he cross which thou didst fear at the
first, and to the shame from which erewhile thy soul recoiled."
"Another shall carry thee whither thou wouldest not: this spake He,
signifying by what death he should glorify God."

VI

ADDITION AND MULTIPLICATION

"He that lacketh these things is blind and short-sighted, and hath
forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."--2 PETER i. 9.

The chapter from which these verses are taken describes two
arithmetical processes, the working out of one of which belongs to us,
and of the other to our Father in heaven. The first is an addition
sum: "Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to
knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience
godliness; and to godliness brotherly-kindness; and to
brotherly-kindness love." Writing down the figures of the sum, and
computing the total, we have it set out fair and clear,--"Ye shall
never fall." The other is God's multiplication sum:

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of
Jesus our Lord"; and the result of the working comes out,--"Ye shall be
made partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that
is in the world through lust." I suppose it means that if we are
willing to go on at an arithmetical progression, God would work in us
at a geometrical one; and so, patiently persisting in holiness, and
hungering after righteousness, we shall be in heaven before we know
where we are.

But such passages trouble some folk who don't like to think that a
Christian has anything to do in the matter of his own salvation; who
say "It is finished" over a work that is only begun in them, and "Jesus
paid it all," when a voice within is saying, "How much owest thou unto
thy Lord?" or, perhaps, if they do not put it quite so strongly as
that, they are, to say the least, gravely suspicious of the existence
of a creaturely activity in the spiritual life.

Let us settle, then, in the beginning, that God never requires us to
exercise ourselves to win His favour, nor calls us to work for One in
whom we have no faith. He never says, "Add to your darkness grace; and
to grace mercy; and to mercy peace." That would be impossible; for
grace, mercy, and peace are experienced in the Divine operation; and it
is because we have so received them that we are able to fulfil the
commandments given to us. God sets us this sum to work, but He gives
us a clean slate on which to work i