THE DISCIPLINE OF THE WILL.

"Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life." — John v. 40

When Tennyson said, in Enid’s song, that

"Man is man, and master of his fate,"

he was but echoing a truth which Jesus here distinctly recognised, — the truth, namely, that each man is possessed of a separate independence, and has the carving of his course and the shaping of his destiny largely in his own hands.

In all the supreme concerns of existence this undoubtedly is the case. What a man makes of his life, the good or evil he works out in it, is determined mainly by the exercise of that inscrutable power in his being which we call the Will. On that the great issues of weal or woe actually turn. Hence the emphasis laid by Jesus on the bent taken by the Will; — "Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life."

For, deeper than everything else — down beneath conscience, reason, memory, faith and hope — lies the Will. It is the centre of each one’s personality, the mysterious factor in each one’s life; and it is self-regulating and free. To be sure, heredity, environment, and early upbringing may so far affect its action and impose certain tendencies upon it. Yet, that these influences are not irresistible there is abundant evidence to show; and the example of thousands has demonstrated that the will can still assert itself, and still retain its capacity for independent self-direction, even in face of cramping hostile conditions which appear calculated to hold it in hopeless thrall. This unquenchable freedom of the Will is, indeed, the ground on which personal responsibility is based; and the conscience, as well as the common sense, of mankind has been constrained to acknowledge it.

1. Defects.

There are certain Defects, however, under which the Will suffers, through the influence upon it which heredity, environment, or early training has wrought. These defects vary in different individuals, but in one form or other they are constantly forced on our attention.

In some, for example, the Will is sluggish. It is disinclined to the exertion required at the moment in facing the task that has to be met; disposed to put matters off till the mood or the season shall seem more congenial. Thus we have the easygoing, procrastinating Will, that keeps dallying with good intentions, yet lazily hangs back and postpones their fulfilment — leaving many a day behind darkened by the shadow of shirked duties and lost opportunities.

In others the Will is capricious. It tends to fly off at a tangent, under the impulse of some new fancy or whim. This produces the wayward character — the character you never can count upon, never can tell in what mood or temper you will find it, — the character that now and then strikes out in an unexpected line, just to show its superiority to restraint, or to enjoy the sense of its own liberty. That the danger of such self-willed capriciousness is grave, the errors and miseries into which it plunges many lives are sufficient witness.

Again, there are cases in which the Will is slack. Not a few are troubled with this infirmity. Their Will does not take a clenching grip of any purpose it forms and hold on to it. It is wanting in steadiness, in tenacity, persistence. It sets its aim on a worthy object, and for a while makes an attempt to work towards it, but by and by its energy flags, and it drops the effort because of its tedious monotony, or because of the' slow coming of the wished-for result. How much good labour fails to reach its full reward owing to this defect of slackness, it would be impossible to estimate. Yet we see enough to convince us that men and women are often robbed of the high satisfaction on which they fixed their hopes, through the inability of their Will to persevere.

Then there is the state of the Will which we usually speak of as weak. It is the fault of some fine natures, genial and talented too, that they are easily led. They are pliable to the pressure of other natures that are harder and more assertive. They lack resoluteness to stand by their own conviction, or to act on their own judgment as to what they ought to do. This does not look a glaring fault, yet it may be frightfully damaging. It may mean the crippling of the life. It may render admirable qualities utterly profitless and spoil the good of much that was once fair and promising. For the weak Will causes drifting, and drifting may lead to a moral slavery under which the soul remorsefully writhes.

2. Discipline.

These defects, however, are not incurable. No man or woman is doomed to go on through life with a Will that is sluggish, capricious, unsteady, or weak. The faults of the Will can be remedied, and no one can honestly endeavour to remedy them without succeeding in a substantial degree.

But it must be through a process of Discipline, and that discipline must be our own individual concern. We must take ourselves in hand, so to speak, and school our Will into greater fitness for the serious business of life. The task may be heavy; still, if we have any earnestness of feeling, any sense of loyalty to Christ, or faith in the high purpose of God for us, it is our bounden part to attempt it. And as we do attempt it there are invisible forces that come in to assist us. The energies of the Divine Spirit are waiting, ready to sustain, and to co-operate with, every sterling effort of the human soul to rise above its infirmities. We go not on this warfare on our own charges. The very entrance upon the effort is the fulfilment of a condition which guarantees the inspirations of grace from on high.

But how is the process of discipline to be carried on? What means should be adopted to get the Will balanced and strengthened?

We must take ourselves in hand, as I have said; and the simplest way to proceed is to frame a few practical rules for the regulation of our conduct, — in such points, for instance, as the arrangement of our duties, and the choice of our voluntary pursuits and associations; and then try to hold these before the mind as frequently as we possibly can. What the rules should be, must be left to each one’s own clearest intelligence to determine; but if they are framed in the light of earnest thought and with a sincere desire to be faithful to conscience and to Christ, the very anxiety to conform the life to them will tend to rouse the Will and brace it to exertion.

Failures there are sure to be — perhaps many failures. The purpose may be languid, the resolution break down or melt away. Nevertheless, to keep the rules in sight, to fall back upon them, and to repeat and renew the endeavour to shape the actions by them, — these are vital points in the attainment of success. And just as it is by the practice of a certain regimen and system of drill, and by trying again and again where he falls short, that the would-be athlete gets his muscles developed into vigorous trim, so it is by the practice of such methods of self-discipline as we find it advisable to frame that we get the Will trained to firmness and strength. Every new effort made after failure helps to bring the Will into line with the course of action marked out, — helps to form its bent and give it greater stability. And so gradually the bent becomes a habit, and habit supplies a momentum of force which is of unspeakable value. Such discipline for the healthy condition of the Will is a solemn obligation laid upon us by the vast interests we have at stake as immortal beings, with our life and destiny largely in our own making.

3. Applications of the Discipline.

This discipline has to be applied to the action of the Will in various directions.

And first of all, in the control of the motives. Most people have their better moments when high thoughts stir them, and they are moved by aspirations after the pure goodness flashed upon them by the Christian ideal. And for the time the Will consents; it takes sides with the nobler fervour thus kindled. It is swayed by the mind’s highest emotions, because meanwhile these are also particularly vivid and strong. Then is the season to fix it, to bring it to a decision, and bend its action towards the highest, — to commit it, in short, to a clear choice of the highest. For the glow of fervour may lose some of its warmth; the aspiring impulse may somewhat fade, and other motives and feelings awake, of a character more sordid and low. The Will alone can settle whether it is the higher motives or the lower that are to regulate the conduct and life. To the Will belongs the prerogative of determining the critical question, which of them it shall be.

But if the Will has once been pledged to the highest motives when their strength was keenly felt, and if that pledge has been renewed again and again whenever their strength was revived, there will be a surer prospect of its growing in ability and inclination to hold fast by those higher motives, even when they happen to be weak, and also to rule down the lower motives, even when they happen to be strong. There is no fetal necessity resting on us to obey the strongest motive, as some would have us believe. The strongest is not always the best. And it is part of the august independence of the Will that it can set aside the strongest motive if it is felt to be base, and choose to obey the motives that are felt to be highest. The Will undoubtedly does possess that power, and discipline draws it out and confirms it.

Then in the pursuit of lofty ends the discipline of the Will is of untold value. Many a person has his visions of the brave, honourable things he should like to do, his glimpses, caught from the spiritual grandeur of Christ, of the objects most truly satisfying and worth striving for in life; and he has formed the resolve that henceforth these objects shall be for him supreme, and his energies be bent to gain them. If, however, that resolve gives way in view of the difficulties or self-denials entailed, what is he to do? He is to grip his purpose once more, — to try to tighten the slackened hold of his Will on the good he sees best calculated to yield genuine wealth and peace. He is to make that effort, and school himself to go on making it; and if he throw himself on the gracious influences that are always available for the upward-striving soul, he will not make it in vain. His Will, more and more, will have its inclination turned towards the things that are truest and best. And so by and by its action will lean towards those things. It will acquire a more decided "set" in that direction, and be more ready to strain forward of its own accord.

This is the way in which all brave steadfastness of character is developed, that steadfastness which shows itself in high-purposed persistency in seeking the good.

There is also the action of the Will in the resistance of temptation. We can never be too acutely alive to the imperativeness of dealing decisively with the beginnings of evil. The first steps of wrong may be specially seductive, and they may be pressed on the mind by considerations that wear the look of plausibility and force. But if, nevertheless, the unsanctified principle they involve be recognised, or suspected, it becomes solemnly binding to take a stand and hold the Will back, and save it from committing itself by yielding. The golden chance is then, for then it is that resistance is most easy. And were the Will roused to resist at the very beginnings of evil, the awful problem of temptation would be simplified immensely.

Yet we have to confess that it is not always at the beginnings of evil that the struggle to resist is made. Often rather it is only after the bitter effects of evil have been so far felt, or when the haunting shame of it and the unrest it creates have struck home, that the deep longing awakes to fight against it, to cast it off, and rise above it, emancipated and free. Still even in that longing, and that stinging sense of shame, there is a precious opportunity. Let it all be brought to bear upon the slack, sluggish, feeble Will, — let all the penitence and regret, all the holiest convictions, and all the burning yearnings to be once more sincere and true, — let all these be brought to bear upon the Will, and brought to bear upon it time after time, to stir it up from its languor, and nerve it for the grim, yet grand, wrestle which the soul’s redemption requires.

It is the fatal mistake of not a few that they rest in their remorse and regrets, or try by eager distractions to forget them, and thereby leave themselves limp and purposeless in presence of further besetments of temptation. The one thing to do is to muster every pang of contrition, every anxious prompting of conscience, and every impulse of the better nature, and fling the pressure of these feelings on the Will, and so persuade or constrain it to put forth its power in the stern grapple with evil. Thus only is it possible for moral victory to be won.

It is a stupendous trust, this endowment of a free and independent Will. On the fact that we possess it our individual responsibility rests, and for the manner in which we exercise it we must individually answer. Our unceasing aim, therefore, should be to deal with it honestly, and make it our care to discipline it faithfully, as we have the ability to do, seeking ever to tune it into harmony with the higher will of God.