TO PREVENT LAMENESS
[p. 206] TO PREVENT LAMENESS
There are two educational processes which must go on simultaneously, or there will be lameness; “The legs of the lame are not equal” (Proverbs 26: 7); one is very slowly learnt, the other, very readily; but there is no real, permanent progress unless they go on together. One is self-mortification. This will be admitted as necessary by every class of christians, from the least to the greatest, and saints in general adopt it in some form or other. This in its full sense is extermination and not acquisition, though in most minds there is a latent thought that if the bad were mortified, the good would spring up in its place, as when an old crooked oak is cut down, a nice straight promising one springs up. Now this really only exposes where the lameness is, because if there be in the flesh no good thing, excision or mortification cannot improve it, or make room for an improved state; for there is nothing good in it. Hence, this it is that shews how necessary it is in order to prevent lameness, that one should know where advancement or growth can be acquired, and this is the other leg. It is by beholding Christ in glory that the new man is increased, “transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3: 18). Now it is more difficult to lead souls to see and to obtain this second leg, than the first, and yet the imperfect way they obtain the first hinders them from seeking the other, or really being able to use the one which they assume to have.
But there is another danger; as soon as the soul sees the point of transformation there is the danger that he will become satisfied, and think that everything is in it, as once he may have thought that everything was in self-crucifixion. Now without a doubt the hobbling is worse when the second is supposed to be enough than when the first satisfied one. The one occupied with glory and omitting self-mortification is [p. 207] like a beautiful flower in a broken pot on the roadway. There is an air of fine sentiments, great appreciation of the beautiful, and reception of everything sublime, but such a one is like the man of mere learning who is not able to reduce what has been gained in education to any practical purpose. Surely if I am growing and developing in the highest nature, I ought to be ready to dispense with and refuse the nature that is adverse and pernicious.
Some might be stronger in the point of self-mortification if they had never known that of transformation; they are interested and captivated with the beauties of the glory, but too passive with respect to the vessel: the flower pot is allowed to be in any state it likes. We must mortify practically and absolutely, not merely submit to it because it is providentially ordered, but we must initiate it. A man who studies self-denial and does not see the side of transformation is one who makes everything of the flower pot, but has nothing but a daisy or some ordinary flower in it, although he passes better in the public eye. But how beautiful when there is a beautiful flower in a suited pot, and the pot kept, by self-control and self-denial, fit for the rare plant which is daily developing and expanding in loveliness to the praise of Him who planted it, and who nurtures and cherishes it.