HOW does the thought of winning Him make all around us but dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Him! What is all compared with pleasing Him, possessing Him, being with Him and like Him forever! It puts the value of Christ, as the motive, on everything we do. It leads to true largeness of heart, for all dear to Him becomes precious to us, yet keeps us from all looseness of natural feelings, for we are shut up to Christ. What is riot His glory is impossible. It puts sin practically out of the heart by the power of divine affections, by having the heart filled with Him. Practically the new nature only lives with Christ for its object.
It applies, too, remark, to everything. Dress, worldly manners, worldliness in every shape, disappear; they cannot be alike or agreeable to Him Whom the world rejected, because Tic testified to it that its works were evil. The tone of mind is unworldly, does not refer to ii, save to do it good when it can. J. N. D.