not do the same thing at the same moment, were an idea too absurd for
mockery; an omnipotence that could at once make a man a free man, and
leave him a self-degraded slave--make him the very likeness of God, and
good only because he could not help being good, would be an idea of the
same character--equally absurd, equally self-contradictory.

But the Lord is not unreasonable; he requires no high motives where
such could not yet exist. He does not say, 'You must be sorry for your
sins, or you need not come to me:' to be sorry for his sins a man must
love God and man, and love is the very thing that has to be developed in
him. It is but common sense that a man, longing to be freed from
suffering, or made able to bear it, should betake himself to the Power
by whom he is. Equally is it common sense that, if a man would be
delivered from the evil in him, he must himself begin to cast it out,
himself begin to disobey it, and work righteousness. As much as either
is it common sense that a man should look for and expect the help of his
Father in the endeavour. Alone, he might labour to all eternity and not
succeed. He who has not made himself, cannot set himself right without
him who made him. But his maker is in him, and is his strength. The man,
however, who, instead of doing what he is told, broods speculating on
the metaphysics of him who calls him to his work, stands leaning his
back against the door by which the Lord would enter to help him. The
moment he sets about putting straight the thing that is crooked--I mean
doing right where he has been doing wrong, he withdraws from the
entrance, gives way for the Master to come in. He cannot make himself
pure, but he can leave that which is impure; he can spread out the
'defiled, discoloured web' of his life before the bleaching sun of
righteousness; he cannot save himself, but he can let the Lord save him.
The struggle of his weakness is as essential to the coming victory as
the strength of Him who resisted unto death, striving against sin.