. Fasten it with the silken leash of love,
and a 'little child' can lead it. So faith works by love, because
whom we trust we shall love, and whom we love we shall obey.

Therefore we have got to the root now, and nothing is needful but an
operative faith, out of which will come all the blessed possession of
a transforming Spirit, and all sublimities and noblenesses of an
obedient and submissive will.

My brother! Paul and James shake hands here. There is a 'faith' so
called, which does not work. It is dead! Let me beseech you, none of
you to rely upon what you choose to call your faith in Jesus Christ,
but examine it. Does it do anything? Does it help you to be like Him?
Does it open your hearts for His Spirit to come in? Does it fill them
with love to that Master, a love which proves itself by obedience?
Plain questions, questions that any man can answer; questions that go
to the root of the whole matter. If your faith does that, it is
genuine; if it does not, it is not.

And do not trust either to forms, or to your freedom from forms. They
will not save your souls, they will not make you more Christ-like.
They will not help you to pardon, purity, holiness, blessedness. In
these respects neither if we have them are we the better, nor if we
have them not are we the worse. If you are trusting to Christ, and by
that faith are having your hearts moulded and made over again into
all holy obedience, then you have all that you need. Unless you have,
though you partook of all Christian rites, though you believed all
Christian truth, though you fought against superstitious reliance on
forms, you have not the one thing needful, for 'in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith
which worketh by love.'

SLAVES AND FREE

'He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the
Lord's free man: likewise also he that is called, being
free, is Christ's servant.'--1 COR. vii. 22.

This remarkable saying occurs in a remarkable connection, and is used
for a remarkable purpose. The Apostle has been laying down the
principle, that the effect of true Christianity is greatly to
diminish the importance of outward circumstance. And on that
principle he bases an advice, dead in the teeth of all the maxims
recognised by worldly prudence. He says, in effect, 'Mind very little
about getting on and getting up. Do God's will wherever you are, and
let the rest take care of itself.' Now