road chisel, we have to take away
huge masses; sometimes, with fine tools and delicate touches, to
remove a grain or two of powdered dust from the sparkling block, but
always to seek more and more, by slow, patient toil, to conform
ourselves to that serene type of all perfectness that we have learned
to love in Jesus Christ.

And remember, brethren, this transformation is no magic change
effected whilst men sleep. It is a commandment which we have to brace
ourselves to perform, day by day to set ourselves to the task of more
completely assimilating ourselves to our Lord. It comes to be a
solemn question for each of us whether we can say, 'To-day I am liker
Jesus Christ than I was yesterday; to-day the truth which renews the
mind has a deeper hold upon me than it ever had before.'

But this positive commandment is only one side of the transfiguration
that is to be effected. It is clear enough that if a new likeness is
being stamped upon a man, the process may be looked at from the other
side; and that in proportion as we become liker Jesus Christ, we
shall become more unlike the old type to which we were previously
conformed. And so, says Paul, 'Be not conformed to this world, but be
ye transformed.' He does not mean to say that the nonconformity
precedes the transformation. They are two sides of one process; both
arising from the renewing of the mind within.

Now, I do not wish to do more than just touch most lightly upon the
thoughts that are here, but I dare not pass them by altogether. 'This
world' here, in my text, is more properly 'this age,' which means
substantially the same thing as John's favourite word 'world,' viz.
the sum total of godless men and things conceived of as separated
from God, only that by this expression the essentially fleeting
nature of that type is more distinctly set forth. Now the world is
the world to-day just as much as it was in Paul's time. No doubt the
Gospel has sweetened society; no doubt the average of godless life in
England is a better thing than the average of godless life in the
Roman Empire. No doubt there is a great deal of Christianity diffused
through the average opinion and ways of looking at things, that
prevail around us. But the World is the world still. There are maxims
and ways of living, and so on, characteristic of the Christian life,
which are in as complete antagonism to the ideas and maxims and
practices that prevail amongst men who are outside of the influence