Faith and Fortitude.
I. We can understand why courage, the courage of confessorship, is placed in the forefront of these Christian graces. It needed courage in the outset. It needed courage, after the mind was made up, for the mouth to open and say, "I am a Christian." When the Jews regarded a man as a renegade and apostate, at once unpatriotic and profane, and when the Greeks regarded him as a fool and fanatic, it needed courage to say, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ."
II. Mere physical daring is a fine and stirring spectacle; but there are few things more magnificent, or which do the world more good, than moral courage. It is this in which Christianity so abounds, and to which it owes its conquests: the fortitude of faith. The first plantation of the Gospel was a great fight; and there never were braver spirits than those valiant saints who came away from the foot of their Master's cross and went into all the world to proclaim the kingdom of the Crucified. Never was there seen aught like their tolerance of pain and their cheerful readiness to die, nor ever did conqueror go forth on his campaign with a bound more exultant than they set forth on each successive pilgrimage of pain and sorrow; and in their great tour of tribulation they strode from strength still onward unto strength. And when the worst was come, when it was not the spirit, but the body, that was bound, and the course was finished, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand," or, as Chrysostom wrote in his exile, "If the Empress wishes to banish me, the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. If she would saw me in sunder, let her saw me in sunder! I have Isaiah for a pattern. If she would thrust me into the fiery furnace, I see the three children enduring that. If she would stone me, I have before me Stephen the proto-martyr. If I yet pleased her, I should not be the servant of Christ," a firmness of mind which even Gibbon is forced to own is far superior to Cicero in exile.
J. Hamilton, Works,vol. v., p. 341.
Knowledge.
I. Among the different kinds of knowledge there is one department of transcendent importance. It is that knowledge which, in a flood of overwhelming illumination, burst in on the proud pupil of Gamaliel, and in a moment subdued him into the lowly disciple of Jesus Christ, and which in the case of similar fervid spirits has again and again produced the same effects. A man has too much cause to fear that he does not know the Saviour at all if he does not count as the most excellent knowledge the knowledge of Christ crucified, and if, in the event of its coming to a competition between the learning of the schools and the revelation of life everlasting, he is not prepared to count everything but loss compared to the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.
II. But in point of fact there is no such competition. Add to your knowledge of the specific Gospel a knowledge of Scripture in all its various contents and in all its delightful details. To this add sound information and practical skill of every kind. There is a great difference between erudition and intelligence, a great difference between a learned or knowing man and a wise one. The stores of science and the facts of history in many a memory are like arrows in a quiver or like cannon-balls in a garrison. In the hands of a mighty man they are capable of great execution; but if the bow is broken or the piece of ordnance is honeycombed and rusty, the best ammunition will win no victories. And although the thirst for information is laudable, although it is pleasant to meet with furnished minds, and you are glad to encounter an industrious reader or an ardent student, you know very well that it requires a sound understanding to turn these treasures to useful account. But this is no small distinction of the wisdom from above. It imparts understanding to the simple; and in imparting faith it gives that faculty to which all knowledge comes as wholesome nourishment, and by which it may be all again expended in a saving or a salutary power.
J. Hamilton, Works,vol. v., p. 352.
The Struggle for the Right.
The journey of life has to be travelled by us all. It must be made, whether shorter or longer between the cradle and the grave, and thepoint of consequence is to make it well.
I. And now a question arises of the gravest importance: What are the first efforts needed in the journey of life? The way of life, we know from the experience of the saints, if not from our own, from the teaching of Christ, if not from the whisper of our own souls, has many difficulties. It is like climbing the lofty mountain range when the crest, indeed, is white with glittering crystals, and the shining pinnacles take the sunlight at the breaking of the dawn, but to reach the crest there is a long and laborious struggle; there are intervening ridges, sharp and craggy; there are rough stones, which hurt the feet; there are deep gullies, where the water pours in angry torrents, and exposed, unsheltered platforms, swept by the multitudinous legions of the unpitying winds. Clearly have we to fix it in our minds for sake of others, if not for ourselves, that if such an ascent is truly to be achieved, the first steps must be planted well. To advance as we should advance in a Christian's journey, we must early learn the importance of the moral life; we must surely grasp the serious meanings of right and wrong.
II. What is the value, what the safeguard, of the moral law? Moral law is the law of liberty, belonging to conscious and self-determining man. It may be disregarded or set at defiance, for the subjects to it are free; but to disregard or set it at defiance is as sure to entail injury or ruin as a wild rush of some heavenly body, unrestrained by the laws which govern its motion, carrying with it devastation and the breaking up of worlds. The one law is of physical necessity; the other law may be freely obeyed or freely set at defiance; but both belong to the nature of things come from the Absolute, and are of eternity. The Christian religion has revealed the personal life and love of Him who is the source of moral truth. It has shown us the moral law in its complete earthly relation in the perfect example of the life of Jesus Christ. It has helped us to realise its splendour and our own weakness in attaining to its fulness, our need, therefore, of help, and our duty of high aspiration. It has made it vivid, living, sacred, near. It has reinforced motives, and revealed strong sanctions, so that without it the moral law would have less power of influence; without "faith" there would be a weakness of "virtue"; but it has insisted that "faith" was given in germ to the regenerate soul. One of the earliest efforts of the soul on its journey is a deeper sense of the greatness, the eternity, the claim, of the moral law; one of the first nearer steps is to make virtue a reality alongside faith.
III. "Add to your faith virtue." Virtue, whether it be what is called passive or active, whether it show itself in more measurable expressions in the outer scene of things or in the not less difficult but more hidden characters of restrainedness and patience, is essentially some form of manly strength. The pilgrim on his journey of life has ever to remember it that, to a great extent, he is made master of his own destiny, because, to a great extent, the formation of his character is placed in his own hands. We can, if we will, purify or select among our governing motives; we can, if we will, to a great extent, guide our acts. I am not forgetful of our inherent weakness as fallen creatures; I am not forgetful of the large assistances which we need, and which are supplied to us Christians by the grace of God. On these we may dwell in their proper places. But still it remains true that our acts are in our own power. By repeated acts, all moralists are agreed, habits are formed; and from the formation of habits comes the formation of character "Add to your faith virtue." In the difficult path of our pilgrimage, when we have to make serious decisions, when we have to be prepared for sudden emergencies, when we have to resist unlooked-for temptations, when we have to bear unexpected trials, when the well-being of others depends in no slight measure upon our conduct, when our own destiny seems at its very crisis, much, very much, will depend upon our having learned severe lessons of duty, having fixed deep in our souls the value and greatness of the moral law, having, in a word, by grace indeed, but by grace used with habitual faithfulness, added virtue to our faith.
W. J. Knox-Little, The Journey of Life;p. 25.
References: 2 Peter 1:5. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 246. 2 Peter 1:5; 2 Peter 1:6. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 208; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Mar thorough College,p. 397; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,Part I., p. 1.