time, said of love. They are two names for one principle. Sympathy is only another name for love, when it is exercised in such a way as to harmonize, in the most beneficial manner, with the wants and the situation of others. We repeat, therefore, that a principle so divine as this must ultimately renovate and control the world. And it will do it in the manner which has already been mentioned, namely, by its attractive rather than its aggressive influence. Reaching in every direction, and attracting the attention of all men by its innate loveliness, it draws them gently but surely to itself. It prevails by means of its truth and beauty, and not less by that gentle touch of fellow-feeling, with which it weeps with every tear, and smiles upon every smile.

And one of its crowning glories is this. It conquers without knowing how or why it conquers;

the mighty power which is in it being hidden in its own simplicity of spirit.

30*

CHAPTER X.

PRINCIPLES AND EXPLANATIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF PRACTICAL HOLINESS.

Definition of holiness. Reference to the Hebrew and English terms. -Of wholeness or completeness in God. - Practical or experimental holiness implies the fulness of the divine life in the soul. - It is by means of God in the soul that the definition of holiness is realized. Principles involved in the life of God in the soul, namely, entire consecration, appropriating faith, and living by the moment.

IN connection with the views, which have hitherto been presented in this work, we are aided, I think, in obtaining some new and important ideas in relation to practical holiness. Holiness is often defined (and, perhaps, more generally than in any other way) to be conformity to God's law;-including conformity of the heart or feelings, as well as of the outward action. To this definition, or to others stated with the same import, though, perhaps, with some variation of terms, we do not propose to object. Perhaps it would not be easy to give a better one.

2. There is a great difference, however, between holiness defined and holiness practised; between holiness, abstractly considered, and holiness in realization. If, therefore, it may be important to know in what holiness consists by definition, it is certainly not less so to know who is the actual possessor of it. The Hebrew word, which is translated holiness, involves, as one of its ele

ments, the idea of being set apart to a sacred or religious purpose. The English term holiness, in its original import, means whole-ness, completeness. And this idea, when the subject is contemplated in a practical point of view, ought not to be lost sight of. Accordingly, presenting the matter in a little different light from that in which it is usually presented, it would not be improper to say, that the holy man is one who is whole or complete in God. If every part of the life of the creature is filled up and completed with the life of God, then he is a whole or holy man, and not otherwise. A holy man, therefore, is one who freely surrenders himself to God, that he may receive everything from God in return; so that, by means of a divine life, operating as a central principle at the seat or heart of his own nature, he is brought into entire harmony with God, and fully represents the divine conception or idea in faith, in knowledge, in love, in will, in harmonizing with providence, in everything. Holiness, therefore, considered practically, is the perfect restoration of the divine life in the soul.

3. In making these statements we are not to forget, (and we are the more solicitous that we should not forget it, because great truths sometimes lie in the close vicinity of great errors,) that man is a moral being endued with the power of free choice; and that the divine presence cannot exist in him, as a principle of life, except with his own consent. Moral life is a different thing from mere physical or instinctive life. There is a sense in which God is the life of everything. He is the life of the earth, the sky, the waters. He is the living principle of whatever the earth produces,—of the leaf, the flower, the plant, the tree. He is the life also, by means of their various and wonderful instincts, of all lower animals. But he is their life, in some cases, without

their knowing it at all, because they are not percipient existences; and in other cases, without their exhibiting any distinct recognition and knowledge, if it is possible that they have it. But it is not so with moral beings. God is and can be the life of such beings, only so far as he is so with their own consent. In the words of a modern English poet,

"Our wills are ours; we know not how;

Our wills are ours, to make them thine."

So that it is not more necessary that God should be our life, than it is that we should choose him to be so. If it be true that we cannot live without the life of God in the soul, it is also true that we cannot have that life without our own choice. And the reason is, that the principles of moral government, as it exists among beings who are subject to the supremacy of a divine government, require, without the exclusion of either, that there should be an harmonious action and union of the two in When God works within us with our own consent and in answer to our own prayer, then the human and divine may be said to be reconciled, because the work of God, by the harmonious adjustment of the two, becomes both the work of God and the work of the creature. So that it is true, in all cases of holiness actually experienced, that the man lives and has a true life; while it is also true, and in a still higher sense, that God lives in him.

one.

4. The consent or choice, of which we have been speaking, may not always be formally or expressly given; but it always exists as an element of the inward nature. And, accordingly, the alienation or loss of life depends upon the alienation or withdrawal of consent. The beings who inhabit other worlds, so far

* Tennyson.

as they remain holy beings, have never withdrawn their consent, and, consequently, have never fallen. Nothing could be so unpleasant to them as to be left to themselves. Accordingly, the desire to dethrone and alienate the great central principle has never entered their minds. It was otherwise with man. He chose to separate himself from God by trusting to his own wisdom, and yielding himself to his own desires. He thus lost the true life. And as there is and can be but one true life, he necessarily died. He lives, it is true; but it is a dead life. He lives physically, but is dead morally; he lives in the form, but is dead in the spirit. Death is his truth, and life is his fiction. So that, though both are true in a certain sense, it is the greater truth to say that he is dead.

5. Returning, therefore, to the leading idea involved in these remarks, we proceed to say, that man is restored from death just in proportion as he begins to live in and from God. And when, by exercising that consent which God allows him, he lives wholly from God by choosing to live wholly from him, and by exercising faith to that effect, then he is a whole or holy man. Taking the common definition, that holiness is entire conformity to God's law, still it is not the definition which makes a man holy, but the life of God in the soul. It is God within, that makes the definition available. Who properly understands God's law and knows what it is, unless he is first taught of God? Who loves God's law, unless love is first inspired within him by the breath of God himself? Who obeys God's law by bringing his will into conformity with it, except by the constant aids of divine grace?

Let it ever be remembered that there is only one that is holy in the higher and original sense. And that is God. All other beings, whatever position they may sustain in