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SERMON VI.

DO AND YOU SHALL KNOW;

OR,

THE WILL AND THE DOCTRINE.

JOHN vii. 17.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.

THE religion of Jesus Christ is altogether a practical thing. There is only one way of learning it; by practising it. There is only one way of knowing it; by living according to it. This is what our Lord says in the text. "They who will do the will of God, they who will put their hand to the plough, and set about doing their best to obey God, shall know of my doctrine, whether it comes from God or not. Its purpose is, not merely to teach men what is good, but to make them good : and it is only by trying the experiment for himself, it is only by striving to do the will of God, that any man can find out what great power there is in my religion, to change him into a new

creature, and to make him wise unto salvation. Thus will he be convinced that the words which I speak, and which have such power, I speak not of myself, as a man; but that, as the power in them is the power of God, so the words themselves, and the doctrine, must be from God."

Such is the account which Jesus Christ in the text gives of his doctrine. He does not say, that they who go to church twice every Sunday, shall know of his doctrine, whether it is from God. He does not say, that they who read a couple of chapters of the Bible every day, shall know of his doctrine, whether it is from God. But endeavour to do the will of God; and then you will know that the doctrine comes from God. By listening to sermons in church, and by reading the Bible at home, you learn what the doctrine is: but by trying to do God's will, you learn something of much greater importance; you learn that it comes from God. You see its truth. You feel its heavenly power of raising man from sin to righteousness, of freeing him from the bondage of Satan, and turning him into a child of God. In a word, by coming to hear sermons, and by reading the Bible, you learn what a Christian ought to be: by striving to do the will of God, you are a Christian.

This, our Lord tells us, is the right way to ascertain whether his doctrine comes from God.

It is the right way, and the only way. Unless we try to do God's will, nothing else can teach us this truth. No labour, no learning, no cleverness, no thought will enable us to find it out. We may read our eyes blind, and wear out our understandings, in poring over the Bible: it will only be the word of man to us, not the word of God.

I began by saying that the religion of Jesus Christ is altogether a practical thing. This is the first and simplest and main reason why we are to learn it practically. Just consider how we are taught anything else that is practical; how a child, for instance, is taught to read. Is it by hearing about reading? or by being read to? A child might hear about reading, and might hear reading, all its life long; and, were this all, it would never be able to tell one letter from another. It can only learn to read by trying to read. It must begin by learning its letters: when it knows its letters thoroughly, it must learn to put them together, first in short words or syllables, and afterward in longer words: and lastly it must learn must learn to put the words together, and to read them as they follow one another in the book. The same holds of everything else that is practical: whatever it may be, it must be learnt by practice. It is not by hearing or reading about making shoes, that a man becomes a shoemaker, but by trying to make

them. Above all is this true of that which is the most practical of all things, the religion of Christ. I call it the most practical of all things; because it is meant to be the rule and guide of our practice, not merely at certain moments, when we are engaged in any one particular employment, but at all times and in all places; because it ought to be the source and spring and mould and rule of all our thoughts and words and deeds. Or can you suppose that the service of the God of heaven is so much easier a task than every other, that, while every other thing we want to do must be learnt slowly and laboriously and practically, the doing the will of God will come to us naturally and of itself? No, this too must be learnt by practice, by patient, diligent, stedfast practice.

But how, you may ask, are we to do the will of God, how can we even strive to do it,-unless we know beforehand what it is? The question seems a very hard one; and yet the answer is easy by faith. When a child is learning to read, it has to read at first without knowing how to read. It has to pronounce the letters and the words, without knowing what they are. It has to pronounce them at first after its teacher: by faith in him it learns what they are: and thus in course of time it gets to know what they are of

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itself. In like manner God has sent you spiritual teachers, he has sent you the teaching of his word,to tell you what his will is, before you can know it for yourselves. There is no one,in all England there is no one-among you assuredly there is no one-who, if he will but try to make the most of the opportunities God has given him of knowing his will, may not attain in the end to the precious knowledge spoken of by our Lord in the text, the knowledge that his doctrine is of God.

For this knowledge, like all practical knowledge, comes by degrees. Every slight improvement in practice,-nay, every attempt at an improvement, will lead to an increase of our knowledge while every increase of our knowledge ought in its turn to lead to an improvement in our practice. Every fresh step we take in Christianity, we see further into it and by seeing further into it we learn in what way we are to advance still further. The practice throws light on the wholesomeness of the doctrine: the doctrine on the other hand furnishes new motives and helps to the practice thus they go on giving and receiving strength, each from and each to the other. They are like the warp and woof in weaving: the doctrine is the warp, into which we weave the woof: every fresh cast of the shuttle brings out