"Be not
conformed to this world, but _be ye transformed_"--we are subjects to
transforming influence, we do not transform ourselves. Not more
certain is it that it is something outside the thermometer that
produces a change in the thermometer, than it is
SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE SOUL OF MAN
that produces a moral change upon him. That he must be susceptible to
that change, that he must be a party to it, goes without saying; but
that neither his aptitude nor his will can produce it, is equally
certain.
Obvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an almost startling
revelation. The change we have been striving after is not to be
produced by any more striving. It is to be wrought upon us by the
moulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the bud
bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation of influences
from the outside air, so man rises to the higher stature under
invisible pressures from without. The radical defect of all our former
methods of sanctification was the attempt to generate from within that
which can only be wrought upon us from without.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130