# Our New Departure (Brooks)/Chapter 10

Consecration is defined to be "the act of setting apart a person or thing to the service or worship of God; dedication to a sacred use." Every determinate giving of one's self to a good cause, or to a noble act or course of action, is therefore of the nature of consecration; and no life takes on its highest character, our service of God never becomes most positive and complete, until it has this element of consecration at its centre.
Even Christ, we are told, was made "perfect through sufferings;" and what finally were these sufferings but so many tests of his consecration? There is an important sense in which he was 'sent,' as the messenger of God's truth, and especially as the commendation of God's love. He frequently so spoke of himself, and was as frequently so spoken of by his Apostles. But we do not at all properly understand him when we only so think of him. We must see him as one who came, as well as one who was sent,—as one who gave himself, as well as one who was appointed of God, before we can have an insight into the characteristic of his life, and so begin to perceive what it is that renders his mission most an object of interest, and that makes him most potent to affect and attract souls. As we saw in the chapter, "Bought with a Price," "he gave himself for us." Herein is his distinction,—his glory. In other words, he consecrated himself, as God's instrument, to our welfare and salvation,—as he said to the Jews, "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John x. 11, 17, 18); and as he said in his prayer before his betrayal, "For their sakes, I sanctify [or consecrate] myself" (John xvii. 19). There ​is something vastly beyond any idea of being simply sent in all this. As a good writer has well said,—
   "There was a certain voluntariness about his mission, which we lose sight of when we regard him as simply the follower of an inexorable law, or as coming to man's help only because he was 'sent.' I cannot fathom Divine council, and determine by what election or selection Jesus was commissioned; but this I feel—that the commission, the appointment, did not alone constitute him the Messiah. He did not come as a king's messenger, as an envoy of an empire, solely at command. There was a deliberate acceptance of the office; and this, not in the mere boy-resolve of the Temple, or the secret struggle and purpose of the desert, nor by baptism in the Jordan, but by going out into life, and carrying the spirit of self-sacrifice into everything, else 'he had not been a man after God's idea of manhood; for the idea of man which God had been for ages laboring to give, through a consecrated tribe and a consecrated nation, was the idea of a being whose life-law is sacifice, every act and every thought being devoted to God.' His whole life was proof of his declaration, 'I sanctify [rather, consecrate] myself.' To have been merely sent made him a servant, at best a later Moses; but to accept the mission made him a son—Jesus, the Christ."
And what was thus true of Christ is, in our several places, true of every one of us all. Life becomes saintliest and noblest only as, under the inspiration of a noble and unselfish purpose, we deliberately give ourselves, in a sacrifice of all that an opposite course has to offer us, consecrate to whatever God, in Christ, demands. In a sense, again appropriating the words of the writer above cited,—
   "Every man is 'sent' into the world; but not till he consciously, deliberately, accepts his mission, can he become lifted up into the great heirship with Christ; not till then is he a 'son.' The act of sending, on the part of God, must be supplemented by the act of acceptance on the part of man. And the acceptance must be without reserve. Not only must he take God's gift of life, but he must give life to duty; not merely must he surrender himself to the Divine will,—which is compulsion,—but he must consecrate himself to the Divine love, which is choice. This is the complement to God's act, without which it cannot be complete. It matters not what other consecrating there may have been, what setting apart by parents or in church, what dropping of water, what imposition of hands, what repeating of catechism, what signing of creed; it is all formal and valueless until the man has set himself apart in solemn self-dedication. Balaam and Jonah, and many another, have been appointed to great duties,—have been solemnly put aside for special work,—yet have utterly failed to do it, ​because there was no inward consecrating, seconding and sealing that of God or man. The descending of the spirit upon Jesus, or any other appointing of God, had availed nothing to make him the world's Redeemer, had he not consecrated himself. It was the spirit in him, meeting, co-operating, blending with the spirit from on high, that gave him the power to be the Son of God: it is that in us which shall lift us to be sons.
   "Self-consecration, the giving of one's self up to the service of God, is the grand, decisive, voluntary act of the soul, which strikes at the root of all worldliness and selfishness, and accepts without reserve whatever God may order to be done, or to be borne. It is the putting side by side what the world has to offer, and what God has to offer, and the unreserved acceptance of the offer of God. It is the conscious and free acceptance of the high destiny God lays before His children; the resolve to dedicate wholly body and mind and heart as a reasonable, holy and acceptable sacrifice. It is the entrance into the spirit of Jesus, and the carrying of the spirit out into all the details of life, in devotedness to man and devotion to God. It is the full at-one-ing of the two wills; the reach of the spirit in man after the spirit of God; the approach of the finite towards the Infinite; the soul's eternal task and grandest privilege. It is not an act of the will alone, one single, great resolve,—the vision of the Mount,—the luxurious, beatific attitude of faith and hope and longing, into which secret prayer and thought sometimes throw us, when we taste angels' food, and feel as if the kingdoms of the world were already at our feet; not the transfiguration, but the after-duty, the coming in cooler blood down amid the things of earth, the meeting and casting out of the kind that only goes out by the spirit's fast and prayer. The true law of every life, the only law of life, is consecration; and 'consecration is not wrapping one's self in a holy web in the sanctuary, and then coming forth after prayer and meditation, saying, "There, I am consecrated." Consecration is going out into the world where God is, and using every power to His glory. It is simply dedicating one's life, its whole flow, to His service.'"
It is for this reason that the Christian Life has, necessarily, always something heroic in it. The essence of heroism is self-sacrifice, and this, as above appears, is the essence of consecration also. No self-consecration is possible without it. In the highest sense, it is true, there is no such thing as self-sacrifice except in the service of wrong—since we win the real prizes of being in exact proportion as we serve God and the Right, and sacrifice ourselves only when we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, in a forgetfulness of what is best and broadest and most enduring in us for the sake of the poor possessions, or gratifications, that perish in the using. Christ found vastly more for himself ​in serving our race for its salvation, though at so great a cost, than he could have found had he declined the work in a mean regard only for his own ease. Always, to be most noble is to be most blessed; and despite the seeming paradox, we really gain least, in respect to all that constitutes us men and women, when we think of ourselves most, sacrificing least. But speaking in the ordinary sense, and of those things which most people find it hardest to give up, Christ sacrificed himself for our sake, and we sacrifice self whenever, with a
we act in a similar spirit. And in this sense, consecration is always heroic, because it is the utter renunciation of ourselves and our own wills, or preference, in the purpose to give ourselves to God and His service. Christ is the most heroic soul in all history, because his consecration was like his robe, 'without seam.' "Not my will, but thine be done," was not alone the outcry of his anguish in Gethsemane. It was the innermost speech of his whole life, in a self-abnegation that, with no thought of himself, or his own pleasure, said constantly, For myself, nothing—only the privilege of serving and saving;—for God, and for others, everything. How else could his life have had that quality which now most appeals to and touches us, most irresistibly demanding appreciation and response on our part? And a like heroism, in a like self-abnegation, must possess and inspire every life that aims to be at all like his.
There is a prevalent idea that the life of the Christian is tame and spiritless—fitting for women and children, and for languid, inert, flaccid men, but not at all the thing for brave, robust, energetic masculine wills. But this is only one of numerous grave misconceptions touching the subject. The Christian Life is not only the saintliest, it is the most heroic life any soul can live. The most forceful will, the most robust and invincible energy, the most aspiring purpose finds here a field for its exercise—in the battle that must be fought with temptation; in the struggle that must be made ​with selfishness; in the wrestle and conflict with all the various agencies which conspire to bring us into captivity to sense and sin, and in the resolve to vanquish 'everything that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,' and to subject 'every thought to the obedience of Christ.' In all this there is abundant scope for whatever there is in any man; and he who conquers, and, as the result, presents himself, body and spirit, a living sacrifice unto God, has done the grandest and most heroic thing any man can do—compared with which all that the world calls success is empty, and all that it worships as heroism is poor and vain. How finely this is illustrated in Paul, as he pictures himself in the race, forgetting everything else, and 'reaching forth' that he might 'win Christ, and be found in him,' saying, "This one thing I do,"—or as he stands amidst the sorrowing elders of Ephesus, foreseeing 'bonds and afflictions,' but bravely declaring, "Yet none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself"! Here was consecration without reserve, and here, therefore, was heroism such as the world has seldom seen. And our call is, to be heroes, every one of us, like him, in a consecration as entire—as a soldier, giving himself to his country, in this act renounces everything but the will to do his duty as he is commanded, for his country's sake; as a mother, giving herself to motherhood and its obligations, surrenders every other will or purpose but the purpose to serve her children faithfully, be the requirements of such fidelity what they may; as Christ, giving himself to us and our redemption, had no other will but to accept whatever the task included, and to make it his very "meat to do the will of Him that sent him, and to finish His work."
Consecration is thus the key-stone in the arch of Christian Experience. First comes Conviction—or the awakening of the conscience and the heart to a sense of duty; then Conversion—or the turning of the soul definitely towards God and an unselfish and saintly life; and then Consecration—or the solemn and continuous giving of one's self to Christ,—
Has this subject hitherto had the place in our thoughts and labors to which it is entitled? We have insisted on a good life; but have we urged and emphasized the necessity of this absolute and supreme Consecration, as the facts and principles in the case require? Something of the spirit thus demanded we have had, giving us—among our ministers, some as devoted, unselfish, heroic, as have ever lifted hand or voice for the Gospel's sake, and among our people, some as earnest, self-denying, saintly, as the church, under any name, has ever known. But, as previous chapters have indicated, the proportion of such has not been what it should have been, nor has our system of effort contemplated such a result with the solicitude it should have done. We need an awakening and a New Departure in this respect, therefore. Perhaps this was sufficiently implied in our last chapter, no Experimental Religion being possible without a consecrating purpose. But the subject is so important, and has, moreover, commanded among us so little of the attention to which it is entitled, that I have thought it deserving of distinct and special presentation. It must henceforth occupy a place in our regards and methods more commensurate with its real deserts, or our personal service of Christ will never have the self-surrender and ​heroism which can alone give it completeness, and our Church will fatally lack the enthusiasm and spiritual fervor without which it must fail of the work to which it is called.
If anything, Christ must be paramount. No other view can be consistently taken of our obligations to him and the Christian Life. Is there a God, and do we belong to Him? Is Christ a reality, and has he died to redeem us? Is all our power to think, to feel, to do, from God, and are all our best ideas, and finest resources, and richest privileges and opportunities, only parts of the result of what Christ has done? Then what alternative have we but to confess our obligations, and to give ourselves to God in Christ with the entire unreserve which these things, if they be facts and not fables, so obviously require? Or, what reason has there ever been why any should forget self, and consecrate themselves to God, that does not equally exist in the case of every one of us? We just now looked at Paul, in his utter and heroic self-devotion. Did he do more than his duty? Or, did any of the Apostles, or any of the saints and martyrs who,
If not, by what motive were they addressed that is not as imperatively addressed to us, or in what respect is the obligation of any one of us less than theirs?
Another consideration is not unworthy of mention. Does not self-respect suggest that, having become identified with any work, or responsible for any duty, we shall aim to be all that the work or duty requires? How much self-respect has one who, having enlisted as a soldier, is willing to be a deserter or a coward, or fails to consecrate himself, soul and body, to his country and to his duty as its champion and defender? Or, how much self-respect has a wife, or a mother, who is not anxious to be all that a wife or a mother should be? Apply the same principle to the subject before us, and what follows? Making any pretence to faith in God, or Christ, does not self-respect require that we be no less anxious to fulfil the whole duty such a faith imposes? But ​who does this, or can do it, without the central and controlling consecration which Christ illustrates, and which the whole Bible enjoins?
As the writer already quoted admirably says,—
   "The failure of men so largely in the true life is because they will not comprehend what an utter thing consecration is, and how utterly impossible the kingdom is without it. The difference between a man who has consecrated himself, and the man who has made up his mind that on the whole it is better for him to lead a correct life, is as the difference between fiction and fact. Nothing can turn the man consecrate. Like Paul, he counts all loss gain; and the catalogue of pains and penalties is but his inspiration. What would deter others stimulates him: what would dismay, confirms. No high endeavor, no grand result, comes otherwise. It is the man rising to his noblest height, doing all things through the Christ strengthening him; the man no way lukewarm, but kindling with, possessed by, 'the enthusiasm of humanity,' and so treading down all intervening obstacles, till, more than conqueror, he wins 'that crown with peerless glories bright.'
   "I know just what every one says down in his heart as he reads this. I know how we shrink from such deliberate surrender of ourselves, our all, to God's law; and I know how utterly life fails of its grandeur, how it loses the promise in this, and its hope in the life to come, because this one absolutely necessary thing we will not do. We are willing enough to serve God if we can only make our own reservations. Rebels so gladly take the oath of allegiance. But it is the reservation which kills the quality of the loyalty: it is the reservation that makes of us, not followers of God, as dear children, but timid and time-serving and unreliable slaves,—in the thing easy, the thing convenient, the thing in which we see immediate reward or penalty, obedient; but when the pressure comes, and the whole man is called on, when a cross is to be borne, hesitating, half faithful, or recreant. There are times of tribulation in every human experience, often unrecognized by other men,—things in our inner secret lives, as well as of our outward and visible,—when nothing can stand but the soul which is all God's; there are times when men terribly fail, when the disaster of their moral overthrow is broad and deep. It is only the old story. The house is built upon the sand. The life is not riveted into the core of the rock. There has been some reserve in the consecration,—a secret flaw, which at the test-moment betrays itself, and wrecks the man. We do not want to be at the mercy of flaws. In the metal thoroughly welded flaws will not be. Make self-consecration thorough, and the gates of hell cannot prevail."