h he must matriculate, but
there are special ones which he may graduate in or not, as he pleases.
Should he refuse them, he is not blamed. The matter was within his
option. Now, let it be clearly understood from these words of Christ
that consecration is not in the same sense optional, but obligatory.
For all those whom the Father had given Him He pleaded with His dying
breath that they should be consecrated; and if you are not consecrated,
if there are extensive reserves in your life, if you are holding back
part of the price, if you are saying of aught that you have, It is my
own, I shall do as I choose, then understand that you are in direct
conflict against Christ's purpose and prayer. He asked that you might
be consecrated; and you have chosen to regard consecration as the craze
of the fervid enthusiast.

III. CHRIST'S METHOD OF SECURING THE CONSECRATION OF HIS
SERVANTS.--"For their sakes I consecrate Myself."

(1) _There is the potency of example._--"He hath left us an example to
follow in His steps." "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself
also to walk even as He walked." Once when He was praying in a certain
place His disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray." They had come
within the powerful attraction of His Spirit. Like a swift current it
had caught them, and they were eager to emulate Him. It is impossible
for the saint to gaze long on the stigmata without becoming branded
with the marks of Jesus; impossible to see Him hasting to the cross
without being stirred to follow Him; impossible to behold the intensity
of His purpose for a world's redemption without becoming imbued with
it; impossible to see Him in love with the cross without feeling a
similar infatuation; impossible to behold Him plunging into the dark
floods of death that He might emerge in the sunlit ocean, without the
consciousness of the uprising of an insatiable desire to be like Him,
to drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism, to fall into the
ground to die, that He may not abide alone, to know the fellowship of
His sufferings, and conformity to His death, that He may appoint unto
us a kingdom, as the Father hath appointed to Him.

(2) _There is our implication in His mediatorial work._--"I have been
crucified with Christ," the apostle said. And, again, "Ye died with
Christ from the rudiments of the world." Of course, Christ died _for_
us, presenting to the claims of a broken law a perfect satisfaction and
obla