adultery;” give ear, and thou hast “agreed” with it. “Thou shalt not give false witness;” give
ear, and thou hast “agreed” with it. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife;” give ear,
and thou hast agreed with it. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods;”3441 give ear,
and thou hast “agreed” with it. In all these things thou hast agreed with this “thine adversary,”
and what hast thou lost to thyself? Not only hast thou lost nothing; but thou hast even found
thyself, who hadst been lost. “The way,” is this life; if we shall “agree with the adversary,” if
we shall come to terms with him; when “the way” is ended, we shall not fear the “judge, the
officer, the prison.
4. When is “the way” ended? It is not ended at the same hour to all. Each several man
hath his hour when he shall end his “way.” This life is called “the way;” when thou hast
ended this life, thou hast ended “the way.” We are going on, and the very living is advancing.
Unless peradventure ye imagine that time advances, and we stand still! It cannot be. As time
advances, we too advance; and years do not come to us, but rather go away. Greatly are men
mistaken when they say, “This boy has little good sense yet, but years will come on him,
and he will be wise.” Consider what thou sayest. “Will come on him,” thou hast said; “I will
show that they go away,” whereas thou sayest, “they come on.” And hear how easily I prove
it. Let us suppose that we have known the number of his years from his birth; for instance
(that we may wish him well) he has to live fourscore years, he is to arrive at old age. Write
down fourscore years. One year he has lived; how many hast thou in the total? how many
hast thou down? Fourscore! Deduct one. He has lived ten; seventy remain. He has lived
twenty; sixty remain. Yet surely, it will be said, they did come; what can this mean? Our
years come that they may depart; they come, I say that they may go. For they do not come,
that they may abide with us, but as they pass through us, they wear us out, and make us less
and less strong. Such is “the way” into which we have come. What then have we to do with
that “adversary,” that is, with the word of God? “Agree with him.” For thou knowest not
when “the way” may be ended. When “the way” is ended, there remain “the judge,” and
“the officer,” and “the prison.” But if thou maintain a good will to “thine adversary,” and
“agree with him;” instead of a “judge,” shalt thou find a father, instead of a cruel “officer,”
an Angel taking thee away into Abraham’s bosom, instead of a “prison,” paradise. How
rapidly hast thou changed all things “in the way,” because thou hast “agreed with thine ad-
versary”!
3441 Exod. xx. 13, etc.
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On the words of the Gospel, Luke xii. 56, 58, ‘Ye know how to interpret…