to save
your soul. Give up this world to have the next. Lose _here_, that you
may gain _hereafter_." Now this is but prudence after all--it is but
magnified selfishness, carried on into eternity,--none the more noble
for being _eternal_ selfishness. In opposition to all such sentiments
as these, thus speaks the Gospel--"Be ye perfect." Why? "Because your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Do right, because it is Godlike
and right so to do. Here however, let us be understood. We do not mean
to say that the Gospel ignores altogether the personal results of
doing right. This would be unnatural--because God has linked together
well-doing and blessedness. But we do say that this blessedness is not
the motive which the Gospel gives us. It is true the Gospel
says--"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
But when these are made our motives--when we become meek in order that
we may inherit here--then the promised enjoyment will not come. If we
are merciful merely that we may ourselves obtain mercy, we shall not
have that in-dwelling love of God which is the result and token of His
forgiveness. Such was the law and such the example of our Lord and
Master.

True it is that in the prosecution of the great work of redemption He
had "respect to the recompense of reward." True it is He was
conscious--how could He but be conscious--that when His work was
completed He should be "glorified with that glory which He had with
the Father before the world began;" but we deny that this was the
_motive_ which induced Him to undertake that work; and that man has a
very mistaken idea of the character of the Redeemer, and understands
but little of His spirit, who has so mean an opinion of Him as to
suppose that it was any consideration of personal happiness and
blessedness which led the Son of God to die. "For this end was He
born, and for this end came He into the world to bear witness unto the
Truth," and "to finish the work which was given Him to do."

If we were asked, Can you select one text in which more than in any
other this unselfish, disinterested feature comes forth, it should be
this, "Love ye your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing
again." This is the true spirit of Christianity--doing right
disinterestedly, not from the