332 DISCOURSE XXIX. CHANGE AND GROWTH. Acts iii. 19. REPENT YE, THEREFORE, AND BE CONVERTED, THAT YOUR SINS MAY BE BLOTTED OUT, WHEN THE TIMES OF REFRESHING SHALL COME FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. WHAT is the main principle or necessary condition of the Christian life and experience? Is it change, a change of heart? or is it growth,—a growth of nature? Theologians and religious denominations have been much divided on this point. The Orthodox sects have commonly insisted, that the needful process is change, suddenly expelling from our nature an evil and introducing a good element. The Liberal party has, in general, contended, on the other hand, that growth is the law; that the nature which God has given us needs no alteration, but only right development, by a method of orderly progress and gradual sanctification. Which party is right in this controversy? May not both be right, and both wrong? To the true Christian life and experience, are not change and growth alike requisite, and equally recognized in the Scriptures? The real point is not to decide between these two principles, but to assign to each its just relative position. Let us do this, not as identified with, or speaking in the name of, either party, but hoping rather for the day when Christian believers shall no longer be styled Liberal or Orthodox, but Liberal and Orthodox; strict in truth, and catholic in love. To proceed with our question. The liberal believer, in holding the Christian character to be a process of growth, relies much on the analogies of nature. "See," he says, "every living thing that God hath made, how it grows!—in the vegetable world, the flower by just degrees developed from a tiny seed, and the oak developed from the acorn; in the animal world, every creature rising, with no sudden starts, but by a perfect series of gradations out of the very rudiments of existence. Why should not the same law be observed in the spiritual world, and all that is good and holy in character be evolved from a primary germ in the very nature of the soul; to use our Saviour's own analogy, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear"? growth being, in fact, the law of the universe." But to this it may be replied, that, if growth be a law of the universe, change is a law too: the light, the air, the earth, the water, changed into the plant; the body growing by change and assimilation of its daily food; the worm becoming a butterfly, not, as is imagined, by simple growth, but by transformation, as the waxing light and heat of heaven rend away the old covering, and alter the very mode of existence; every thing that has life introduced into the world by mighty alteration; the earth itself, on which we dwell, brought to its habitable condition through a succession of vast changes; its surface, in every rent and chasm, hill and valley, a record of convulsions; its crystalline interior the product of continual alteration, and its whole sphere the very empire of change; we ourselves the subjects of change in life, and to pass through an unquestionable change at death. Change, surely, as well as growth, is the law of the universe; for nothing is unchangeable but God, who can neither change nor grow. So stands the argument from analogy. But the soul of man is a peculiar existence, having laws and operations of its own, beyond all the analogies of material things. It can and does grow, gradually advancing in every capacity of thought and feeling. But it is free in its nature, rapid in its thoughts, often quick in its decisions, capable of going on, or turning upon its track, liable to error, subject to compunction, seeing lofty visions of excellence, which pour scorn upon its base attainments, and stimulate it to preternatural efforts; nay, still more, open to the working of God's truth and Holy Spirit, and called with his high calling in Christ. And shall not blessed and glorious change, as well as slow, patient growth, be possible to such a nature? nay, if a man be a sinner, must not the law of change operate on him, before the law of spiritual growth can come in? If he grows simply, he grows in sin, and increases ever into a more monstrous size of iniquity. There are, indeed, perhaps a very few whom we might be content to see simply grow. There is in them, even from early years, such conformity of temper to the will of God, the currents of all divine and human love flow so purely in their humble breasts, that they seem, in the quality of their mental frame, perfect, and need only the perfection of growth. But these are rare persons. The great majority need to be changed. And we should not feel sadly, as though this necessity were some hard thing, pointing to the degradation and depravity of our nature It is rather a great privilege and a blessing of God in our nature that it can repent; that it is not like many material things; not like a leaning, crumbling edifice, which, when it has once begun, must continue to lean and crumble till it falls; not like a decaying plant, which must go on decaying till it dies; not like a diseased body, driven on in disease to utter dissolution; not like these things, but, by God's mercy, it can recover itself, become erect and healthy; and, like the angels, as Milton describes them, "vital in every part, cannot but by annihilating die." It is God's blessing, too, that this need not be the slow, well-nigh interminable work it is sometimes represented, as though the sins one has committed in the past, perhaps in the sanguine, heedless, tempted days of his childhood, must dog and curse him for ever, and the grim spectres of memory haunt him through all eternity; but, by the regeneration of God's truth, and the reconciliation of God's love, he can put them away, and be no more chased with their whips and stings as of scorpions. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Wasteful, hungry, and weeping wanderer from the Father's house, drop your ill burden, and take Christ's easy yoke; "put off the old man, and put on the new man," explaining the apostle's meaning not by a commentary, but by your life; change the habit of lust, anger, pride, vanity, selfishness, or envy, and graft into the stock of your nature the first principles of meekness, purity, humility, and love; and then you may grow to the content of your own heart, to the approval of God, and to the blessing of your fellow men. It is a serious question, What is the first step we should take? Is it of change from evil, or of growth in good? Have we all, according to the noble thought of a late theological writer, and to the gospel's undoubted design, grown up to be Christians? or have we been bred in, or invented for ourselves, a nurture so imperfect and unspiritual, that we need to be changed? As it is best for a nation to proceed, not always in the way of growth and development, but sometimes, on account of its evil condition, in the way of change and revolution; so do not many of us need to be revolutionized, constituted anew, with better principles, and governed by better laws? I know it is sometimes thought, that spiritual regeneration is not wanted where Christianity has been known and learned from youth, but only in those heathen lands where it is for the first time promulgated. But how imperfect the real operation of our religion, even in the domain it has overrun and apparently conquered! It is not only the hundreds of millions of men who are ignorant of it, that you must, in measuring |