up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things." Since He has done the supreme thing of having given us Christ, "much more " will He do the less of giving us all things with Him. And yet we continually hear God's own children lamenting their spiritual poverty, and their state of spiritual starvation, and even, it seems sometimes, thinking it rather a pious thing to do, and a mark of true humility. But what is this but glorying in the "much less" of their unbelief, instead of in the "much more " of God.

"Oh, I am such a poor creature," I heard a child of God say once with actual complacency, when urged to some victory of faith. "I am such a poor creature that I cannot expect to attain to the heights you grand Christians reach." "Poor creature," indeed; of course you are, and so are we all. But God is not poor, and it is His part to supply your needs, not your part to supply His. He is able, no matter what unbelief may say, to "make all grace abound towards you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work." "All," "always," "every," what all embracing words these are! They include our needs to their utmost limit, and leave us no room for any question. How can we, how dare we, in the face of such declarations, ever doubt or question again? We have only touched upon the wonders of grace hidden in these "much more's" of God. We can never exhaust their meaning in this life. But let us at least resolve henceforth to lay aside every "much less " of unbelief on all the lines of salvation, and out of the depths of our utter weakness, and sinfulness, and need, assert with a conquering faith, always and everywhere, the mighty "much more' of the grace of God.

X

SELF-EXAMINATION

“Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith."

PROBABLY no subject connected with the religious life has been the cause of more discomfort and suffering to tender consciences than has this subject of self-examination; and none has led more frequently to the language of "much less," which, in our last chapter, we found to be so great an obstacle to all spiritual growth. And yet it has been so constantly impressed upon us that it is our duty to examine ourselves, that the eyes of most of us are continually turned inward, and our gaze is fixed on our own interior states and feelings to such an extent, that self, and not Christ, has come at last to fill the whole horizon.

By self I mean here all that centres around this great big "Me" of ours. Its vocabulary rings out the changes on "I," "me," "my." It is a vocabulary with which we are all very familiar. The questions we ask ourselves in our times of self-examination are proof of this. Am I earnest enough? Have I repented enough? Have I the right sort of feelings? Do I realize religious truth as I ought? Are my prayers fervent enough? Is my interest in religious things as great as it ought to be? Do I love God with enough fervour? Is the Bible as much of a delight to me as it is to others? All these, and a hundred more questions about ourselves and our experiences, fill up all our thoughts, and sometimes our little self-examination books as well; and day and night we ring the changes on the personal pronoun "I," "me," "my," to

the utter exclusion of any thought concerning Christ, or any word concerning "He," "His," "Him."

The misery of this many of us know only too well. But the idea that the Bible is full of commands to self-examination, is so prevalent that it seems one of the most truly pious things we can do; and, miserable as it makes us, we still feel it is our duty to go on with it, in spite of an ever-increasing sense of hopelessness and despair.

In view of this idea, many will be surprised to find that there are only two texts in the whole Bible that speak of self-examination, and that neither of these can at all be made to countenance the morbid self-analysis that results from what we call self-examination.

One of these passages I have quoted at the head of this chapter-" Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." This is simply an exhortation to the Corinthians, who were in a sadly backsliding condition, to settle definitely whether they were still believers or not. "Examine yourselves whether you be in the 'faith.'"' It does not say examine whether you are sufficiently earnest, or whether you have the right feelings, or whether your motives are pure, but simply and only, whether you are "in the faith." In short, do you believe in Christ or do you not? A simple question that required only a simple straightforward answer, Yes or No. This is what it meant for the Corinthians then, and it is what it means for us now.

The other passage reads, "Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." Paul was here writing of the abuses of greediness and drunkenness which had crept in at the celebration of the Lord's supper; and, in this ex

hortation to examine themselves, he was simply urging them to see to it that they did none of these things, but partook of this religious feast in a decent and orderly

manner.

In the case of neither of these passages is there any hint of that morbid searching out of one's emotions and experiences, that is called self-examination in the present day. And it is amazing that, out of two such simple passages, should have been evolved a teaching fraught with so much misery to earnest conscientious souls.

The truth is, there is no Scripture authority whatever for this disease of modern times; and those who are afflicted with it, are the victims of mistaken ideas of God's ways with His children.

Some of my readers, however, are probably asking themselves whether I have not overlooked a large class of passages that tell us to "watch"; and whether these passages do not mean watching ourselves, or, in other words, self-examination. I will quote one of these passages as a sample, that we may see what their meaning really is. "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his home, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning : lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch."

I think if we examine this passage, and others like it, carefully, we shall see that, instead of teaching self-exami

nation, they teach something that is exactly the opposite. They tell us to "watch," it is true, but they do not tell us to watch ourselves. They are in fact, plainly, commands to forget ourselves in watching for another. The return of the Lord is the thing we are to watch for. His coming footsteps, and not our own past footsteps, are to be the object of our gazing. We are to watch, as a porter watches for the return of the master of the house, and are to be ready, as a good watchman should be, to receive and welcome Him at any moment that He may appear.

"Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching." Watching what? Themselves? No, watching for Him, of course. If we can imagine a porter, instead of watching for the return of his master, spending his time morbidly analyzing his own past conduct, and trying to discover whether he had been faithful enough; and becoming so absorbed in self-examination as to let the master's call go unheeded, and the master's return unnoted, we shall have a picture of what goes on in the experience of the soul that is given up to the mistaken habit of watching and looking at self, instead of watching and looking at Christ.

These passages, therefore, instead of teaching self-examination, teach exactly the opposite. God says, "look unto Me, and ye shall be saved," but the self-analyzing soul says, "I must look unto myself, if I am to have any hope of being saved. It must be by getting myself right, that salvation is to come." And yet the phrase "Looking unto Jesus" is generally acknowledged to be one of the watchwords of the Christian religion; and all Christians everywhere will unhesitatingly declare that, of course, this is the one thing we all ought to do. But, after saying this, they will go on in their old way of self-introspection, trying to