wish and honest aim in the mistake have been to
do His pleasure, we may be sure that He will be pleased with the deed.
Even though its body is not that which He willed us to do, its spirit is
that which He does desire. And if we do a wrong thing, a thing in itself
displeasing to Him, whilst all the while we desired to please Him, we
shall please Him in the deed which would otherwise have displeased Him.
And so two Christian men, for instance, who take opposite sides in a
controversy, may both of them be doing what is well-pleasing in His
sight, whilst they are contradicting one another, if they are doing it
for His sake. And it is possible that the inquisitor and his victim may
both have been serving Christ. At all events, let us be sure of this,
that whensoever we desire to please Him, He will help us to do it, and
ordinarily will help us by making clear to us the path on which His
smile rests.

III. Again, notice that we have here an all-powerful motive for
Christian life.

The one thing which all other summaries of duty lack is motive power to
get themselves carried into practice. But we all know, from our own
happy human experience, that no motive which can be brought to bear upon
men is stronger, when there are loving hearts concerned, than this
simple one, 'Do it to please me.' And that is what Jesus Christ really
says. That is no piece of mere sentiment, brethren, nor of mere pulpit
rhetoric. That is the deepest thought of Christian morality, and is the
distinctive peculiarity which gives the morality of the New Testament
its clear supremacy over all other. There are precepts in it far nobler
and loftier than can be found elsewhere. The perspective of virtues and
graces in it is different from that which ordinarily prevails amongst
men. But I do not think that it is in the details of its precepts so
much as in the communication of power to obey them, and in the
suggestion of the motive which makes them all easy, that the difference
of Christ's ethics from all the teaching of the world beside is most
truly to be found.

And here lies the excellence thereof. It is a poor, cold thing to say to
a man, 'Do this because it is right.' It is a still more powerless thing
to say to him, 'Do this because it is expedient' 'Do this because, in
the long run, it leads to happiness.' It is all different when you say,
'Do this to please Jesus Christ, to please that Christ who pleased not
Himself but gave Himself for you.' That