inmost state of affection and will. Many Christian lives, I am sure, greatly lose in depth, consistency, and chastened soberness, by failure to examine within; and the habit and practice of such examination, not without a certain system, is a duty of Christian life. For most of us it would be well to make this exercise a regular element, say, in secret evening devotion.

Nevertheless, introspection is a secondary, not primary, duty of the life of grace; a subsidiary, not direct, means of holiness and strength. “Ten looks at Christ for one at self” is after all the primary rule. “Look unto Jesus” gives us, as has been well said, the Gospel in three words. Introspection ceases to do good and begins to do harm the moment it terminates in itself, the moment it fails to be our reminder of our need of the simplest gaze, every hour, upon the Son of God, “who is made unto us of God wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Christ is “the Secret of God,” in the literal rendering of the best attested reading of Col. ii. 2. And Christ is not ourselves. Dwelling in the heart of him who is “strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man,” He is not the inner man, nor the heart. And, as the Object of adoring contemplation and humble faith, we must view Him not as He is in us but as He is in Himself; incarnate, sacrificed, glorified. “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, as by the Lord the Spirit.”