Our Master | Page 9

designed by God to be also (not, of course, in
the same degree, but still up to the measure of his own capacity and of
his Master's will) a dual, or two-fold creature, with associations and
roots and attachments in all that is human, and yet with the divine life,
the divine spirit, divine love, divine zeal, divine power, divine fire
united with him and dwelling in him?

The perfect man would have been a great marvel, a great teacher, a
great prophet; but without the God he could never have been the perfect
Saviour. The Divine, without the human, would have been an
awe-inspiring fact, a spectacle of holiness too great for human eyes; but
He could not have been a Saviour. If it were possible for us to conceive
the one without the other we should certainly not find a JESUS in
either.
And so, your merely human Officer, no matter how pure, how strong,
how thoughtful, how clever, how industrious, will fail, and ever fail.
And even so the Officer who is lost in visionary seeking after the
Divine alone, to the neglect of action, of duty, of law, of self-denial, of
the common conflicts and contracts of the man, will equally fail, and
always fail. It is the man we want. The MAN--but the man born of the
SPIRIT. The MAN--but the man full of the HOLY GHOST. The
MAN--but the man with PENTECOST blazing in his head and heart
and soul.
Comrade, what are you? Are you striving to be a prophet without
possessing the spirit of the prophets? Are you trying to be a priest
without the priestly baptism? Are you labouring to be a king without
the Divine anointing? Beware!

IV.
From Infancy to Manhood.
Birth implies the weakness, the dependence, the ignorance of infancy.
But it implies, also, the promise of growth, of increase, of advance
from infancy to manhood. Thus it is with man generally. So it was with
the Son of Man. First, He was "wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid
in a manger." Presently He goes forth in His mother's arms into Egypt,
and back to Nazareth. By and by it is written that "the Child grew and
waxed strong in spirit, and the grace of God was upon Him." Then He
is found in the Temple, asking that wonderful question about His
Father's business, and at last we find Him "increased in wisdom and
stature, and in favour with God and man."

We know, also, that He was found in fashion as a servant, and was
obedient unto death; that He was tempted of the Devil, and that "He
learned obedience by the things that He suffered." In fact, a very slight
acquaintance with the history of His life reveals the truth that in some
wonderful way He steadily grew in wisdom and grace; in the power to
love and to serve, and in strength to grapple with sin and death--all the
while He journeyed from the cradle to the grave and the victory
beyond.
His life was a discipline, in the very highest sense of the word. Many of
the hopes He might rightly entertain about the success of His work
were dashed. Much of His love for those around Him was disappointed,
and His trust betrayed. He was despised where He should have been
honoured: rejected where He should have been received. "He came
unto His own, and His own received Him not." "Not this man," they
cried, "but Barabbas." But out of it all He came forth perfect and entire,
lacking nothing--the chiefest among ten thousand, the altogether lovely.
It may be a mystery, but it is a fact all the same, that the more the
precious and wondrous and eternal jewel was cut and cut again, the
more the light and glory of the Day-spring from on High was made
manifest to men.
And here also I find a word of help and courage and cheer for you and
me, my precious comrade. I am not sure that you could receive any
more valuable Christmas gift than the full realisation of this truth--_that
your advance from the infancy to the manhood of your life in God will
not be hindered and delayed, but rather will be helped and quickened
by the storms and trials, the conflicts and sufferings, which will
overtake you_.
It was so with the man Christ Jesus; it has been so with thousands of
His chosen. As He, our dear Lord, was made perfect through suffering,
so are His saints. We are "chosen in the furnace of affliction," and often
cast into it, too! And yet He who chooses all our changes, might have
spared us every trial and conflict, and taken us to victory without a
battle, and to rest without