---

This is one of those brief and wonderful sentences whose simplicity is the mark of their Divine original. In these few words there is that truth after which the best earthly philosophy was always reaching forth in vain. This great principle —

I. INVOLVES THE SOLUTION OF THE DARK MYSTERY OF LIFE AND OF OURSELVES.

1. When men of old looked forth into the world around them, they saw everything in broken lights and endless contradictions: good and evil, pain and pleasure, so mingled that the whole constitution of things was hopelessly entangled. They knew not how a good God could permit such misery, nor how an evil God should mingle so much blessing with His curses. And if they turned their thoughts inward, they found the darkness thicken over them. There was such a mixture of great and small, of good and bad. They could not settle wherein their chief good lay, or whither time was bearing them. The voice of God within haunted and distracted them: that unwritten living law, which they continually transgressed, tormented and embarrassed them.

2. Now, on all this confusion rose the gospel of Christ, as a harmonising light.

(1) In the world around might now be seen the work of a good and holy God, marred by the sin and wilfulness of his creatures. There was this clue to the continued entanglement, that He was even now working to bring good out of evil.

(2) Now man saw why he was so full of greatness and littleness. He saw that the sin which had tormented him was not himself, but his enemy, which, by breaking his relation to God, had taken from him all the true end of his being — the service of a holy God; yea, had brought the strife which had consumed him within his own heart. But he now learned also that his Lord had taken his very nature, that He might constitute Himself the perfect and righteous Head of the fallen race, and so present him again as holy and acceptable before God. Here, then, the mystery was solved. Now, when he met with sin or misery, it was not as a mystery, but as a detected enemy. He knew his place in God's world, and he knew the secret of its apparent contradictions; he could take that place, and walk amongst those contradictions, and hear, with a living meaning flowing forth from them, the words, "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

II. IS THE PRACTICAL SPRING OF A NEW ACTIVITY OF LIFE. Every man who has not learned to look upon himself, and all around him, in this light, must be infected more or less with the benumbing spirit of the Manichaean philosophy, which leads him to make his religion principally a speculation — to satisfy himself with better feelings, though his works are evil, and which must diminish the hearty, straightforward service of God.

III. RESTORES HIS BROKEN RELATIONS TO HIS FELLOW-MEN, amongst whom, and for whom, he is to work. Believing, as he does, that Christ has redeemed the whole race, every man has, through Christ, become again his brother.

IV. GIVES HIM A HAPPY LIBERTY IN HIS WORK. He is working for God, and with God's providence; he need not perplex himself about results: these are God's, not his. It is from this that great deeds spring; it is in this spirit that a man can be contented to labour in the Church for some good end, which may not be accomplished for ages to come. And this spirit of liberty will animate and ennoble all that he does. In his labours it will take away those low present ends which ever haunt and enfeeble self-servers and self-worshippers. In his intercourse with others it will deliver him from the need of those petty distinctions by which men who live on lower rules seek to mark out for themselves a separate path of holiness. In a high and noble sense, "all things are lawful to him." The arts and knowledge of this world, all its triumphs and its stores, he dares to take and to use freely as gifts of his God, as knowing that all things are sanctified to him. And this gives a glory to all his occupations, whilst it keeps him from sinful exultation in any. There can neither be great nor small in services done to God; His greatness makes all equal. Whether he be ruling an empire or ministering to a beggar, what matters it if he is ministering as God's freedman? And this will reach down to the meanest things — to the service even of his body, as well as of his spirit; and will do its work upon those secret springs of the will by which the man is moved and governed. Conclusion:

1. Many allow, within their hearts, low aims and barren earthly motives, on the plea that "to do all to the glory of God" is an overstrained attempt, except for some few saints of a higher level, or that it is a species of service which they can hardly render, who, with full hands and busy heads, are just entering upon the throng and bustle of life. Let us look into this. Life here, as faith reveals it, is the opportunity of performing certain outward actions from certain inward motives, on the necessary condition that every action will strengthen the motive from which it springs, and make it tend towards growth into a habit; this tendency, moreover, being accelerated, if its direction be evil, by the corruption of our nature — if good, by the gracious influences of the blessed Spirit of God. Thus, then, the opportunities of outward action offered to each one of us are the seeds of our future character for good or for evil, in time and in eternity. Thus, then, this busy opportunity of working, which is made the excuse for not doing all to God's glory, is, in fact, our special call to do all from this very motive: for he who enters on every day's actions in this spirit, strengthens the upgrowth of this spirit within himself: he who performs them from a worldly spirit, makes himself worldly. It is this which will, and must, colour his whole being.

2. If, then, we have such need of this earnest exhortation, let us inquire how we may nourish within ourselves this only worthy habit of doing "all to the glory of God."(1) Strive to possess your souls with a higher estimation of the will of God. As self-worship is your danger, bring yourself into the presence of Jehovah, and the idol of man's majesty must fall before Him.

(2) To this reverence for God's will add this: that you strive to realise your true position in this world, as one whom Christ hath redeemed. Without this, God's majesty and might must be to us a continual terror. His will cannot be the will of a Father, unless we so look unto Him.

(3) As springing out of this, strive to sanctify every act and under-taking by a special reference to your heavenly Father.

(Bp. S. Wilberforce.)

---

---

KJV: Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

WEB: Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.