THE LORD'S JOY IN HIS DISCIPLES. 99 66 disappointment and vexation instead of satisfaction. All uses are consistent with order; and when the requirements of order are fulfilled, all uses, even the lowest, yield their appropriate measure and quality of pleasure. But man was not designed to sink into merely corporeal pleasures and satisfactions, and there to rest. In this case he would be no better than an animal; in fact the brute beasts would be better than he; for, being impelled by instinct alone, they would never violate God's order, which the merely corporeal man does. Within man's corporeal nature there lies a higher capability, a double capacity,—that of loving his fellowman, and of acquiring and exercising a highly intelligent rationality ; and that of loving and fulfilling the duties of social life, and of acquiring and storing up the knowledges which pertain to that life. The development of this interior capacity brings him nearer to God, as it removes his affections further from the lowest plane of existence. Here, then, is opened up a new source of joys, a perfectly different sphere of uses, pleasures, and delights, far, very far, exceeding those of the merely external or sensual degree of life. In the development and exercise of this new love and more exalted rationality is the birth of an angel within man; and even the merely natural, or lowest forms of life, acquire a more purified tone and character from the higher life which descends from within, and which lifts up and dignifies all inferior principles. From the merely external love of uses man has now risen into the more expansive love of his fellow-man. To love man for man's sake is Godlike, because God's attribute of love is that He loves all His creatures for their sakes. His infinite happiness ultimates itself in multiplying infinitely forms receptive of His happiness. When, therefore, man begins to love his fellow-man; when he begins to love others out of himself, and irrespective of any selfish reward; when he begins to experience a delight in multiplying around him the means of good and usefulness, enjoyment and blessing to others, then he begins to put on a God-like character, and comes into a fair way of reaching the full and perfect stature of a man. A man? Yes. He who does not emerge out of selfish and worldly loves is but the pitiful effigy of a man; he has the bones and flesh which should envelop a man, but the true man is not yet born within him. Man is not man simply because as to his body he has a human form, for that form is but the ultimated representative of the man. Neither is he man because as to his soul he is finite, frail, and sinful, and as to his body corruptible and mortal. But he is man because, as the image of God, he has the faculty of loving and willing, 98 THE LORD'S JOY IN HIS DISCIPLES. feeling and conviction that happiness should be the end of existence. Look at the glorious creation, and note how beautiful and wonderful harmonies are expressed in everything! What man possessed of any child-like innocency, and purity of feeling, and refinement of sentiment, can go forth 'mid Nature's sunny scenes, and not feel a joyous sense gushing into his inner life, and harmonising his own soul with Nature's spirit-spoken music? Can he note the magnificence of God's creation, ⚫and contemplate the exhaustless uses stored up in infinite variety in the world which he inhabits;—can he listen to the joyous strains of the feathered songsters which sport in freedom in the air ;- -can he gaze on the exceeding loveliness of vegetation, and not feel that he, too, was made for happiness and delight? But what if all other things were made expressly for him? What if all things else were designed to minister to his happiness,-to be the means of good and blessing to him, and to fill the cup of his joy? And this is unquestionably the fact. Of the whole animated creation, man alone is gifted with those wonderful powers by which he can pass under review all his perceptional experiences, criticise them, contrast them, and reason upon them. He alone can act from the impulses of will and determination, and control, modify, and regulate those impulsive determinations by a rational power which admits of indefinite development and elevation. So gifted, he becomes susceptible of sensations and emotions to which all other creatures are strangers. Every separate sensational faculty becomes a medium of a distinct class of joyous and pleasurable emotions. He, therefore, can multiply his delights and enjoyments in proportion to the number of developed and exercised faculties; in addition to this he can intensify and widen every separate enjoyment by the elevation and purification of his discriminating tastes. No other finite being can do this. Man stands on the highest plane of possible enjoyment, happiness, and delight, because his nature comprises all those principles of which the creation, external to him, is the infinitely varied reflex and symbol. Man therefore is, in an especial degree, created for every possible joy and delight consistent with divine truth and divine order. The Creator, therefore, in His great love, mercy, and tenderness, wills that even the lowest sphere of worldly uses, and the legitimate gratification of the sensual appetites, should, in their degree, yield pleasure and satisfaction, as the reward of a healthy and orderly fulfilment of the laws of existence. It is only when those divine laws are violated, or despised and disregarded, that the necessary functions of natural life bring pain instead of pleasure, THE LORD'S JOY IN HIS DISCIPLES. 99 disappointment and vexation instead of satisfaction. All uses are consistent with order; and when the requirements of order are fulfilled, all uses, even the lowest, yield their appropriate measure and quality of pleasure. But man was not designed to sink into merely corporeal pleasures and satisfactions, and there to rest. In this case he would be no better than an animal; in fact the brute beasts would be better than he; for, being impelled by instinct alone, they would never violate God's order, which the merely corporeal man does. Within man's corporeal nature there lies a higher capability, a double capacity,-that of loving his fellowman, and of acquiring and exercising a highly intelligent rationality; and that of loving and fulfilling the duties of social life, and of acquiring and storing up the knowledges which pertain to that life. The development of this interior capacity brings him nearer to God, as it removes his affections further from the lowest plane of existence. Here, then, is opened up a new source of joys, a perfectly different sphere of uses, pleasures, and delights, far, very far, exceeding those of the merely external or sensual degree of life. In the development and exercise of this new love and more exalted rationality is the birth of an angel within man; and even the merely natural, or lowest forms of life, acquire a more purified tone and character from the higher life which descends from within, and which lifts up and dignifies all inferior principles. From the merely external love of uses man has now risen into the more expansive love of his fellow-man. To love man for man's sake is Godlike, because God's attribute of love is that He loves all His creatures for their sakes. His infinite happiness ultimates itself in multiplying infinitely forms receptive of His happiness. When, therefore, man begins to love his fellow-man; when he begins to love others out of himself, and irrespective of any selfish reward; when he begins to experience a delight in multiplying around him the means of good and usefulness, enjoyment and blessing to others, then he begins to put on a God-like character, and comes into a fair way of reaching the full and perfect stature of a man. A man? Yes. He who does not emerge out of selfish and worldly loves is but the pitiful effigy of a man; he has the bones and flesh which should envelop a man, but the true man is not yet born within him. Man is not man simply because as to his body he has a human form, for that form is but the ultimated representative of the man. Neither is he man because as to his soul he is finite, frail, and sinful, and as to his body corruptible and mortal. But he is man because, as the image of God, he has the faculty of loving and willing, 100 THE LORD'S JOY IN HIS DISCIPLES. and the faculty of acquiring and rationally exercising intelligence. These are human principles; and when they are operative in effecting in an orderly manner the uses of life, what we call a man is truly man. A passage in Jeremiah (v. 1.) beautifully illustrates this truth:-" Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see if ye can find a man," that is, "if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it." I have endeavoured to show that the quality, variety, and intensity of human pleasure and delight depend on the quality of love and rationality brought out into actual uses; that pleasures and delights are experienced in their first and lowest forms in the merely external man, and that he becomes the recipient of a holier and purer joy and satisfaction when actuated by charity and the love of heavenly truths. But he has not yet become conscious of joy and delightsomeness in their highest and most perfect sense. Our text says "These things I have spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." We are receptive of the Lord's joy, as of every other blessing from Him, in the degree in which we are capacitated to receive it ;-but all do not receive that joy in fulness. All joy is from the Lord, and love is the medium of its participation. The Redeemer's love is infinite, for it willed and accomplished the work of redemption and salvation. It is a love which embraced in its vearnings, not only the whole existing race of man, but countless generations yet unborn. The joy and satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ must be commensurate with His love and compassion; and that is infinite. The same conditions are imposed on us finitely. The Divine joy remains in man when man loves others for love's sake; when the Lord's communicated blessings of good and truth are put out to interest, in the good, the happiness, and blessing of others. As good and truth are thus put forth in living fruitfulness, so joy and a sense of beatitude flow in. He who so lives in a continued desire to see others happy, does not lose his reward, though he looks for none, hopes for none. No! The "joy" he wills to others comes gushing into his own heart; the gladsome smiles he labours to enkindle in others radiate over his own nature. He does not ask for happiness as the reward of his duty, but it comes to him unbidden; it permeates his soul in ever-new delights; it comes as pleasure that palls not, but seems ever satisfying; it is ever fresh, ever varying. That is the joy of the Lord remaining in man; but it is not "full" until the love of the heart rises above man, and centres in the Lord as the highest and chief Good; for then only does man fulfil his heavenly THE LORD'S JOY IN HIS DISCIPLES. 101 destiny-Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." Then only is the angel-growth perfected,then only is man prepared to enter into his consummation of joy, when Death's ministering hand shall have removed the fleshly veil which had hid the perfect brightness and glory of the heavenly state. Death, therefore, is not a calamity to the regenerate man; but the removal of what withholds him from the full enjoyment of heavenly fruition. It is the liberation of the real, substantial man from temporary bonds and intercepting obstructions. It is the brushing away of outward conditions, where much, very much, is obnoxious to the new life developed within him, and the full realization of inward conditions, where all is in harmony with his perceptions of good and truth,-where all is a lovely, joyous, music-speaking response to his heart's love and the faith of his understanding. The conditions of true heavenly happiness must be wrought out in this life, by the putting off selfish and worldly affections, and the putting on a state of holiness from the Lord; but the full experience of the intense happiness associated with those heavenly conditions is not realised in this world. Here, then, stands the argument. Every degree of human life, starting from the merely corporeal, and rising, through regenerative stages, till the inmost and supreme degree is attained, is designed by the love, wisdom, and mercy of the Lord to be accompanied with its own peculiar delights and pleasantness,-delight being predicated of the affections, and pleasantness of the rational faculties. But in all cases the inexorable requirements of Divine order must be fulfilled. Man, when he violates this order, fancies his pleasures and delights to be genuine; but they are rather the feverish excitements of a moral insanity, and they ruin while they flatter. But it is in the mysterious and indefinable future, and beyond the world, that the general mind expects the full realization of its dream of possible happiness. Whatever notions be entertained of heaven, as the final home of the spirit,whether as some far distant sphere in the infinity of space, or as a state which is near and around us, and invisible and intangible to mortal sense only,-whatever it be, or wherever it be, all look forward to it as the peculiar home of blessing and delight. In what, then, consists the inexpressible delights of heaven? For all agree in the belief that they do transcend the standard of earthly experience. It would be curious to collect and arrange the popular conceptions of eternal happiness. I am afraid they would all be found more or less unspiritual, and closely associated with a purely sensual |