It ought to be unnecessary to point out that such a conception of power is quite foreign to the Christian conception of God.  Goodness that is compulsory is not goodness.  Human legislation, in its enforcement of law, looks not to the production of goodness but to the production of order, a quite different thing.  But God’s heart is set upon the sanctification of His children and is satisfied with nothing less than that.  “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.”  But sanctification cannot be compelled.  The divine method is, that “when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.  And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”  Through this method we “were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.”  The result is not that we are compelled to obey, but that “the love of Christ constraineth us.”  The account of the apostolic authority is not that it is a commission to rule the universal Church, but “now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

The study of this divine method should put us on the right track in the attempt to estimate the nature of sanctity and the results we may expect from it.  We shall expect nothing of spiritual value from force.  We shall be quite prepared to turn away from the governing parties in Jerusalem as from those who have repudiated the divine method and are therefore useless for the divine ends.  We shall turn rather to those who gather about the temple and there, in a life of prayer and meditation, wait for the redemption.  It is to these, who are the real temple of the Lord, that the Lord “shall come suddenly,” that the manifestation of God will be made.  And their hearts will overflow with joy as they behold the fulfilment of the promises of God.

The power of God is the power of love; and it is that love, and that love alone, that has won the victories of God.  It is a very slow method, men say.  No doubt.  But it is the only method that has any success.  The method of force seems effective; but its triumphs are illusory.  Force cannot make men love, it can only make them hate.  The world is being won to God by the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord.  And it is as well to remember, when we are tempted to complain of the slowness of the process, that the slowness is ours, not God’s.  The process is slow because men will not consent to become the instruments of God’s love for the world, will not transmit the crucified love of God’s Son to their fellows.  They continually, in their impatience, revert to force of some sort, for the attainment of spiritual ends.  They become the tools of all sorts of secular ambitions which promise support in return for their co-operation.  And the result may be read by any one not blinded by prejudice