XIII. SERMON forth again to the battle with fresh resolution, assured that He will not desert those who cleave to Him, and whom He has redeemed with His precious blood. SENCHAL, HIMALAYAS, 1862. ། XIV. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, A RACE AND STRUGGLE. SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY. I COR. IX. 24. Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. XIV. Discipline THERE is perhaps no religious truth which we are SERMON so unwilling to believe, or at least to act upon and apply to our daily conduct, as the doctrine that the of the Christian Christian life involves real labour and self-discipline. life. One of the dangers, resulting from the fact that the Gospel is acknowledged, established, and generally respected, is that its requirements are toned down, almost unconsciously, by the mass of those who profess it, to suit their own convenience. The practice of Christianity is reduced to an external decorum of conduct, an attendance on public ordinances, a devotion perhaps of a short portion of time to private religious observances, a maintenance, more or less firm, of principles just so strict as not to interfere with prosperity in this life. As to that which is to follow this life, some carefully put XIV. SERMON the thought away from them, while others trust vaguely that God will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss, and that the terrors of His law are reserved for those who openly despise it. Now of such views it must at least be said that they are very easy and very convenient, and that generally it would give us greater trouble to stray from the ordinary path than to follow it. It is a far harder task to listen to the voice which speaks to us of a real laborious endeavour to observe Christ's precepts, which warns us so to run that we may obtain the prize of our high calling in Him, to keep under the body and bring it into subjection, to remember that, unless we are watchful and devoted to one great object, we shall be cast away from God's grace and blessing. For such a Christianity as this differs widely from the quiet respectable Christianity which we commonly set before us, a Christianity which is never allowed to interfere with our comfort, our worldly interests, our favourite pursuits, our place in the regard of those around us, a Christianity which might certainly have been established upon earth at a less costly price than the death of the only begotten Son of God. In contrast to this spurious Christianity, this Gospel falsely so called, which has no higher object than that the world may move on in a quiet undisturbed course, with as little trouble as possible, either to society or individuals, St Paul puts before us, in the few short verses of to-day's epistle, the Christianity which he profest, and XIV. through which alone he hoped to be accepted of SERMON God. For an outward heartless conformity he substitutes an inner spiritual life. He speaks of a race, a struggle, an arduous contest with himself and his own inclinations. He is addressing the Corinthians, and therefore he takes his metaphors from a spectacle which of all others roused in them feelings of the most absorbing, the most breathless interest, the national festival of the Isthmian games, celebrated every third year close to their city in the presence of all the Greek and Roman inhabitants of the province of Achaia, of which Corinth was the capital. In order that we may appreciate the power which such similes must have exercised on the mind of a Greek convert to Christianity, the intense reality with which they must have invested his conceptions of his new faith, we must remember the peculiar dignity and importance of this famous festival. So far from involving any of the degrading associations which too often attach to the corresponding contests of modern times, it was united with all that was most beautiful in art, most refined in sentiment, most venerable in national traditions, most sacred in religion. Let us hear the words of a commentator, whose description is the more vivid, because he himself had visited the scene of these ancient contests, and noted such features as still help us to understand the description. "The racecourse of which the apostle speaks, was not a mere resort for public amusement, but an almost XIV. SERMON Sacred edifice, under the tutelage of the patron deity of the Ionian tribes, and surrounded by the most solemn recollections of Greece, its white marble seats rising like the foundation of a temple in the grassy slope, where its outlines may still be traced under the shadow of the huge Corinthian citadel, which guards the entrance of the Peloponnesus. The race in which all ran, the pugilistic contests in which they strove not to beat the air, were not merely exhibitions of bodily strength, but solemn trials of the excellence of the competitors in the gymnastic art, which was to the Greeks one half of human education. As the friends and relatives watched with breathless interest the issue of the contest, they knew that the victor would be handed down to posterity by having his name sung in a triumphal ode, and his likeness placed in the long line of statues which formed the approach to the adjacent temple. The prize, which he won from the appointed judges who sat in state at the end of the course, was one which could awake no mean or mercenary motives; its very simplicity attested its dignity, it was a garland of the Grecian pine, which still clothes with its light green foliage the plains of the Isthmus, and which was then consecrated to the sea-god, around whose temple its groves were gathered1." Para 2. Such was the imagery before the apostle's phrase of the epistle. mind when he wrote the words of the text, and the three verses which follow it, an imagery which is 1 Stanley, On the Epistles to the Corinthians. |