THE EFFECT OF NATURAL INFLUENCE

THE EFFECT OF NATURAL INFLUENCE

I think we do not sufficiently observe how easily an untoward influence is imbibed from our acquaintances in nature. They always address our nature whenever they at all please us, and when our nature is pleased we are injured. This really takes place when we are off our guard, and few like to continue what a soldier calls doing duty, ever braced in armour, no relaxation or remission; and we always displease our natural acquaintances when we are true to our new and proper nature in Christ, when we feel our distance and separation from them and are fully happy in it. We are always either cultivating the new nature or reviving the old. In the latter case we are injuring ourselves, and we are useless to those around us. In the former, we are alone in happy separation and acquiring ability to be useful. Faith must act above all influences, and therefore when any influence is admitted, faith is superseded. An unhealthy moral atmosphere does not immediately and distinctly impress us with the injury we sustain from it, but we always find that it affects first our weak point, whatever that may be. On the contrary, in a divine atmosphere our weak point is ^[p. 218] the first thing corrected. I am sure saints often suffer from an injurious moral atmosphere without being able to detect the cause of it.