IV.

BINDING AND LOOSING.

THERE is but one law at the centre of all things, and that law is the single thought of God out of which the universe sprung. And as God is love, it follows that the law is loving; and the putting one's self in harmony with that law is being loved of God and loving him. There is but one system of laws, everywhere. Love and hate, harmony and discord, heat and cold, light and darkness, are the same everywhere, because the universe is a unit and the expression of one thought. Now, the spirit of a little child, which, as I said, is the spirit of directness, simplicity, fearlessness, intuition, faith, is the spirit which puts the heart of man in such relation to goodness, the mind of man in such relation to truth, his conscience in such relation to right, and his soul in such relation toward God, that he finds this central law of harmony;

course.

"A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

It sets the sails of his life-ship so that all winds speed its It builds the habitation of his personal being beside the river whose streams make glad the city of God. What is bound in this spirit is bound in heaven, and what is loosed in this spirit is loosed in heaven, because the same law pre

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vails in heaven as on earth. It followed as a matter of course that the disciples would build up an everlasting fellowship if they founded it upon the spirit. No man had any special power to administer a law which administers itself. Every man had the privilege of bringing his life into a line with that power which is of God and not of us. Therefore, said Jesus, he who would be greatest among you let him be the servant of all.

This chapter then (Matt. 18) is the statement of a spiritlaw which it concerns us more to understand than any other. If I were asked what is the one great want in the sum of the world's knowledge, I should say it is the want of knowledge of law, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual. And if I were asked to say what was lacking in the ability of men, I should say the ability to conform to law. Of course I include in this the highest and most transcendent reciprocal activities of the finite and the infinite.

But you see how it is with all material development: the success of every people in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce depends upon their knowledge of law and their ability to bring their actions into harmony with it. God has extended his right hand to man in the elemental and dynamic forces which everywhere work with such constancy and order; and when man learns to trust this constancy and work in this order, he becomes a co-worker with God in nature, and what he binds on the earth is bound in heaven.

Take agriculture as an instance. Until the farmer has learned that the seasons succeed each other in regular order; that heat and cold, darkness and light, the early and the latter rain, however capricious in detail, are still constant to law pre a law, his utmost strength is nothing but weakness. If he

sows his seed on any fine day, whether it be in spring, or summer, or autumn, he has no security of its growth; for he does not know whether heaven will work with him of against him. The very elements and forces which stand ready to sprout and grow his grain might, for aught he knows, enter into league to destroy it. But when he learns the laws of climate and of seed, and the relation of these to labor, then he is in harmony with the creation. Then the same elements which before were hostile become helpful. Then for him suns rise and set; for him lightnings gleam, and thunders roll, and dews fall. The winds are angels which blow the breath of life into his grass and corn. The sunbeams are his Raphaels and Titians, coloring the earth and heavens, to the pleasure of his eye. The storm-clouds dip their buckets in the sea and sprinkle his fields with the treasures of the rain. For what he binds on earth is bound in heaven.

The history of commerce is the same. So long as man had no knowledge of the law of the wind and the water, they were hostile to him. When he learned to bring his ability into harmony with theirs, navigation became possible; and from being barely possible, it has grown to be

secure.

This principle needs no further illustration from material and practical life. You are acting upon it every day. You know that the everlasting faithfulness is pledged to support you when you seek it through law. That is the key which unlocks the infinite helpfulness. It is good because God is good. It is constant because God is faithful. It is inevitable because God is omnipotent. And in proportion as one realm of discord after another is entered and possessed by a knowledge of law, does the sphere of man's harmoni

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ness with which God coöperates with man in agriculture,
manufactures, and the useful arts, is not one whit abated in
the realm of intellectual, moral, æsthetic, and religious life.
There, too, there is no caprice, but everlasting fidelity.
There no seed sown in the right soil shall fail of its fruit for
lack of divine help. He that seeks for truth shall find it, if
he seek not for gain, nor to be greatest in the kingdom, but
only for truth. And when he has found truth, what is it
but a law? And when he has found law, he has found
God. And he may pledge all his wealth of life-hopes upon
truth, and he shall not be bankrupt; for what is thus bound
on earth is bound in heaven.

"Truth only needs to be for once spoke out,

And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm,
As makes men's memories her joyous slaves,

And clings around the soul, as the sky clings
Round the mute earth, forever beautiful;
And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth
More all-embracingly divine and clear.
Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new born, that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake."

That same perception has always passed before prophetic
eyes, and it is true according to the law of our text.

Still more emphatically practical is the prevalence of this fact in all moral life. The perception of right is the knowledge of law. As truth is God's thinking, so right is God's working. It is the key which opens for us the armory of infinite resources. God does right; and all this system of life has its source in a purpose of right, is controlled by laws which help the right, and progresses toward the triumph of

13

the right. However we may fail to account for all the facts assumed in such a premise, or to supply all the links in the chain of such an inference, there can be no two ways about the conclusion. And hence it follows of necessity that in proportion as we do right we work with God, or rather he works with us and for us, just as he works for the farmer who sows his seed in the right soil and at the right time. And however the success of the right may be delayed through the partial perception of it by society, unless God can fail, the right can not fail. That which is bound in human relations by a perfect right is bound everywhere. And for the same reason that which is not thus bound, that which does not dovetail into the purposes of God, is necessarily loosed, and therefore destroyed. The passenger in a railroad-car, while he is bound to the car in the proper way, shares the motion of the train, and is helped on to his end; but if he once loose himself from that union with the moving body, he is at once destroyed. So one who goes on in the train of God's moral purposes, and binds himself to them through the right way, is carried along with them, and is sure to triumph with them; but if he dares to loose himself therefrom, then, sooner or later, he is hurled to his destruction.

But whoever would place his moral life in such harmonious relations with the purposes of God must not seek in the spirit of a place-hunter or fortune-seeker. He must not ask of God's anointed ones, "Who shall be greatest in this heavenly kingdom ?" but, in the spirit of a child, with pure heart and open eyes, and wondering tone, let him ask, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?”

This is really what is meant when we say that we are happy only when we do right. Moral happiness shows