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be with Christ and to see Him as He is. Our age is in general too busy, too active, for deep and continued self-observation, or for thoughtful communion with our God. It would not be too broad or invidious a statement to say, that for real insight into the recesses of our nature, or for deep aspirations after God, we must for the most part turn to holy men of other days: our own furnish us chiefly with that which they have mainly cherished, a general abhorrence of sin, they guide us not to trace it out in the lurking corners of our own hearts: they teach us to acknowledge generally the corruption of our nature, the necessity of a Redeemer, and the love we should feel towards Him; but they lead us not to that individual and detailed knowledge of our own personal sinfulness, whence the real love of our Redeemer can alone flow. A religious repose and a thoughtful contemplation would be a second advantage of complying in this respect with the instructions of our Church.[1]
Braced and strung by retirement into ourselves, and tranquil meditation upon God, we should return to our active duties with so much more efficiency, as we ourselves had become holier, humbler, calmer, more abstracted from ourselves, more habituated to refer all things to God. Were human activity alone engaged on both sides, then might we the rather justify the prevailing notions of the day, that energy is to be met by counter-energy alone: but now, since "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," it especially behoves us to look wherein our great strength lies, and to take heed that "the weapons of our warfare be not carnal." It is tempting to adopt into the service of God the weapons or the mode of warfare, which in the hands of His enemies we see to be efficacious; but the faithful soldier of Christ must not go forth with weapons which he has not proved; the Christian's armoury, as the Apostle continues to describe it, is mainly defensive; and
- ↑ "It is best to accompany our Fasting with the retirements of religion and the enlargements of charity; giving to others what we deny to ourselves." Bp. Taylor, Works, iii. 102. "Fasting, saith Tertullian, is an act of reverence towards God. The end thereof, sometimes elevation of mind; sometimes the purpose thereof clean contrary. The reason why Moses in the Mount did so long fast, was mere divine speculation; the reason why David, humiliation." Hooker, l. c.
