The Leading of the Spirit

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.—Romans 8:14.

1. These words constitute the classical passage in the New Testament on the great subject of the “leading of the Holy Spirit.” They stand, indeed, almost without strict parallel in the New Testament. We read, no doubt, in that great discourse of our Lord’s which John has preserved for us, in which, as He was about to leave His disciples, He comforts their hearts with the promise of the Spirit, that “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.” But this “guidance into truth” by the Holy Spirit is something very different from the “leading of the Spirit” spoken of in our present text; and it is appropriately expressed by a different term. We read also in Luke’s account of our Lord’s temptation that He was “led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil,” where our own term is used. But though undoubtedly this passage throws light upon the mode of the Spirit’s operation described in our text, it can scarcely be looked upon as a parallel passage to it. The only other passage, indeed, which speaks distinctly of the “leading of the Spirit” in the sense of our text is Galatians 5:18, where in a context very closely similar Paul again employs the phrase: “But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” It is from these two passages primarily that we must obtain our conception of what the Scriptures mean by “the leading of the Holy Spirit.”

2. There is certainly abundant reason why we should seek to learn what the Scriptures mean by “spiritual leading.” There are few subjects so intimately related to the Christian life of which Christians appear to have formed, in general, conceptions so inadequate, where they are not even positively erroneous. The sober-minded seem often to look upon it as a mystery into which it would be well not to inquire too closely. The consequence is that the very phrase, “the leading of the Spirit,” has come to bear, to many, a flavour of fanaticism.

I

The Leading of the Spirit belongs to, and characterizes, the Sons of God

1. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,” says the Apostle, “these are sons of God.” We have here in effect a definition of the sons of God. The primary purpose of the sentence is not, indeed, to give this definition. But the statement is so framed as to equate its two members, and even to throw a stress upon the coextensiveness of the two designations. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these, and these only, are sons of God.” Thus the leading of the Spirit is presented as the very characteristic of the children of God. This is what differentiates them from all others. All who are led by the Spirit of God are thereby constituted the sons of God; and none can claim the high title of sons of God who are not led by the Spirit of God.

When we consider this Divine work within our souls with reference to the end of the whole process we call it sanctification; when we consider it with reference to the process itself, as we struggle on day by day in the somewhat devious and always thorny pathway of life, we call it spiritual leading. Thus the “leading of the Holy Spirit” is revealed to us as simply a synonym for sanctification when looked at from the point of view of the, pathway itself, through which we are led by the Spirit as we more and more advance towards that conformity to the image of His Son which God has placed before us as our great goal.1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

2. This leading of the Spirit is not some peculiar gift reserved for special sanctity and granted as the reward of high merit alone. It is the common gift poured out on all God’s children to meet their common need, and it is the evidence, therefore, of their common weakness and their common unworthiness. It is not the reward of special spiritual attainment; it is the condition of all spiritual attainment. In its absence we should remain hopelessly the children of the devil; by its presence alone are we constituted the children of God. It is only because of the Spirit of God shed abroad in our hearts that we are able to cry, Abba, Father.

Defining as they do, generally and without exception, all the sons of God, the words cannot point to any exceptional or what we commonly know as miraculous agency. The influence exerted must be normal and ordinary. That is, at least, if the sons of God are, as we know they are, to be moving about in the world, performing the ordinary duties of life like other men. The influence of the Divine Spirit must not be expected and will not show itself in lifting them out of common life, but in leading them in it, however this latter term is to be understood. And such a consideration will necessarily imply much more. Common life proceeds on common rules. God has just as much bound together seed-time and harvest, means and result, in the life of men as in the life of nature. And it is in, not out of, this chain of connected action, that we may look for the leading of God’s Spirit in man, just as it is in this same chain that we expect His working in nature.1 [Note: H. Alford.]

How can a privilege which is open to all lead any man to think that he is better than his neighbour? Men do not give themselves airs because the sun shines on their heads, and the scent of the sea and the forest mixes itself with the blood, and flowers blow about their pathway, and the blue quivers with lark-songs. They never grow arrogant through that which they possess in common with their fellows, even should many in the crowd be unmusical and inartistic and indifferent to the exhilarations of nature. And those who realize that this privilege rests upon grace, and is enjoyed through faith alone, cannot possibly be under any special temptation to become proud.2 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

Do not proudly elevate your head through the charms of your voice,

For reeds and silken cords are also endowed with speech.

Attach not so much dignity and excellence to your sight,

For the sparrow can discern at a distance of twenty parasangs.

Boast not so loudly of your powers of hearing,

For the hare is sensible of sound at ten leagues’ distance.

Oh, weak man! speak not so much of your perception of smell,

For a mouse can smell at a bow-shot distance.3 [Note: Mirkhond, in Field’s Little Book of Eastern Wisdom, 25.]

3. As the sons of God are characterized by the leading of the Spirit, so at the same time the leading of the Spirit produces certain broad results in them, so that in the sons of God we discern (1) life in God, (2) union with God, (3) likeness to God.

(1) Life in God. To be a son is to be a partaker of the immortal life of God. Paul speaks of the immortal God. To be a son is to participate in His eternal life. The Spirit that leads is in him whom He leads “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Sonship holds in it a growing conviction, a consciousness of life eternal. In the course of years it becomes a main factor of thought, faith, and feeling; indeed, it becomes a fixed, unfluctuating part of consciousness. It never suggests a doubt, a question, but settles down immovably among the certainties: an intuition of God’s indwelling Spirit. Thus it comes to pass, as Channing finely argues, that our strongest proofs of immortality are not the analogies of nature, not the reasonings and deductions of intellect, but the possession of Divine purity, truth, and love. These give vitality to hope, and to faith the full force of a realization. He who has hold of, and grows up into, these, is not left to the doubtful determinings of the logical understanding; he has a surer token, he has got the eternal life itself. He knows. He has Christ in him, the hope of glory. He is an heir of God, a Joint heir with Jesus Christ. To be led by the Spirit, is to enter and grow in the life of God, and so become a being after God’s own kind. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.

(2) Union with God. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” That reveals the secret of true communion and intercourse with God. That shows the root of it. It is more than an emotion or a feeling, more than a happy mood; it is a life principle, deep, pure, strong and eternal; and happy feelings, pleasures of emotion, are but one form in which it may declare itself. It is really a community of life which identifies the human soul with God in His mind, will, and character.

(3) Likeness to God. This is the final result of the leading of the Spirit of God. The man is broken off from fleshly and devilish affinities, and enters into moral affinity with God. He and God are like-minded. The similitude is not of form, but of character. The likeness is inward, spiritual. It is a disposition revealing itself in tastes and tempers and deeds. We sometimes say of a lad, “He is his father’s son; he is his father over again.” We mean, generally, more than appearance. We point to a likeness more essential. We mean he is of his father’s spirit—has his habits and tendencies. In this moral or intellectual sense a lad very often is not his father’s son; he is sometimes his mother’s. In association with this fact we at once call to mind other words of the Lord Jesus; they are these—“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

There is a law of unconscious assimilation. We become like those with whom we go. Without being conscious of it, we take on the characteristics of those with whom we live. I remember one time my brother returned home for a visit after a prolonged absence. As we were walking down the street together he said to me, “You have been going with Denning a good deal”—a mutual friend of ours. Surprised, I said, “How do you know I have?” He said, “You walk just like him.” What my brother had said was strictly true, though he did not know it. Our friend had a very decided way of walking. As a matter of fact, we had been walking home from the Young Men’s Christian Association three or four nights every week. And unconsciously I had grown to imitate his way of walking.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 20.]

II

The Leading of the Spirit is Controlling and Continuous

i. It is controlling

1. One is not led, in the sense of our text, when he is merely directed in the way he should go, guided, as we may say, by one who points out the path and leads only by going before in it; or when he is merely upheld while he himself finds or directs himself to the goal. The Greek language possesses words which precisely express these ideas, but the Apostle passes over these and selects a term which expresses determining control over our actions.

Our Lord promised His disciples that when the Spirit of Truth should come, He should guide them into all the truth. Here a term is employed which does not express controlling leading, but what we may perhaps call suggestive leading. It is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament of God’s guidance of His people, and once, at least, of the Holy Spirit: “Teach us to do thy will, for thou art my God; let thy good Spirit guide us in the land of uprightness.” But the term which Paul employs in our text is a much stronger one than this. It is not the proper word to use of a guide who goes before and shows the way, or even of a commanding general who leads an army. It has stamped upon it rather the conception of the exertion of a power of control over the actions of its subject, which the strength of the led one is insufficient to withstand. This is the proper word to use, for example, when speaking of leading animals, as when our Lord sent His disciples to find the ass and her colt and commanded them “to loose them and lead them to him” (Matthew 21:2); or as when Isaiah declares in the Scripture which was being read by the Eunuch of Ethiopia whom Philip was sent to meet in the desert, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.” It is applied to the conveying of sick folk—as men who are not in a condition to control their own movements; as, for example, when the good Samaritan set the wounded traveller on his own beast and led him to an inn and took care of him (Luke 10:34); or when Christ commanded the blind man of Jericho “to be led unto him” (Luke 18:40). It is most commonly used of the enforced movements of prisoners; as when we are told that they led Jesus to Caiaphas to the palace (John 18:28); or when we are told that they seized Stephen and led him into the council (Acts 6:12); or that Paul was provided with letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, “that if he found any that were of the Way, he might lead them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:2). In a word, though the term may, of course, sometimes be used when the idea of force retires somewhat into the background, and is commonly so used when it is transferred from external compulsion to internal influence—as, for example, when we are told that Barnabas took Paul and led him to the apostles (Acts 9:27), and that Andrew led Simon unto Jesus (John 1:42)—yet the proper meaning of the word includes the idea of control, and the implication of prevailing determination of action never wholly leaves it.1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

Every spark of light in the soul is kindled by the Holy Spirit. Every movement of the divine life in a man is His. Every heavenward desire, every yearning of the love of Christ, every keen spiritual judgment cutting through the fallacies and self-seeking evasions of the world, is from Him and by Him. I cannot stir a step in my spiritual life without Him. I cannot turn my eye of faith to Christ an instant without Him. Every sweet consolation poured out on my soul is His. Every testimony to a man’s place in God’s family is from His gentle voice, whispering in the waste places of his heart, bearing witness with his spirit that he is one of the sons of God. Every flower that blooms in man He has tended and cherished: every fruit of holiness, He set it, and watched it, and guarded it from blight and frost, and gave it its consistence and its bloom: the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear, in nature and in grace, alike are His: His, according to His own laws and procedure, but no less His throughout, and His entirely.2 [Note: H. Alford.]

2. It is to be observed, however, on the other hand, that although Paul uses a term here which emphasizes the controlling influence of the Spirit of God over the activities of God’s children, he does not represent the action of the Spirit as a substitute for their activities. If one is not led, in the sense of our text, when one is merely guided, it is equally true that one is not led when one is carried. The animal that is led by the attendant, the blind man that is led to Christ, the prisoner that is led to jail—each is indeed under the control of his leader, who alone determines the goal and the pathway; but each also proceeds on that pathway and to that goal by virtue of his own powers of locomotion. There was a word lying at the Apostle’s hand by which he could have expressed the idea that God’s children are borne by the Spirit’s power to their appointed goal of holiness, apart from any activities of their own, had he elected to do so. It is employed by Peter when he would inform us how God gave His message of old to His prophets. “For no prophecy,” he tells us, “ever came by the will of man: but men spoke from God, being borne by the Holy Ghost.”

There is a difference between the Spirit’s action in dealing with the prophet of God in imparting through him God’s message to men and the action of the same Spirit in dealing with the children of God in bringing them into their proper holiness of life. The prophet is “borne” of the Spirit; the child of God is “led.” The prophet’s attitude in receiving a revelation from God is passive, purely receptive; he has no part in it, adds nothing to it, is only the organ through which the Spirit delivers it to men; he is taken up by the Spirit, as it were, and borne along by Him by virtue of the power that resides in the Spirit, which is natural to Him, and which, in its exercise, supersedes the natural activities of the man. Such is the import of the term used by Peter to express it. On the other hand, the son of God is not purely passive in the hands of the sanctifying Spirit; he is not borne, but led—that is, his own efforts enter into the progress made under the controlling direction of the Spirit; he supplies, in fact, the force exerted in attaining the progress, while yet the controlling Spirit supplies the entire directing impulse.1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

“Led.” That word is the key to God’s method of grace. The Spirit comes and gives facility in action. He does not supersede or compel it. He comes to the human soul to sustain it in right conditions and habits. He dwells there—as a generator of forces, not as a tyrant to overbear it in the way of power.2 [Note: W. Hubbard.]

That God leads us, and does not drive, is the answer to many of the questions that have been put to me. Why are there sin and evil in the world? What was the necessity for the Incarnation? Why the astounding miracle of the Atonement? What is the good of the Church? The answer to every one of these questions is that God leads and does not drive. I remember so well in the old East End days, when the young men of the boating club connected with the Oxford House came to ask about their rowing on Sunday morning, and I explained to them that I could not remain their president if their club races were held on Sunday morning; that it was impossible for me to commit myself to the principle that Sunday morning was the time for a boat-race, but that I had no right, as president or head of Oxford House, to dictate to them as individuals what they should do, for I lived down there to try and lead them to better ways of spending Sunday morning; and the deputation, with that perfect frankness and trust which they always gave me, looked up and said: “We quite understand, Mr. Ingram: you have come down here to lead us, and not to drive us.”3 [Note: Bishop A. F. W. Ingram.]

ii. It is continuous

1. The spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not something sporadic, given only on occasion of some special need of supernatural direction, but something continuous, affecting all the operations of a Christian man’s activities throughout every moment of his life. It has but one end in view, the saving from sin, the leading into holiness; but it affects every single activity of every kind—physical, intellectual, and spiritual—bending it towards that end. Since it is nothing other than the power of God unto salvation, it must needs abide with the sinner, work constantly upon him, enter into all his acts, condition all his doings, and lead him thus steadily onward towards the one great goal.

He leads us on

By paths we did not know,

Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow;

Though oft we faint and falter on the way,

Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,

Yet, when the clouds are gone,

We know He leads us on.

He leads us on

Through all the unquiet years;

Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears

He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze

Of losses, sorrows, and o’erclouded days

We know His will is done;

And still He leads us on.

And He, at last,

After the weary strife,

After the restless fever we call life,

After the dreariness, the aching pain,

The wayward struggles, which have proved in vain,

After our toils are past—

Will give us rest at last.1 [Note: Jane Borthwick.]

2. It is impossible, in tracing the Spirit’s work, to keep separate the various conventionally named parts of a man’s inward being in which that work is carried on. Man is one in himself, though manifold in powers and in phases of that one being. Great fault and great confusion have been occasioned in these things, by regarding men’s spirits as if they were compounded of various detached portions, and regions fenced off from one another. We speak of the judgment, the memory, the affections, the imagination, as if they were distinct members of the soul, as the hand and foot and head are of the body. We are in some measure obliged so to speak, from the very imperfection of our thought and language. But we must never forget, that it is one and the same spirit—one and the same man, that judges and remembers and loves and fears and imagines.

(1) The first step of the Spirit’s ordinary work of guidance takes place in that part of man’s spiritual being which we know as his understanding. It is a guidance of information. It is expressed by our Lord in these words: “He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” It is revelation of facts regarding Christ and His work. Let us trace it and observe its laws. It is carried on in appointed association with ordinary means and sources of knowledge. The Spirit of God does not reveal Christ and the things of Christ to a heathen who never has heard of Christ. “How can they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” is the Apostle’s question, even in his own day of miraculous agency. God is pleased then that this part of His work should be subserved and conditioned by the making known to men of the facts of the Gospel. On this His appointment, the duty of preaching, the duty of dispersing the Scriptures, the duty of teaching and informing the young, are founded.

Whenever the Spirit is followed, the soul sees. The mark aimed at has been espied. All is not taken fully in at the first, nor ever, but there is sight and a seeing. Could you stand on the highest peak of the highest mountain, you could not see all the world; on the other hand, looking out of your cottage window, you see enough to call you forth to research and labour. It is not a blind going. The way of your steps is discovered. True, the Spirit will often have to lead you “as one who is blind,” taking you gently by the hand, holding you up, and guarding you; but you follow because you have learned to know and hearken to His voice, and because you have found safety, strength, and wisdom in heeding Him, and are sure of the end.1 [Note: W. Hubbard.]

Step softly, under snow or rain,

To find the place where men can pray;

The way is all so very plain,

That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore

On tortured puzzles from our youth.

We know all labyrinthine lore,

We are the three Wise Men of yore,

And we know all things but the truth.

Go humbly … it has hailed and snowed …

With voices low and lanterns lit,

So very simple is the road,

That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,

And blinding white the breaking day,

We walk bewildered in the light,

For something is too large for sight,

And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun

(… We need but walk a little way …

We need but see a latch undone …),

The Child that played with moon and sun

Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,

The old strange house that is our own,

Where tricks of words are never said,

And Mercy is as plain as bread,

And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly; humble are the skies,

And low and large and fierce the Star,

So very near the Manger lies,

That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes

To roar to the resounding plain,

And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,

For God Himself is born again;

And we are little children walking

Through the snow and rain.1 [Note: G. K. Chesterton.]

(2) From the understanding the guidance of the Spirit goes to the will. The same Spirit which revealed to the eye of the mind the facts of Christ’s work in their vital significance now turns that eye inward on its own region of life and responsibility. In our Lord’s description of the Spirit’s convicting work in the world, namely, the convincing of sin, the action on the conscience is placed first (knowledge of the facts of redemption being presupposed), because the very bringing home of these facts to the inner being is necessarily the conviction of sin.

It is by our will that we are to be proved and judged. In the midst of all this growing, overwhelming light, the will may remain stubborn and rebellious. Faults in childhood growing into the sins of boyhood, hardening into the entanglements and obstinacy of manhood, establish a deliberate resistance in the will against the light of the Spirit. We often see the most promising forms of character slowly fading off. For a time there is a kind of negative declension. No marked and active faults appear; but nothing is advancing towards holiness and the mind of Christ. They seem for awhile to stand still, as we see in an arrow’s flight a momentary pause before it begins to descend. So they never go beyond a certain point; then for awhile they hang in suspense—then slowly fall. Then some one sin appears, long nourished in secret, now at last revealed; some one parasite, which has clung about them, and slowly confirmed its grasp around the whole strength and stature of their character. And this one sin gives the fatal wound to their spiritual life.1 [Note: H. E. Manning.]

Seventeen beautiful Easter lilies were planted in a garden, and in due time sixteen of them sprung up with all their beauty; but the one which had been planted near the hedgerow never seemed to make any progress whatever; it was carefully tended, watched, and watered day by day, and yet it never grew. At last the gardener dug it up, and then he found out the cause. In the hedge had been planted a clematis, and it had thrust its silken roots through the earth, wanting something to take hold of, and, feeling the lily bulb, had twined around it, until by degrees it had strangled it; and the lily which grew above the earth was never more than a poor, puny thing.2 [Note: A. C. Price.]

(3) Lastly, comes the quickening of the affections. All men are ruled by either love or fear: there is no intermediate state. “Perfect love casteth out fear,” and a ruling fear casteth out love. They may be mingled for awhile; but one or the other must bear rule and sway at last. And this is a sure criterion. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” He would have from us the service of sons, loving, glad, and grateful, without stint or measure; not saying, How much must I do? but How much may I, how much can I do? How much time, substance, Service, or thought can I give to Him?

Love is the key of life and death,

Of hidden heavenly mystery:

Of all Christ is, of all He saith,

Love is the key.

As three times to His Saint He saith,

He saith to me, He saith to thee,

Breathing His Grace-conferring Breath:

“Lovest thou Me?”

Ah, Lord, I have such feeble faith,

Such feeble hope to comfort me:

But love it is, is strong as death,

And I love Thee.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

III

The Leading of the Spirit is Deliverance from Sin, but not Escape from Sorrow

1. The end in view in the spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not to enable us to escape the difficulties, dangers, trials, or sufferings of this life, but specifically to enable us to conquer sin. Let us not forget, indeed, the reality of providential guidance, or imagine that God’s greatness makes Him careless of the least concerns of His children. But let us much more not forget that the great evil under which we are suffering is sin, and that the great promise which has been given us is that we shall not be left to wander, self-directed, in the paths of sin into which our feet have strayed, but that the Spirit of holiness shall dwell within us, breaking our bondage and leading us into that other pathway of good works, which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them.

Our proper road may run up rugged steeps, and down sharp and dangerous descents. Our education may of necessity demand burdens, toil, and sorrow. Our vocation may be as that of a soldier. Be it so, enough that He leads. In following Him, strife there will be; but in the striving we shall have joy, for He will be with us. His leading is not hardship, though hardship may meet us in the following. But hardships thicken with the years—hardships which we cannot cope with, if we follow not. The soldier follows with high courage the captain in whom he confides. The patriot rushes to the war for liberty and home. He will have privations and wounds. But he would be ashamed to stay behind. He could not if he would. He goes, thinking neither of work nor of pay. To save his country is for him reward and glory. So the soul that follows the Spirit may have to endure the hardship of war; but there is the enthusiasm of the conflict, and presently the joy of sacred victory. “To be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

In pastures green? Not always; sometimes He

Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me

By weary ways, where heavy shadows be.

And by still waters? No, not always so;

Oft-times the heavy tempests round me blow,

And o’er my soul the waves and billows go.

But when the storm is loudest, and I cry

Aloud for help, the Master standeth by

And whispers to my soul, “Lo, it is I.”

Above the tempest wild I hear Him say,

“Beyond this darkness lies the perfect day,

In every path of thine I lead the way.”

So, whether on the hill-tops high and fair

I dwell, or in the sunless valleys where

The shadows lie—what matter? He is there.1 [Note: Henry H. Barry.]

2. Yet the good man may, by virtue of his very goodness, be saved from many of the sufferings of this life and from many of the failures of this life. How many of the evils and trials of life are rooted in specific sins, we can never know. How often even failure in business may be traced directly to lack of business integrity rather than to pressure of circumstances or business incompetency, is mercifully hidden from us.

3. And the leading of the Spirit establishes that intimacy, confidence, and affection which are so necessary to right training. We cannot love God if He is only an instigator of providential pain and scourging in our lives. We must have the compensating kiss of a felt forgiveness upon our cheeks and the tender whisper of assurance in our souls.

Mencius, the Chinese sage, who is honoured second only to Confucius himself, says: “The ancients exchanged children with each other, for the purpose of training them in letters and deportment. They were afraid lest the punishments necessary in the course of education should injure the sacred bond of affection between parent and child.” No very great harm was assumed to be done if the lad looked upon the neighbour who taught him his hornbook as a natural enemy. We smile and think the danger hypothetical, and the Chinese care for the filial sentiment over-fastidious. But if no word of love ever crossed a father’s lips, and parents tried to make themselves into sphinxes of imperturbable reserve, the danger might be very real indeed.1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

One of George Eliot’s most skilful books deals with the fortunes of a young man who for many years had been left in entire ignorance of his parentage. When a mere infant, Daniel Deronda was placed by his Jewish mother, afterwards known as the Princess Halm-Eberstein, in the care of Sir Hugo Mallinger, with the instruction that he should be allowed to know nothing whatever of his Jewish birth and blood. At times he thought this English gentleman, who had inspired within him not a little affection, must surely be his own father. He scanned the family portraits to see if he could solve the riddle, but no reflex of these features appeared in his own. When he went to Eton, one of the boys “talked about home and parents to Daniel, and seemed to expect a like expansiveness in return.” “To speak of these things was like falling flakes of fire to the imagination.” One day, when Sir Hugo asked him if he would like to be a great singer, he gave up the cherished thought that this indulgent but mysterious guardian could be his father; for no English gentleman, he reasoned, would think of allowing his own boy to follow the career of a professional singer. Now this atmosphere of secrecy in which he had been brought up was cruel, and might have been attended with grave disaster to his disposition and character, for the lad scarcely knew upon whom to bestow his pent-up affection. The delineation is not intended as a study in the growth of character, but to show probably that not a few of the sentiments of Jewish life and religion are in the blood, however little a young Jew may be told about his own ancestry and family connexions. When, after the lapse of years, Deronda had an interview with his mother, we are told that it seemed as if he were “in the presence of a mysterious Fate, rather than the longed-for mother,” and he did not hesitate to say, “I have always been rebelling against the secrecy that looked like shame.”1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

I do not ask, O Lord, that life may be

A pleasant road;

I do not ask that Thou would’st take from me

Aught of its load;

I do not ask that flowers should always spring

Beneath my feet;

I know too well the poison and the sting

Of things too sweet.

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead;

Lead me aright—

Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed—

Through peace to light.

I do not ask, O Lord, that Thou should’st shed

Full radiance here;

Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread

Without a fear.

I do not ask my cross to understand,

My way to see—

Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,

And follow Thee.

Joy is like restless day; but peace divine

Like quiet night;

Lead me, O Lord—till perfect day shall shine,

Through peace to light.2 [Note: Adelaide Anne Procter.]

IV

A Great Consolation

What a strong consolation for us is found in this gracious assurance—poor, weak children of men as we are! To our frightened ears the text may come at first with the solemnity of a warning: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these, and these only, are sons of God. Is there not a declaration here that we are not God’s children unless we are led by God’s Spirit? Knowing ourselves, and contemplating the course of our lives and the character of our ambitions, dare we claim to be led by the Spirit of God? Is this life—this life that I am living in the flesh—is this the product of the Spirit’s leading? Shall not despair close in upon me as I pass the dreadful judgment on myself that I am not led by God’s Spirit, and that I am, therefore, not one of His sons? Let us hasten to remind ourselves, then, that such is not the purport nor the purpose of the text. It stands here not in order to drive us to despair because we see we have sin within us, but to kindle within us a great fire of hope and confidence because we perceive we have the Holy Spirit within us. Paul does not forget the sin within us. Who has painted it and its baleful power with more vigorous touch? But neither would he have us forget that we have the Holy Spirit within us, and what that blessed fact, above all blessed facts, means. He would not have us reason that because sin is in us we cannot be God’s children, but in happy contradiction to this, that because the Holy Spirit is in us we cannot but be God’s children. Sin is great and powerful; it is too great and too powerful for us; but the Holy Spirit is greater and more powerful than even sin. The discovery of sin in us might bring us to despair did not Paul discern the Holy Spirit in us—who is greater than sin—to quicken our hope.

In this assurance we shall no longer beat our disheartened way through life in dumb despondency, and find expression for our passionate but hopeless longings only in the wail of the dreary poet of pessimism—

But if from boundless spaces no answering voice shall start,

Except the barren echo of our ever yearning heart—

Farewell, then, empty deserts, where beat our aimless wings,

Farewell, then, dream sublime of uncompassable things.

We are not, indeed, relieved from the necessity for healthful effort, but we can no longer speak of “vain hopes.” The way may be hard, but we can no longer talk of “the unfruitful road which bruises our naked feet.” Strenuous endeavour may be required of us, but we can no longer feel that we are “beating aimless wings,” and can expect no further response from the infinite expanse than “a sterile echo of our own eternal longings.” No, no—the language of despair falls at once from off our souls. Henceforth our accents will be borrowed rather from a nobler “poet of faith,” and the blessing of Asher will seem to be spoken to us also—

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass;

And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

There is none like unto God, O Jeshurun,

Who rideth upon the heaven for thy help,

And in his excellency on the skies.

The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,

And underneath are the everlasting arms.

The Leading of the Spirit

Literature

Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, iii. 309.

Atkin (J. W.), The Paraklete, 42.

Baillie (D.), The Love of God, 49.

Butcher (C. H.), The Sound of a Voice that is Still, 141.

Gibbons (J. C.), Discourses and Sermons, 363.

Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 183.

Hare (A. W.), Sermons to a Country Congregation, i. 77.

Harper (F.), A Year with Christ, 126.

Hodge (C.), Princeton Sermons, 81.

Huntington (F. D.), Christ and the Christian Year, i. 384.

Hutchings (W. H.), Sermon-Sketches, i. 150.

Ingram (A. F. W.), A Mission of the Spirit, 72.

Johnstone (V. L.), Sonship, 71.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iv. 27.

Mortimer (A. G.), Studies in Holy Scripture, 135.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, x. 393.

Rees (J. S.), Sermons from a Little Known Pulpit, 67.

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Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 46.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxi. (1875), No. 1220.

Tholuck (A.), Hours of Christian Devotion, 260.

Warfield (B. B.), The Power of God unto Salvation, 151.

Christian World Pulpit, x. 65 (Hubbard), xliv. 72 (Sinclair).

Churchman’s Pulpit, (Whit-Sunday) ix. 105 (Grimley); (Eighth Sunday after Trinity) xi. 31 (Edmunds).