The stream of the whole Christian world at this day is running fast to a liberty which ends in license. It is the time-spirit and the downward course of these last days. We are so acclimatised to a soft self-sparing life that we interpret even the words of the Holy Ghost till they become colourless and metaphorical. Who now takes as a rule of life the words, "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world"?[1] What sign of crucifixion is there in our blameless easy life? Or again, "With Christ I am nailed to the Cross; and I live, not now I, but Christ liveth in me. And that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself for me."[2]
What marks of the nails are there in our free life, and what sign of Christ reigning in us and through us upon all our words and actions? We seem to read the law of liberty backwards: "So speak ye and so do as they who, if they do not willingly sin, need not deny themselves in anything;" instead of "So speak ye and so do as they who desire to restrict their liberty in all things, that they may be conformed to the Son of God, who denied Himself for us."
