PERFECTION.

IN the Sermon on the Mount, our Saviour laid down for us no less a standard than perfection. That sermon, which has been the fruitful source of so many discourses, and indeed contains in itself all the righteous sermons since delivered and to be delivered, fell upon the Jewish ears with a stunning force of paradox. Its principles quite reversed their precepts, poured contempt on all their pride, and pointed out sources of happiness hitherto unknown, or known only to be despised. To this day, that precept to which we have now especially adverted has remained a paradox, running counter to general Christian profession and alleged experience. Christians generally admit sin to be insuperable in the present state of being; and in their temple-worship they continually proclaim to God their own unworthiness and vileness. With some, this strain of homage is, no doubt, the voice of a deep consciousness. With others, it sometimes seems to indicate an idea, that God, like an Eastern despot, likes to have his worshippers grovel in the dust before him; degrading the subject to exalt the Sovereign. It is sometimes a painful spectacle, as if a thoughtless insult to Him who has created and redeemed us. Does it not somewhat reflect upon the Sovereign himself, to inform him that even his works of grace are so alloyed? Does the praying Christian forget that he is God's own workmanship, both initially and much more by the transformation of the spirit? Such homage, when the sincere breathing of a bruised spirit, is fit to move the tears of the speaker and hearer. When, on the other hand, it appears to be dictated by a magnifying of God through the belittlement and slander of man, his workmanship, it is painfully counter to good taste; and, when it smacks of cant, it is repulsive to the spectator, and cannot be acceptable to God. Does the worshipper really believe his own exhibition of himself? If even his fellow-man should take him at his word, would he not be bitterly affronted?

The Saviour's precept, however paradoxical, is so explicit, clear, and demonstrable as to be almost self-evident.

pure,

-pure as he is pure.

So far as the past record goes, does not the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse from all sin? If so, it renders the past lilyAnd, if not, then the atonement is at fault. And, if it fails partially, it is a total failure; for a sinner only partially redeemed cannot be admitted into heaven, where nothing can enter which defileth in the least degree.

So, too, of the future. If the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to enable us to live without sin, then the grace is incomplete, and our redemption is at fault. Nay, more: if we cannot live without sinning, then a sin which is compulsory we are not to blame for, and it is no sin. It is evident, therefore, that we can live without sin, if we take refuge in the Ark of Safety, and lay hold on all that help which Christ has provided for us.

It is evident, also, that we reproach Christ if we say he requires of us more than we can accomplish. He has presented the standard of perfection: would it be righteous and benevolent for him to thus exact of us, if compliance were out of our power? Nay, if this were so, then perfection itself is satisfied at a lower rate; for a man who does as well as he can, does all that can be justly demanded of him, and is, in fact, perfect.

The only way to escape this reasoning is to qualify the Scripture by some imaginarily and arbitrarily supposed tacit reservation. We think such a course of Bible exposition is liable to the anathema pronounced against the adding to, or taking from, the Word of God.

But what is perfection?

It has degrees. A shell on the sea-shore is as perfect as a solar system or a galaxy; but it is not as large. If we are perfect as God, our perfection is finite, and his infinite.

It is progressive. Gabriel is a greater being now than he was in the days of Abraham. There is no standstill in perfection. The perfect Christian is on the advance,—a pilgrim ascending that ladder which Jacob saw reaching from heaven to earth, and he is every day nearer to God. A Christian who had got his growth would be so far from perfect, that he

would be a dead thing without any Christian vitality; for, with the Christian, to live is to attain, to advance. This "one thing I do," says Paul: "forgetting the things that are behind, I press on to those which are before."

Perfection, again, is God's work, and not man's. In all human achievement, the divine agency is still so vastly out of proportion, that the contributive work of man seems slight indeed. This is in the natural world. The husbandman ploughs the ground; but who made the ground? Who made the oxen? Who made the wood and iron shaped into the plough? Who made the ploughman himself? Who ministers to him the strength he must put forth in the work? All this is so great, that the effort of man seems small indeed. Yet that effort is man's own, given by God to the free human will, and made the condition of the result. This smaller quantity is lost sight of by the fatalists, who make puppets of themselves in error of intellect or the mistaken hope of pleasing God. An opposite class impute all to this human element, losing sight of the preponderating divine agency. It is to correct these that we are told in the word of God, Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." It was this self-glorification that unmanned Nebuchadnezzar, and degraded him to the rank of the irrational brute till seven times passed over his head.

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The perfect man glories in God, not in himself; for he knows that his righteousness is Christ's, imputed, and thereby imparted, to him, that, in his goodness, it is God that works in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He does not say, "Behold this mighty Babylon that I have built!" but, rather, "Behold this work of grace that God hath wrought!" Still he does not ignore his own contributive agency, but, consciously alive to his God-imparted strength, his freedom and power of will, he puts forth his strength, and co-operates with God.

The perfect man, in the next place, does not know his own perfection. He thinks so much of God, that he thinks little of himself. A few persons I have known intimately in

whom I could find no fault, but everybody thought more of them than they did of themselves. They did not count that they had already attained. Humility is itself the crown-jewel of perfection, and humility is not self-conscious. Paul was

perfect, but he did not stop to count upon it: he "pressed on to the things which are before." Those perfectionists who announce, "I am perfect," furnish evidence of their own frailty, and discredit their profession.

The perfect man is so vigilant against the heart, which he knows to be deceitful above all things, that he dare not trust its testimony in behalf of his perfection. He fears it is overweening; he dreads callousness of conscience; he thinks his self-satisfaction arises from losing sight of the higher heights which ever open up in grandeur and glory in the blue serene above him. The perfect man is a watcher; and his constant prayer is to the Searcher of hearts, to show him if there be any wicked way in him, and lead him in the life everlasting.

Again: the perfect man is not delivered from propensity to sin. Christ was without sin; but he was not without propensity to sin; for he was tempted in all points like as we Paul was a perfect man in his degree: yet the thorn in the flesh gave him anguish, and he exclaimed, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

are.

No man is so perfect as to be safe from temptation. It lurks for him at the next corner, and endangers his spiritual life. It presents evil thoughts and evil lures to him. It is nearest when seeming farthest off. When the soul has but now been soaring in devotion, there is danger, as it sinks from its flight, that Satan will enter into it. The man who counts himself perfectly safe, and relaxes his guard or throws away his weapons and armor, is sure to fall into sin.

In considering the doctrine of perfection, it is necessary carefully to discriminate between sinful propensity and sinful practice. To merely be tempted to do wrong, to have evil thoughts offer themselves, or evil lures solicit, is not sin. If we could not resist such temptation, then duress would be a good plea, and irresistible sin would be no sin. This would

be proportionably true if these temptations could be only partially resisted; for, to the extent of impossible resistance, the forced wrong would not be sin, since only free agents can commit sin.

This is the evil of preaching up the impossibility of perfect sinlessness. Bad men hear good men accounting themselves vile; and, taking them at their word, they suppose them no better, regard holiness as impracticable, and content themselves to grovel in moral degradation.

To say that we cannot be perfect is a libel upon God, and a license more or less to commit sin. It discourages us to expect to live without sinning, or to believe we can so live; and in this respect, as a man thinketh, so is he he cannot accomplish what he believes beyond his power, and useless to endeavor. Consequently, where this hopelessness of virtue is preached up, the moral standard is not high, and the

Christianity is gross with alloy. We fear there are many who, at the judgment, will find their faith tried by their works, and will incur condemnation because they unnerved their strength with sluggish ease in a debased moral standard of possible excellence.

This doctrine of perfection is inculcated by the beloved disciple, and gives the key to the First Epistle of John. In the eighth verse of the first chapter, he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Here, we take it, he refers to sinful propensity, and not to sinful indulgence. Or perhaps it refers to the past record, and is another rendering of the tenth verse intended to be expository of it, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and the truth is not in us." We take it both statements are true of the perfect man, and that he is a wretched fanatic, who does not recognize that he was once a sinner, and still is liable to sinful propensities. That it does not imply that a Christian indulges sin is very obvious from the third chapter. In the fifth verse it is written, " And we know that he was manifested to take away our sins." The sixth verse says, "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.