For God's sake--for Christ's sake--for your own sake--keep that in
mind, that Christ's will, and therefore God's will, is to help and
deliver us; that he stands by us, and comes among us, for that very
purpose. Consider St. Paul's parable, in which he talks of us as men
running a race, and of Christ as the judge who looks on to see how we
run. But for what purpose does Christ look on? To catch us out, as
we say? To mark down every fault of ours, and punish wherever he has
an opportunity or a reason? Does he stand there spying, frowning,
fault-finding, accusing every man in his turn, extreme to watch what
is done amiss? If an earthly judge did that, we should call him--
what he would be--an ill-conditioned man. But dare we fancy anything
ill-conditioned in God? God forbid! His conditions are altogether
good, and his will a good will to men; and therefore, say the Epistle
and the Collect, we ought not to be terrified, but to rejoice, at the
thought that the Lord is looking on. However badly we are running
our race, yet if we are trying to move forward at all, we ought to
rejoice that God in Christ is looking on.
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