Now, of the two thoughts which I have said are involved in this great
keyword, the former is common to Christianity, with all noble systems
of morality, whether religious or irreligious. It is a commonplace,
on which I do not need to dwell, that every man who will live a man's
life, and not that of a beast, must sacrifice the flesh, and rigidly
keep it down. But that commonplace is lifted into an altogether new
region, assumes a new solemnity, and finds new power for its
fulfilment when we add to the moralist's duty of control of the
animal and outward nature the other thought, that the surrender must
be to God.
There is no need for my dwelling at any length on the various
practical directions in which this great exhortation must be wrought
out. It is of more importance, by far, to have well fixed in our
minds and hearts the one dominant thought that sacrifice is the
keyword of the Christian life than to explain the directions in which
it applies. But still, just a word or two about these. There are
three ways in which we may look at the body, which the Apostle here
says is to be yielded up unto God.
It is the recipient of impressions from without. _There_ is a field
for consecration. The eye that looks upon evil, and by the look has
rebellious, lustful, sensuous, foul desires excited in the heart,
breaks this solemn law. The eye that among the things seen dwells
with complacency on the pure, and turns from the impure as if a hot
iron had been thrust into its pupil; that in the things seen discerns
shimmering behind them, and manifested through them, the things
unseen and eternal, is the consecrated eye. 'Art for Art's sake,' to
quote the cant of the day, has too often meant art for the flesh's
sake. And there are pictures and books, and sights of various sorts,
flashed before the eyes of you young men and women which it is
pollution to dwell upon, and should be pain to remember. I beseech
you all to have guard over these gates of the heart, and to pray,
'Turn away mine eyes from viewing vanity.' And the other senses, in
like manner, have need to be closely connected with God if they are
not to rush us down to the devil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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