TRUTH SANCTIFIES.

1. By putting before us an ideal of sanctity. The man of action, like the artist, needs an ideal. Outside of revelation there have been such ideals, but they have been vague and varying, and have failed to supply the demands of even the natural conscience. But in Christ we possess a perfect ideal of sanctity; and by giving the record of one life spotless and consecrated the truth affects thousands for good in degrees which fall short of sanctification; and it sanctifies those who, with their eyes fixed on this typical form of excellence, ask earnestly for the Holy Spirit, whose work it is to take of the things of Jesus, and to show or give them to His own.

2. By stimulating hope. It gives every man a future. Where there is no such hope sanctity is impossible. A certain amount of high moral culture is possible, from a perception of the importance of certain virtues. But sanctity implies concentration of purpose, and this is impossible without a distinct goal and a reasonable prospect of attaining it. It may be argued that it is a nobler thing to cultivate virtue for its own sake; but the reward of goodness is not something distinct from goodness. In obeying moral truth in the form of duty we are obeying moral truth; in the personal form we name God. “I will be thy exceeding great reward.” Spiritual work is its own pay, and the eternal reward is but the anticipation of the satisfaction which arises in doing it. But granting all this, He who made us knows that in our weaker moments we need that leverage of hope which His revelation supplies. The horizon of time is too narrow to supply any adequate object. “If in this life only we have Christ,” &c. But let a man be “begotten unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus,” and he has with him a motive power which will make him at least desire to be holy. “Every man that has this hope in him,” &c.

3. As being a revelation of the love of God. Love has a power of making men holy. Hence the power loving men and women have over the depraved. Now revelation is the unfolding of Divine love, and the measure of that love is the death of Christ. A revelation of justice may produce despair, but a revelation of love which respects justice takes the heart captive. “Sanctify” is the response which the heart makes to unmerited mercy.1. This connection between the truth and sanctification is not a theory, but the experience of every Christian in some degree.2. If we know anything of the sanctifying power of truth we should desire that others may know it too. (Canon Liddon.)