Brethren! that is the perfection of a man’s nature, when his will fits on to God’s like one of Euclid’s triangles superimposed upon another, and line for line coincides.  When his will allows a free passage to the will of God, without resistance or deflection, as light travels through transparent glass; when his will responds to the touch of God’s finger upon the keys, like the telegraphic needle to the operator’s hand, then man has attained all that God and religion can do for him, all that his nature is capable of; and far beneath his feet may be the ladders of ceremonies and forms and outward acts, by which he climbed to that serene and blessed height, ’Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of God’s commandments is everything.’

That submission of will is the sum and the test of your Christianity.  Your Christianity does not consist only in a mere something which you call faith in Jesus Christ.  It does not consist in emotions, however deep and blessed and genuine they may be.  It does not consist in the acceptance of a creed.  All these are means to an end.  They are meant to drive the wheel of life, to build up character, to make your deepest wish to be, ‘Father! not my will, but Thine, be done.’  In the measure in which that is your heart’s desire, and not one hair’s-breadth further, have you a right to call yourself a Christian.

But, then, I can fancy a man saying:  ’It is all very well to talk about bowing the will in this fashion; how can I do that?’ Well, let us take our second text—­the third in the order of their occurrence—­’For neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.’  That is to say, if we are ever to keep the will of God we must be made over again.  Ay! we must!  Our own consciences tell us that; the history of all the efforts that ever we have made—­and I suppose all of us have made some now and then, more or less earnest and more or less persistent—­tells us that there needs to be a stronger hand than ours to come into the fight if it is ever to be won by us.  There is nothing more heartless and more impotent than to preach, ’Bow your wills to God, and then you will be happy; bow your wills to God, and then you will be good.’  If that is all the preacher has to say, his powerless words will but provoke the answer, ’We cannot.  Tell the leopard to change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin, as soon as tell a man to reduce this revolted kingdom within him to obedience, and to bow his will to the will of God.  We cannot do it.’  But, brethren, in that word, ‘a new creature,’ lies a promise from God; for a creature implies a creator.  ’It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.’  The very heart of what Christ has to offer us is the gift of His own life to dwell in our hearts, and by its mighty energy to make us free from the law of sin and death which binds our wills.  We may have our spirits moulded into His likeness, and new tastes,