be, could we be, the sort of
people that most of us are? It is not the much that you say you
believe that shapes your character; it is the little that you
habitually realise. Truth professed has no transforming power; truth
received and fed upon can revolutionise a man's whole character.

So, dear brethren, remember that my text, though it is an analysis of
the methods of Christian progress, and though it is a wonderful
setting forth of the possibilities open to the poorest, dwarfed,
blinded, corrupted nature, is also all commandment. And if it is true
that the principles of the Gospel exercise transforming power upon
men's lives, and that in order for these principles to effect their
natural results there must be honest dealing with them, on our parts,
take this as the practical outcome of all this first part of my
sermon--let us all see to it that we keep ourselves in touch with the
truths which we say we believe; and that we thorough-goingly apply
these truths in all their searching, revealing, quickening, curbing
power, to every action of our daily lives. If for one day we could
bring everything that we do into touch with the creed that we
profess, we should be different men and women. Make of your every
thought an action; link every action with a thought. Or, to put it
more Christianlike, let there be nothing in your creed which is not
in your commandments; and let nothing be in your life which is not
moulded by these. The beginning of all transformation is the
revolutionised conviction of a mind that has accepted the truths of
the Gospel.

II. Well then, secondly, note the transfigured life.

The Apostle uses in his positive commandment, 'Be ye transformed,'
the same word which is employed by two of the Evangelists in their
account of our Lord's transfiguration. And although I suppose it
would be going too far to assert that there is a distinct reference
intended to that event, it may be permissible to look back to it as
being a lovely illustration of the possibilities that open to an
honest Christian life--the possibility of a change, coming from
within upwards, and shedding a strange radiance on the face, whilst
yet the identity remains. So by the rippling up from within of the
renewed mind will come into our lives a transformation not altogether
unlike that which passed on Him when His garments did shine 'so as no
fuller on earth could white them'; and His face was as the sun in his
strength.

The life i