CHRIST AND MOSES: LOVE BETTER

THAN LAW.

Morning, December 19th, 1875.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us."-2 COR. v. 14.

THE Apostle Paul is here speaking in that strong, passionate way in which his great deep heart made him speak whensoever he was meditating upon what he had been and what he was now. He had begun to set forth how he had learned that what once he counted wisdom, now was foolishness to him, and vice versa. The things he once prided himself upon, now he trampled underfoot, and the cross, which to him was once a sign of shame, was now a sign of glory. The things he had fought for, and persecuted others for neglecting, had now for him passed away; and he had changed masters, altered his principles, changed his aims, been born

again, and become a new man. That others might see what he saw, he was willing to seem mad: "For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause; for the love of Christ constraineth us."

Now, that phrase has a deep truth in it, as such strong, passionate language ofttimes has. For ofttimes, when the heart speaks, all the other powers seem to be brought into sweet accord with it, and the voice is mostly the truest and most accurate interpreter of the heart. The mind itself becomes greatened when it sets forth the utterance of the heart. Some of you think that love and constraint ought not to be brought into company. There is a seeming harshness about the words constraint and restraint; a harshness which sounds like the clink of a chain in a prison house; a note of compulsion against which the soul rises up in rebellion. We could understand if Paul had said "law," "force," "destiny," or "Jehovah" constrains me; but this man says "love constrains me," and therein he set forth, in one short, sweet phrase, the whole difference of Christianity from the sublime religions which had preceded it-the religion of the Roman or the Greek. It is the substitution of the passionate obedience of lovingness for the obedience to

will, law, destiny, or the obedience of fear. To the Christian man after Paul's own heart, the love of Christ is that which restrains or constrains.

But though the effect of it is constraint, the process is sweet, and the results are glorious; for it is the religion of loving and being devoted to one who suffered our sorrows. There is no disguising it that law, fate, destiny, or commandment may produce an exceedingly noble form of religion; that it may make a nation strong in law, and powerful in all things; but it tends always to produce a character that is hard and cold; noble, but ungenial, ungracious. Yet the result of a clear understanding of law, and a very clear obedience to it, is never in any way to be accounted cheap. For it is better to be ungracious, and obedient, than to be gracious without obedience. It is better to be moral and undevout than to be devout and immoral. It is better to have your strength, even though clothed in raggedness as to beauty, than to have a sensuous beauty upon inward deformity and untruth.

Now, the religion of the Jews was one of the grandest and greatest the world had seen. It was a dumb obedience to the will of a holy Being, out of sight, adorable and adored; but it led on to the

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Christian faith, which, you remember, is obedience, because of love, to a visible and seen Being. For Theism and Christianity are not the same. A man shall be a theist, and worship the "unknown God;" but for a man to be a Christian, he must reverence a visible God, and regard God as “manifest in the flesh," as far as he can behold any manifestation of God, and profit by it. Did men but understand this clearly, then, instead of our profitless discussions about the being of God, it would be possible to make even a child understand that, out of the immensity of the unknown God, it is necessary to have some little circle made, something which he can understand, revere, love, adore, and worship. Therefore, it is not so much God, but God in Christ, that we love and worship. For a man may find all in Christ; enough to supply him with the whole force of his life, and to give him all the constraint and restraint which he requires. So, to us who hold these things, it is a little matter what the theologians may say about Trinities in Unities.

Standing once upon a mountain-top, I saw a thunder-storm a long way down. Between myself and the earth, in the valley beneath, there was the thunder-storm. There the lightning was flashing

and the thunder rolling; but all was calm above. And I have long now come to stand where I can look down upon the theologians' thunder-storms— their lightnings, and clouds, and small thunderbolts, and I find that all their discussions about these things do not affect me.

Believing, as I do, in the Incarnation-God manifested in all things, but supremely in humanity, and supremest in Christ-I believe that the manifestation which man requires in order to take the place of the old Law, is not human law, nor the worship of it; but is Divine law embodied in man. Reverencing, as Paul did, the grandeur of the Roman character, I turn with delight to the declaration of this man-that he had tried all that the law could do for him, and now had changed his master. For it is pleasant to read how thoroughly equipped Paul was. In pedigree he was perfect. His blood was of the best. In the law he was well instructed, and in the sacrifices of the law he was perfect. He was a master in Israel. And yet this is the man who subsequently counts all these things as a loss to him, that he may win Christ, and be apprehended of him. In doing this, he doubtless meditated upon the "fulness of the stature of the man Christ Jesus." Knowing that