1 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.The apostle’ s claim to authority The beginning of this Epistle is so formal and solemn that it is evidently intended to give a tone of authority to all that follows. I. His office as being that of “ an apostle of Jesus Christ.” He often laid stress upon his apostleship, and not with out good reason, for if it had not been recognized he would have been powerless to mould the Churches, which by God’ s blessing he had been enabled to form. Apostles are still wanted by the world, and Christians ought not to speak either with faltering voice or with apologetic tone. The confidence of the Church must be strengthened before the world will submit to its teaching. II. St. Paul refers here not only to his office as “ an apostle of Jesus Christ,” but also to the basis on which his appointment rested--namely, “ the commandment of God our Saviour.” Nothing could give a man more courage than belief in such a Divine call. It sustained that noble hero, General Gordon, amidst difficulties and perils which made his life an epic poem; indeed, in all ages the men who have had that belief have dared and done the mightiest deeds. Turn over the pages of history, and you will see that the invincible Ironsides--the dauntless pilgrim founders of the new world--the noblest evangelists and fathers of the early Churches, were all victorious because each said to himself, “ I am here by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.” And going back farther still in a Church history, we see Jeremiah standing amidst his persecutors like a brazen wall and a defenced city; Daniel defying the wrath of the king, without a sign of brag gadocio, or of any seeming consciousness of his nobility; and Elijah opposing the court, the hierarchy, and the fanatical people--without a tremor, because he looked beyond them all, and spoke of “ the Lord God of Israel, before whom I stand.” III. Here we may encourage ourselves, as Paul did, by remembering the giver of this office and work. The expression “ God, our Saviour” is frequent in the pastoral epistles, but is only met with elsewhere in Jude’ s doxology, and in Mary’ s Magnificat. Probably Paul used it here with a special view to certain false teaching which was springing up in the Christian Church at this period. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)God commanding human life Many men wreck their lives by determinedly carrying out their own plans without reference to the plans of God. In an army every part, every brigade and regiment, must wait the commander’ s orders. If any battalion moves independently, though ever so heroically, it not only confuses the whole plan of battle, but brings disaster to itself as well in the end. So each individual must always wait for God’ s command to move. Keep your eye on the pillar of cloud and fire that leads. Never lag behind, but be sure you never run ahead. You can make the clock strike before the hour by putting your own hands to it, but it will strike wrong. You can hurry the unfolding of God’ s providence, but you will only mar the Divine plan unless you wait for Him. You can tear the rosebud open before the time when it would naturally open, but you destroy the beauty of the rose. So we spoil many a gift or blessing which God is preparing for us by our own eager haste. He would weave all our lives into patterns of loveliness. He has a perfect plan for each. It is only when we refuse to work according to His plan that we mar the web. Stop meddling with threads of your life as they come from the Lord’ s hands. Every time you interfere you make a flaw. Keep your hands off, and let God weave as He pleases. Do you think you know better than He does what your life ought to be? (The Presbyterian.) The minister’ s authority should be as much regarded as his sufficiency Two things are considerable in a minister: his sufficiency and his authority. The people listen much to his sufficiency, but take little heed to his authority; and therefore come they to church rather to judge than to be judged, forgetting that many may be as skilful but none can be so powerful in binding and loosing as is the minister. A judge or a justice of peace may have less law in him than a private man, but be hath much more power, and they that appear before him regard his acts according to his power: so should it be in the Church. But men fear the magistrates that are under earthly kings, because the pains which they inflict are corporal; our hands, our feet, feel their manacles and fetters. And did but our souls as truly feel, as indeed they should, the pastor’ s binding and loosing of them, we would make more account of those offices than we do. And it were good we did so, for they so bind as that they can loose again; but if we neglect them, when our Lord and Master cometh He will command all contemners so to be bound hand and foot that they shall never be loosed again. (J. Spencer.) Our hope. Our hope In the Word of God we find many brief but precious sentences, the introduction of which appears to be incidental. I do not say accidental, but incidental. They stand upon these sacred pages, beautiful as the dew-drops on the flowers, and as the rain-drop on the leaf; while they are as useful for the purposes of our spiritual life, as are essences to the chemist, and to the medical practitioner, and to others, in cases where bulk involves inconvenience and difficulty. Such a sentence you find in the words we have read, which are the inscription of Paul’ s first letter to Timothy. I refer to the words, “Lord Jesus Christ our hope.” These words are not necessary to the inscription; they are no part of the general course of remark. Three names are here given to one being, and they express three things--rank, service, and qualification. The Lord, the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ--the “ Lord Jesus Christ our hope.” Hope, as you know, is a complex emotion, constitutional, universal, and most powerful, and a compound emotion which is most fully brought forth in Christian experience. We desire you to look at the Lord Jesus Christ as the Author of hope, that by thus looking to Him, your own hope may be strengthened. But why is hope within you so weak? Is the Lord Jesus Christ your hope? Then your hope should answer to His character, and to His attributes, and to His resources, and to His throne. If you are in a tiny boat upon a stormy sea, you rock with the billows; but if you stand upon the firm rock which guards the sea-shore, although tempests may be raging, you stand firmly with that rock. Now, if you base your hope upon self; if you rest it upon any creature; if you are trying to root it and ground it in circumstances; you will find that your hope will be feeble and mutable. If, on the other hand, it be grounded in Christ, it ought to be strong enough to answer the purpose of an anchor to your soul in any storm, however long or fierce the storms and tempests may be which play around you. I. The Lord Jesus Christ gives his disciples new objects of hope. You all know well what hope is--that it consists of desire and expectation. Jesus Christ puts good things before His followers, things that awaken desire, and that call forth expectation. His followers look for these things, and they long for them; and in looking and longing for them, they hope. The Saviour puts new objects of hope before His followers. These are such as the following of the consummation of their salvation. And, passing from things great to things comparatively small, we may mention another new object of hope: the supply of the disciple’ s temporal need by his Father in heaven. Some men are reckless about the future--I mean this low, earthly, temporal future. Now, to the reckless and to the fearful; to the self-dependent, and to the sinfully dependent upon others; our Lord Jesus Christ saith, “ Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” ; so that the expectation of supply--supply of daily bread to life’ s last hour, is built upon the loving and watchful care of our Father in heaven. Here again is a new object of hope. Connected with these new objects are others, such as everlasting life in heaven--life eternal in our Father’ s house, holy, happy, godly, celestial life. And besides this, the establishment of Christ’ s own kingdom on this earth, and the setting up of His kingdom in the new earth, which, by-and-by, He will create. You, therefore, see that these new objects of hope are numerous and great and benevolent and godly. II. Jesus Christ also lays new foundations for old hopes. Before our discipleship to Jesus Christ, if our hope was for temporal good, then the hope was built upon money, skill, energy, prudence, wisdom, the treasures of our own information, the confidence of our fellow-men in us, our ability to commend ourselves to the good feelings and to the judgment of our fellow-men. But in the case of the Christian, as we have already shown you, the hope, even of temporal good, is built upon the Father’ s care of us and love for us. Before our discipleship, we were wont to say, “ I am rich, I shall have need of nothing,” but Christ hath taught us to sing, “ Jehovah is our Shepherd, we shall not want.” Now, here is a new foundation for an old hope; and what say you about the foundations as they appear contrasted? Do you not agree with me, that the one is miserably loose and shifting sand, and that the other is the rock of ages that can never, never be moved? Or if, before discipleship to Christ, we hoped for salvation, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for eternal life, then the basis of that hope has been changed likewise. We used to boast, “ I have never done any harm to anybody” ; or we said, “ I have always attended a place of worship” ; or we said, “ God is merciful, and I have never done much harm to anybody, and I am quite sure He will forgive.” Now, the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we have shown you, hopes first and supremely for the consummation of his salvation; but what about the foundation? Hear the disciple now, “ What things were gain to me, those I count but loss for Christ, I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” The Lord Jesus Christ our hope; He gives us new objects of hope, and He lays new foundations for our old hopes. And yet more-- III. Our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes Himself the secure foundation of all lawful hopes, whether they be old, or whether they be new. The Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation. His sacrifices and His mediation open the windows of heaven for us, and the door of heaven to us. Look at this sacrifice and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ as the basis Of hope. Further, the government of our Lord Jesus Christ secures our possession of all that He ordains for us. The “ government is upon His shoulder.” All power is given unto Him both in heaven and on earth. All that He means to work out for you will be thoroughly and perfectly wrought out; and it is one of our great mercies, that Christ will not work out our foolish and sometimes wicked schemes and plans, which, if they were wrought out, would ruin us. His government secures our possession of all that He ordains for us. Jesus Christ’ s love keeps Him ever awake toward our welfare. We often talk of the love of a mother as watchful. Her love is her eye; she sees by her heart; affection is her power of observation nobody can see, with respect to her children, what she sees, just because her power of love is a second sight. IV. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself an object of hope. He has promised to come again; and those who love Him look for Him. Now, think for one moment; what is the master hope in your soul? What do you long for most eagerly? I have read in my Bible, in this glorious New Testament, of men “ having no hope,” that is--no good hope, no hope worth having, no hope worth retaining, no hope that will not make ashamed. Is that your ease? There are hopes in your soul; for objects of hope are ever appealing to, and calling out, desire and expectation, and these hopes are the sources, or the occasions, of joy. Well, do tell me a little about them. Are these hopes worth cherishing? (S. Martin.) Christ our hope Of all the ingredients that sweeten the cup of human life, there is none more rich or powerful than hope. Its absence embitters the sweetest lot; its presence alleviates the deepest woe. Surround me with all the joys which memory can awaken or possession bestow--without hope it is not enough. But though you strip me of all the joys the past or the present can confer, if the morrow shineth bright with hope, I am glad amid my woe. Of all the busy motives that stir this teeming earth, hope is the busiest. Is it so in regard to the pleasures and possessions of time?--how much more should it be in regard to eternity? How should, how can that man be happy amid the brightest joys of time, who sees his little span of life shelving down precipitously into the dark, dreary, desolate abyss of nothingness or into a more dreadful eternity of woe? and how should, how can that man be greatly saddened by the ills of time, who sees a blissful eternity fast drawing nigh? Thus then we realize the value of hope as a source of happiness. It gladdens the pilgrimage of earth, it irradiates the dark horizon of death, and provides for the eternity beyond. I. What is the foundation of our hope? Most men live in hope of happiness beyond the grave. Few men, I suppose, are altogether destitute of it. But when we ask for a reason for the hope that is in them, how often do we find it a dream and a delusion and a lie! Some, acknowledging their sins, trust that by their prayers and penitence and performances they can atone for bygone sin, and others who, confessing the worthlessness of all they can do, throw themselves on the general mercy of God. In none of these do we recognize the foundation on which our hope is resting. And what then have we seen in the work or person of Christ to awaken hope? We reply--1, Looking back on the past work of Christ we find a sufficient remedy for the guilt of sin.2. Looking at His present work, we find a remedy for our pollution. He purifies His people as well as pardons them. He regenerates and renews them by His Spirit, as well as redeems them by His blood. He reconciles them to the holiness as well as to the justice of God. 3. How is the strength of this foundation proved when, turning from the work to the Workman, we contemplate the surpassing excellencies of His Person! Who is this that undertaketh to provide pardon for the guiltiest, and purifying for the most polluted? It is “ the Lord” --the Lord of Glory--the only-begotten of the Father--the eternal Son of God. What virtue, then, in His atoning death I what prevalence in His prayer! what power in His hand to purify! It is “ Jesus,” the Son of Mary, an Elder Brother, partaker of flesh and blood, made in all things like unto His brethren, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs. How true and real, then, were the sufferings which He endured when He died for men, and how tender are His sympathies as now He pleads for or with us--“ a High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities” ! Once again, this is the “ Christ” --anointed by God, commissioned for this very work. He does not stand alone; the Father sent Him. II. But now, in the second place, some may ask, where is this warrant of our hope? Who are you, or what have you done more than others, that you should thus confidingly draw near to Jesus? The warrant of His holy Word--yes; with unfaltering voice we proclaim aloud that Christ speaking to us in the Word was, and is, the sure and only warrant of our hope. III. But again, in the third place, we have learned to say, The Lord Jesus Christ accepted, appropriated, built upon by us, is the substance of our hope. Received and rested on He became our Saviour. IV. But then, in the fourth place, we learned to say that Christ in us, Christ found and dwelling in us is the evidence, the assurance, of our hope. “ I live,” said Paul--“ I live” : there was no uncertainty here, no dim or doubtful hope, but all the certainty of conscious life--“ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” “ The Lord Jesus Christ is my hope,” the principle of life in me. As the sap of the root dwells in every branch and leaflet, imparting life and verdure; as the volition of the head lives in every member, guiding all its actions; as a master dwells in his own house, controlling all its arrangements, so Christ dwelleth in His people by His Holy Spirit, quickening, controlling, guiding them, conforming them to His own likeness. Well then may the Christian say, “ Christ in me is the hope of glory.” This is indeed a step in advance in the Christian’ s life! It is more than salvation provided, however fully; it is more than salvation offered, however freely; it is more than salvation accepted, however surely. It is salvation in possession. V. But now, when thus we have considered the security of the Christian’ s hope as contrasted with the false hopes of the world, let us consider the brightness of this hope. It is not only sure, but glorious, transcending all else that men have ever pictured for themselves. For what does the Christian hope? I know not what I shall be, but when He shall appear, I shall be like Him. I am called to “ the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is our destiny. We are “ predestinated to be conformed to His image.” Say, then, how dazzling is the glory of the Christian’ s hope! Jesus stands revealed not only as our Saviour, but as Himself the pattern of our salvation. Where He is, there we hope to be. What He is, that we hope to be. What He has, we hope to have. VI. But now, in the last place, it may be asked, when shall this hope pass into possession? Bright as the salvation of which I have spoken may be, it is not yet fulfilled, it is only hoped for. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. Till fulfilled, it is fragmentary and incomplete. What, then, it may be asked, is the period when hope shall pass into full possession? An earnest and foretaste we have in this life, yea, unspeakable joy when our sins are forgiven and our hearts are purified. An amazing increase we shall have at the hour of death, when our disencumbered spirits shall break away and be with Jesus. To those, then, who now ask us, as we live on earth, Is your joy complete? is your hope fulfilled? we answer, Not yet; not even when our sins are pardoned and our hearts are purified; not even when at a communion table we hold fellowship with our present Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the climax of our hope. When He appears in glory, but not till then, shall we appear with Him, our joy completed and all our hope fulfilled. (W. Grant.) 1 Timothy 1:2 Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith.Spiritual paternity A friend talked solid doctrine to a man who said, “ I am a father in Israel. I have been a child of God now, so many years; I have had such a deep experience that I am a father in Israel.” My friend said to him, “ How many children have you?” “ Well,” he answered, “ I do not know.” “ How many have you brought to Christ? How many have been converted by you?” “ Well, I do not know that any have.” “ Then don’ t you call yourself a father until you have got some children.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) The relations of Paul and Timothy To understand this relationship think first of-- I. Timothy’ s conversion. He had been prayerfully taught in the Jewish faith by his mother and grandmother, and was therefore, with them, prepared to receive the gospel. II. Timothy’ s setting apart for special work did not take place until seven years after this. God does not call us to high service until we have proved our fidelity in what is lower. III. Now and then we get a glimpse at Timothy’ s happy companionship with Paul, which was never afterwards broken for any length of time, and which was the more remarkable because of the difference between the ages of the two men. But it is good for the aged to keep the heart young by their association with youth; and it is even better for those who are in the spring-time of their life to yield reverence and love, and considerate kindness, to those who are older and more experienced than themselves; indeed it is an ill sign when there is resentment of home authority, repudiation of responsibility to the aged, and a wish to have only the companionship of those who live for the pleasures of this life. Conclusion: Those of us who, like Timothy, are teachers of others, may learn from the reception of this letter that we need continuous instruction in order to accomplish our ministry. It is not enough that we should begin our work with memories stored with truths, and with hearts consecrated to the Master’ s service. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)The relation between older and younger workers Few relations between men are more interesting than that of a man, who has for years been doing a work, with some younger man, to whom the work is to be given over to finish or to carry on. That work is to pass through new developments, and new circumstances which the man who is passing away may not be able to comprehend. But if there is true generosity in the mind of the older man, he always rejoices that the work is to go on after he has passed away. The older gives to the younger promises and opportunities. All that the older man has done is not going to perish with him. His work projects itself into the future. It is not stopped short by the wall of his own death. The younger man, looking back on the experience of the older teacher, which seems to have lasted longer than it really has lasted, gets some sort of background for his own work. That work is not something which he has started, thought out for himself. The older man gives to the younger a sense of a long-continued past; the younger gives to the older a sense of a long-continued future. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.) Friendship complemental In the relation of St. Paul to Timothy we have one of those beautiful friendships between an older and a younger man which are commonly so helpful to both. It is in such cases, rather than where the friends are equals in age, that each can be the real complement of the other. Each by his abundance can supply the other’ s want, whereas men of equal age would have common wants and common supplies. In this respect the friendship between St. Paul and Timothy reminds us of that between St. Peter and St. John. In each ease the friend who took the lead was much older than the other; and (what is less in harmony with ordinary experience) in each case it was the older friend who had the impulse and the enthusiasm, the younger who had the reflectiveness and the reserve. These latter qualities are perhaps less marked in St. Timothy than in St. John, but nevertheless they are there, and they are among the leading traits of his character. St. Paul leans on him while he guides him, and relies upon his thoughtfulness and circumspection in cases requiring firmness, delicacy and tact. Of the affection with which he regarded Timothy we have evidence in the whole tone of the two letters to him. In the sphere of faith Timothy is his “ own true child” (not merely adopted, still less supposititious), and his “ beloved child.” (A. Plummer, D. D.) Grace, mercy, and peace. Grace, mercy, and peace There is always some interest in the first or the last of anything--an interest in proportion to the importance of that which is begun or ended, A birth or a death, each creates a sensation peculiar to itself, distinct from any other event; they are the beginning and the ending of that most solemn mystery, life. Viewed in the light of eternity, there is something peculiarly altering in the first or the last act of a Christian ministry. This text presents in summary the leading doctrines of the gospel--“ Grace, mercy, and peace” --grace as the origin, mercy as the development, and peace as the result of man’ s salvation. I. There is, then, first of all, the grace that originates. Grace is the Alpha of all salvation. It is grace in the eternal counsel, grace in the Divine election, grace in the heavenly calling, grace in the individual conversion, grace in every gift of the Holy Ghost, grace in the conviction of sin that realizes its danger, in the godly repentance that mourns over it. It is grace that transplants the flower from the wilderness into the garden of the Lord, waters it with the clews of heaven, and makes it bud and bloom, and so shed its sweetness all around, that even in decay and death its scent survives imperishable. It is grace that gives the lowly man his humility, the loving man his kindly affections, the benevolent man his charity, the zealous man his ardour, the young Christian his spiritual strength, the old Christian his experience, the suffering Christian his patience, and the dying Christian his support. Thus the first practical inquiry, that enables us to ascertain our own state before God, is, Have we realized the truth, not as a mere point in theology, but as a point in personal feeling, that “ in me, that is, in my flesh,” in my natural character or capacity, “ dwelleth no good thing” that without Christ we are nothing, can do nothing? II. There is, secondly, the mercy that developes the counsel of redemption. As grace is something that is given as a gratuity, that is neither merited, nor purchased, nor obtainable by other means, nor deserved, nor even desired, so mercy involves an absolute demerit--not merely a negation, but a disqualifying clause. Grace might be applicable to an order of beings to which mercy was not applicable. I say, mercy involves an absolute demerit. A judgment incurred, but respited--a forbearing stroke, where the blow was not only merited but provoked and challenged! Hence it is described by the terms, “ the longsuffering of God,” “ the forbearance of God.” And yet the word mercy still implies a victim. If no penalty of an earthly law, for instance, were ever inflicted upon any man, as was the case with some of our own laws till of late years, the suspension of such a law would be no mercy to any man, it would be practically disannulled, and the idea of mercy under such a statute would merge into repeal. It is when some men actually suffer the penalty from which others are exempted by the interposition of the sovereign, that the mercy is said to be shown to those who are exempted. When a criminal sees another man suffering the death to which his guilt had condemned himself, he understands then the royal prerogative of mercy. It is so with the sinner. Mercy is the great development of the love of God. It is not the exercise of a Divine attribute, which, like His power or wisdom, cost the Father nothing. “ God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that all who believe in Him should not perish.” This was the Father’ s sacrifice, of which Abraham’ s was the figure, just as Isaac’ s self-submission was a type of the Son’ s. An act of mercy costs earthly princes nothing beyond the word pardon; ii cost the King of kings the immolation of His Son, “ whom He had appointed Heir of all things.” Who is to wonder, then, at the magnificent things Which are said in Scripture about the mercy of God? Mercy gave birth to the “ Man of sorrows” ; mercy clothed the Heir of heaven in coarse Galilean raiment, as a poor man among the poor; mercy made Him toil, and hunger, and thirst, and travail, and suffer, and die; mercy rose with Him from the grave; mercy speaks by Him from the seat of intercession, and promises to come again in glory, to gather His elect, and to establish His kingdom. Mercy is the main element, the uniform ingredient, in every act of grace, It was mercy that fixed our own native lot in a land of light, and Christian ordinances, and social privileges, instead of among howling savages, with minds as dark and bare as their disfigured bodies; it was mercy that provided some of us with the goodly heritage of pious parents, however little we may have profited by their example and prayers; it was mercy, if our hearts were reached at last, if we turned to “ flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold upon eternal life.” It is mercy still, O Lord, that we are living this day to praise Thee, that health, reason, strength, apprehension, and multiplied opportunities, and means of grace, and channels of good works by which we shall glorify Thee, and benefit ourselves and others, are yet spared to us. It is mercy, in short, that meets us in the hour of sorrow, and whispers consolation. Hence the next practical test of our condition in the sight of God is--Have we felt our need of mercy? Have we realized our lost, wretched, forlorn condition without a Mediator? III. Thus mercy, joining hands with grace, like the outstretched wings of the cherubim that met over the ark, crown and complete God’ s covenant with His people; and finally they publish “ peace” --peace between them. This was our closing proposition. The seal and consummation of the plan of redemption is peace. Have you remarked, that the angels singing from heaven called it “ peace on earth” ? that is, peace here, peace now; not simply that poetical peace in the grave, of which some men sing, or the peace in heaven to which the believer aspires, but something that he has in his heart at once; and that is called by the angels “ peace on earth” --peace at once, peace with all men, peace with ourselves. “ Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; the end of that man is peace.” The external incidents of life no longer break the calm of the full assurance of faith, or hope, or understanding, in the life of the believer; but “ when a man’ s ways please the Lord, He maketh his enemies to be at peace with him.” “ The God of peace beats down Satan under your feet shortly.” The Son of peace is an abiding and delightful guest in your dwellings; your vision of peace is not like Jerusalem’ s, hidden from your eyes, but fixes a distinct, lofty, lovely impression upon your minds--like an horizon that seems to fence in and shield us with the clouds of heaven, yet opens heaven itself to the far-seeing gaze of faith. The world in its own way is seeking for this peace; amid all its pleasures and cunning variations of pleasure and amusement it is seeking, over the wreck of every present enjoyment, the peace which it hopes to find in the future. It is seeking it where the poor disconsolate Elisha sought his master--in the wilderness, instead of looking up to heaven where he was gone. And hence the search is vain; men do not find it. (J. B. Owen, M. A.) A Christian salutation The salutation which Paul gives to his own son in the faith is an exquisite example of what a Christian greeting should be. It is no idle compliment, but an earnest prayer. I. The manifestation of divine love desired on Timothy’ s behalf is threefold, consisting of “ grace, mercy, and peace,” for the sympathetic mind of Paul analyzed and displayed it, much as a prism will catch a ray of sunshine, and reveal more clearly the wonderful beauty that is latent in it.1. Grace is the free favour of God, pouring itself forth upon the soul which is yearning for it, and filling it with gladness and praise. So that a prayer for God’ s “ grace” to be with us is really a prayer that our sins and doubts may be dispersed; for as with nature’ s sunlight, it is not any alteration in the sun, but a change in the earth’ s atmosphere, or in the earth’ s attitude towards the sun, that brings brightness in the place of gloom, daylight in the stead of darkness. 2. The association of the idea of mercy with grace is striking, and is peculiar to these Epistles to Timothy and to the Second Epistle of John. But it was characteristic of Paul, who was profoundly conscious of his own need of “ mercy,” to pray for it on behalf of his comrade, who was engaged in similar work. It is not to the erring Galatians nor to the backsliding Corinthians, but to this honoured servant of the Christian Church, that he prays for God’ s “ mercy” to be evermore extended; for from his own experience he knew how much that mercy is needed by those who are sensible that their character comes far short of their ideal, and that their work for Christ is marred by their faults and follies. We may occupy the highest position in the Church, yet instead of being thereby exalted above the need of mercy, we must the more humbly cast ourselves upon it. Nothing but the realization of the Divine forbearance will embolden us to continue in spiritual service, which is awful in its responsibilities, and likely to be ill done by us through our sinfulness and ignorance. The noblest saint falls back in life and death on Divine mercy as his one and only hope. 3. Peace flows from the “ grace” and “ mercy” of God. It is a sense of reconciliation with Him--of rest in Him, which will give calmness in hours of trouble and peril, and will spread a sacred and happy influence over those around us. As good Bishop Patrick says, “ Peace is the proper result of the Christian temper. It is the great kindness which our religion doth us, that it brings us to a settledness of mind and a consistency within ourselves.” II. The source of these blessings is pointed out in the assurance that they flow from “ God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.”1. If God is our Father we may surely expect such blessings, for they are just what in our lower sphere we fathers (whose fatherhood is but a broken reflection of His) would gladly give our children. We are not happy unless they are living in our “ favour” ; we are eager to show them “ mercy” directly and whenever they come to us in penitential grief; and if there is one blessing we desire for them above others, it is that their minds may be at “ peace.” 2. But grace, mercy, and peace, can only come to us through Jesus Christ our Lord, because we are undeserving and sinful. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)The price of peace The other day I was preaching in my own church upon this subject. I said that if a man wanted to have peace with God, he must be prepared to put away his sin. After the sermon a wealthy gentleman, a member of my own congregation, came up to me and said, “ You have broken me down to-day. For the last two or three months i have not been able to sleep. You know I have retired from business, but the fact of the matter is, I have been gambling on the Stock Exchange, though people did not know it. Whenever the funds go down I begin to tremble. Although I believe I gave my heart to God some years ago, I have been trying to serve two masters--gambling for money, and at the same time pretending to serve God. Now, I have made up my mind that I must destroy this sin. It will cost me £4,000, but I am determined to make a clean sweep of it altogether.” The gentleman added, “ I think peace of mind is cheap at £4,000” ; and I think so too. (A. E. Stuart.) 1 Timothy 1:3-4 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus.Timothy’ s charge Our translators have supplied two words at the close of the fourth verse, in order to complete the sentence which the apostle left unfinished; but it would have been better had they inserted them earlier, for the meaning is more clear if we read, “ As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, so I beseech thee now to remain there.” It is an example of the way in which Paul’ s living thoughts leaped ahead of the words which might have clothed them. I. The period to which he refers in the phrase, “ when I went into Macedonia,” cannot be certainly fixed. There was, indeed, one occasion mentioned in Acts 20:1, when, in consequence of the peril in which he was placed through the uproar raised by Demetrius, he did leave Ephesus for Macedonia; but in the chapter preceding that narrative we read that he had already sent Timothy and Erastus thither; and we know that he joined them there, because in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, written thence, he mentions Timothy as being then with him. II. The mode of address to Timothy demands a word or two. “ I besought thee” --not I commanded thee. No doubt this is expressive of the gentleness and affection with which Timothy was regarded, but it is also an indication of the kind of authority which was exercised by the apostles over their fellow-workers. There was nothing dictatorial about it, nothing of the military discipline which is so popular and effective in an aggressive section of the Church in our day. Influence then was that of character; authority was the outcome of inspiration; and even the chosen twelve were better pleased to rule by love than fear. It must be admitted this may give rise to abuses and perils. III. The purport of Paul’ s entreaty was that Timothy should check the progress of false doctrine in the Ephesian Church. There was a ferment going on in the minds of men at that time, such as usually accompanies or follows a great religious movement. False notions of God, and of His law, arising from an imperfectly understood Judaism, combined with a speculative heathen philosophy, were threatening to destroy the simplicity of the gospel A sort of cabalistic system was being constituted in the Church, by an incongruous mixture of Jewish fancies with heathen speculations, and this threatened disaster--just as the ivy, climbing slowly but surely, thrusts in a root here and a tendril there, till the once strong wall has every stone loosened, and in the storm it falls. IV. The reason given for opposing such teaching is, that it “ ministered questions rather than godly edifying.” The Revised Version adopts another reading, and rightly so. The meaning is, that these questionings did not subserve God’ s “ dispensation “ mills specific plan for admission to His kingdom, His method of salvation unfolded in the Gospel; for that dispensation consists “ in faith.” And as a matter of experience we know that questions which merely excite the fancy, or even the intellect, tend to make the objects of faith distasteful. For example, a course of sensational novel reading, which peoples the mind with unrealities, does extrude earnest thoughts on spiritual realities. And this which is true of the rites of the Church is equally true of its organizations, and we have constantly to be on our guard lest the occupation of the mind with the details of Church work should divert us from the cultivation of personal Christian life. But the apostle here condemns chiefly the unhealthy practice of giving prominence to unimportant questions, whether it be in the sphere of philosophy or of religion. When a settler has to grow his own corn to provide himself with daily bread, he will let speculation on the strata beneath the surface wait till he has found time to sow and to reap. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The doctrine condemned in the Pastoral Epistles a Jewish form of Gnosticism: the Gnostic’ s problem It is of more importance to inquire what was the nature of the “ different doctrine” which Timothy was to endeavour to counteract. And on this point we are not left in serious doubt. There are various expressions used respecting it in these two letters to Timothy which seem to point to two factors in the heterodoxy about which St. Paul is anxious.1. The heresy is Jewish in character. Its promoters “ desire to be teachers of the Law” (1 Timothy 1:7). Some of them are “ they of the circumcision” (Titus 1:10). It consists in “ Jewish fables” (Titus 1:14). The questions which it raises are “ fightings about the Law” (Titus 3:9). 2. Its Gnostic character is also indicated. We are told both in the text and in the Epistle to Titus (Titus 1:14; Titus 3:9) that it deals in “ fables and genealogies.” It is, “ empty talking” (verse 6), “ disputes of words” (1 Timothy 6:4), and “ profane babblings (1 Timothy 6:20). It teaches an unscriptural and unnatural asceticism (1 Timothy 4:3; 1 Timothy 4:8). It is “ Gnosis falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20). A heresy containing these two elements, Judaism and Gnosticism, meets us both before and after the period covered by the Pastoral Epistles: before in the Epistle to the Colossians; afterwards in the Epistles of Ignatius. The evidence gathered from these three sources is entirely in harmony with what we learn elsewhere--that the earliest forms of Christian Gnosticism were Jewish in character. It will be observed that this is indirect confirmation of the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles. The Gnosticism condemned in them is Jewish; and any form of Gnosticism that was in existence in St. Paul’ s time would almost certainly be Jewish. Professor Godet has pointed out how entirely the relation of Judaism to Christianity which is implied in these Epistles, fits in with their being the last group of epistles written by St. Paul. At first, Judaism was entirely outside the Church, opposing and blaspheming. Then it entered the Church and tried to make the Church Jewish, by foisting the Mosaic Law upon it. Lastly, it becomes s, fantastic heresy inside the Church, and sinks into profane frivolity. “ Pretended revelations are given as to the names and genealogies of angels; absurd ascetic rules are laid down as counsels of perfection, while daring immorality defaces the actual life.” This is the phase which is confronted in the Pastoral Epistles: and St. Paul meets it with a simple appeal to faith and morality. It is quite possible that the “ fables,” or “ myths,” and “ genealogies” ought to be transferred from the Gnostic to the Jewish side of the account. And thus Chrysostom interprets the passage. “ By fables he does not mean the Law; far from it; but inventions and forgeries, and counterfeit doctrines. For, it seems, the Jews wasted their whole discourse on these unprofitable points. They numbered up their fathers and grandfathers, that they might have the reputation of historical knowledge and research.” The “ fables” then, may be understood to be those numerous legends which the Jews added to the Old Testament, specimens of which abound in the Talmud. But similar myths abound in Gnostic systems, and therefore “ fables” may represent both elements of the heterodox teaching. So also with the “ endless genealogies.” These cannot well refer to the genealogies in Genesis, for they are not endless, each of them being arranged in tens. But it is quite possible that Jewish speculations about the genealogies of angels may be meant. Such things, being purely imaginary, would be endless. Or the Gnostic doctrine of emanations, in its earlier and cruder forms, may be intended. By genealogies in this sense early thinkers, especially in the East, tried to bridge the chasm between the infinite and the finite, between God and creation. In various systems it is assumed that matter is inherently evil. The material universe has been from the beginning not “ very good” but very bad. How then can it be believed that the Supreme Being, infinite in goodness, would create such a thing? This is incredible: the world must be the creature of some inferior and perhaps evil being. But when this was conceded, the distance between this inferior power and the supreme God still remained to be bridged. This, it was supposed, might be done by an indefinite number of generations, each lower in dignity than the preceding one, until at last a being capable of creating the universe was found. From the Supreme God emanated an inferior deity, and from this lower power a third still more inferior; and so on until the Creator of the world was reached. These ideas are found in the Jewish philosopher Philo; and it is to these that St. Paul probably alludes in the “ endless genealogies which minister questionings rather than a dispensation of God.” (A. Plummer, D. D.) Speculations condemned St. Paul condemns such speculations on four grounds.1. They are fables, myths, mere imaginings of the human intellect in its attempt to account for the origin of the world and the origin of evil. 2. They are endless and interminable. From the nature of things there is no limit to mere guesswork of this kind. Every new speculator may invent a fresh genealogy of emanations in his theory of creation and may make it any length that he pleases. If hypotheses need never be verified--need not even be capable of verification--one may go on constructing them ad infinitum.3. As a natural consequence of this (αἵτινες) they minister questionings and nothing better. It is all barren speculation and fruitless controversy. Where any one may assert without proof, any one else may contradict with out proof; and nothing comes of this see-saw of affirmation and negation. 4. Lastly, these vain imaginings are a different doctrine. They are not only empty but untrue, and are a hindrance to the truth, they occupy the ground which ought to be filled with the dispensation of God which is in faith. Human minds are limited in their capacity, and, even if these empty hypotheses were innocent, minds that were filled With them would have little room left for the truth. But they are not innocent: and those who are attracted by them become disaffected towards the truth. The history of the next hundred and fifty years amply justifies the anxiety and severity of St. Paul. The germs of Gnostic error, which were in the air when Christianty was first preached, fructified with amazing rapidity. It would be hard to find a parallel in the history of philosophy to the speed with which Gnostic views spread in and around Christendom between a.d. 70 and 220. Throughout the Christian world, and especially in intellectual centres such as Ephesus, Alexandria, and Rome, there was perhaps not a single educated congregation which did not contain persons who were infected with some form of Gnosticism. Jerome’ s famous hyperbole respecting Arianism might be transferred to this earlier form of error, perhaps the most perilous that the Church has ever known: “ The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Gnostic.” However severely we may con demn these speculations, we cannot but sympathize with the perplexities which produced them. The origin of the universe, and still more the origin of evil, to this day remain unsolved problems. No one in this life is ever likely to reach a complete solution of either. (A. Plummer, D. D.) 1 Timothy 1:4 Neither give heed to fables.Old doctrines enduring At Cudham, in Kent, is an old church. Walking round it on one occasion, I observed a portion of the roof falling to decay and needing to be propped up with a timber stay. On closer investigation, however, I discovered that the decaying portion was none of the old structure, but a modern addition. We need not fear for the ancient fabric of Christian truth. The new-fangled doctrines will fall to the ground, while the old gospel “ endureth for ever.” (J. Halsey.) Modern gospels false The very commendations which some people give of the so-called gospel they preach arouse our suspicion. When we hear of its recent and human origin, we at once begin to doubt its validity. We are reminded of the boy who went into a shop to change a sovereign. “ Are you sure it is a good one?” asked the man behind the counter. “ Oh, yes, quite sure, sir; for I seed father make it this morning.” We do not believe in a gospel which was coined but this morning. We preach a gospel which was minted in heaven, which bears the image and superscription of Christ, which has the ring of true metal, and which will pass current in all the dominions of the King. (C. W. Townsend.) Self-made gospels useless When some men come to die, the religion which they have themselves thought out and invented will yield them no more confidence than the religion of the Roman Catholic sculptor who, on his death-bed, was visited by his priest. The priest said, “ You are now departing out of this life!” and, holding up a beautiful crucifix, he cried, “ Behold your God, who died for you.’“ “ Alas!” said the sculptor, “ I made it.” There was no comfort for him in the work of his own hands; and there will be no comfort in a religion of one’ s own devising. That which was created in the brain cannot yield comfort to the heart. The man will sorrowfully say, “ Yes, it is my own idea; but what does God say?” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Unprofitable speculations In reviewing some of the questions: which occupied my attention at an early period, I have seen reason to bless God for preserving me at a time when my judgment was very immature. When I have seen the zeal which has been expended in maintaining some such peculiarities, I have thought it a pity. Bunyan would have called them “ nuts which spoil the children’ s teeth.” They have appeared to me as a sort of spiritual narcotics, which, when a man once gets a taste for them, he will prefer to the most wholesome food. A man who chews opium, or tobacco, may prefer it to the most wholesome food, and may derive from it pleasure, and even vigour for a time; but his pale countenance and debilitated constitution will soon bear witness to the folly of “ spending his money for that which is not bread.” (A. Fuller.) Unprofitable disputes to be avoided Avoid disputes about lesser truths, and a religion that lies only in opinions. They are usually least acquainted with a heavenly life, who are violent disputers about the circumstantials of religion. He whose religion is all in his opinions, will be most frequently and zealously speaking his opinions; and he whose religion lies in his knowledge and love of God and Christ, will be most delightfully speaking of that happy time when he shall enjoy them. He is a rare and precious Christian who is skilful to improve well-known truths. Therefore let me advise you, who aspire after a heavenly life, not to spend too much of your thoughts, your time, your zeal, or your speech upon disputes that tess concern your souls; but when hypocrites are feeding on husks and shells, do you feed on the joys above. I would have the chief truths to be chiefly studied, and none to cast out your thoughts of eternity. (Richard Baxter.) The groundwork of Christianity In his confidential letter to Timothy, he struck very hard blows, and more nearly in language of contempt than I remember his using in any other of his writings. He made a distinction in this way: he warned against that method of teaching which led to discussions, questions, janglings, disputes, envyings, and urged Timothy to pursue that line of teaching which had in it the power of building men up, of edifying them--this being the architectural word for building. Those doctrines which tended to educate men in a noble manhood he told him to preach; but those other doctrines which resulted not in the change of men’ s dispositions, but in debates and questionings, he counselled him to avoid. That which tends to develop right sentiments he declares to be gospel teaching and preaching, whereas that which tends to develop nice distinctions, nice arguments, nice points of orthodoxy, and to make men think that they know ever so much, so that they are proud of their knowledge, though they are fools all the time, is false teaching and preaching. And here we have the foundation on which men should be united. Unity is not to exist in governments, ordinances, and doctrines, but in things that pertain to godliness of life. It is said, “ If a man is sincere his convictions do not make any difference.” Don’ t they? A man says to you, “ I saw you break into a bank.” “ Oh, no,” you say, “ That is only a joke.” “ Yes I did. And not only that, I saw you pick a man’ s pocket.” He sticks to it that he saw you do these things; and the more sincere he is the worse it is for you. Do not you think it makes any difference what a man’ s convictions are when he is talking about you? You demand that a man shall think right when he talks about you, and your wife, and your daughter, and your credit, and your interests. Everybody holds in regard to certain technical speculative ideas which lie outside of positive knowledge, that men should believe right. In the great realm of which we are speaking, and in reference to things which relate to manhood and character, everybody holds that right believing is essential. We hold every man responsible for his beliefs so far as his conduct is affected by them: not for his speculative beliefs, but for those of his beliefs which pertain to human life in the family, in business, and in government. Of the great laws to which men are accountable, spiritual laws are the highest, civil laws are next, social laws are next, and physical laws are next; and belief in the existence of these laws is important. A belief that men are accountable to them, and that obedience to them brings happiness, while disobedience to them brings unhappiness, is also important. You may leave out men’ s beliefs in regard to certain philosophical views of responsibility, and that which is woven in the loom of apprehension may be scattered, and no harm may result; but the great fact remains that men are accountable to those laws; and every man stands on that. Men are accountable; and if they do right they are rewardable; but if they do wrong they are punishable; and the greatest danger would result from teaching that it made no difference what men thought and did. It would be a fatal blow at morality. It would reduce man to the level of the animal, that acts according to instinct and not according to reason. There could be no greater mistake than that. While there may exist differences of opinion in regard to minor points connected with this fact, it is all-important that men should recognize the fact itself, that under the Divine government, and under the laws that belong to that government, men are held accountable for their conduct, for their feelings, and for their thoughts in life. Men are also in agreement with regard to the ideal of character--that is, in regard to the architectural plan, which is laid down in the New Testament for godliness, or true Christian manhood. They believe that the New Testament requires that the whole man shall be shaped and educated into a perfect obedience to all the laws of his condition here and hereafter. They believe that the body must be wholesome in a perfect Christian man. They believe that where there is a perfect Christian manhood, the intellect must be healthy and regulated. They believe that a man’ s disposition must be perfectly developed and harmonized before he can be a ripe Christian man. We hear a great deal about the way being obscure, so that one cannot tell what the truth is. Men complain that if you go to one church they tell you one thing, if you go to another church they tell you another thing, and if you go to another church they tell you still another thing. It is true that churches differ on various minor points; but they agree on great essential points. In those things in which they are at agreement, they are like the body of a shawl; and in those things in which they differ they are like the fringe of that shawl. The body of the shawl is solid; and there is division only in the fringe. It is the outer edge of truth about which men quarrel more than about anything else. In regard to the great central truths there is substantial unity. A man might better go into a desert in a sand-storm, or he might better put his glass into a blinding mist, in the hope of getting a view of the stars, than attempt to come to an understanding of the interior nature of the Divine life and government, by means of philosophical thought or discussion. That is a subject about which there is no controversy. It is here that the Christian world agree. About the ineffable love of God, about His inconceivable excellence, about His wondrous goodness and mercy, men are all agreed. Secondly, what is called “ orthodoxy” in each sect falls, for the most part, into that category about which men differ, and may differ; as also do what are called “ fundamental doctrines.” Fundamental to what? That is the question. The doctrines which are fundamental to right living, to reverence and love toward God, and to love and self-sacrifice toward man; the doctrines, in other words, which are necessary to build up godliness in each particular man--about those doctrines there is no variation of belief. They are fundamental to conduct, fundamental to character, fundamental to duty; and about them men do not squabble. But what is fundamental to Calvinism in another thing. “ Fore-ordination” is necessary to Calvinism; but it is not necessary to higher piety. Being “ irresistibly called by efficacious grace” is essential to the Calvinistic scheme; but it is not necessary to true Christianity. Though such things as these may be fundamental to the forms, and ceremonies, and rituals, and usages, and governments of Churches, they are not fundamental to piety in its highest sense. I do not say that these outward elements have no value: that is not the point; I say that whatever their value may be, no man has any right, in the face of Christendom, to call them fundamental to Christianity when they are only fundamental to a side-issue--to something on either side of which a man may stand in his belief, and yet be a Christian and go to heaven. (H. W. Beecher.) 1 Timothy 1:5-7 Now the end of the commandment is charity.The end of the commandment These verses are occupied with a description of what God’ s dispensation was meant to produce, and indicate how it came to pass that many failed of it. “ The commandment” or charge which Timothy had received had this as its end or purpose--the promotion of “ love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” By love is meant the right relation of the whole nature both to God and to man; for love to man is in the highest sense a consequent of love to God. I. Three conditions Of this love are specified.1. A pure heart. This is essential to any vision of God. Unless we are purified our affections will naturally fasten upon selfish objects, or even upon those which are evil. 2. A good conscience is often insisted upon in Scripture as one of the inestimable blessings enjoyed by God’ s children. Conscience is the activity of consciousness towards the ethical aspect of things. But conscience is “ good” if it is healed and purged by the Saviour’ s touch; if, instead of condemning us, it gives us confidence towards God; if it is reliable and unbiassed in its decision on all questions brought before its tribunal; and if it not only directs the will, but spurs it into instant activity. 3. Faith unfeigned is the third condition of God-accepted love. Though mentioned last, “ faith” is the germ grace--the seed principle. To us fallen men there is no way to a “ good conscience” and a “ pure heart” but that of “ faith” in Jesus Christ--that faculty which, laying hold of Him the Mediator, brings us into fellowship with God and all unseen realities. The apostle now turns from the conditions of love to-- II. Its counterfeits, exhibited in those who, professing to aim at it, miss their mark and swerve aside to “ vain janglings” --that is, to empty talking and disputation. Too often the Church has had members who have been destitute of moral and spiritual perceptivity, but have made themselves at home in speculations and controversies. And the worst tempers are to be found among the members of the more talkative and disputatious sects. Paul heartily abhorred “ vain babbling” --talk on religious subjects which was sometimes made a substitute for holy living; and in the Epistle to Titus, as well as here, some sharp sternwords are uttered against it. False teaching is not to be lightly regarded or easily welcomed, as if it could have no evil effect on moral and spiritual life. For example, the philosophy of materialism, which represents our thoughts and affections as nothing but the emanations of movements in our physical bodies and brains, is ultimately destructive of moral responsibility and of belief in a coming immortality. “ Continue thou in the things wherein thou hast been taught.” Do not foolishly give up the faith which was associated with all that was sacred in your childhood. Remember that there is a sphere of existence outside the range of your senses, beyond the proof of your reason, of which you know nothing unless you accept the glimpses given of it in this Divine revelation. Beware lest, like these Ephesian heretics, you swerve from the faith, having turned aside unto vain jangling. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The use and the abuse of the gospel I. The use of it. What is the use of it? First: The production of love in the soul. “ The end of the commandment is charity.” Secondly: The production of purity in the soul. “ A pure heart.” Thirdly: The production of a sound moral sense in the soul. “ A good conscience.” Fourthly: The production of a genuine confidence in the soul. “ Faith unfeigned.” II. The abuse of it. “ Some,” says the apostle, “ having swerved have turned aside,” i.e., have missed the mark. The apostle mentions some out of the many great abuses of the gospel. Their talk was “ jangling.” Miserable discussions about forms, ceremonies, traditions, etc., etc. How much in all ages has there been of this in connection with the gospel. What miserable jargon, what jejeune gabbling. Their talk was--(1) Vain--vain, in the sense of emptiness and unsatisfactoriness. It had no substance of truth in it, and therefore nothing in it to satisfy either the intellect or the heart. (2) Ambitious. “ Desiring to be teachers of the law.” In how many thousands in Christendom does the gospel awaken little more than the ambition to be teachers? All it does for them is to strike into their hearts a desire to talk about it, mainly for the purpose of self-parade. Perhaps there is no greater abuse of the gospel than a certain kind of pulpiteering. (3) Ignorant. “ Understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.” As a rule, the men who are most anxious to preach are the most ignorant. (The Homilist.) Charity. The importance of heart love John Wesley wrote to a student, “ Beware that you are not swallowed up in books. An ounce of love to God is worth a pound of transient knowledge. What is the real value of a thing, but the price it will bear in eternity? Let no study swallow up or entrench upon the hours of private prayer. Nothing is of so much importance as this, for it is not the possession of gifts, but of grace, nor of sound knowledge and orthodox faith, so much as the principle of holy love and the practice of Christian precepts, which distinguish the heir of glory from the child of perdition.” Charity and almsgiving:--The word “ charity” is confined, in common acceptation, to two meanings, neither of which gives a just idea to a general reader of its original and scriptural meaning. It is, first, applied to modes of thinking or speaking respecting things and persons; and in this sense is often grievously misemployed by the insincere and the worldly; and, secondly, charity to the poor is used as another term for almsgiving. Either of these methods of employing the term is a corruption of this large and noble word, and an instance how the depravity of our nature has a tendency to spoil every thing it touches. Indifferent to the rules and practices of a holy life, some call that charity which glosses over gross vice and ruinous error; and others, under a total indifference to the meaning of the text--“ Charity covereth (or hideth) many sins,” hope to compound for a sinful life by contributing, as they think, largely of their own substance to the poor of their neighbourhood or to some charitable institution. That neither of these apparent results is really the fruit of Christian charity is too often evident, from the change induced by some slight provocation, which immediately quickens us into a vivid perception of wrong; what appeared charity is then seen to have been indifference either to truth or to holiness. But charity, in its real and scriptural sense, has a far more enlarged signification. It is a love to God, which is thence reflected upon all the creatures of God. It embraces cheerful devotedness and submissiveness to His will, founded on a faith in His declarations, a trust in His righteousness, an awful estimate of His character and counsels; and thence issues forth in sentiments of kindness, compassion, and good will, to all with whom we have a direct or distant intercourse. Patient under wrong, candid in its constructions in the world, slow to wrath, easy to forgive; it cheerfully sacrifices self, whenever such sacrifice can promote the Saviour’ s glory, or the temporal and moral welfare of mankind. It is evident, therefore, that whatever goes by the name of charity, is unworthy of that name, unless it be the fruit of that devotion of the affections, to which that name is confined in Scripture. Hence, almsgiving is no charity, unless it proceed from love. And since “ the end of the commandment is charity” ; since He who was rich and for our sakes became poor, has left us His example as well as His command; since in that world of rest, which lies all but exposed before the Christian’ s gaze, the heavenly Canaan--there will be no sorrows, no ignorance, no distress, no dangers, no toils, no death--let us esteem it no mean privilege, that now living in a world of varied grief and suffering, we have at once the means and the opportunity to imitate Christ--and while we have the time, “ let us do good to all men.” (C. Lane, M. A.) A good conscience.-- A good conscience Every man has a conscience. As without the physical senses I could never feel my connection with this material system--the green earth beneath my feet and the blue heavens that encircle me would be nothing without them; so, without this conscience, this moral sense, I could have no idea either of moral government or God. Had you no conscience, I might as well endeavour to give to one that is born blind and deaf the idea of beauty and sweet sounds, as to give to you the idea of duty and God. What is a good conscience? Three things are necessary to it. I. It must live. There are two classes of dead consciences. First: Those that have never been quickened. Conscience is in the breast of all in the first stages of childhood: but it is there as a germ unquickened by the sunbeam of intelligence, it is there as the optic nerve on which no light has fallen, it is dead. Secondly: Those which have been quickened but are now dead. II. It must rule. There are consciences with some vitality in them, but no royalty; they are enslaved. They are found sometimes in subjection to-- (1) Animalism. They are “ carnally sold under sin.”(2) Worldliness. Worldly interests govern them.(3) Superstition. No conscience is good in this state. Conscience is the imperial faculty in the human soul; it is not only self-inspecting, self-judging, but should be self-ruling. III. It must rule by the will of God. If it rule--and it often does--by a worldly expediency, a conventional morality, or a corrupt religion, it is a bad conscience. It must rule by the will of God, it must have no other standard. A good conscience is essential to every man’ s spiritual growth, power, peace, and usefulness. Without a good conscience what is he? A moral wreck tossed on the billows of passion and circumstances. (The Homilist.) A good conscience Oh, for a good conscience, to meet the terrors of that day without apprehension! But to have it then, we must possess it now. What is a good conscience? Its importance and necessity. I. Three things are essential to a good conscience.1. Illumination.2. Pacification.3. Sanctification. (1) I say, first, the conscience must be enlightened. In itself it is not an infallible guide. Its province is not to teach men truth, not to correct erroneous principles, but simply to show a man when his conduct is, or is not, at variance with his knowledge and convictions of what is right. That knowledge must be obtained elsewhere; and then conscience will dictate the course of rectitude and consistency. If the judgment be under the influence of false principles, the conclusions of conscience will also be false. Some of the vilest things that have ever been done in this world have been done in its name and under its authority. It is evident, therefore, that a conscience, to be rightly directed, must have light; so far as it is instructed it invariably conducts a man in the right way. Therefore, seek illumination. Be concerned to have correct principles, and labour after proper views of Divine truth; for if the clouds of ignorance and error hang over the mind, not the greatest firmness of character, not the utmost integrity of purpose, no, not even the most decided sincerity of conviction, can preserve the vessel of the soul from pursuing a false track till, finally driven upon the quick-sands or dashing against the rocks, it makes shipwreck of faith and of good conscience, and thus through ignorance is for ever cast away. From this cause arise the calmness and complacency of the unconverted sinner. He is in darkness: he is the victim of false judgments, false views of the character of God, false views of the claims of His most holy law, false views of the true nature and enormity of sin, false hopes and schemes of salvation. (2) A conscience, when it has been thus enlightened, requires to be appeased. A conscience that is only enlightened is a torment, an accuser; the greatest enemy of the soul’ s peace; a fire in the veins, the bones, the marrow; a worm that gnaws with insatiable cruelty. Such was the state of Cain when he had lifted up his arm against his brother Abel. “ His innocent and injured shade seemed to pursue him.” Such, too, was the case of Herod, who had been betrayed in an unguarded moment into the murder of John the Baptist. Such was the state of Belshazzar, at a time when he was surrounded with all his pomp and power, and everything yielded to his authority. Are any of you in this condition? Behold here, in the gospel, your remedy; here, in the sacrifice of God’ s dear Son, the spotless victim, “ the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Carry your broken spirit, then, to the feet of Jesus. If His precious blood distil upon it, every gaping wound will heal. (3) But conscience may be appeased on false grounds. Various devices are employed to pacify it when awakened, but it is “ a good conscience” only when appeased in a way of sanctification. There remains, however, one question which deserves our serious consideration before we quit this branch of the subject. May not a worldly man possess a good conscience without vital religion, and to what extent? Here we must distinguish between the duties of the first and those of the second table. In so doing we shall distinguish between a conscience void of offence toward God and a conscience void of offence toward men. He who has been thus just to man has not satisfied the claims of God. Before the All-seeing Eye he stands convicted of imperfection and transgression in every thought, word, and deed. A conscience void of offence toward men has crowned him with moral glory while he lived; a conscience not void of offence toward God will cover him with eternal confusion when he stands before the great tribunal! Thus we reach a momentous and an inevitable conclusion. Every man is a sinner against God by the decision of Scripture, and in most cases by his own confession. Therefore, first let every man seek to comprehend and feel the extent of his guilt and the magnitude of his transgressions. II. We shall point out the importance and necessity of a good conscience.1. And here let me remind you that this judge is enthroned in you by God Himself and cannot be east down. It may be kept in ignorance, it may be bribed, it may be lulled to sleep, but there it is, not to be dispossessed of its rightful authority. It cannot be extinguished either by fraud or by force. Since, then, you cannot help entertaining this inmate because God has erected its tribunal, there remains but one remedy, to bow to its decisions. To fight against it will be but to beat the air. If we have true wisdom we shall be concerned to make a friend of a companion that we cannot shake off, and whose decisions, for or against us, will be confirmed at the last day. 2. Consider, again, how great and how solid is the peace which a good conscience is capable of conveying to the soul. It is an inestimable treasure, a constant and an unchangeable witness to our sincerity. There may be disquietudes without, there may be pains of body, there may be assaults and temptations, there may be losses, afflictions, and persecutions, but, amidst the wildest storms, it maintains inward serenity. Let self-convicted sinners tremble in proportion as they draw near to the throne of an offended God: the accepted Christian can defy death, and enter eternity with unextinguished joy. 3. Consider what strength and spirit a good conscience imparts through all the journey of life. Without it the hands become weak in duty, the feet weary in travel, and the heart is languid and depressed in religious engagements. You cannot approach the mercy-seat with confidence, for, while you do not approve yourselves, what hope can you have of acceptance with God? He can find no comfort or satisfaction in the world, and yet he is shut out from the comfort of religion. Present things have no relish, and yet he dares not appropriate the future. Give me an unclouded conscience; let it bear me witness in the Holy Ghost: then I shall stand upright in the presence of the enemy. My arm will be strong to wield the sword of the Spirit. There will be an inward vigour and elasticity that shall rise in proportion to opposition. 4. Consider that subjection to the dictates and decisions of conscience anticipates and prevents an adverse verdict in the great day. “ If we would judge ourselves,” says the apostle, “ we should not be judged of God” ; that is, not so judged as to be condemned. We shall close this important subject with a few words of practical application.1. In the first place, to the true Christian who is deeply concerned to keep a good conscience, we would offer the following directions. Be anxiously vigilant against all evil, and watchful as to all opportunities of good. The conscience of a saint is like the eye of the body, extremely sensitive, requiring to be guarded with most jealous care. The least mote that enters into it makes it smart and agonize. Remember, believer, that your sins are, in some points of view, worse than those of all other men. They are committed against greater light and knowledge. Let it be your constant concern to live and act as under the eye of your great Master, to whom all things are naked and open, before whom the heart is anatomized as it were, and all its secrets are perfectly known. Realize the presence of Christ with you, and carry it into all the engagements of life, striving to do nothing which you would not be willing that He should behold. Be diligent and habitual in the work of self-examination, without which it is certain that no one can be satisfied as to the reality of his condition. What a shame it is to some men, that they know everything but their own hearts and characters! (D. Katterns.) Importance of a good conscience A good minister, whom we will not name, while sitting at the dinner table with his family, had these words said to him by his son, a lad of eleven years; “ Father, I have been thinking, if I could have one single wish of mine, what I would choose.” “ To give you a better chance,” said the father, “ suppose the allowance be increased to three wishes; what would they be? Be careful, Charley!” He made his choice, thoughtfully; first, of a good character; second, of good health; and third, of a good education. His father suggested to him that fame, power, riches, and various other things, are held in general esteem among mankind. “ I have thought of all that,” said he, “ but if I have a good conscience, and good health, and a good education, I shall be able to earn all the money that will be of any use to me, and everything else will come along in its right place.” A wise decision, indeed, for a lad of that age. (S. S. Chronicle.) And of faith unfeigned.--Unfeigned faith An agnostic (or infidel), being present one day in a circle of refined people, was surprised when told that a certain lady, noted for her intelligence and her boldness and originality of thought, was a firm believer in the sacred Scriptures. He ventured to ask her at the first possible opportunity, “ Do you believe the Bible?” “ Most certainly I do,” was her instant and unhesitating reply. “ Why do you believe in it?” he queried again. “ Because,” she confidently added, “ I am acquainted with the Author.” Poor souls, that know not God in Christ as their Saviour, think, like the leaders of our nineteenth century philosophical infidelity, that He is “ unknowable,” and so reject His Word. But true believers have a blessed acquaintance with both. 1 Timothy 1:8-10 The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.The purpose of the law The value of God’ s gifts largely depends upon the use we make of them. There are powers within our reach which may with equal ease destroy our welfare or increase it. Every reader of the Epistles, every student of Pharisaic teaching, and every one who understands the work of the Judaisers, is aware that even the Mosaic law was grossly abused. The law is good if a man use it lawfully. The apostle next endeavoured to explain more fully the purpose of the law, and his explanation may be summed up under three heads:-- I. The law was not meant as an inspiration. “ The law is not made for a righteous man.” The statement is true, whether you think of a man “ righteous” by nature or by grace. Those edicts and prohibitions were not intended for one who was eagerly inclined to obey their spirit. Such a revelation of God’ s will would not have been needed if Adam had continued in his righteousness, for things forbidden with pains and penalties after his fall were not at first attractive to him. If you walk through a private garden with the children of its owner, as one of themselves, you do not see anywhere the unsightly notice-boards, which are necessary in a place open to the public, asking you to move in this direction or in that, and to avoid trespassing hither or thither. Amongst the children, and as one of them, you are consciously above the need of such laws as those. Restrictions and warnings are always meant for those inclined to break them. Another example might be drawn from society. The laws on our statute books, the police who tramp through our streets, the vast organization represented by prisons and courts, by judges and magistrates, would no longer be necessary, and would never have been called into existence, if every man loved his neighbour even as himself. It is those who are disobedient in nature who make law a necessary institution. Similarly in the home. When your first child comes as a gleam of sunshine into your home, you parents do not begin to make a theoretical code of restrictions; but when the children grow older, and there are conflicts of will between them, and the household is likely to he disorderly by their thoughtlessness and faults, you begin to say, “ You must not do this or that; it is to be from this time forward forbidden.” But as the years roll on and good habits are formed by the young people, and from the love they bear you they instinctively know what you wish and readily do it, even these wise rules practically fall into desuetude. Because they are ruled by a right spirit they are set free from law. This leads to our second assertion, namely, that the law which was not meant for an inspiration was-- II. Intended for the restraint of the disobedient. A law less man is everywhere the least free. Carried hither and thither by his ungoverned passions; swayed now this way, now that, by his inexcusable carelessness and neglect, he nevertheless finds himself perpetually clashing against a will mightier than his own. Sometimes it is the law of his country which seizes him by the throat and holds him in restraint. Sometimes it is disease, the direct result of his own sin, which falls like a curse upon himself, and even upon his children. Some times it is conscience which protests and rebukes, until his whole life is made miserable. And these are but premonitions of what is coming when the Judge of all the earth will appear to give every man according to his works, and the thunders of outraged law will supersede the gentle voice of Christ’ s gospel. Terrible is the list of offences against human relationships which follows; though the first of the phrases in our version is at once too strong and too narrow. “ Murderers of fathers” should be “ smiters of fathers and smiters of mothers.” The allusion may be to such crimes in the literal sense of the word, of which now and again we are horrified to hear, and which are commonest with those who are under the influence of drink--the cause of innumerable crimes! Or it may refer with equal force to those who smite their parents with the tongue, loading them with scorn and reproach, instead of encircling them with considerate love. “ Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother, and let all the people say Amen.” “ Man-slayers” --those who, by their exactions and oppressions, indirectly destroy the lives of men--as well as murderers, who are regarded as the pariahs of society. “ Whoremongers and they that defile themselves with mankind,” are terms which are meant to include all transgressors of the seventh commandment, a law which our Lord Jesus so broadened out in its application as even to include indulgence in lustful thought. “ Liars and perjured persons” are forms of that false witness against one’ s neighbour which the ninth commandment so strongly condemns; and nothing is clearer as an evidence of the rule of Christ’ s spirit than the transparent truthfulness of character, which wins the admiration of the world, and suns itself in the favour of God. This list is formidable enough, and the fact that the apostle does not confine himself to the phraseology of the Mosaic decalogue, is a sign that we do not evade the penalties of the law by keeping its letter. III. The apostle asserts that the purpose of the law is amongst the things revealed in the gospel of the blessed God, The “ sound doctrine” he mentions is the teaching of our Lord and His apostles; which, as the phrase denotes, was thoroughly “ sound” or wholesome, especially as opposed to the weak and distempered doctrines propounded by the false teachers whom Timothy had to oppose. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The use of the law It would appear from this text that there is a way in which the law may be used lawfully, or rightly, from which we infer that there is also a way in which it may be used unlawfully, or unrightly--it may be put to a right use or to a wrong one. And there is a real distinction between this right and this wrong use of the law, which, if steadily kept in view, would be perfect safeguard, both against the error of legality and the equally pernicious one of Antinomianism. First, then, we use the law unlawfully when we try to make out a legal right to the kingdom of heaven. There are two ways in which one may proceed who purposes to make out his right by his obedience to the law. If he have a sufficiently high conception of the standard, then he is paralyzed, and sidles into despair because of the discoveries that he is making of his exceeding distance and deficiency from that standard; and thus he is haunted at all times by a sense of his great insufficiency, and he never can attain to anything like solid peace. But there is another way--he may bring down the law to the standard of his own obedience, and may bring his conscience and conduct into terms of very comfortable equality with one another. But this is what the Bible calls a peace which is no peace. The ruin of the soul comes out in either way of the enterprise.2. Having said this much on the wrong use of the law, I have only time in this discourse to instance one right use of it. When we compare our conduct with its commandments, we cannot fail, in our deficiency and in our distance, to be convinced of sin. (T. Chalmers, D. D.) The use of the law Observe, then, of the law of God, that it has another and distinct object from that of holding out a method by which men acquire a right to its promised rewards, even that of holding out a method by which they acquire a rightness of character for the exercise of its fruits. The legal right is one thing; the moral rightness which obedience confers is another. For the former object the law must now become useless, and having fallen short of perfect obedience in ourselves, we must now found our whole right only in the righteousness of Christ. For the latter object, the law still contains all the use and all the importance which it ever had. It is that tablet on which are inscribed the virtues of the Godhead; and we, by copying these into the tablet of our own character, are restored to the likeness of God. We utterly mistake the design and economy of that gospel, if we think that while the first function of the law has been superseded under the New Testament dispensation, the second has been superseded also. Obedience for a legal right is everywhere denounced as a presumptuous enterprise; obedience for a personal righteousness is everywhere said to be an enterprise, the prosecution of which forms the main business of every disciple, and the full achievement of which is the prize of his high calling. For the one end the law has altogether lost its efficacy; and we, in order to substantiate its claim, must seek to be justified only by the righteousness of Christ. Let me now, then, expound more particularly the uses to which our observance of the law may be turned, in giving us not a right to heaven, but the indispensable character without which heaven never will be entered by us. If, after having laid hold of the righteousness of Christ, as your alone meritorious plea for the kingdom of heaven, you look to the law as in fact a transcript of the image of the Godhead, and by your assiduous keeping of this law, endeavour more and more to become like to God in Christ, this is the legitimate and proper use of the law, and by making this use you use it lawfully. You must not discard the law as being a thing that has no place in the system of the gospel The great end of the gospel is to work in you a life and law of God, and by impressing the traits of that law on your character, to make you more and more like the Lawgiver, and fit you for His companionship. Therefore, although you discard the law in one capacity, that is not to say that you are to discard it altogether; for there remains this other capacity--the law is that to which you must conform yourselves in order to render you meet for the inheritance of the saints. We see, then, that though this obedience of ours to the law of God never can make out for us a judicial right for heaven, yet that this obedience, and this alone makes out our personal meetness for heaven. We can separate, in idea, the judicial from the personal meetness for heaven, and while we lay an entire stress on the former we also count the latter indispensable. Now, what helps us to do this is the arbitrary connexion which obtains between a punishment and a crime in civil society. I trust you see the relation of this to our present subject. One part of the law of God is that we should be forbearing and forgiving one with another. The circumstance which leads us to transgress that law is just the natural heat and violence of our temper. Suppose a man set out on the enterprise of seeking to establish a right to heaven by his obedience to the law, then it is his duty to restrain all the outbreakings of a furious temper, but he sees he never can succeed in making out the right by his obedience to the law, and, transgressing in one particular, he has failed in all. Now, some thinking that they have discarded the law, in as far as its power to obtain for them a right to heaven is concerned, and that in discarding it they have gone to Christ, are apt to think they are quit of the law altogether. But we say they are not because there still remains another end--another important capacity in which they are still to use the law even after they have united themselves to Christ. What is this capacity? and of what use is the law after this step has been taken? Here is the use of the law. All that you have gotten by your faith in Christ is a right to the kingdom of heaven. But the kingdom of heaven is peace and righteousness and joy. The kingdom of heaven is within you, and the essential joy of heaven is that joy which springs from the exercise of good, and kind, and virtuous affections. You have obtained a right of entering heaven and a release from the punishment of hell. But if the temper which prompted you to those transgressions of the law still remains within you, then the essential misery of hell remains within you. You are still exposed to all the misery that is incurred by the exercise of furious and malignant passions. You must have a rightness of character--you must get quit of all those immoral, vile, and wretched things which by nature adhere to you, and your salvation is begun here by a gradual process of deliverance from the wickedness of your hearts and lives, and which, perfected, renders you meet for the inheritance of the saints; so that this use of the law is an indispensable thing, although the law has failed, or rather you have failed, in making out your right to heaven by your obedience to its precepts. If a believer could be delivered from the fear of hell and were to remain in character and effect just what he was, a portion of the misery of hell would still adhere to him. His mind, in respect of all these painful sensations, may be as unrelenting as ever. The man that has this unsanctified feeling in his heart carries hell about with him. In respect of the material ingredients of torture, it is conceivable that he may be saved by being justified, but in respect of the moral ingredients to be saved he must be sanctified. Therefore we see that though the law is of no use, it is just by obeying this law that you make out your sanctification, and the one is just as indispensable as the other. The thing I want is that you will not put asunder what God has joined. It is not enough, then, to obtain a mere translation from what is locally hell to what is locally heaven. There must be an act of transformation from one character to another. Or, if faith is to save them, they must be sanctified by faith; and if it is not by the law that they are to obtain their right of entering into heaven, most assuredly it is by their obedience to the law that they have obtained that heaven shall be to them a place of enjoyment, for without it heaven itself would be turned into a hell. And without going for illustration to the outcasts of exile and imprisonment, the very same thing may be exemplified in the bosom of families. It is not necessary that pain be inflicted on bodies by acts of violence in order to make it a wretched family. It is enough that pain be made to rankle within every heart; from the elements of suspicion, hatred, and disgust, an abode of enjoyment may be turned into an abode of the intensest misery. Having thus endeavoured to make palpable to you that the hell of the New Testament consists mainly in the wretchedness which attaches naturally and necessarily to character, let me touch on the opposite and more pleasing side of the picture--the heaven of the New Testament, as consisting mainly in the happiness which attaches naturally and necessarily to character. I have no idea of a man carrying in life with him the security that he is a justified person, and at the same time a bad member of society, making his whole family miserable. If he perseveringly and presumptuously go on with his disobedience to the law, that man is not in the way of salvation at all. Were it real, the first doing of faith in Christ would be to work love in his heart. It would show itself in all sorts of ways in the walk and conversation. But the main happiness of heaven is just the happiness that springs from righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And though you have the right of entering there if you have not these things you have no heaven at all. If your life has in it the character of hell, taking you out of one place and putting you into another will not make you happy. The kingdom of God is not in you. To enjoy a brilliant and picturesque heaven a man must be endowed with a seeing eye; to enjoy a musical heaven he must be endowed with a hearing ear; to enjoy an intellectual heaven he must be endowed with a clear and able understanding; and to enjoy the actual heaven of the New Testament into which all who are meet on earth are soon to be transported, he must be endowed with a moral heart. So that the very essence of salvation shall consist in the personal salvation by which man is rendered capable of being a happy and congenial inmate of heaven. This might be made obvious to you in the lessons of your own experience with man--the connection between the character and the happiness of man. (T. Chalmers, D. D.) The lawful and unlawful use of law He does not, like a vehement polemic, say Jewish ceremonies and rules are all worthless, nor some ceremonies are worthless, and others essential; but he says the root of the whole matter is charity. If you turn aside from this all is lost, here at once the controversy closes. So far as any rule fosters the spirit of love, that is, is used lawfully, it is wise, and has a use. So far as it does not, it is chaff. So far as it hinders it, it is poison. I. The unlawful use. Define law. By law, Paul almost always means not the Mosaic law, but law in its essence and principle, that is, constraint. This chiefly in two forms expresses itself--first, a custom; second, a maxim. As examples of custom we might give circumcision, or the Sabbath, or sacrifice, or fasting. Law said, thou shalt do these things; and taw, as mere law, constrained them. Or again, law may express itself in maxims and rules. Principle is one thing, and maxim is another. A principle requires liberality, a maxim says one-tenth. A principle says, “ A merciful man is merciful to his beast,” leaves mercy to the heart, and does not define how; a maxim says, thou shalt not muzzle the ex that treadeth out thy corn. A principle says, forgive; a maxim defines “ seven times” ; and thus the whole law falls into two divisions. The ceremonial law, which constrains life by customs. The moral law, which guides life by rules and maxims. Now it is an illegitimate use of law:1. To expect by obedience to it to make out a title to salvation. By the deeds of the law shall no man living be justified. Salvation is by faith: a state of heart right with God; faith is the spring of holiness--a well of life. Salvation is not the having committed a certain number of good acts. Salvation is God’ s Spirit in us, leading to good. Destruction is the selfish spirit in us, leading to wrong. For a plain reason then, obedience to law cannot save because it is merely the performance of a certain number of acts which may be done by habit, from fear, from compulsion. Obedience remains still imperfect. A man may have obeyed the rule, and kept the maxim, and yet not be perfect. “ All these commandments have I kept from my youth up.” “ Yet lackest thou one thing.” The law he had kept. The spirit of obedience in its high form of sacrifice he had net. 2. To use it superstitiously. It is plain that this was the use made of it by the Ephesian teachers (1 Timothy 1:4). It seemed to them that law was pleasing to God as restraint. Then unnatural restraints came to be imposed--on the appetites, fasting; on the affections, celibacy. This is what Paul condemns (1 Timothy 4:8). “ Bodily exercise profiteth little.” And again, this superstition showed itself in a false reverence--wondrous stories respecting angels--respecting the eternal genealogy of Christ--awful thoughts about spirits. The apostle calls all these, very unceremoniously, “ endless genealogies” (1 Timothy 1:4), and “ old wives’ fables” (1 Timothy 4:7). The question at issue is, wherein true reverence consists: according to them, in the multiplicity of the objects of reverence; according to St. Paul, in the character of the object revered. 3. To use it as if the letter of it were sacred. The law commanded none to eat the shewbread except the priests. David ate it in hunger. If Abimelech had scrupled to give it, he would have used the law unlawfully. The law commanded no manner of work. The apostles in hunger rubbed the ears of corn. The Pharisees used the law unlawfully in forbidding that. II. The lawful use of law.1. As a restraint to keep outward evil in check … “ The law was made for sinners and profane.”… Illustrate this by reference to capital punishment. No sane man believes that punishment by death will make a nation’ s heart right, or that the sight of an execution can soften or ameliorate. Punishment does not work in that way. The law commanding a blasphemer to be stoned could not teach one Israelite love to God, but it could save the streets of Israel from scandalous ribaldry. And therefore clearly understand, law is a mere check to bad men: it does not improve them; it often makes them worse; it cannot sanctify them. God never intended that it should. Hence we see for what reason the apostle insisted on the use of the law for Christians. Law never can be abrogated. Strict rules are needed exactly in proportion as we want the power or the will to rule ourselves. It is not because the gospel has come that we are free from the law, but because, and only so far as, we are in a gospel state. “ It is for a righteous man” that the law is not made, and thus we see the true nature of Christian liberty. 2. As a primer is used by a child to acquire by degrees, principles and a spirit. This is the use attributed to it in verse 5. “ The end of the commandment is charity.” Compare with this two other passages--“ Christ is the end of the law for righteousness,” and “ love is the fulfilling of the law.” “ Perfect love casteth out fear.” In every law there is a spirit, in every maxim a principle; and the law and the maxim are laid down for the sake of conserving the spirit and the principle which they enshrine. Distinguish, however. In point of time, law is first--in point of importance, the Spirit. In point of time charity is the “ end” of the commandment--in point of importance, first and foremost. The first thing a boy has to do is to learn implicit obedience to rules. The first thing in importance for a man to learn is to sever himself from maxims, rules, laws. Why? That he may become an Antinomian, or Latitudinarian? No. He is severed from submission to the maxim because he has got allegiance to” the principle. He is free from the rule and the law because he has got the Spirit written in his heart. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) The moral teaching of the Gnostics: its modern counterpart The speculations of the Gnostics in their attempts to explain the origin of the universe and the origin of evil, were wild and unprofitable enough; and in some respects involved a fundamental contradiction of the plain statements of Scripture. But it was not so much their metaphysical as their moral teaching which seemed so perilous to St. Paul. Their “ endless genealogies” might have been left to fall with their own dead weight, so dull and uninteresting were they. But it is impossible to keep one’ s philosophy in one compartment in one’ s mind, and one’ s religion and morality quite separate from it in another. However unpractical metaphysical speculations may appear, it is beyond question that the views which we hold respecting such things may have momentous influence upon our life. It was so with the early Gnostics, whom St. Paul urges Timothy to keep in check. “ The sound doctrine” has its fruit in a healthy, moral life, as surely as the “ different doctrine” leads to spiritual pride and lawless sensuality. The belief that Matter and everything material is inherently evil, involved necessarily a contempt for the human body. This body was a vile thing; and it was a dire calamity to the human mind to be joined to such a mass of evil. From this premise various conclusions, some doctrinal and some ethical, were drawn. On the doctrinal side it was urged that the resurrection of the body was incredible. Equally incredible was the doctrine of the Incarnation. How could the Divine Word consent to be united with so evil a thing as a material frame? On the ethical side the tenet that the human body is utterly evil produced two opposite errors--Asceticism and Antinomian sensuality. And both of these are aimed at in these Epistles. If the enlightenment of the soul is everything, and the body is utterly worthless, then this vile clog to the movement of the soul must be beaten under and crushed, in order that the higher nature may rise to higher things. The body must be denied all indulgence, in order that it may be starved into submission (1 Timothy 4:3). On the other hand, if enlightenment is everything and the body is worthless, then every kind of experience, no matter how shameless, is of value, in order to enlarge knowledge. Nothing that a man can do can make his body more vile than it is by nature, and the soul of the enlightened is incapable of pollution. Gold still remains gold, however often it is plunged in the mire. The words of the three verses taken as a text, look as if St. Paul was aiming at an evil of this kind. These Judaizing Gnostics “ desired to be teachers of the Law.” They wished to enforce the Mosaic Law, or rather their fantastic interpretations of it, upon Christians. They insisted upon its excellence, and would not allow that it has been in many respects superseded. “ We know quite well,” says the apostle, “ and readily admit, that the Mosaic Law is an excellent thing; provided that those who undertake to expound it make a legitimate use of it. They must remember that, just as law in general is not made for those whose own good principles keep them in the right, so also the restrictions of the Mosaic Law are not meant for Christians who obey the Divine will in the free spirit of the gospel.” Legal restrictions are intended to control those who will not control themselves; in short, for the very men who by their strangest doctrines are endeavouring to curtail the liberties of others. In a word, the very persons who in their teaching were endeavouring to burden men with the ceremonial ordinances, which had been done away in Christ, were in their own lives violating the moral laws to which Christ had given a new sanction. They tried to keep alive, in new and strange forms, what had been provisional and was now obsolete, while they trampled under foot what was eternal and Divine. “ If there be any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine.” In these words St. Paul sums up all the forms of transgression not specified in his catalogue. The sound, healthy teaching of the gospel is opposed to the morbid and corrupt teaching of the Gnostics, who are sickly in their speculations (1 Timothy 6:4), and whose word is like an eating sore (2 Timothy 2:17). Of course healthy teaching is also health-giving, and corrupt teaching is corrupting; but it is the primary and not the derived quality that is stated here. It is the healthiness of the doctrine in itself, and its freedom from what is diseased or distorted, that is insisted upon. Its wholesome character is a consequence of this. The extravagant theories of the Gnostics to account for the origin of the universe and the origin of evil are gone and are past recall. It would be impossible to induce people to believe them, and only a comparatively small number of students ever even read them. But the heresy that knowledge is more important than conduct, that brilliant intellectual gifts render a man superior to the moral law, and that much of the moral law itself is the tyrannical bondage of an obsolete tradition, is as dangerous as ever it was. It is openly preached and frequently acted upon. The great Florentine artist, Benvenuto Cellini, tells us in his autobiography that when Pope Paul III. expressed his willingness to forgive him an outrageous murder committed in the streets of Rome, one of the gentlemen at the Papal Court ventured to remonstrate with the Pope for condoning so heinous a crime. “ You do not understand the matter as well as I do,” replied Paul III.: “ I would have you to know that men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, are not bound by the laws.” Cellini is a braggart, and it is possible that in this particular he is romancing. But, even if the story is his invention, he merely attributes to the Pope the sentiments which he cherished himself, and upon which (as experience taught him) other people acted. Over and over again his murderous violence was overlooked by those in authority, because they admired and wished to make use of his genius as an artist. “ Ability before honesty” was a common creed in the sixteenth century, and it is abundantly prevalent in our own. The most notorious scandals in a man’ s private life are condoned if only he is recognized as having talent. It is the old Gnostic error in a modem and sometimes agnostic form. (A. Plummer, D. D.) The right use of the Divine law When we look around us, we see that God governs all by established rules. His government enters into all the minutiae of providence. But when we leave this government, where we ought to leave it, in the hands of almighty wisdom and power, and ascend to the spiritual world, there we find the great difference there is between created and uncreated, between the imperfection of man and the perfection of God. Let us consider-- I. The infinite perfection of the law of God. “ The law,” says the apostle, “ is holy; and the commandment holy, just, and good” ; and why? because God Himself “ is holy, just, and good.”1. To understand the perfection of this law we must consider also the relation subsisting between the Governor and the governed. They are all dependent for everything, both new and for ever, upon Him. No man upon earth has a right to legislate, but as the representative of God Himself. Why is a father a legislator in his own family? because he is a father? No; but because God has invested him with that right. Moreover, legislation is not a something arbitrary in the Deity; His legislation flows from His own essential perfection. It must be what it is, it cannot be otherwise. 2. Consider the law of God as to its commandments. It requires, in the first place, supreme love to God; involving the exercise of all the affections of the heart. The commands of this law require, also, fraternal love. 3. Consider the law of God as to its curse. In this respect, also, it will appear to be “ just and good.” Does it seem unkind? No; for it throws the sinner no farther from God than he throws himself. 4. The law of God, then, is immutable and eternal. The law of God must necessarily relate to every inhabitant of heaven, of earth, of hell. 5. Consider the law of God under the Adamic covenant. It connected life with obedience, death with disobedience. 6. Consider the law of God under the Mosaic dispensation. II. The uses of the law of God. “ The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.”1. The law is abused and insulted by transgression. What is said of wisdom may be said of this law; “ he that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul.” 2. The law is insulted and abused when men endeavour to justify them selves by it. This must arise, first, from ignorance of themselves; and, secondly, from ignorance of the law of God. Paul says of the Jews, “ they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’ s righteous ness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” The whole ceremonial law taught men that they were to be justified by another--that sin was to be atoned for. 3. And the law is insulted and abused whenever men endeavour to justify themselves, in the least degree, by it. 4. And not only is the law insulted and abused when men reject the law, but also when they reject the remedy for their disobedience. The rejection of the gospel is the greatest and most dreadful act of disobedience to the law. It is an insult offered to the government of God, and a wanton rejection of His goodness. But what are the uses of the law?1. We should view it as fulfilled by Jesus Christ. But Christ died also for His brethren, that He might bring them to a state of perfect conformity to the law, and preserve them in that state for ever. The apostle speaks of being “ under the law to Christ” ; this is the state of the believer on earth, and this will be his state for ever. 2. To use the law aright, is to study it perfectly, and to see its beauty as it was exemplified in Christ. 3. To use the law aright is to connect it intimately with faith. There is a more intimate connection between faith and the law of God than we can possibly describe. By believing in Christ we honour the law as a covenant, in its commands, and its curse; and when we take it as a rule of life we honour it altogether. 4. The law is used and honoured as it should be, when we make it the guide of our dally conduct, when we aim to bring all our actions as near to the law of God as possible. (W. Howels.) The right use of the law The apostle speaks like one possessed of the full assurance of understanding, in the mystery of God and of Christ. “ We know,” says he, “ that the law is good:” we know it by Divine inspiration, by rational deduction, and also by experience. This may be applied to the ceremonial law, by which the Jews were distinguished from all other nations as God’ s peculiar people. They were hereby directed how to worship God, and how they were to be saved. It was a shadow of good things to come, and afforded a typical representation of the blessings of the gospel. But it is the moral law which the apostle principally intends: and this is truly good in itself, whether we use it lawfully or not. It is a copy of the Divine will, a transcript of the Divine perfections. If we do not approve of this law, it is because we are ignorant of its nature and are at enmity against God. “ The law is holy, and the commandment holy, just and good:” and “ I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Psalms 119:28; Romans 7:12; Romans 7:22). I. Notice some instances in which she divine law is used unlawfully.1. In thinking that Christ’ s obedience to it renders our obedience unnecessary. 2. When, instead of judging ourselves by the law, we take occasion from it to judge uncharitably of others, we use it unlawfully. Thus did the Pharisees: “ This people who know not the law are cursed,” said they. 3. In depending upon the works of the law for justification before God, we make an improper use of the law; and that which is good in itself ceases to be good to us. II. Consider what are the proper uses of the divine law. “ The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.”1. It serves as a glass or mirror, in which we may behold the majesty and purity of God, and the guilty and wretched state of man. 2. It acts as a restraint upon our lusts and corruptions. If it be asked, “ Wherefore serveth the law?” The answer is, “ It was added because of transgressions” ; that is, to prevent them by curbing the unruly passions and appetites of men. 3. The law is properly used as a means of conviction. “ By the law is the knowledge of sin,” and without it sin could not be fully known. “ When the commandment came,” says Paul, “ sin revived, and I died.” 4. It is a complete directory, or rule of conduct. One great end of the law ever was, and ever will be, to instruct us in our duty towards God, ourselves, and our neighbour. Like the pillar of fire which guided the Israelites through the wilderness, it is a light to our feet, and a lamp to our paths. 5. It serves as a criterion by which to judge of our experience, and whether we be the subjects of real grace. (B. Beddome, M. A.) On the law I. In the first place, then, we beg your attention to the character and requirements of God’ s law.1. This law, in the first place, is holy. It is the offspring of the mind of Deity, which is perfectly pure. It is the spotless transcript of God’ s holiness. It is the faithful representation of His moral excellence and perfection. 2. It is not only holy, but it is just. It is the standard of right, and the infallible standard of right. In all that it claims, in all that it forbids, in all that it inculcates, it is perfectly just to God the Lawgiver, and perfectly just to man the subject of His laws. 3. Moreover, the law is good. It is a kind and merciful law. The motive which prompted the promulgation of it was a motive of benevolence. 4. I beg to remind you that it is a supreme law; universal in its obligations, and binding on the consciences of every rational, intelligent, and accountable being. 5. I must beg you to remark, in the fifth place, that the law is unchangeable; and for this plain reason, because it is perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfectly good. Whatever change there is wrought in the law, it must be either for the better, or for the worse. If the law be already perfect, it cannot be changed for the better; and that God should change His law for the worse, is an idea not for a moment to be admitted into any rational understanding. 6. Let me further observe that this law is also eternal; for the very reasons to which I have already adverted. It requires not only a personal obedience but a perfect obedience. We must not only obey in some things but in all things--“ all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” This obedience, also, must be perpetual. It is not a man’ s obeying the law to-day and violating it to-morrow, which will constitute the obedience which it requires: for “ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” II. “Wherefore then serveth the law?” If such are its characters, and such are its requirements, and every living man must feel that he is utterly incapable of rendering that personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience which the law requires, “ wherefore then serveth it?”1. The law of God serves for instruction. It holds up to our view the standard of right and of wrong. 2. The law serves for conviction--conviction of sin: and this it does in three ways. First, it demonstrates to us the evil of sin in its direct contrariety to God’ s nature and will. “ I had not known sin” --I had not been acquainted with sin--“ except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” But the law of God not only demonstrates what sin is, but it brings home a sense and a conviction of it, to the conscience of the sinner. Once more, the law serves for conviction, inasmuch as it utterly silences and stops the mouth of every transgressor, by showing him that he stands without excuse in the presence of the Lawgiver, on the ground of his manifold delinquencies and his innumerable breaches of this law. The law serves, in the third place, for condemnation. It will be the rule by which every sinner who perishes will be condemned at the last great day: for “ the wages of sin is death.” Fourthly, the law serves to magnify the all-sufficiency and perfection of that justifying righteousness, which Christ, as the surety of His people, has supplied. In the fifth place, this law serves as a rule of life and a directory of conduct to all who are the subjects of God’ s moral government. Some persons have adopted that most pernicious sentiment, that the law of God is not a rule of life to the believer. But I ask, why not? Cannot you easily conceive that the law of God may be annulled and abrogated in one view of it, and remain altogether in full force in another view of it? As a covenant, it is utterly taken out of the way; because it has been gloriously fulfilled in the person of the Surety. And therefore, now, by the deeds of the law no flesh living shall be justified.” But it would be indeed a strange and most anomalous thing, if God, in removing His law as a covenant, should have disannulled that law as the rule of life. I speak it with all reverence, this is a thing which God Himself could not do; and for this plain reason, that the law is just a transcript of His own pure and perfect mind; the law is just the revelation of His holy and unchangeable will; and unless He could destroy His own perfect mind, and unless He could alter His own immutable will, then His law must ever remain the rule of life and manners, not only to all His redeemed children, but to all intelligences in heaven and in earth. III. Then, what is necessary in order that we may use the law lawfully?1. We should daily appeal to it, as the standard of action, the rule of self-examination, and the instrument of penitential conviction. 2. In the next place, be it remarked, that when we habitually divorce ourselves from the law as a covenant, as a means of justification, and as a ground of hope, we use it lawfully. 3. We use this law lawfully, in the third place, when Christ becomes inexpressibly dear to our hearts, as having honoured and fulfilled the law, placed it in the position of its just authority and importance, and at the same time redeemed us from its curse and from its punishment. 4. We use the law lawfully when, conscious of our own weakness and incapacity to fulfil its requirements, we are earnest in prayer for the Spirit of grace to renew and sanctify our nature, and to strengthen us to a compliance with all the known will of God. 5. Again, the law is used lawfully when we make it our constant study, and aim, to exemplify is holy requirements--to show the law of God in our habitual walk, in our life, our spirit, our behaviour. “ Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.” (G. Clayton, M. A.) The proper uses of the law “ The law is good,” says the apostle, “ if a man use it lawfully.” Consequently there is an unlawful use of the law. What, then, is the lawful use of the law? I. To show us our need of a saviour. “ By the law is the knowledge of sin.” And again, “ The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” Let us take but a cursory view of the various commandments, and we shall find that we have individually violated them all, and thus are verily guilty before God. II. Observe, then, that in this case the law serves as a rule to regulate our behaviour. Like so many poles or beacons placed along a difficult navigation, or so many finger-posts erected along a road, the several commandments serve to indicate our course heavenward. If we wish to secure in the most effectual manner the fidelity of a son or a servant, we shall not proceed by a system of terror, but rather by one of authority, tempered by gentleness and kindness. Precisely such is the system adopted by the Father of mercies in the gospel. Seeking not the compulsory “ eye-service” of the convict, but the cheerful and cordial obedience of an attached child, He employs a plan exquisitely suited to this desired end. He deals with us as creatures of reason and feeling. He knows that affection must be won, not forced; that men are not to be driven, but drawn into love. Accordingly the Christian, now that he is “ justified by faith,” obeys the law immeasurably better than he ever did, or could do before.1. For now he obeys it not merely in the letter, but in the spirit; not as of necessity, but willingly; not partially, but universally. He esteems God’ s commandments concerning all things to be right. 2. And then he has now what he had not before, namely, the aid of the Holy Spirit working in him both to will and to do, and causing him, like water at the roots of a tree, to bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the Divine praise and glory. And now behold the necessary, the indissoluble connection between justification and sanctification. A person is justified through faith, which, uniting him to Christ, gives him an interest in His righteousness. Then this faith produces obedience by producing love. “ Faith worketh by love.” It becomes a living principle in the heart, urging to the performance of all such good actions as God has prescribed; and therefore this is termed “ the obedience of faith.” (J. E. Hull, B. A.) The use of the law I. We consider the institution, extent and application of the law. When God formed man upright in His own image, the moral law, which inculcates eternal, unchangeable truth and perfect goodness, was written in his heart. By the fall, the fair image of God’ s purity was defaced, some faint lines of distinction only of right and wrong being left upon the natural conscience. When God was about to separate to Himself the people of Israel, with a view to preserve and perpetuate in the earth the knowledge of His character and will, He gave them the law from Sinai, not now inscribed on their hearts as before, but engraven on two tables of stone. Such was the institution of the law. We proceed to its extent and application. The moral law of the ten commandments is a complete summary of all human duty to God, to each other, and to themselves. We are not to limit the commandments to their literal meaning; otherwise a great part of our thoughts, and words, and even of our actions would be exempt from the notice and control of the law of God. It has the whole Word of God for its expositor, the regulation of the whole sphere of human principle and action for its object. “ The law is spiritual.” It does not merely regard the outward action, it goes down into the heart and motives, and tries every thought, intention, and principle of the soul. II. To consider how it is lawfully used.1. We use it lawfully when we receive and respect it in its full extent, and in every part of it. There is hardly any man, however wicked, who does not feel something like reverence for some parts of God’ s commands. A man will coolly break and profane the Sabbath who dares not curse and swear. 2. We use the law lawfully when we bring every part of our character, the inward as well as the outward man, to the test of its requirements. An action, though apparently agreeable to the law of God, if it originate in some base, selfish, unholy motive, is in His sight an act of disobedience, a positive sin. Jehu did an action which the law required, when he rooted idolatry out of the land; but it soon appeared that his object was not the glory of God, but his own distinction and advancement. Neither was Amaziah’ s conduct better than splendid sin, “ who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.” 3. We use the law lawfully when we seriously believe, and rally admit that it contains eternal and unalterable truth, that our holy God could not have given a law less holy, less extensive; that every being, in proportion as he is holy and fit for heaven, loves the law; that every transgression of it must expose us to Divine justice as guilty offenders; that the penalty of every sin is death eternal; and that till we seek mercy and forgiveness in His appointed way for each sin of our lives, the curse of the law, and the wrath of God abide upon us. All this must be true in the very nature of things. III. This lawful use of the law answers good ends, produces. Happy effects upon us, whatever our state and character may be.1. This lawful use of the law is good for the unconverted, whether a wicked or a self righteous man. When, under a serious and spiritual understanding of the law, he not only surveys his actions but enters with its light into the secret chambers of his heart, he discovers his true character in all its horrid deformities. He perceives that his heart has never felt the love of God, the principle of all true obedience. His best actions are now seen in their proper light, as needing the mercy, not claiming the reward of his holy God. He cannot be saved by works under the law, except he keep it perfectly. But if he could forget all his past sins, he finds that the law is so pure and extensive that he cannot keep it for a day. The more he tries the more he is condemned. In this awful state the gospel points his despairing eye to the Cross. “ Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” Thus “ the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” It drives us from Sinai to Calvary. It pulls down every false foundation of hope, that we may build on Christ alone, the rock of ages. 2. After the law has brought a penitent sinner to Christ for pardon, peace, and life, it is, if lawfully used, good and useful to him as a justified believer. He is called to be holy; and the practical part of the Word of God, which is a comment upon the law, shows him at large what is sinful and what is holy. It therefore becomes a light to his feet and a lamp to his paths. To be conformed to the law is to be conformed to the image of God, and to be capable of heavenly happiness with Him. (1) Let me entreat you, if you regard your immortal souls, diligently to read, hear, and meditate upon the Word of God at large, which explains the law and will of God by precept, and illustrates them by example. (2) Let your hearing and study of the Word of Life be ever accompanied with earnest humble prayer to God, for the powerful aid of His grace to give you a spiritual taste and judgment to dispel your ignorance, to guide you into all truth, and to fasten it with power on your hearts. (3) In considering the* several parts of the law of God your object should be to comprehend its full bearing, extent, and meaning. In order to succeed you cannot take a better model than our Saviour’ s view and explanation of a part of the law in His sermon on the mount. (J. Graham.) Using the law A Chinese correspondent of the New York “ Christian Weekly” sends some instances of how Chinese preachers meet questions and preach, of which the following is one:--“ Bishop Russell, of Ningpo, recently told us of a helper of his who was preaching on the Ten Commandments, when a man suddenly entered and walked rapidly forward to the desk. ‘ What have you got there?’ he asked in a loud voice. The helper immediately replied, ‘ I have a foot-rule of ten inches’ (the Chinese foot has ten inches, as the foot everywhere ought to have), ‘ and if you will sit down I will measure your heart.’ And he proceeded with his ten-inch rule to show how ‘ short’ his hearers were according to God’ s measure.” The law good No doubt the law restrains us; but chains are not fetters, nor are all walls the gloomy precincts of a jail. It is a blessed chain by which the ship, now buried in the trough, and now rising on the top sea, rides at anchor, and outlives the storm. The condemned would give worlds to break his chain; but the sailor trembles lest his should snap; and when the gray morning breaks on the wild lee-shore, all strewn with wrecks and corpses, he blesses God for the good iron that stood the strain. The pale captive eyes his high prison-wall to curse the man who built it, and envies the little bird that perches upon its summit; but were you travelling some Alpine pass, where the narrow road, cut out of the face of the rock, hung over a frightful gorge, it is with other eyes you would lock on the wall that restrains your restive steed from backing into the gulf below. Such are the restraints God’ s law imposes. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Applying the law The Bishop of Moosonee, whose diocese is in the region of the Hudson’ s Bay territory, and inhabited chiefly by Ojibbeway Indians and Esquimaux, said, “ Let me take you in thought to a place a hundred miles distant from my own home in that country--a place called Rupert’ s House. One morning I had before me a large congregation of Indians. I knew that among them there were four men who only a month or two before had murdered their fathers and mothers, and I intentionally placed those men directly in front of me. I called attention to the Ten Commandments. I read the Fourth Commandment and explained it, and I also read the sixth and explained it, and when I had done I put questions to the four men to whom I have just alluded. I said to the first, ‘ Who killed his father?’ I said to the second, ‘ Who killed his mother?’ I said to the third, ‘ Who killed his mother-in-law?’ I said to the fourth, ‘ Who killed his father?’ And each of those men replied without blushing, ‘ It was I who did it.’ Of what crime were those poor murdered people guilty? They were guilty of a crime of which we may any of us be guilty, and of which some of us here already begin to be guilty--the crime of growing old. Accordingly the old father and mother were told that they had lived long enough and that it was time for them to die, and the bow-string was speedily placed round their necks, and with one son pulling at one end, and another son or perhaps a daughter at the other, the poor old people were deprived of life, and then hastily flung into a grave. Happily this state of things has now passed away.” Design of the law An American gentleman said to a friend, “ I wish you would come down to my garden and taste my apples.” He asked him about a dozen times, but the friend did not come, and at last the fruit-grower said, “ I suppose you think my apples are good for nothing, so you won’ t come and try them.” “ Well, to tell the truth,” said the friend, “ I have tasted them. As I went along the road I picked up one that fell over the wall, and I never tasted anything so sour in all my life; and I do not particularly wish to have any more of your fruit.” “ Oh,” said the owner of the garden, “ I thought it must be so! Those apples around the outside are for the special benefit of the boys. I went fifty miles to select the sourest sorts to plant all around the orchard, so the boys might give them up as not worth stealing; but if you will come inside you will find that we grow a very different quality there, sweet as honey.” Now you will find that on the outskirts of religion there are a number of “ Thou shalt nots,” and “ Thou shalts,” and convictions and alarms; hut these are only the bitter fruits with which this wondrous Eden is guarded from thievish hypocrites. If you can pass by the exterior bitters, and give yourself up to Christ and live for Him, your peace shall be like the waves of the sea. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is not a thing separate from its purpose. It is not spoken from heaven merely for the sake of informing men’ s minds. Is not this the heresy pervading Christian teaching; that Christian teachers have thought of doctrine as something given them that they might exercise their minds upon it, rather than as something which came to them in order that what God supremely loves--a holy life--might be built up? The one great thing which has perverted man’ s study of the Christian gospels is, that men have dared to forget that the gospel came to a world of sinners that they might be reclaimed from the paths of sin and brought to righteousness again. Wonderfully few are the mistakes which men make when they read the Bible as the law of life. Wonderfully few are the men able to read the Bible rightly when they fasten their eyes on it for speculation. The soul which goes to the Bible to get the thing for which it was given, gets the thing it goes for. The soul laying hold on the heart of the New Testament finds what was in the heart of God. It is expressed by St. Paul in the phrase, “ the will of God, even your sanctification.” It is certainly easy to find in the New Testament the truth of Jesus Christ. A man comes to the Bible and says, “ Is not this strange and mysterious?” And he points to some marvellous proof he seems to have extorted from the plain text of the New Testament. He is using the Bible for that for which it was not given. He is sure to go wrong, and gather from it some strange doctrine, a fantasy which never was in the simple teaching of the Holy Spirit. Another man goes to the Bible hungering for a better life, desiring to escape from sin; weary of the barren sinfulness of this world he goes to the Bible for a picture of the kingdom of heaven; goes to the Bible to learn how this world can be made the habitation of the Holy God. That man can understand, not perhaps every truth there, for there are truths yet to be developed by certain exigencies of the world; but he will come away full of the learning which he at present needs. The New Testament will become to him a book of life. When St. Paul writes back from Europe to Asia, he bids Timothy teach the disciples that the law is to be used lawfully. He tells him and them the same lesson which we need. Let us go to our Bible for our Bible’ s purpose, inspiration, and a law of life, and the idea of what God would have man to be, and the power to become what it is the purpose of our Father that we should become. This is the teaching of the First Epistle to Timothy. The fundamental thing which Paul said to Timothy was that he should send the Ephesians to the Bible for the Bible’ s purpose. Always, spirituality is to go back to morality. The idea that man is to be wise with the wisdom of God is to refresh itself with the idea that man is to be good with the holiness of God. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.) 1 Timothy 1:11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.The glorious gospel The gospel is here characterized as glorious. It depends not for its glory on any incidental circumstances. In its essential elements it is the same for all lands and nations, conveying “ glad tidings of great joy to all people.” The language of the text, with all other gloriousness, implies the glory of perpetuity. Indeed, what is here called “ the glorious gospel” is elsewhere called “ the everlasting gospel” (Revelation 14:6). Bringing these phrases together, we have “ glory everlasting” ; changeless amid changeful seasons. But having fully stated this evangelical commonness, let us now remark that the manner in which persons are brought into connection with the gospel varies. One is persuaded by the terror of the Lord, another is drawn by His mercy and constrained by His love. And every one who has tasted of the joys of salvation will find his estimate of them affected, not only by their intrinsic excellence, but by their particular adaptation and application to his individual exigencies and personal experience. Let us, then, in these words, transplant ourselves to Paul’ s position. Let us contemplate what he speaks of from his own point of view. I. The apostle may thus have spoken in relation to the messiah. As a Jew, Paul had longed for Christ. This was the grand promise made to the fathers; the seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent’ s head; in Abraham and his seed should all families of the earth be blessed; Shiloh should come, and to him should the gathering of the people be. Other nations glory in their founders, and look back. The Jews expected a Deliverer, and looked forward. And hence Christ, when He came and was recognized, gratified a peculiar, earnest, and ever-growing anticipation. The Lord whom they looked for came to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom they delighted in. It is true that Paul, in the first instance, was disappointed in Jesus--bitterly disappointed. But that disappointment enhanced, by contrast, his delight, when he came after all to perceive that this was indeed the Hope of Israel. He had abhorred the Christians for neglecting the Aaronic ritual. And what an exposition of their conduct was now before him!--that the rites had been exchanged by them for the reality; that the sacrifices were but shadows, and found their substance in Christ; and that the Mosaic ordinances received the utmost honour in being so fulfilled--in being done away by the accomplishment and verification of all their foreshadowings. In one aspect the revelation was appalling. The stupendousness of the remedy gave Paul impressions which he had never had before of the dreadfulness of the evil, compelling him to reason that “ if one died for all, then were all dead.” Ruined must that state have been which called for such redemption. Paul stood aghast--sank aghast--at these thoughts. He had supposed himself, as touching the righteousness which is of the law, to be blameless. But under the teaching of the Cross, sin--that is the sense of sin--revived and expanded into such gigantic dimensions, that, at the thought of it, he died: all life of self expired within him; all personal merit paled and perished in a sense of penal desert. And what was now his relief? What was now his refuge? That very Cross which had previously so shocked him. Thus the grandeur of the remedy exposed to him the evil of sin; and the evil of sin commended reactively the gloriousness of the gospel. Surely when redemption exposes the evil of rebellion--when the bitterness of the curse is evolved by contrast with curative blessing--when blackness of darkness is discerned only afar off, and as rendered visible by light streaming from heaven and guiding us to its portals, we may well hear such instruction, and hail in it the “ Glorious gospel of the blessed God!” II. Paul might characterize the gospel as glorious, viewing it in relation to the gift of the spirit. Palestine had had its prophets; and wondrous characters had these teachers been. These prophets might be persecuted while they lived, but monuments were soon erected to them when they died. Hence the disappearance of prophets was more deprecated than their severest reprimands, and lamentation found its climax in saying,” We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long” (Psalms 74:9). The ancient seers were never numerous. Two or three distinguished a period. But now there is a whole company of apostles, and inspiration is not limited to them. God pours His spirit on all flesh, and sons and daughters prophesy in multitudes. Nor does the privilege terminate with preternatural qualifications. These accompany and promote transforming influences far more precious. “ According to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Now was the fulfilment of the promise: “ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah … I will put My law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be My people.” “ The law of the Spirit of life in Christ, Jesus,” Paul says, “ hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” The apostles exemplified such renewing power. They manifested a spiritual-mindedness before which all grovelling sordidness might well be confounded, and, as ashamed, hide its head. Quit a partial and suspicious discipleship! rise to the heights of a high calling! and still multiply achievements, and still heighten attainments, tilt your religious profession bear its own proof, and all your aims, and aspirations, and efforts, beam with the glory of the gospel of the blessed God. III. Paul may be supposed to have used the language of the text in relation to a favored people and a promised land. Paul had anenthusiastic patriotism. Even self-love seemed feeble when vying with love to his people (Romans 9:1-3). With such fervency of affection for his countrymen, Paul beheld and deplored their imperilled condition. The Roman tyranny was becoming every year more intolerable, and defeated insurrections only riveted and aggravated its domination. To what would these things grow? The question was inevitable and ominous; and, whatever desire might answer, probability, verging on certainty, pointed to the extinction of the Jewish name and nation. What was his joy, then, when an occasion of dismay became a source of solace, when spiritual illumination pointed beyond impending ruin to eventual recovery, and foretold the time when all Israel should be saved. Yet another and more cheering aspect of the case now burst upon his contemplation. The promise, that in Abraham and his seed should all families of the earth be blessed, was apprehended by him in its vastness. His survey, restricted before to the literal Israel, suddenly compassed the world, and embraced in all nations the true Israel of God. (D. King, LL. D.) The beatific God: the gospel a transcript of the character of God The only security at any time either for sound doctrine or earnest moral practice is the gospel. The fallacy with which the apostle contended is found operating in every time. Many would apparently make a divorce in their own minds between the moralities of every day life and the gospel--between works and faith. Because man is an intelligent being and must have a clear notion of what he is doing, if he is to act worthy of his nature, his conduct must be regulated by principle, and especially his moral conduct by a clear understanding of God’ s will. What, then, is the will of God? It is the system of truth revealed in the Scriptures; in other words, it is orthodoxy. Of course there must be an orthodoxy, or system of right doctrine. I. God is blessed in Himself, and therefore He has given a gospel to man. The epithet blessed, as applied to God, is one of singular grandeur and felicity. In the highest and richest sense of the word, God is the happy or beatific God. God is blessed in Himself, blessed in the manifestation of Himself, and blessed in the communication to others of His own blessedness.1. God is blessed in Himself. This is a necessity of His being. To be God is to be infinitely happy; for God is just, good; and to be good is to be blessed. To say that a being is good is to say that he is happy. The purity or holiness of God is one of the fountain-heads of His blessedness. Jesus says, “ Blessed are the pure in heart.” A pure heart is a well-spring of blessedness; it is a bower of fragrance, and an abode of spiritual beauty. It is a bright sky in which the thoughts sing to each other as birds in the sunny air; it is a home of the Holy Ghost. What, then, must be the blessedness of God! He is the holy heart of the universe; the light of light. God is happy because He is perfect. We have never known what it is to be perfect. From first to last in this life we are imperfect, and it is a painful thing to be imperfect. Not only to be so, but to know it--to have the clear consciousness that we carry imperfection within us; to feel that there is a discord at the very centre of our life--that surely is a sharp thorn in the heart. To have come to the vision of an ideal life, which we recognize to be our true and proper life, and love as such, while at the same time we are in bondage to a variety of mean restrictions; this is the cause of unhappiness and unrest. But God is the all-perfect One--harmonious, complete, self-sufficient, and therefore He is the blessed God. God is happy because He is almighty. Our weakness is to us a constant source of pain. We think we should be happy if only we had strength for every emergency, and if the arm could always fully second the will. But we live and die with the sorrowful conviction that, however splendid our projects, our performances are mean. With God, however, there is nothing of this. Above all, God is happy because He is the God of Love. The living essence of the God head has a name, and that name is Love. This is the one supreme joy of the universe; that great affinity, that beautiful spiritual attraction, which draws all souls together in peace and concord, by drawing them unto God. God is love, and therefore He is happy. This is the reason why God might not, and did not keep His blessedness to Himself. Although He was infinitely blessed in Himself in eternity, before angel, or world, or man appeared, He did not remain the sole possessor of this immense, this uncreated felicity. He decreed to unfold the hidden wealth of eternity; to manifest Himself, and to bring forth an image of Himself, in the form of an intelligent and moral being, who should be able to reflect His glory and to share His blessedness. Hence creation; hence the manifested wonders of providence in time; and hence eternal redemption. And so, having looked for a little at the self-possessed, inherent blessedness of God, let us now glance at-- 2. God is blessed in the manifestation of Himself. All true work is a pleasure. It is a joy to produce anything. The exercise of power, the facility to act, the creation of a thought, the production of a work of art--each of these manifestations gives pleasure to the person who puts its forth. A child has pleasure in the gradual awakening of its nature, and the first exercise of its faculties. It delights in the discovery and manifestation of its powers, one by one. It delights to be able to walk and to speak. A school-boy, who is a true student, has pleasure first in mastering a problem, and, after that, in exhibiting his mastery over one domain of knowledge after another. A young artizan has pride in the performance of his first piece of independent work, and in earning his first wage. He feels that he is of some worth to the world. In the higher walks of human effort--in the productions of art and literature, the true artist has a pure joy. As the poem, or the picture, or the statue is slowly elaborated, the artist is bringing forth into palpability the fair image that has hitherto dwelt in the ideal world of the soul. There is a blessedness in the manifestation of one’ s true self. Let these faint analogies remind us of the blessedness of God in the forth putting of His power. He is the Creator, the Supreme Worker, the one Original Producer. He has brought forth the universe. The universe is God’ s work. And what a work is that! So vast, so beautiful, so profound! Because God is God it must be a joy to Him to bring forth angels, and worlds, and men; and the proof that God rejoiced in His own creation is to be found in the fact that He Himself blessed it, and called it very good. 3. God is blessed in the communication to others of His own blessedness. He who works a work merely that he may delight himself therewith, even although that work is beautiful and good, has not reached the highest blessedness. This consists in making others blessed. He who lives for himself alone can never know what the highest blessedness is. To seek to shut up happiness in one’ s own heart is to embitter and destroy it altogether; for selfishness and blessedness can never keep company. Men are unhappy just in proportion as they are selfish; and consequently God is blessed because He is absolutely unselfish. Even in eternity God was not alone in His blessedness; for there are three persons in the adorable Godhead, and from eternity there was fellowship in God, and the high interchange of love. The Gospel was an eternal purpose of God. Yea, how marvellous it is that sin has become the very occasion in connection with which God has revealed the wonders of His grace, and given the highest manifestation of His own happiness and glory. The highest joy of God is the joy of saving souls, It is a blessed thing to communicate happiness to the unfallen, and preserve them in their felicity; but it is more blessed to give joy to the miserable, and open up a way by which the wretched and the impure may return to the very bosom of God. And since these are the tidings; since this is the message of gladness that the gospel brings to every man, how fitly may it be styled the glorious gospel of the blessed God! II. God has given a glorious gospel to man, and therefore man should bless God. In the verse from which the text is taken the apostle speaks of the gospel as something committed to his trust. Notice here some of the particulars in respect of which the epithet “ glorious” may be applied to the gospel. The gospel is glorious in its own character; in its authorship; in its unfoldings; and in its everlasting issues.1. It is glorious in its own character. It is the Almighty God proclaiming an amnesty to sinful men. Surely that is a great fact in the history of this universe. What can exceed in glory such a proclamation? 2. The gospel is glorious in its authorship. Everything God has made is glorious in having Him as its author. Throughout the whole of God’ s workings, everything speaks of His glory. 3. The gospel is glorious in its unfolding. All the other manifestations of God in creation and providence are but introductory and preparatory to this. Creation is but the scaffolding, and providence but the great stairway leading to the gospel. 4. The gospel is glorious in its eternal issues. It is through it alone that we come into the possession of eternal life. What, then, is our response? It is for us to reflect in some measure this glory. It is for us, in turn, to bless the blessed God. We do so, first of all, by believing the gospel--by listening to this message, and accepting it as the truth of God. Can there be anything more awful than for a human being to reject such a gospel? And yet this can be done--this is done every day. What is worthy of the entire and unreserved homage of our being, if the glorious gospel of the blessed God is not worthy of it? In conclusion, there are four warnings that come sounding out to us from this text, to which we would do well to take heed.1. Beware of ignoring the gospel. This is what many are doing at the present time. They quietly and complacently set it aside. 2. Beware of caricaturing the gospel. It is a caricature of the gospel to represent God as sitting merely on a throne of justice, manifesting only the sternness and severity of the law, and insisting on the law being satisfied at whatever price, and with whatever results. But the gospel has been so caricatured. Its enemies have said that it is a wrathful and vindictive system. 3. Beware of undervaluing the gospel. There are some who regard Christianity as a form of natural religion. 4. Beware of finally rejecting the gospel. (F. Ferguson.) The glorious gospel The gospel!--“ the glorious gospel!” whence did it come? Its birth-place was the bosom of God. What its end and aim? To save a world of souls. Whence does it rescue? From the fellowship and destinies of hell. Whither does it lead? Back to its birth-place--to heaven--to God. The single inquiry into the reason and propriety of the epithet here bestowed upon the gospel--“ the glorious gospel.” Let this then be our point, to prove that the gospel is a “ glorious” scheme--a “ glorious gospel.” “ The glorious gospel!” What is it to be “ glorious” ? Need I define this to you?--need I tell you what it is to be physically, what it is to be morally “ glorious” ? Who can need that I define to him the term “ glorious,” as applied to natural things, that has seen the bright orb of heaven shedding abroad his noon-day splendour? Who that has gazed upon the mighty sea, as it careered along, so bold, so free, so wild, gilded but untamed by that bright orb’ s beams? Or who so lost, I say, not to religion, but to all sense of moral beauty and grandeur, as to see no glory, no dignity, no greatness, in virtue? And the “ gospel” is “ glorious!” Why? It is “ glorious,” I observe-- I. In its author. Think you that even the most presumptuous hope would have whispered, that perhaps the very Being whom he had offended would Himself bear the penalty, that his Judge would perhaps be his Saviour, that grace should flow to him and his race through the blood-shedding of the only begotten Son of God, the Son in the bosom of the Father--God Himself? No; the brain of man devised not the “ glorious gospel” --the heart of man conceived it not! II. The gospel was “ glorious” in its mediator. Now this notion that such a free pardon, such a remission of the penalty of guilt, would have been a “ glorious” act on God’ s part, is derived from human analogy, but so far from being a “ glorious” act, it would have sullied the brightness of God’ s glory for ever, for He would have denied Himself, would have appeared before His creation as a Being uttering threatenings which He had no final and real intention of executing. Mercy might have been magnified, but to a woful disparagement of justice and holiness and truth. But “ Jesus” is “ the Mediator of the new Covenant” --He who is “ so much better than the angels” --the Creator and “ heir of all things” --the “ Beloved Son” --the “ very and eternal God!” How “ glorious” a gospel flowing through such a mediation! how great the price of its salvation! III. The gospel is “ glorious” in its objects and results. It is the gospel of salvation, a “ gospel of peace,” It finds God and man at variance--God offended, man lost. How “ glorious” then the object of the gospel--to reconcile God and man--to offer salvation, not to the Jew only, but to all the world--to utter a cry free as the air we breathe: “ Ho, every one that thirsteth!” But how “ glorious” its results! And these, in all their eternal fulness, who shall tell? But how “ glorious” now!--how “ glorious” Christ Jesus in the heart, “ the hope of glory!” --how “ glorious” to see “ the Ethiopian change his skin, and the leopard his spots!” --to see the “ blasphemer,” the “ persecutor, and injurious,” preach “ the faith which once he destroyed!” --how glorious to hear the savage gaoler cry: “ What must I do to be saved?” But time shall one day be no longer, and shall the gospel glory be entombed in the grave of time? Bather shall its glorious results then truly begin. IV. The gospel is “ glorious” as contrasted with the law. See, then, the glory of the gospel as a scheme of salvation for man, when contrasted with the law. See the law demanding (and that justly) what man cannot render--hear it, as the penalty of non-fulfilment and disobedience, proceed to call for vengeance, the death of the transgressor. See the gospel not only not refusing to recognize man’ s need, and frailty, as a lost sinner, but taking man up at this very point, the pinching point of his need, that he is a lost sinner. The very object, then, of the gospel is to vindicate God’ s law, and yet save the transgressor of that law, to exhibit a God all-just as a God all-merciful. But the gospel is more “ glorious” yet! for as its only source was the grace of God, as God only “ gave His only begotten Son” up to the death, because “ He so loved the world,” so from first to last is the gospel one of grace, and grace alone. But the gospel is more “ glorious” yet! The law, we saw, had no pardon to bestow, no righteousness to give, still less could it restore the fallen nature, renew the alienated heart, or rectify the perverted and biassed will. It could not purify the springs of action. No law does this. But the Spirit of Christ to sanctify, no less than the righteousness of Christ, and the blood-shedding of Christ to justify, is the gift of the gospel. Such is the gospel--so “ glorious “ to God, so “ glorious” to man. (J. C. Miller, M. A.) The glory of the gospel I. It is “ the glorious gospel” because it is a system of eternal truth, in which the moral perfections of the Godhead are most transcendently displayed.1. Now, in reference to this “ glorious gospel,” we say, that in it all the perfections of the Divine nature a strikingly displayed. 2. But in this “ glorious gospel” there is, besides the exhibition of all the perfections of the Godhead, the most striking development of them. For though all the attributes of the Godhead are infinite, yet their manifestation may be varied in an endless diversity of degrees and forms: but in this “ glorious gospel” there is the most striking display of the whole. Is love an attribute of the Divine nature? Is justice an attribute of Divine nature? Where do we see it displayed so effectually as in “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God” ? Is wisdom an attribute of the Divine nature? Where have we such a display of it as in “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God” ? 3. We must, however, advance a step further: here is the most harmonious exhibition of the perfections of the Godhead. II. It is “ the glorious Gospel of the blessed God,” because it is admirably adapted to the moral and spiritual necessities of man. Those necessities are vast and varied; but there is no want that it cannot supply, no guilt that it cannot pardon, no depth of misery that it cannot explore.1. But when we say that this gospel is adapted to man as an ignorant being, I would remind you that it is so, not merely as adapted to convey to him the truth he should understand, but, by a light directed to the understanding and to the heart, first to instruct the judgment, and then to renovate the soul. There is all the difference in the world between mere intellectual and spiritual light; between that knowledge that may he obtained by the unaided efforts of the human mind, and that which is to be acquired by the teaching of the Spirit of God. The one is as different from the other as the mere picture of a country as it is painted on a map is from the country itself, where, with its hills and dales, and rivers, it stretches itself before your view. 2. It is adapted likewise to man as a guilty being. 3. This gospel is still further adapted to man as a polluted being. 4. It is “ the glorious gospel” because it is adapted to man, as a miserable being. Misery and guilt are linked to each other in an unbroken chain; and no man can be the voluntary slave of sin, without, in a proportionate degree, being the victim of wretchedness. 5. This gospel is adapted to man as an immortal being. 6. It is so, in the last place, because it is adapted to man as an impotent being. III. It is “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God,” because it is designed to achieve ultimately the most important blessings to the world at large. IV. I must now come to the concluding part of the subject, to deduce such remarks as its nature will suggest. First, I remind you both of the privileges and the obligations with which you are invested who possess this gospel. Secondly, we infer from this subject how pitiable must be the condition of those inhabitants of the earth to whom this gospel has never been sent! (T. Adkins) The glorious gospel It seems, as a revelation, so to eclipse every other, that earth with all its wonders grows dim by its side, and the firmament with all its hosts is no longer effulgent with Deity. And this is, we think, what St. Paul in our text designs to assert of the gospel. He speaks as though the carrying that gospel to a land were the furnishing such a revelation of God as must necessarily, even if it did not overcome the unbelief in man, redound immeasurably to the glory of its Author. He will not allow that it could at all depend on the reception which the gospel might meet, whether or not God would be glorified by its publication. Why should it? Suppose that it were to please the Almighty to give some new and striking exhibition of His existence and His majesty to a people that had been indifferent to those previously and uniformly furnished; suppose that on a sudden the vault of heaven were to be spangled with fresh characters, the handwriting of the everliving God, and far outshining in their burning beauty the already magnificent tracery of a thousand constellations; would not God have splendidly shown forth His being and His power--would He not have given such demonstrations of His greatness as must vastly contribute to His own glory, even if the people for whose sake the overspread canopy had been thus gorgeously decked, were to close their eyes against the glittering evidence, or to hearken to infidel philosophers, who should resolve into natural causes, or explain by their boastful astronomy, the mighty phenomenon which announced the immediate agency of the Creator? God is sublimely independent of man; and if He have made a discovery of Himself--His nature--His perfections--He can contemplate that discovery with ineffable complacency, however it may be regarded by His creatures. He does not wait their admiration in order to be assured of its beauty; He does not require their approval, to be confirmed in His delight. We read, that when God rested from the work of this creation, He “ saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” He surveyed His own work with unspeakable pleasure; He saw and He knew it to be glorious; and if no anthem of lofty gratulation had ascended to His throne from intelligent creatures, He would have reposed, in majestic contentment, on those vast performances, and have felt Himself so praised in His deeds, that neither angels nor men could break the chorus. And why should not we hold the same in regard of the gospel? Why, if this gospel be an incomparably more brilliant and comprehensible revelation of Himself than could have been made by His coming forth from His inaccessible solitude with a fresh retinue of suns and systems--why should not God regard its publication with ineffable complacency, whether men hear, or whether they forbear? Are we to hold it to be in the power of such creatures as ourselves to prevent, by our infidelity, the accruing of any glory to God, from that into which He may be said to have gathered Himself--which is nothing less than a focus, in which all the Divine attributes meet, or from which they diverge, to irradiate the universe? Oh I we are not thus mighty in evil. We may shut our eyes to a manifestation of God, but this is the utmost that we have in our power. We cannot obscure that manifestation; we cannot despoil it of one atom of its beauty; we cannot make it a jot less worthy or expressive of Godhead. And therefore may it well be supposed, that God would regard the ambassadors of His Son--those who with the cross in their hand hastened to publish to the ignorant the tidings of redemption--as more really and more emphatically the revealers of Himself than all those worlds, gorgeously apparelled, with which His creative skill had peopled infinite space. We may well understand, that as these apostles went from shore to shore, making proclamation, wherever they stood, of the mystery of “ God made manifest in the flesh,” they would be viewed by Him whose commission they bore as finer witnesses to the stupendous, and the awful, and the majestic, and the beautiful properties of His nature, than stars as they marched in their brightness, or angels as they moved in their purity. Who, then, can be surprised at the lofty tone which has been assumed by St. Paul, when speaking of the gospel committed to his trust? But now let us go on to speak of the two separate cases, in order to show you, with greater precision, how this character of the gospel holds good in regard equally with those who are saved and of those who are lost. Is the gospel, indeed, ever detrimental to the hearer? and if detrimental, can it still be styled “ glorious” ? Yes, the gospel may prove injurious to the hearer, but it cannot prove otherwise than glorious to its Author. You are not to think that the gospel can be a neutral thing, operating neither for good nor for evil. There is a self-propagating power in all kinds of evil; and every resistance to God’ s Spirit, operating through the instrumentality of the Word, makes resistance easier, and facilitates for the future the hearing without obeying. So that preaching, where it produces no salutary effect, unavoidably hardens the hearer. But if it be admitted that in various ways men may be actually injured by the gospel, making it the occasion of their own aggravated condemnation, what have we to say to such a result being in any sense or degree glorious to God? But we are to blame in confining our thoughts to the ends in which man has an immediate concern, in place of extending them to those in which God Himself may be personally interested. We forget that God has to make provision for the thorough vindication of all His attributes, when He shall bring the human race into judgment, and allot to the several individuals a portion for eternity. We forget that in all His dealings it must be His own honour to which He has the closest respect, and that this honour may require the appointment and continuance of means of grace, even where those means, in place of effecting conversion, are sure to do nothing but increase condemnation. For the great point, so far as we can judge, which will have to be made out in respect of every man who perishes hereafter, is the inexcusableness of that man--his being nothing less than his own wilful destroyer; and the making out this, in regard of those condemned for neglecting the salvation provided by Christ, will require that it be abundantly proved that this salvation was offered, yea, pressed on their acceptance. Think ye that the minister of Christ has nothing to do but to confirm the righteous in their faith, and rouse the careless to repentance? Indeed it is at these that he is avowedly labouring, but in acting upon man he is acting for God. He may seem to you to labour in vain, just because those to whom he speaks forsake not their iniquities; but it is not in vain. He preaches for the day of judgment; he preaches as an evidence of God’ s forbearance, as a witness against the impenitent--an evidence and a witness which shall be called forth and displayed when the trumpet hath sounded, and the Judge is on His throne. And St. Paul knew, and felt this. He knew, and he felt, that when He preached Christ to a people, he was making that people without excuse if they persisted in iniquity, and therefore providing that God should be “ glorious “ in dealing with them in vengeance. (H. Melvill, B. D.) The gospel of the glory of the happy God Two remarks of an expository character will prepare the way for our consideration of this text. The first is that the proper rendering is that which is given in the Revised Version--“ the gospel of the glory,” not the “ glorious gospel.” The apostle is not telling us what kind of thing the gospel is, but what it is about. He is dealing not with its quality but with its contents. It is a gospel which reveals, has to do with, is the manifestation of, the glory of God. Then the other remark is with reference to the meaning of the word “ blessed.” There are two Greek words which are both translated “ blessed” in the New Testament. One of them, the more common, literally means “ well spoken of,” and points to the action of praise or benediction; describes what a man is when men speak well of him, or what God is when men praise and magnify His name. But the other word, which is used here, and is only applied to God once more in Scripture, has no reference to the human attribution of blessing and praise to Him, but describes Him altogether apart from what men say of Him, as what He is in Himself, the “ blessed,” or, as we might almost say, the “ happy” God. I. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the glory of God. The theme, or contents, or the purpose of the whole gospel, is to set forth and make manifest to men the glory of God. Now what do we mean by “ the glory” ? I think, perhaps, that question may be most simply answered by remembering the definite meaning of the word in the Old Testament. There it designates, usually, that supernatural and lustrous light which dwelt between the cherubim, the symbol of the presence and of the self-manifestation of God. So that we may say, in brief, that the glory of God is the sum-total of the light that streams from His self-revelation, considered as being the object of adoration and praise by a world that gazes upon Him. And if this be the notion of the glory of God, is it not a startling contrast which is suggested between the apparent contents and the real substance of that gospel? Suppose a man, for instance, who had no previous knowledge of Christianity, being told that in it he would find the highest revelation of the glory of God. He comes to the Book, and finds that the very heart of it is not about God, but about man; that this revelation of the glory of God is the biography of a man: and more than that, that the larger portion of that biography is the story of the humiliations, and the sufferings, and the death of the man. Would it not strike him as a strange paradox that the history of a man’ s life was the shining apex of all revelations of the glory of God? And that involves two or three considerations on which I dwell briefly. One of them is this: Christ, then, is the self-revelation of God. If, when we deal with the story of His life and death, we are dealing simply with the biography of a man, however pure, lofty, inspired he may be, then I ask what sort of connection there is between that biography which the four Gospels give us, and what my text says is the substance of the gospel? Brethren! to deliver my text and a hundred other passages of Scripture from the charge of being extravagant nonsense and clear, illogical non sequiturs, you must believe that in the Man Christ Jesus “ we behold His glory--the glory of the only begotten of the Father.” And then, still further, my text suggests that this self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the very climax and highest point of all God’ s revelations to men. I believe that the law of humanity, for ever, in heaven as on earth, is this, the Son is the Revealer of God; and that no loftier--yea, at bottom, no other communication of the Divine nature can be made to man than is made in Jesus Christ. But be that as it may, let me urge upon you this thought, that in that wondrous story of the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ the very high-water mark of Divine self-communication has been touched and reached. All the energies of the Divine nature are embodied there. The “ riches, both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God,” are in the Cross and Passion of our Saviour. Or, to put it into other words, and avail oneself of an illustration, we know the old story of the queen who, for the love of an unworthy human heart, dissolved pearls in the cup and gave them to him to drink. We may say that God comes to us, and for the love of us, reprobate and unworthy, has melted all the jewels of His nature into that cup of blessing which He offers, to us, saying: “ Drink ye all of it.” And my text implies, still further, that the true living, flashing centre of the glory of God is the love of God. Christendom is more than half heathen yet, and it betrays its heathenism not least in its vulgar conceptions of the Divine nature and its glory. The majestic attributes which separate God from man, and make Him unlike His creatures, are the ones which people toe often fancy belong to the glorious side of His character. Of power that weak Man hanging on the cross is a strange embodiment; but if we learn that there is something more godlike in God than power, then we can say, as we look upon Jesus Christ: “ Lo I this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He will save us.” Not in the wisdom that knows no growth, not in the knowledge which has no border-land of ignorance ringing it round about, not in the unwearied might of His arm, not in the exhaustless energy of His being, not in the unslumbering watchfulness of His all-seeing eye, not in that awful Presence wheresoever creatures are, not in any or in all of these lies the glory of God, but in His love. These are the fringes of the brightness; this is the central blaze. The gospel is the gospel of the glory of God, because it is all summed up in the one word--“ God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.” II. The revelation of God in Christ is the blessedness of God. And so I would say, the philosopher’ s God may be all-sufficient and unemotional, the Bible’ s God “ delighteth in mercy,” rejoiceth in His gifts, and is glad when men accept them. But there is a great deal more than that here, if not in the word itself, at least in its connection, which connection seems to suggest that howsoever the Divine nature must be supposed to be blessed in its own absolute and boundless perfectness, an element in the blessedness of God Himself arises from His self-communication through the gospel to the world. All love delights in imparting. Why should not God’ s? He created a universe because He delights in His works and in having creatures on whom He can lavish Himself. The blessed God is blessed because He is God. But He is blessed too because He is the loving and therefore the giving God. III. The revelation of God in Christ is good news for us all. It means this: here are we like men shut up in a beleaguered city, hopeless, helpless, with no power to break out or to raise the siege; provisions failing, death certain. Some of you older men and women remember how that was the case in that awful siege of Paris, in the Franco-German War, and what expedients were adopted in order to get some communication from without. And here to us, prisoned, comes, as it did to them, a despatch borne under a Dove’ s wing, and the message is this: God is love; and that you may know that He is, He has sent you His Son who died on the cross, the sacrifice for a world’ s sin. Believe it and trust it, and all your transgressions will pass away. Is not that good news? Is it not the good news that you need--the news of a Father, of pardon, of hope, of love, of strength, of heaven? (A. Maclaren, D. D.) The gospel, glad tidings Show what the gospel of Christ is, by illustrating the description given of it in our text.1. The gospel of Christ is “ tidings.” This is the most simple and proper conception we can form of it. It is not an abstract truth, it is not a merely speculative proposition, it is not an abstruse system of philosophy or ethics, which reason might have discovered or formed; but it is simply tidings, a message, a report, as the prophet styles it, announcing to us important intelligence, intelligence of a connected succession of facts; of facts which reason could never have discovered; intelligence of what was devised in the counsels of eternity for the redemption of our ruined race, of what has since been done in time to effect it, and of what will be done hereafter for its full completion when time shall be no more. It is true, that, in addition to these tidings, the gospel of Christ contains a system of doctrines, of precepts and of motives; but it is no less true, that all these doctrines, precepts and motives are founded upon the facts, communicated by those tidings in which the gospel essentially consists; and that to their connection with these facts, they owe all their influence and importance. Perfectly agreeable to this representation, is the account given us of the primitive preachers, and their mode of preaching the gospel. They acted like men who felt that they were sent, not so much to dispute and argue, as to proclaim tidings, to bear testimony to facts. 2. The tidings which constitute the gospel of Christ are glad tidings; tidings which are designed and perfectly adapted to excite joy and gladness in all who receive them. That they are so, is abundantly evident from the nature of the intelligence which they communicate. They are tidings of an all-sufficient Saviour for the self-destroyed. And must I prove that these are glad tidings? Does the sun shine? are circles round? is happiness desirable? is pain disagreeable? And is it not equally evident, that the tidings we are describing are glad tidings of great joy. But it may in some cases be necessary to prove even self-evident truths. To the blind it may be necessary to prove that the sun shines. And in a spiritual sense we are blind. We need arguments to convince us, that the Sun of righteousness is a bright and glorious luminary; that the tidings of His rising upon a dark world are joyful tidings. Such arguments it is easy to adduce, arguments sufficient to produce conviction even in the blind. If you wish for such arguments, go and seek them among the heathen, who never heard of the gospel of Christ. See those dark places of the earth, filled not only with the habitations, but with the temples of lust and cruelty. Enter into conversation with the inhabitants of these gloomy regions. Ask them who made the world; they cannot tell. Who created themselves? they know not. Ask them where happiness is to be found, they scarcely know its name. Ask for what purpose they were created, they are at a loss for a reply. They know neither whence they came, nor whither they are to go. View them in the night of affliction. No star of Bethlehem, with mild lustre, cheers or softens its gloom. If this be not sufficient, if you still doubt, go and contemplate the effect which these tidings have produced wherever they have been believed. We judge of the nature of a cause by the effects which it produces, and, therefore, if the reception of the gospel has always occasioned joy and gladness, we may justly infer that it is glad tidings. And has it not done this? What supported our trembling first parents, when sinking under the weight of their maker’ s curse, and contemplating with shuddering horrors the bottomless abyss into which they had plunged themselves and their wretched offspring? What enabled Enoch to walk with God? Here the well-spring of salvation was first opened to the view of mortals; here the waters of life, which now flow broad and deep as a river, first bubbled up in the sandy desert; and thousands now in heaven stooped and drank and live for ever, tasting the joys of heaven on earth. Then pause and say, whether the tidings which excite all this joy are not glad tidings? Have patriarchs and prophets been deceived? Were the apostles and primitive Christians mad? Are the angels of light infatuated or blind? Is the all-wise God in an error? Does He call upon all His creatures to rejoice, when no cause of joy exists? You must either assert this, or acknowledge that the gospel of Christ is glad tidings of great joy. 3. The gospel is not only glad tidings, but glorious glad tidings. That it is so, is asserted in other passages, as well as in our text. St. Paul, contrasting the gospel and the law, with a view to show the superiority of the former, observes that if the ministration of death was glorious, the ministration of the Spirit must be still more glorious; for if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. Glory is the display of excellence, or perfection. That the gospel contains a grand display of the moral excellences and perfections of Jehovah, will be denied by none but the spiritually blind, who are ignorant of its nature. If any doubt respecting the character of the gospel still exists in your minds, it must surely vanish when you recollect that it is-- 4. The gospel of God, of the blessed God. What that is not glorious can proceed from the God of glory? What that is not calculated to give joy to all holy beings, can proceed from the God of happiness and peace? II. consider its human administration. It was committed, says the apostle, to my trust. But why? I answer, the gospel was no more designed to remain locked up in the breast of its author, than the rays of light were intended to remain in the body of the sun. In condescension to our weakness, therefore, God has been pleased to commit the gospel to individuals selected from our ruined race; individuals, who, having experienced its life-giving and beatifying power, are prepared to recommend it to their perishing fellow sinners. Of these individuals, the first to whom it was committed were the apostles; it was committed to them as a proclamation is committed by earthly princes to their heralds, not to be retained, but communicated. (E. Payson.) The glorious gospel I. The manifestation which the gospel gives of the glory of God. There are many sources whence we may derive some faint glimpses of the Divine glory. We may see it in the world around us, wherever we cast our eyes. This, then, we take it, is the glory of God; the revelation of His mercy and grace to sinful man. And this revelation is only to be found fully developed in “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” Here we see the attributes of Deity brought out with surpassing and undimmed lustre. Do we speak of Deity as the only wise God? We see this attribute also strikingly brought out in “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” Wisdom consists in the employment of the best means for the best ends; and although evident traces of this attribute are scattered all around us in the fitness of things to the manifest design contemplated, it is in the gospel alone that we discover the mightiest effort of Divine wisdom. II. The comprehensiveness of its blessings. In this point of view, also, we shall see significantly brought out the truth of the text, that it is “ the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” The blessings of the gospel are calculated to meet all the wants and longings of man as a pilgrim destined for eternity. Here knowledge is offered, which, while it is worthy of the highest intellect to expend its gifted powers in boundless research, is also adapted to the meanest capacity; here is knowledge far superior to any that the philosophers of Greece ever taught, or the proud sons of Rome ever knew; here is knowledge which can penetrate with its illuminating influences the innermost darkness of the understanding, refine the affections, purify the heart, and regulate the life of man in his upward aspirations for heaven. Do you feel yourselves guilty before God? In the gospel you may learn the way to obtain redemption through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sins. But more than this: the gospel offers the cleansing and renewing influences of the sanctifying spirit. It belongs to the glorious gospel alone to afford substantial and enduring joy. III. The magnitude of its triumphs. The triumphs of the gospel were soon made manifest, even in the earliest days of Christianity. IV. The simplicity of its requirements. Now the grand scheme of the gospel presents us with many things inscrutable to our understandings, which things, like the angels, we “ desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:12); but what affects us much more than all is, the simplicity of the means by which the most mighty and blessed results are accomplished. In this simplicity of arrangement, so available by all, the glory of the gospel shines conspicuously and pre-eminently forth. Herein we discover the master-wisdom of the great Contriver, and are led to ascribe “ glory to God in the highest.” (W. J. Brock, B. A.) The happiness of God I. I will consider what we are to understand by the blessedness or happiness of God, and what are the essential ingredients of it.1. Perfect knowledge, to understand what it is that constitutes happiness, and to know when one is really possessed of it. For as he is not happy, who is so only in imagination or a dream, without any real foundation in the thing; for he may be pleased with his condition, and yet be far enough from being truly happy: so, on the other hand, he that has all other necessary ingredients of happiness, and only wants this, that he doth not think himself so, cannot be happy. 2. To perfect happiness is likewise required a full power to do whatever conduceth to happiness, and likewise to check and control whatever would be a hindrance and disturbance to it; and therefore no being is as happy as it can be, that is not all-sufficient, and hath not within its power and reach whatever is necessary to a happy condition, and necessary to secure and continue that happiness against all attempts and accidents whatsoever. 3. There is wisdom also required to direct this power, and manage it in such a manner, as it may effectually conduce to this end; and this is very different from mere power abstractedly considered; for one may have all the materials of happiness, and yet want the wisdom and skill to put them so together, as to frame a happy condition out of them; and he is not happy, who doth not thoroughly understand the proper method and means of compassing and securing his own happiness. 4. Another most considerable and essential ingredient of happiness is goodness; without which, as there can be no true majesty and greatness, so neither can there be any felicity or happiness. 5. Perfect happiness doth imply the exercise of all other virtues, which are suitable to so perfect a Being, upon all proper and fitting occasions; that is, that so perfect a Being do nothing that is contrary to or unbecoming His holiness and righteousness, His truth and faithfulness, which are essential to a perfect Being. 6. Perfect happiness implies in it the settled and secure possession of all those excellences and perfections; for if any, of these were liable to fail, or be diminished, so much would be taken off from perfect and complete happiness. 7. In the last place, infinite contentment and satisfaction, pleasure and delight, which is the very essence of happiness. II. I propose, to show, that this attribute of perfection doth belong to God, and that the divine nature is perfectly blessed and happy; and this is so universal an acknowledgment of natural light, that it would be a very superfluous and impertinent work to trouble you with particular citations of heathen authors to this purpose; nothing being more frequent in them than to call the Deity, “ the most happy and most perfect Being,” and therefore happy, because felicity doth naturally result from perfection. It shall suffice to take notice of these two things out of heathen writers, to my present purpose.1. That they accounted happiness so essential to the notion of a God, that this was one of the ways which they took to find out what properties were fit to attribute to God, and what not; to consider, what things are consistent with happiness, or inconsistent with it. 2. Whatever differences there were among the philosophers concerning the perfections of the Divine nature, they all agreed in the perfect felicity of it; even Epicurus himself, who so boldly attempted to strip the Divine nature of most of its perfections, by denying that God either made or governed the world; whereby he took away at once His being the first cause and original of all things, and His goodness likewise, and wisdom, and power, and justice, or, at least, made all these useless, by taking away all occasion and opportunity for the exercise of them; yet this man does frequently own, and profess to believe, the happiness of the Divine nature. For thus Lucretius, the great disciple of Epicurus, describes his opinion of the Divine nature:--“ It is necessary that the Divine nature should be happy, and therefore altogether unconcerned in our affairs; free from all grief and danger, sufficient for itself, and standing in need of nobody, neither pleased with our good actions, nor provoked by our faults.” This was c very false notion both of God and happiness, to imagine that the care of the world should be a pain and disturbance to infinite knowledge, and power, and goodness. III. How far creatures are capable of happiness, and by what ways and means they may be made partakers of it. As we are creatures of a finite power, and limited understandings, and a mutable nature, we do necessarily want many of those perfections, which are the cause and ingredients of a perfect happiness. We are far from being sufficient for our own happiness; we are neither so of ourselves, nor can we make ourselves so by our own power; for neither are we wise enough for our own satisfaction. All the happiness that we are capable of is, by communication from Him, who is the original and fountain of it. So that, though our happiness depend upon another, yet if we be careful to qualify ourselves for it (and God is always ready to assist us by His grace to this purpose), it is really and in effect in our own power; and we are every whir as safe and happy in God’ s care and protection of us, as if we were sufficient for ourselves. But to what purpose, may some say, is this long description and discourse of happiness? How are we the wiser and the better for it? I answer, very much, in several respects.1. This plainly shews us that atheism is a very melancholy and mischievous thing; it would take away the fountain of happiness, and the only perfect pattern of it. 2. If the Divine nature be so infinitely and completely happy, this is a very great confirmation of our faith and hope concerning the happiness of another life, which the Scripture describes to us, by the sight and enjoyment of God. So that the goodness of God is the great foundation of all our hopes, and the firmest ground of our assurance of a blessed immortality. 3. From what hath been said concerning the happiness of the Divine nature, we may learn wherein our happiness must consist; namely, in the image and in the favour of God: in the favour of God, as the cause of our happiness; and in the image of God, as a necessary inward disposition and qualification for it. All men naturally desire happiness, and seek after it, and are, as they think, travelling towards it, but generally they mistake their way. In a word, if ever we would be happy we must be like “ the blessed God,” we must be holy, and merciful, and good, and just, as He is, and then we are secure of His favour; “ the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, and His countenance will behold the upright.” (Archbishop Tillotson.) The happiness of the eternal mind The word here translated blessed is the same that occurs in the beautitudes, signifying happy, and is to be distinguished from another word, also translated blessed, but signifying to be blessed or adored. This phrase “ the happy God” stands out in bright contrast with the dark dream of Asia, that there were two gods--one good, one evil--Ormuzd and Ahriman, against which Jewish religion had witnessed from the beginning. The Jewish faith was distinguished from all other ancient beliefs by maintaining the unity and blessedness of the King Eternal, and by asserting the recent origin, the reptile quality, and the final destiny of evil. I. Let us, then, observe that our own souls, in their profoundest instincts, compel the belief in the happiness of the eternal mind. Our minds revolt at once at the idea of a miserable everlasting cause. We cannot steadily conceive of an everlasting and boundless power otherwise than as resting on its own ocean depths in unfathomable bliss. We cannot even imagine it as suffering eternally, whether from weakness, or weariness, or pain, disappointment, or malignity, or through sympathy with everlasting misery of created beings. The necessity of indestructible being, which supports the eternal life, necessitates its blessed life. The very heathen, as in Homer, always speak and sing of “ the happy gods.” If we are to follow in our thoughts the instincts of our own nature (and we have no other means of thinking of the boundless life), then it is blessed for ever. For life here--its product--in all its orderly states is identical with enjoyment. It is disorder alone which produces misery. Think of the life on this planet, from its lowest to its highest ranges, from the dance of animalculae seen in the magnified drop of water up to the pleasures of the highest races that frequent the atmosphere, the land, the ocean. To breathe the pure air, to drink in the pleasant sunlight, to seek for and enjoy each its proper food, is the law of life, for if their life is short they have no sense of its shortness, and while it lasts it supplies the pleasures of motion, of rest, of vision, of action, and of love. For mankind there opens a new world of delights. Words fall us to describe the heights and depths of human enjoyment. What must that blessed existence be as a life of thought! To us thought is one of the chief and steadiest sources of enjoyment even amidst all our darkness, and deficiency of light, and baffled inquiries, and unsatisfied longings for intelligence. But what must be the delights of that infinite intellect, the energy, the reach, and the force of that Spirit, whence have sprung all the worlds, all the sciences, and all the minds in the universe. What must be that life of inexhaustible power in design, radiant within all the archetypes of beauty in form and colour, the mind in which have dwelt for eternity the patterns of all loveliness in earth and heaven; in which have bloomed the floral splendours of all the worlds; all the lovelinesses of figure, and form, and face, and scenery in earth, and sky, and air, and in the heaven of heavens? What, again, must be that life of creative energy from whose eternal love of life-giving have sprung all the delights of parental and life-giving love through the creation? What ideas can man form of the intrinsic and eternal blessedness of God before and apart from the creation? In that past creationless eternity, the Son, we are told, “ was in the bosom of the Father” ; He “ had a glory with the Father or ever the world was.” And in Him were gathered up all the thoughts and purposes of God as to creation, moral government, and redemption (John 17:5-24). This gives a ledge of solid ground for one further step upward in our thought. In the past eternity the self-existing wisdom and power revolved the whole infinite future of His manifestation to an everlasting universe, including the redemption of man, the incarnation of the Word; and this eternal counsel of love was the outcome of the holy and loving blessedness of the Sun of spirits. For God is love. He was never alone in eternity. II. Let this same temper appear in our worship. Let us “ sing unto the Lord.” (E. White.) The glorious gospel I. The import of the gospel as here conveyed. You are all doubtless aware that the true meaning of the word gospel is glad tidings, or good news. The gospel tells us of the grace and love of the Father, of the condescension and sacrifice of the Son, and of the mission and influence of the Holy Ghost. “ God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” etc. This is good news for all men, and this is the gospel. We all like to hear glad tidings. The intelligence of the relief of Lucknow and the salvation of our countrywomen and children sent a thrill of joy and gratitude throughout the country--it was good news. But no tidings ever proclaimed to men can equal in sublimity, and joyousness, and importance, the good news of the gospel.1. The gospel is good tidings to man as a rational and intelligent being. The possession of a thinking soul is the distinction and glory of man, and knowledge is necessary for the welfare of his soul. The desire for knowledge under various modifications is one of the natural desires of the human heart. Nowhere is there such a treasury of the highest knowledge for man as in the gospel of Jesus Christ. On the loftiest and most important themes it yields the surest information--the only information which can fill and satisfy the human soul; throwing the purest light on the pilgrimage of man; unfolding his dignity, his duty, and his danger; dispelling doubts, dissipating darkness, and offering certainty on questions about which men have perplexed themselves in vain. 2. Further, the gospel is good news to man as a moral and sinful being. Man is a moral being, and everywhere gives evidence of the possession of a moral nature. In all countries, amongst all peoples there are moral judgments, distinctions between right and wrong, or between what it believed to be right and wrong. The presence of conscience is universal. It is a sad and solemn truth that man is a sinner, and that he is guilty. But the gospel brings good news to him. It tells him of a Divine provision by which he may be pardoned and saved. It tells him of a sacrifice which has been offered for sin--a sacrifice of boundless value, which has met all the requirements of righteousness, and laid the foundation for mercy. How glorious the news for a guilty soul! And this is not all. Man, as a sinner, is not only guilty, but polluted, more or less, under the power of sin. How shall he be purified from this pollution, rescued from this dominion? The same gospel that tells him of pardon, tells him also of purity. “ The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” And further-- 3. It is good news to man as a social and a suffering being. Man’ s life here is, more or less, in company with others, a pilgrimage of sorrow. He is born to trouble. And perhaps sometimes you are perplexed, and strange thoughts come into your mind, so that you call the proud happy, and the wealthy blessed, and wonder what kind of a Being it is that governs the world with such apparent inequality. Is this world left to chance, or left to the sport of fiends? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 1:12 Putting me into the ministry.The summons to service I. It was a sign of divine Grace. In God’ s abounding grace he found himself not only forgiven, but summoned to service; “ made a chosen vessel” to bear God’ s treasure unto the Gentiles. He never ceased to be filled with wonder, that the Lord had “ counted him faithful,” or esteemed him to be worthy of trust; and his highest ambition was to respond to this gracious confidence. For that is one of the best results of being trusted--it develops a sense of responsibility, and appeals to all that is noblest in the nature. Trust your child with some important message, or duty, and he will be more careful over it than over what is trivial. The apostle was put in trust of the gospel; in other words, he was commissioned to make known God’ s way of salvation through Christ, and upon him largely rested the responsibility of winning men to God, and then combining them in Christian communities. A higher work could not be sought for than this, and no ambition is more sacred and divine than that which prompts one to pray for it. He speaks expressly of “ the ministry” --“ the service,” as the Revised Version has it--which might vary in form, but had as its essence the doing of something for Jesus Christ. And those who have any experience of this service feel that they need the superabounding grace of God to guide and sustain them in the work to which they have been Divinely called. The oil from the olive tree must flow to the golden candlestick, or the light will die out. The well must be fed from heaven, indirectly through many a hidden channel, or it will soon be exhausted. And of Christ Jesus we may say, “ All my springs are in Thee.” In the law we find restraint, in the Christ we find inspiration. II. But lest it should be thought that there was any natural innate worthiness of such a trust on Paul’ s part, he goes on to show that this summons to service came to one who was utterly undeserving.1. It was like Paul, and therefore another indication of the authenticity of this Epistle, to call prominent attention to what he had been before his conversion. Like David he could say, “ My sin is ever before me.” The remembrance of past sin with Paul was not a source of sorrow only, but it was a source of thanksgiving. It was something like one of those wonderful clouds we see at sunset. At first it looms ominously on the horizon, as if the blackness of darkness were resting on the distant hill, but at last the sunlight streams forth, the edges of the cloud become dazzlingly bright, and soon the whole is suffused with purple, and crimson, and gold; the dark cloud is glorified, and we feel the evening would have lost half its beauty if the cloud had not been there. Paul’ s description of his previous career is painted in colours black enough. Let the thought of that infinite love lead you to repentance, lest you be found at last not only to have disobeyed Divine law, but to have rejected Divine mercy. 2. It was not with a desire to lessen the enormity of his guilt that he adds, “ I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” Paul was a persecutor, not because he was indifferent to the claims of God, but because in his ignorance he thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus. III. Finally, it is evident that Divine grace which gave the call and forgave the sinner, had as its signs in the heart of the convert--“ faith and love.” “ The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” --that is, they found their sphere of action in Christ. It was not merely that the former persecutor was led to see the transcendent excellence of Jesus, but such faith in Him, such love towards Him were aroused in his heart, that the persecutor became the apostle, who said, “ The love of Christ constraineth us.” (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Ministers thankful for their office I. Christ furnishes men for the ministry. This Paul more than intimates in the words of the text. And everywhere in the New Testament, ministers are represented as the servants and ambassadors of Christ, and as his peculiar, ascension gifts to the Church. Hence we may justly consider Christ as forming and qualifying, as well as authorizing, all His own ministers, in every age of the Church. Thus a good capacity, a good education, and a good heart, are the noble qualifications which Christ bestows upon those whom He raises up, and employs in the sacred work of the gospel ministry. II. Reasons why the ministers of Christ are thankful for their office.1. The ministerial office bears a favourable aspect upon a life of religion and vital piety. His duty carries him among lively Christians, among mourning saints and distressed sinners; where the beauties of religion, the worth of souls, and the presence of God, serve to solemnize his mind and to warm his heart with devout and heavenly affections. Besides all this, the peculiar difficulties which attend his office yield him a fair opportunity of improving his mind in some of the most amiable of the Christian graces. 2. The ministers of Christ are thankful for their office because it gives them peculiar advantages to enrich their minds with useful and Divine knowledge. A man might be as great a metaphysician as Locke, as great a philosopher as Newton, as great a naturalist as Solomon, and yet, in point of the noblest knowledge, fall far below the apostle Paul, who understood the deep things of Divine revelation, which alone can explain all the works and ways of the Supreme Being. His business therefore requires him to extend his researches to matters of a higher nature, and of more importance, than those which employ the attention of the sons of science; and so affords him a happy opportunity of feeding his mind with the same glorious truths which angels now desire to look into, and which all holy beings will for ever contemplate, with growing ardour and delight. And this is a good reason why he should be thankful for his office. 3. A greater reason is, that it opens before him the largest sphere of usefulness. It belongs to his office to strengthen the cords of civil society, by condemning vice, by inculcating virtue, and by enforcing the righteous laws of man from the Word of God and the motives of eternity. And it is a part of his duty to attend to the rising hopes of his flock, and instil into their young and tender minds the first principles of virtue and wisdom; which lay the broadest foundation for peace and harmony among families, among societies and larger communities. But his widest sphere of usefulness lies in that Divine authority with which he is invested, to bear the messages of God to men, and teach them those great and important truths by which they may become wise to salvation. By virtue of this authority Paul become so extensively useful in the first age of Christianity. 4. Their work is of such a nature as to carry its own present and future reward with it. The ministers of Christ receive no inconsiderable reward as they go along, before their labours and their lives are ended. III. reflections:1. The office of the ministry is the most desirable office in the world. “ This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.” 2. The ministerial office needs no foreign aid to recommend itself to those who are qualified for it. Some are ready to apprehend that the ministry would soon become vacant if it should once unhappily lose the protection and support of the civil power. 3. The ministerial office is no burden to the people. One, who calls himself a moral philosopher, undertakes to prove in the face of stubborn fact, that the people of Israel were utterly unable to support their expensive priesthood. And many, at this day, seem to have the same opinion concerning the ministers of Christ. 4. The ministers of the gospel ought to give themselves wholly to the duties of their office. 5. The ministers of the gospel should cheerfully submit to that state of self denial, in which the nature of their office requires them to live. 6. Christ has laid His ministers under the most endearing obligations to be faithful in their office. 7. It is a privilege to hear, as well as to preach the gospel. It is a privilege of the Gentiles to hear Paul, as well as a privilege of Paul to preach to the Gentiles. (N. Emmons, D. D.) The attractions of the Christian ministry It was a wise proverb that the king of Israel quoted to a boastful Syrian invader, when he said, “ Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.” Our text is not the boastful exultation of an untried soldier, but rather the calm, joyful expression of the gratitude of a veteran. He had faced the angry eyes of those who at Damascus regarded him as a heretic, because he had seen more light than they. The estimate which a man of such experiences puts upon his vocation, after a trial covering about thirty years, is worthy of careful consideration. Paul was thankful for the privilege of these thirty years in the ministry of God’ s dear Son. Let us consider some of the attractions of the Christian ministry. It is not forgotten that earnest, scholarly and religious men are needed in all the ministries of human life. We may, perhaps, best set forth our theme by an examination of the grounds of our satisfaction and joy in the ministry of Jesus Christ. I. The characteristics of the gospel. Paul had zeal and joy in his work because he knew he was presenting a religion which is the outcome of--1. A Divine revelation. God has spoken. Paul went forth, not with a Bible, but with the Word of God. 2. A system of Divine power: not a philosophy, a guess, a theory to be entertained; but a life, a present working of a Divine energy in the soul. 3. The remedial character of the gospel gives zeal and joy to those who preach it. 4. The historic connections of Christianity have given and now give impulse to zeal and joy to those who are set for its defence. This thing was not done in a corner. Christianity is no beggar in the world of thought, asking for recognition, but a system rooted firmly in the soil of human history, and bearing fruits of which its adherents need never speak with hesitation. 5. Its power to satisfy the wants of the human soul. II. The attractions of the work itself.1. Our contact with good men. In religious and charitable work, much of our time is spent in contact and converse with the excellent of the earth. 2. The affectionate regard in which we are held by our people. 3. The opportunity afforded for the growth of character. 4. The opportunities afforded in the ministry for the cultivation of scholarship. III. The crown set before us. The work of the Christian ministry is not completed on earth. Allow me to conclude with a few words of fraternal exhortation as to the claims of this work and the kind of men that are required in it. And need I say that, first of all, men are wanted of an unworldly spirit. The spirit that was in Agassiz when he said, “ I have no time to make money,” is that needed in the ministry of reconciliation. Again, the ministry needed calls for men of good common sense, and a good stock of it. Finally, the times demand in the Christian ministry men of solid learning. (T. F. Burnham.) 1 Timothy 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer.I was before Note here, before we come to the special purpose we have in view, that godly men never think or speak lightly of their sins. When they know that they are forgiven, they repent of their iniquities even more heartily than before. You have probably read biographies of John Bunyan, in which the biographer says that Bunyan laboured under a morbid conscientiousness, and accused himself of a degree of sin of which he was not guilty. Exactly so, in the view of the biographer, but not so in the view of John Bunyan, who, startled into sensitiveness of conscience, could not find words strong enough to express all his reprobation of himself. Job said once, “ I abhor myself.” I. If we think of what we were, it will excite in us adoring gratitude. Paul was full of gratitude, for he thanked Christ Jesus that He counted him faithful, putting him into the ministry. II. A sense of what we were should sustain in us very deep humility. 1 Corinthians 15:9. I have heard of a good man in Germany who used to rescue poor, destitute boys from the streets, and he always had them photographed in their rags and filth, just as he found them; and then, in years afterwards, when they were clothed and washed and educated, and their characters began to develop, if they grew proud he would show them what they were, and try to teach them what they would have been likely to be if it had not been for his charity. If you are inclined to lift up your head, and boast what a great man you are now, just look at the likeness of what you were before the Lord made you a new creature in Christ Jesus. Oh I who can tell what that likeness would have been but for the interpositions of Divine grace? III. The remembrance of our former condition should renew in us genuine repentance. When you leave off repenting, you have left off living. IV. The retrospect of our past lives should kindle in us fervent love to the Lord who has redeemed us. I think there is nothing better than to retain a vivid sense of conversion in order to retain a vivid sense of love. Do not be afraid of loving Christ too much. Oh for more love arising out of a deep, intense sense of what we once were, and of the change which Christ has wrought in us! V. Remembering what we were, ardent zeal should be aroused in us. Look at Paul. He says, “ I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.” What then? Why, now that he has become a follower of Christ, he cannot do too much. He put many saints in prison; now he goes into many prisons himself. I remember one who lived four or five miles away from a place of worship, who used to say, “ You old legs, it is no use being tired; for you have got to carry me. You used to take me to the place of amusement when I served the devil, and you shall carry me now to the house of God, that I may worship and serve Him.” When sometimes he had an uneasy seat, he used to say, “ It is no use grumbling, old bones, you will have to sit here, or else you will have to stand. Years ago you put up with all kinds of inconveniences when I went to the theatre, or some other evil place, when I served Satan; and you must be content to do the same now for a better Master and a nobler service.” I think some of us might take a lesson from that old man, and say to ourselves, “ Come, covetousness, you are not going to hinder me from serving the Lord. I used to be liberal to the devil, and I do not intend now to be stingy to God.” VI. If we remember what we were, and how grace has changed us, it ought to make us “ very hopeful about other people. VII. What God has done for us should confirm our confidence for ourselves--our confidence, not in ourselves, but in God, who will perfect that which He has begun in us. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The memory of forgiven sins God’ s forgiveness is full, free, and thorough. Yet, forgiving, He does not forget. God remembers forgiven sins, but He does not, will not, remember them against us. We should remember them. I. The memory of forgiven sins is favourable to humility. Spiritual pride is a sin to which the eminently holy, gifted, and useful Christian is peculiarly liable. Let the first remember how he formerly defiled himself; the second, to what unworthy objects he directed his noble faculties; the third, that his pardoned sins may be--probably are--working fatal mischief in the world; and where is there room for pride? How much reason for self-abasement? Why did Paul describe himself as “ less than the least of all saints” ? II. The memory of forgiven sins is conducive to watchfulness. Forgiveness has not destroyed our liability to sin. Forgiven sins have left weak places in our souls. He who keeps in view those remitted sins which had the strongest hold on his nature, will vigilantly watch against the return of “ the unclean spirit.” III. The memory of forgiven sins is productive of compassion. We pity sinners. The unforgiven are the unforgiving, the unmerciful and stony hearted. IV. The memory of forgiven sins awakens gratitude. We are in danger of forgetting “ all” the Lord’ s “ benefits,” but we cannot if we remember our sins. (The Homilist.) Transformation of the vilest Mr. Ruskin, in his “ Modern Painters,” tells that the black mud or slime from a footpath in the out skirts of a manufacturing town--the absolute type of impurity--is composed of four elements--clay, mixed with soot, a little sand, and water. These four may be separated each from the other. The clay particles, left to follow their own instinct of unity, become a clear, hard substance, so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a “ sapphire.” The sand arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which reflect the blue, green, purple, and red rays in the greatest beauty. We call it then an “ opal.” The soot becomes the hardest thing in the world, and for the blackness it had obtains the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a “ diamond.” Last of all, the water becomes a dew-drop, and a crystalline star of snow. Thus God can and does transform the vilest sinners into pure and shining jewels, fit for His home in heaven. A wonderful change The following is one of many well-authenticated cases of converted infidels given in the Anti-Infidel:--Walking along a street in the “ second city of the empire” a few days ago, I saluted a middle-aged man dressed in the semi-clerical garb of a mission preacher, and I rather surprised a friend who was with me by telling him that he who had just passed us was a converted infidel. The story of his being “ brought back,” as I heard it from his own lips, may not be uninteresting. Mr. B. then, was at one time an avowed atheist, a professed and prominent infidel. He possesses a fine intellect; but, alas! he devoted his talent to the wicked purpose of “ proving” the non-existence of the Divine Giver thereof. One evening a mock debate was held among his athiest associates, in which Mr. B. assumed the part of a Christian, and towards the close of the discussion said to his opponent, in solemn tones, Now, my young friend, when you go home, take and read your Bible for the truth of what I have stated, and pray for help and guidance, This was considered to be a rich bit of sarcasm, and made a “ great hit.” Some time after, Mr. B. was accosted by the same young man, who, to his surprise, asked him in real earnestness, “ My friend, how about your soul?” “ Oh, don’ t bother me with such stuff,” replied Mr. B., impatiently. “ Do you remember that debate we had?” said the young man. “ Well, I took the advice you gave me then; I studied the Scripture, I prayed over it, and I have found peace; and, oh! my friend, you cannot do better than take your own advice. You gave it then to ridicule the cause you were supposed to be upholding. Now, I beg of you to think of it seriously, and it will really do you good. Mr. B.--did take his own advice, with the result that he saw the error of his ways, embraced Christianity, and has been for years zealously preaching that doctrine which he formerly reviled. 1 Timothy 1:14 And the grace of our Lord.The Saviour’ s grace in its freeness and effects I. Consider the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was this that led Him to remember you in your low estate; to interpose on your behalf; to assume your nature, and to give His life a ransom for many. “ Surely He hath borne our grief and carried our sorrow.” “ Behold, how He loved him!” said the spectators around the grave of Lazarus, when they saw only His tears. Behold, how He loved them! was surely the exclamation of angels, when, at His cross, they beheld His blood. For was He compelled to submit to this undertaking? No. Did we deserve it? “ When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” In the application, as well as the procuring of our salvation, the grace of the Lord Jesus appears. Means were used; but they derived all their efficacy, and their very being, from Him. But whence sprang this desire? From conviction. What produced this conviction? Reflection. And what produced this reflection? A train of events. And what are events? Providence. And what is Providence? God in action; and God, acting for the welfare of the unworthy, is grace. The progress is equally from the same source. He who quickens us, when dead in trespasses and sins, renews us day by day; and enables us to hold on our way, and wax stronger and stronger. As this laid the foundation, so it will raise the superstructure; and He shall bring forth the top-stone thereof, with shoutings, crying, “ Grace, grace unto it!” But, though all are saved by this grace, some individuals seem to be, in a peculiar manner, the trophies of it; and, were it necessary, we could make, even from the records of Scripture, a marvellous selection of instances. Manasseh; the dying thief; the murderers of the Son of God; the Corinthian converts. II. This grace is eminently displayed in the conversion of Paul: “ And the grace of our Lord,” says he, “ was exceeding abundant.” Never did His heart pity a more undeserving wretch, or His hand undertake a more desperate case. Perhaps, you say, this made the apostle so humble. It did. But humility is not ignorance and folly. Christians are often ridiculed for speaking of themselves in depreciating terms: especially when they call themselves the vilest of the vile, or the chief of sinners. It is admitted and lamented that such language may be insufferable affectation, and is sometimes used by persons who give ample evidence of their not believing it. When show is a substitute for reality, it is generally excessive. III. This grace is always productive of suitable influences and effects. “ In faith and love,” says the apostle, “ which are in Christ Jesus.”1. Divine grace produces faith. Faith is the belief of the gospel; a firm and lively persuasion of the truth of the record that God has given of His Son, accompanied with acquiescence, dependence, and application. It will lead me to have recourse to Him for all I want. 2. Divine grace will equally produce love. To whom? To the Saviour Himself; His name, His word, His day, His service, His ways. 3. Divine grace will produce both these in the same subjects. Faith, according to the apostle’ s order of statement, goes before love’ ; for faith precedes everything in religion--it is an original principle; it is the spring from which flow all the streams of pious temper and practice; it is the root from which grow all the fruits of Christian obedience and affection. But love follows after faith. We are told that “ faith worketh by love.” And how should it be otherwise? Is it possible for me to believe the compassions of the Saviour, and to realize as my own the blessings of His death, and not feel my heart affected? and my gratitude constraining me to embrace Him, and my fellow-Christians, and my fellow-creatures, for His sake? By the latter of these, therefore, you are to evince the reality and genuineness of the former. The subject admonishes Christians. It calls upon you, like Paul, to review the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember where you were, and what you were, when He said unto you, “ Live!” Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. This will prove the destruction of pride and ingratitude. (W. Jay.) The exceeding abundant grace of God It is the most difficult thing in the world for a man to speak in a becoming and consistent manner concerning himself. He speaks of himself very humbly and penitently: “ Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” He speaks also most encouragingly to others: “ Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first,” or in me principally, “ Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.” I. The grace of God as the only source of hope and salvation to guilty and apostate man.1. The very terms of this proposition suppose that man is in a guilty and apostate state. The effectuation of that great scheme into which the angels desired to look, the contrivance of infinite mercy, is of grace: “ Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.” The application of the Divine contrivance for man’ s recovery is of grace. The Holy Spirit, the third person in the glorious Trinity, stands engaged in the economy and covenant of mercy, to “ take of the things of Christ, and show them unto us.” The completion of this great and glorious work is of grace. Were we to trace the whole process from the commencement to the perfection of it, it would be seen that in every step the grace of God is manifested to be “ exceeding abundant.” Now, do consider that this is the only source of hope and salvation for guilty man. Tell me of any other if you are able. Will you talk to me of penances, and pilgrimages, and bodily austerities? II. In the circumstances attendant upon the conversion and salvation of the apostle paul, this grace was “ exceeding abundant.”1. This will appear, in the first place, if you consider his previous character. He was, before, an impious blasphemer, a treacherous persecutor, an injurious reviler. What does this prove? That where a man is not chargeable with gross immoralities, yet the sins of the mind, the intellect, the temper and disposition of the heart, may stand out in the sight of God in the most odious, the most culpable, and in the most guilty form. 2. In the second place, the grace of God was exceeding abundant towards this apostle, if you consider the period of time at which he thus became the subject of renewing and converting mercy. It was at the very moment when, with impetuous fury, he was proceeding to Damascus under the authority of the high priest to make havoc of the Church of God. 3. In the third place, the exceeding abundant grace of God was conspicuously manifest in the completeness of the change which was produced on his condition and character. It was a very remarkable change, because Paul the disciple presents a contrast so direct, so strong, and so striking, to Saul of Tarsus. Once more, the grace of God was exceeding abundant toward him if you consider the subsequent employment to which he was appointed, the eminent qualifications with which he was endowed, and the great success which attended him in his apostolic career. III. The character to which the grace of God will always form those who are the subjects of it. “ With faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” The two grand characteristics of the apostle antecedently to his conversion, were his unbelief and his malignity. Now the character to which he was wrought by the operation of Divine grace on his heart, exhibits an entire contrast to these two characteristic qualities; for you find in him faith taking the place of unbelief, and love taking the place of malevolence; he becomes an entirely changed man, the principles of his whole conduct are completely altered. In closing this subject--1. It offers hope to the most hopeless; I say hope to the most hopeless, because we have discovered that the grace of God is the spring and the source of man’ s salvation. 2. Let us examine, pointedly and “ seriously, whether we know anything of the grace of God which we have seen exemplified in so remarkable and transcendent a degree in the conversion of the apostle Paul. Has this grace reached your heart? 3. What gratitude do we owe for the manifestation of this grace, for the revelation of it to our sinful world? If the sun could be extinguished and blotted out from yonder heavens, it would be a less calamity inflicted on the natural world than if the doctrines of grace were banished from the Christian system. Let us close, therefore, by considering the animating and exhilarating prospect which the grace of God opens beyond the grave. (G. Clayton.) Abundant grace. Grace and its fruits are, you perceive, the two themes of the apostle’ s thankfulness, as they should be the two great themes of our thankfulness. I. Consider, in the first place, the grace of our Lord, which was “ exceeding abundant.” If there was one theme on which Paul dwelt oftener, and lingered longer than others, it was this theme of Divine grace. He took pleasure in giving it prominence, and securing for it attention. It was with him a great central truth, from which other truths radiated, and towards which they again converged. It was a seminal truth, a seed out of which other truths sprang and grew. It was a foundation truth, on which he continued to build a structure of strength and holiness and beauty. In this respect, all saints are very much alike. “ By grace are ye saved.” Grace is one form of Divine love. I say one form, because there are others. God loves Himself. He loves His perfect works--the high intelligencies that surround His throne. But this is a love of complacency. Grace is pity--it is love unconstrained by any governmental necessities--unmerited by any moral qualifications. It is worthy of notice that Paul characterizes the grace of God to himself as “ exceeding abundant.” He adds one term to another for the purpose of expressing his sense of its freeness and fulness. This is a proper way of speaking. Nothing but grace, nothing but “ exceeding abundant” grace, could have moved God to give His only begotten Son for the forgiveness of sins; nothing less than grace, “ exceeding abundant” grace, could have converted and saved Isaac the son of faithful Abraham, and Samuel, for whom the devout Hannah prayed, and Solomon, brought up in the house of the man after God’ s own heart, and Timothy, who had known the Scriptures from a child. However great our religious advantages, or excellent our character, or refined and elevated our tastes, the heart by nature is corrupt, and the life is bad, and nothing short of “ exceeding abundant” grace can purify the former and rectify the latter. After all it comes to this, that every Christian finds in his own conversion the most illustrious manifestation of the grace of God. There is another peculiarity in Paul’ s language which we must not overlook. He speaks of the grace shown in his salvation as “ the grace of our Lord.” By our Lord he evidently means the Lord Jesus Christ. Elsewhere he attributes his salvation to the Father; he recognizes, also, the sovereign agency of the Holy Spirit; here he refers, in an especial manner, as in other places, to our Lord Jesus Christ. He calls himself “ Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ;” he says, “ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” It was Christ who sent him to preach the gospel; and when in prison he was “ the prisoner of Jesus Christ” ; he could do all things through Christ, who strengthened him; he could say, with truth, “ I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” “ For me to live is Christ.” What a comment all this is on his saying to the Corinthians, “ For I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” The grace of our Lord, towards us and in us, has been “ exceeding abundant.” II. Now, let us consider the fruits of grace, of which Paul speaks--“ Faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” These two elements of Christian character are put, if you will look at the chapter, in opposition to the apostle’ s previous character. Speaking of himself, in the preceding verse, he says, “ I, who was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, did it ignorantly in unbelief,” but now, instead of unbelief and blasphemy there is simple, yet strong faith, and instead of persecution and injury, there is ardent, self-denying love. Look at the reality and strength of the faith! It overturned all the prejudices of the mind fortified by parental example and early education. It made him bold as a lion in the advocacy of the Redeemer’ s cause, before the philosophers and monarchs of the age. How ardent and consuming was this man’ s love. His love to Christ led him to renounce friends and fame; it burned out the old enmity of his heart against Jesus, and filled him with a consuming zeal. It prompted him to undertake the most arduous labours, it enabled him to endure hardships by sea and land, and to brave persecution by his countrymen. It was the great secret of his life and labours. “ What mean ye to weep and to break my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” And to this supreme love to Jesus Christ, there was united a warm affection for His followers, a tender compassion for all mankind. He loved and enkindled love. Such were the fruits of a Divine grace in the apostle Paul, and just in proportion as that grace is in our hearts, will these fruits appear in us. Like causes produce like effects. Let us try ourselves to see whether or not we are partakers of the grace of God in truth. Observe, for a moment, the order in which the apostle places these Christian virtues--faith and love. Faith first, love second. We find this order in other parts of his writings; they are not by chance here--“ Faith which worketh by love.” “ Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love.” You see how natural this order is. The sinner has, first, a believing apprehension of Christ. There can be no real love to Christ, or love to men for His sake, without faith in Him. You may admire His character, but you cannot feel that personal obligation and attachment which He demands. Burke could appreciate to some extent the philanthropic career of Howard; Pollock and Cowper could sing his praises; but how vastly different from their emotions towards the great philanthropist, was the love cherished by the prisoners whose lot he alleviated, and the distressed whose sorrows he removed. Remember this also--If you profess faith, you will show it by love. “ Faith which worketh by love.” If you desire to know whether you believe in Christ, ascertain this by asking whether you love Christ. Paul mentions only faith and love as the fruits of Divine grace in Him. Not that these were the only fruits produced, but because these are the chief, and where these are found all the others will surely be found with them. The Christian virtues hang together like grapes in clusters. Where you find faith and love you will find also obedience, patience, purity, meekness, and everything that is excellent and of good report. (W. Walters.) 1 Timothy 1:15 This is a faithful saying.The gospel in a sentence I. The mission of the Son of God is here set forth--He “ came into the world.” This expression would be an extravagance if it referred only to ordinary human parentage. The pre-existence of our Lord in a higher state was unquestionably an accepted axiom among the early Christians, a commonplace of primitive Christian belief; and we, believing in His deity, offer Him our lowly adoration as well as our thanks and love. II. The purpose of his mission could not be set forth more clearly and concisely than in the words, He came “ to save sinners.” His object was not to become the temporal king of the Jewish people, nor yet to give the light of scientific, or philosophical, or even ethical knowledge to the Gentiles; but to redeem men from the condemnation of the law, and to deliver them from their sins. To reverence Him as a kingly man, or to honour Him as a great teacher only, is but an imperfect acknowledgment of His claims. III. The exemplification of this purpose, given by Paul, is drawn from his own experience. He says, respecting himself, of sinners, “ I am chief.” The word “ sinners” is the same as occurs in the ninth verse, where it denotes those for whom the law was a necessity, for rebuke and restraint. Whom the law came to condemn, Jesus came to save. When, under the influence of chloroform, some critical operation is performed, and the patient wakes up to find that it is over, a great feeling of thankfulness rises up in his breast at the whisper, “ thank God it has been successful,” for he knows that life is saved; but he would feel still more thankful if he knew what the skilful surgeon does, that there was only a fractional part of an inch in this direction or in that between him and death. Paul knew better than we do what he had been saved from here and hereafter, and his intensity of feeling about sin was an element in his spiritual greatness. May God give us also humbling views of ourselves and adoring thoughts of Him who has saved us! Conclusion: The truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, is “ worthy of all acceptation.” “ It is a faithful saying,” worthy of implicit credence, of absolute reliance, for it will not give way though you lean the whole weight of your soul’ s salvation on it. It is worthy of acceptance by all men. And it is worthy of every kind of acceptation; worthy of being embraced by every faculty of mind, and heart, and will. You may understand it as a theological doctrine, but that is not enough; you may love it as a familiar pleasant-sounding phrase, but that is not enough. It deserves the homage of your entire nature. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)The object of Christ’ s coming into the world The person of the Saviour is to be considered; and “ what think ye of Christ?” In the text, it is true, He is described by terms especially significant of His mediatorial character and work--He is called “ Christ,” --a title of office, significant of the proper designation of the world’ s Redeemer by the Father, to the distinct and essential offices of Prophet, Priest, and King--the Anointed, the Great Teacher; and who teacheth like Him? the anointed High Priest and the great High Priest who hath offered Himself a sacrifice, once for all, in His own body on the tree--and the anointed King in Zion who sits upon His throne, who rules in the midst of the earth--rules for the subjugation of His enemies, and for the protection of His friends! His advent into our world is here announced. “ He came” --but the very language supposes His pre-existence--He necessarily was before He “ came” into the world--yes, pre-existing with the Divine Father from everlasting; for “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He came into our world after He had been promised, in the earlier periods of time, to the patriarchs--and this promise they saw, and this promise they believed, and this promise they embraced, and they died in the faith of the Redeemer that should come. He curse into the world after He had been shadowed forth by the various types and symbols which marked the Mosaic Institute; and at last, “ when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,” to redeem them that were under the law. “ Christ Jesus came into the world.” And what a world, my friends! Not a world prepared to greet and hail Him as its Lord--not a world prepared to receive and welcome Him, no! a world of rebels, a world of sinners--a fallen world, a guilty, perishing world, a world that was going down to ruin; and to ruin it inevitably would have gone, had it not been for the intervention of this high, this almighty Deliverer! What, then, was His errand in coming into our world? When God becomes incarnate there must be some mighty object to achieve--there must be some great end to accomplish to justify such an interposition. To this inquiry the text furnishes the answer, “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” This was the great object. He came to procure salvation for us--He came that He might bestow salvation upon us--the former in order to the latter. Still, however, though our sin is atoned and salvation procured, an unapplied remedy, you know, is of no service. It is not enough that the ransom has been paid; we must be liberated and share the blessings of freedom. If it be true that Christ has come to procure salvation for us, by His meritorious obedience unto death, then is it equally necessary that He should be exalted to bestow it. He saves from the power of sin by the power of grace richly communicated to the heart of the believer--a power that overturns the power of sin! Yes; and “ sin shall not have dominion over you,” says the apostle; “ for ye are not under the law but under grace.” He saves from all the condemnation and defilement of sin, by the cleansing virtues of His blood, by the healing power of His grace. Still, however, the salvation of Jesus Christ is not merely a negative thing--it consists not merely in deliverance from the guilt and positive evils to which, by sin, we are exposed. He walks in the light of God’ s countenance, he derives comfort from the great Fountain of all Consolation; now it is that the Word of God is the rule, now it is that the love of God is the principle, now it is that the glory of God is the grand end of all his actions! But then, we have to leave this world--this is not our home; here we have no continuing place of abode; and we want not only saving while we live, but when we die. The salvation of Jesus is commensurate with all our necessities, it is adequate to all our demands, it contains all that our circumstances require; and He who saves us in life will not abandon us in death! Welt do I remember--never, while memory holds her seat, shall I forget--what was spoken to me by the late Mr. Robert Spence, of York. Passing through that city, I had once an opportunity of calling upon that excellent man, who had himself been a preacher of righteousness for more than half a century; and said he, “ I thought, ere now, that I would have been at the end of my journey--that ere now I should have arrived at my Father’ s house; but it has pleased the Heavenly Grace to spare me a little longer, and I feel considerably stronger than I was. But when I came into this room and happened to pass that glass, I caught a sight of myself--I was struck,” said the venerable man; “ I thought what a little, old, infirm creature I had become--a mere remnant of myself; but instantly,” continued he, “ I lifted up my heart to the Lord, and I was favoured with such a manifestation of His grace and love that, though alone” --but he was not alone, for God was with him--“ I said, ‘ Well, welcome, old man! welcome, infirmity! welcome, death! and welcome, heaven!’“ Yes; and the religion of Jesus can make him rejoice in the midst of affliction, and welcome infirmity, welcome old age, and welcome death; because death, to the Christian, is but the gate of life. Then, though the body go down to mingle with the clods of the valley, the ransomed spirit wings its etherial flight to the regions of eternal day! The body, too, is to be saved! One said to me lately, “ Oh, never mind the body!” but Jesus Christ remembers the body. He is the Saviour of the body as well as of the soul; and we look for Him in this way we look for Him that He may “ change our vile bodies and fashion them like to His own glorious body, according to the working of that mighty power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.” II. What is the light in which mankind ought to regard this saying? First, as “ a true saying” ; and then, as “ worthy of all acceptation.” Let it be remarked, then, that those whom it pleased God to employ in order to propagate this saying, in the first instance, always affirmed that it was true. Besides, the God of essential and eternal truth has been pleased to affix His broad seal to this saying. He could not give His seal to a lie. How is this? Why, He enabled those men to perform miracles in order to attest it. How do you prove, inquired another, that what you declare is true? Bring hither yon leper, excluded from all intercourse with his fellow beings, standing afar off, bring “ him” hither to me, and in the name of this Jesus, and to prove that He “ came into the world to save sinnners, I pronounce the word, and his leprosy shall immediately depart from him!” And it was so! The saying again is pronounced and the question is repeated. Bring hither the dead body, says an apostle, you are about to cast it forth into the tomb; but no, bring it hither; I pronounce the word, and that dead body shall start into life! And it was so! There is another way, however, in which the truth of this saying is to be ascertained, and it is, of all others, the most satisfactory and consoling. It is in the way of experiment, bringing this truth to trial, to the test. How is this? Why, here is a man, and I have now present in my mind’ s eye a case which, I suppose, twenty years ago actually occurred--here is a man who in early youth begins to think it would be to his credit to begin to evince independency of mind, to throw off all the fetters of education and early impressions, and to think for himself. He associates with those who speak with great disrespect of this Divine volume, who begin to sneer, or have been in the habit of sneering, at all serious religion and serious Christians: by and by he begins to imbibe their spirit, and to acquaint himself with all the objections urged against revealed religion; by and by he begins also to sneer and laugh at the Bible, he casts off fear and plunges headlong into infidelity; he is then, perhaps, admired as a man of liberal mind, of genius, and of intelligence; and the individual I refer to was a man of fine understanding and cultivated mind; but by and by disease marked him out as its victim, he saw some of his companions in infidelity die; not one of them died comfortably--some of them died most awfully; he began to consider with himself, Whither, after all, am I going? I never disbelieved the Being of a God; but then, although I have always regarded Him as a good and benevolent Being, have I acted as I should, as a creature--as a dependent being, sustained by His power and bounty? Have I always revered and loved and served Him as I ought? This I have not done! What have I done? I go to my natural religion, as it is sometimes called; I study moral virtue, I endeavour to do good, and thus endeavour to recommend myself to this benevolent Being. But in natural religion he finds no relief for a troubled mind, no balm for a guilty conscience. What, thought he, shall I do? I will have recourse once more to the Bible, I shall begin to read it seriously. He did read it, the more he read it the deeper was the impression on his mind, that this is no human fabrication, in this book surely God has spoken: he read, and on every page he saw something of this Saviour and about this salvation. The thought flashed upon his mind, and he exclaimed, Oh, that this were but true! Oh, that I could believe this! I should find relief immediately: here is a system adapted to my condition. Oh, if it were but true, that “ Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” make an atonement for sin, and procure salvation for me! Here is a System that suits my case and provides for my necessities! Oh, that it were true! At last he resolved to make the experiment: he read this book, and sincerely prayed to God to teach him what is truth. I believe he read this very text, “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Is this the saying, and is this Jesus the Saviour of sinners? Oh, help me, he prayed, to believe this, teach me to believe this, I desire to believe this, I would believe this! Lord, I believe this--help Thou my unbelief! I venture my soul on this Saviour--I cast myself on this atoning sacrifice. What happened? “ His chains fell off--his heart was free!” His load of guilt was removed, his misery was banished; icy and peace and love unspeakable sprang up in his heart, and his soul began to exult, disburthened of its load. Not many days had elapsed before he met one of his old companions, who had grown gray in infidelity. What is this, he inquired, that I hear of you? I hear you have become a Christian! How do you know that there is a word of truth in the whole affair? How do you know that such a being as Jesus ever existed? Know! was the reply, know! I know it by an argument of which you never were the master, I know it by a process to which you are a total stranger, I know it is true that “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” for Jesus Christ has saved me! Well, then, but it is not only “ a true saying” and worthy merely of all attention, examination, and observation, commending itself to the approbation of every well-regulated mind, but it is also “ worthy of all acceptation.” It is worthy of acceptation because of its truth; if not true, it could have no just claim upon--it would be unworthy our acceptation. It is worthy of acceptation, again, because it is so vitally interesting. A thing may be true and yet not interesting to me; but here is a saying which is proved to be true, and which is surpassingly interesting to all the children of men. What so worthy the acceptance of the diseased man, as some sovereign specific which shall not only remove the malady but restore to health and vigour his emaciated frame? The saying has been accepted by the great, the wise, and the good, in different countries and ages of the Church; yes, and some of the greatest and wisest of men that ever lived, of learning, too, various and profound, have received this saying--have stedfastly believed its truth and realized its power. And who art thou who art giving thyself credit for having superior lights and superior intellects? But not only is this saying worthy of acceptance, but “ of all acceptation” --of the acceptance of all. If, in the next place, any portion of our race in any part of our world, could be found, who were absolutely and irrevocably excluded from all interest and benefit in this saying, I honestly confess to you, that I see not how such a portion of our race could regard this saying as worthy their acceptation. That is not, that cannot be worthy my acceptance, in which I cannot, by any possibility, have any interest. And not only is this worthy the acceptation of all, but of the highest acceptation of all. As though the apostle had said, This is no ordinary saying; it is a message from the throne--a message of mercy from the throne; oh, hail it, welcome it, receive it as coming from the throne, “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners! “ And having thus realized the truth and power of this saying ourselves, let us do all that we can to circulate it--let us always speak well of this Jesus, and endeavour to recommend the Saviour to all our fellow creatures. (R. Newton, D. D.) The faithful saying I. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.1. Jesus Christ was somewhere in existence before He was seen here. He “ came into the world.” Think of a new planet or star just created in our system and shining forth. We should never say, it is come here; we should say this of a planet or star that had travelled into our system from some distant region. And it was from a region distant indeed that Christ came here, from a heavenly one; and the place He held in that region, was the most distant and the highest. He was not an angel in heaven; He was the everlasting God. He came from the very summit, the lofty throne, of heaven to save us. 2. There are lost sinners in our world, whom it was needful for Christ to come into our world to save. Every man that breathes in our world is a sinner. And every sinner everywhere is necessarily a lost sinner. This is the nature of sin, it ruins whomsoever it touches; ruins him fatally and irrecoverably; in Scripture language, it destroys him. And on this property of sin, the ruinous nature of it, is grounded partly the necessity of Christ’ s interposition in our behalf. We say that His coming from His throne to save us, shows the greatness of His love to us, and so it does; but it shows as plainly the greatness of our misery. 3. And when Christ came into the world to save sinners, He came determined to save them. He knew He could do so, otherwise He would not have come. We do not go to the frozen regions of the north to gather there the flowers and fruits of sunny climes. We never think of going into vaults and charnel houses to raise the dead. Nor would our blessed Lord have come into the world for our salvation, had He not felt as He came, that He could work out salvation for us. II. The description St. Paul gives us here of the truth he states. He calls it a “ saying,” “ a faithful saying,” and one “ worthy of all acceptation.”1. It is a saying. And who says it? God Himself, Christ Himself. He might have come into our world, and never have told us that He had come here, or why He had come. And it is not God or Christ only, who says this. The prophets declared it before it took place: the glorious company of the apostles said it afterwards; the noble army of martyrs died rather than not say it; the holy Church throughout all the world has in every age acknowledged it; and as for the Church above, it says this oftener, perhaps, than it says anything else, and loves to say it better. Heaven often resounds with this saying and other sayings like it. 2. And this is a faithful saying, a true one. It is not only said, but it ought to be said, for it is true as truth itself. He had what St. John calls a testimony or witness of this truth within himself. He knew it, just as we know at this moment that our hearts are beating, and our pulses going, and that we are living and breathing men. He had experience of the fact. And valuable as are the many outward testimonies we have to the truth of the gospel, and convincing as they are to a sound, unbiassed judgment, they are all nothing in comparison with this 3. This saying too, we are told, is worthy of all acceptation. The words will admit of two interpretations. It is, first, as our com-reunion service renders the passage, “ Worthy to be received of all men.” Few sayings are so. Many things which we hear are worth no man’ s attention. They are either false or trifling; they are better not listened to. And others have only a limited interest. They may be worthy of one man’ s notice, but not another man’ s, for they do not concern him. This saying, however, concerns every man, and concerns him deeply. O how eagerly will some of us listen to some things I the news of the day perhaps, the scandal of our neighbourhood, and the trifling occurrences that fill up the trifling lives of our fellow-men!--things, it may be, in which we have little more interest than the inhabitants of some distant planet; but this saying, to which sometimes we have scarcely an ear to give, involves in it the highest interests of us all. This saying is worthy also of the utmost reception we can give it, the most entire and cordial acceptance. Some things that we hear are worth putting into our memories but not into our hearts; they are dry matters of fact. But here is something worthy of our memories and hearts also; worthy of being attended to, worthy of being remembered, worthy of being thought on and studied, worthy of being delighted in, worthy of being laid hold of by our whole heart and mind--in this sense, “ worthy of all acceptation.” A feeble or cold reception of this saying is no reception at all of it. Where the gospel saves the soul, the heart first opens itself to receive it, and when it is in the heart, the heart feels it to be its treasure and its joy. III. The view which the apostle takes of himself while contemplating this truth. Of the sinners, he says, whom Christ Jesus came into the world to save, “ I am chief.” (C. Bradley, M. A.) Worthy of all acceleration I. It is worthy of all acceptation because it is the full development of the theme with which revelation is charged; it lies not only in the track, but it is the full outcome of all that God has been aiming at in all His providential guidance and government of men, from the first days of the creation to the hour when the “ Child was born, the Son was given,” whom He had from of old promised to the world. From the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Apocalypse, the main thread in the Scripture is this work, the saving of sinners. And if we study it we shall find that it is the vital core of all the great movements of human society. The Bible opens with the statement that the great burden of man’ s existence here is sin, and that the great need of man’ s being is salvation. The inner meaning of it is true for all time, and is the key, I believe the Divine key, to human history. The theme there is sin, wilful, conscious, guilty transgression, revealed as the root of all man’ s infirmity, degradation, and misery. II. It is worthy of all acceptation, for it alone explains and justifies the whole course of human history. This life of ours is altogether too sad, too burdensome, too dark a thing to be suffered to live on, if there be no great hope for the future to lighten it. The world is very beautiful and glorious, you may say; it is a happy thing to be born with faculties finely touched like ours into a world like this. Yes, unspeakably beautiful and glorious is this earth of ours, and our life here might well be a paradise of pure delights. But sin poisons all. Despite of all the beauty, all the joy, the great masterpieces of human thought and utterance are in the minor key. Sadness is the dominant tone in all our literature, sorrow is the staple experience of mankind. I say frankly, that if I were compelled to look at life and the world, cut off from all the comfort and hope which streams down upon us through the Christian faith, I should be sorely tempted to the conclusions of the pessimist philosophy, that there has been some terrible blundering in the constitution of the world. But set in the heart of it all Christ’ s mission to save, and the darkness lights up in a moment. This dread experience of sin becomes through grace a stage in an unending progress. This school of our discipline, this house of our bondage, this field of our conflict, is but a stage of development, a step of progress, and all its deepest experiences have relation to blessed and glorious issues in eternity. III. It is worthy of all acceptation, for it is essential to the dignity and the worth of life. Is life worth the living? Yes, a thousand times yes, if it is the life of a forgiven man in a redeemed world. What man needs is not to forget sin, to make light of it, to shut out the world of spiritual terrors which it unveils. It will not be shut out. What man needs is free loving and righteous forgiveness--forgiveness which is not a weak winking at transgression, or an idle peace, peace where there is no peace, but a forgiveness resting on an atonement which reveals righteousness, magnifies law, and satisfies the deepest convictions of man’ s righteous conscience on the one hand, and the holy heart of God on the other. This horrible doctrine of the absolute indelibility of transgression has been the cause of untold anguish through all the ages of human history. Sin must fruit in sorrow, and forgiveness cannot annul the act of sin, or obliterate its issues. But there is an infinite difference between the experience of the man who is working out the penalty of sin, with the sense that behind the sorrow there is the vindictive hand of the law-giver, who will exact the uttermost farthing of retribution, and that of the Christian, who knows that behind all that he endures, and is entirely reconciled to enduring, is the eye and the hand of the Almighty Father of his spirit; an eye which watches his struggles and sorrows with the tenderest compassion, a hand which is guiding and ruling all the discipline to blessed and glorious issues in eternity. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation; for through it, “ where sin abounded grace doth much more abound; that, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.” IV. It is worthy of all acceptation, because, while it lends dignity and worth to life, it alone lends hope to immortality. An essential part of the benign work of love is the reconciliation of man with law. Forgiveness is a blessed fact, unspeakably blessed, but chiefly as the means of realizing a still more blessed fact--purification. On that absolutely the well-being and the bliss of the soul rests in eternity. And what is the cry of all the nobler heathen faiths? Deliverance from self. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, because it is charged for man with the promise of eternal life; not eternal existence under these dread and soul-crushing conditions, but eternal life, free, pure, noble, blessed life, finding its spring of perennial joy and fruitfulness in the sunlight of the face of God. The salvation which is by Christ Jesus offers to man not only pardon and peace, but renewing, restoration; a new heart, a new life, a new power, a new supreme attraction, drawing man ever by its sweet but resistless constraints into closest and holiest fellowship with the life of God through eternity. And this is Christianity. (J. B. Brown, B. A.) The world small for so great a transaction as redemption It seems a little place, this world of ours, to be the scene of such transcendent transactions. But size, as we measure it, counts for nothing on high; as far as we can see, it is the method of God every where to work from what man calls insignificant centres over vast areas of life. It is emphatically thus in history. England is but a little country, Greece was less, Judea least of all; and yet from these intense radiating centres influences have streamed forth which will be fruitful of high results throughout eternity. The cultivated homes of men are but little oases in the midst of desert and ocean spaces, of vast extent and dreary monotony; fruitless and useless in our weak judgment; though we are now beginning to see that they are essential to the high development of the limited regions which can nourish the noblest forms of life. Who shall tell what is to grow out of the transactions of which this little, but most highly developed and glorious, earth has been the theatre, to the great universe and the kingdom of heaven in eternity? (J. B. Brown, B. A.) The gospel and its recommendation I. The gospel. It means good news. Here is a man ill; the word that tells him how he may be cured of his disease is gospel--good news. It claims to be the best news. Such is our text, and that because it tells about three things--1. It tells of a divinely-appointed Saviour. It tells of “ Christ Jesus,” and there is gospel in the very name. I thank God for that name. I have sometimes ventured to compare it to what we are all familiar with--the sign-board above a shop-door, telling what is to be got there; or the name on the door of a lawyer or physician, telling what men may expect there. A sick man sees the doctor’ s name on his door, and applies to him without hesitation. He says, “ The man is a physician, a doctor; that is his profession; he is there for the very purpose of receiving and curing the sick and dying, and I have a claim on his services which he cannot, dare not, refuse.” And so here is One who has His name, as it were, on His door; His profession, His business described in His very name--“ Jesus.” It tells His occupation--the Saviour. But He is also spoken of as the “ Christ,” that is, the Anointed One. Let us go back to the olden times again. There is one who has been guilty of some sin, which lies heavy on his conscience and heart. He takes the prescribed offering, a lamb, and goes with it to the priest, that that lamb may suffer and die for him, as his sacrifice, his substitute; and when its blood is shed, his sin is atoned for and put away. But the question comes up, “ Is He a right priest? Has He a Divine commission?” Yes; because He is “ anointed,” the holy oil was poured on Him, setting Him apart to the holy office; and as He is an anointed priest, there is no cause to fear. Or take another case: a crime has been committed, and the offender is sent to the king, who alone can give pardon for such an offence. The pardon is given; the man hears it from the king’ s own lips. But here, too, the doubt arises, “ Has He a right to give it? Is He commissioned to grant a pardon? Is He the real king? Will the pardon stand?” Yes; because the holy anointing oil was poured on Him, which marks Him out as me God-anointed king. And like other great official persons, He carries His credentials with Him. 2. It tells of the mission and work of Christ. By His “ mission,” I mean His being “ sent,” His coming on His great errand of mercy and love. “ Christ Jesus came into the world.” What a word of wonder is this! I have been in one of our Highland cottages, and have had the place pointed out where our Queen has sat. There is a sacredness about the spot that can hardly be told, so that you scarcely wonder that some of our humble Scottish peasants have said, “ None shall ever sit on that seat again!” You can fancy the mingled pride and enthusiasm with which they tell of the condescension of the greatest sovereign in the world visiting their lowly dwellings. She came into this humble cottage of mine! “ And yet what was that to this--Christ Jesus came into the world” ? There is a lazar-house for the reception of lepers in all the stages of their dreadful disease. No man who enters comes out but for burial. One of these good, devoted men, the Moravian Brethren, has his heart filled with compassion for the sufferers, and with the desire to point them to Christ and to heaven; and knowing that he bids a life-long farewell to all outside, he cheerfully enters, and the door closes, shutting him up in a kind of living grave. You say, What a marvel of love and pity! And yet, what are all these as compared with this--“ Christ Jesus came into the world” ? And then, in regard to the work which He came into the world to do, notice the words--“ to save sinners!” Most wonderful of all! Strangers, enemies, rebels--these are some of the descriptions that you have in the Word of God of those whom He came to save. 3. It tells of the objects of His care and love. I have spoken of these, in the general, as “ sinners.” We now get a step further forward--“ sinners of whom I am chief,” or “ first.” II. Having spoken of the gospel itself, I ask your attention now to its recommendation: “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.”1. It is true. The great drawback about many things that are very attractive is that they are not true. You have met with some entertaining volume. It interests you deeply, and lays thorough hold of your heart. You would rather lose a meal, or an afternoon’ s play, or an hour’ s sleep, than lay aside your book. And as you finish the reading of it, with the tear in your eye, and your young heart beating quick, you say, “ That is a fine story, a wonderful story. I have seldom read anything like it.” Ay, but do you know it is not true; it is just “ made up” ; it is all unreal. Sometimes you have pleasant dreams; you are happy as can be; you have gained some object on which your hearts have long been set; but you suddenly wake up, and it is but an empty dream. Friends who have come home from India have told us, that when passing through the desert, they have seen the “ mirage,” with its grassy slopes and graceful trees casting their shadow on the lake beside which they seem to be growing, most beautiful to the eye; but it is only a vision, and in a moment vanishes out of sight. But I have this to say in favour of the wondrous gospel story, that it is true. I wonder if you ever got the length of doubting it? There is an old man who is often to be found in his humble cottage, with his large family Bible spread out before him, always open at the 14th chapter of John. A youth, who is a frequent visitor, coming in to ask for him, says, “ I wonder why you are so often reading these words, when you know them all by heart; I should be for reading what I did not know.” “ Well, master,” is the old man’ s reply, “ you are right enough, I dare say; but it seems to do me good to get a look at the real words; it helps an old man’ s faith, for when I see them, I say, There they be, and I cannot doubt them. You see the thought of a mansion in heaven for an old sinner like me, and my Lord going before to prepare it, and coming back to take me to it--why, it is all so wonderful, that if I could not get a look at the words sometimes, I am afraid I should be just doubting again.” 2. It is trustworthy. Paul tells here that he has tried it, he has made the experiment, and can now recommend it from personal experience. I fear to trust myself on such a slender support, and gaze with dismay upon the abyss below. I look for another way, but there is none. At length I hear a voice from the other side saying, “ The plank bears; I have tried it; I have crossed it; it will bear you; plant your foot firmly on it, and you will get safely across.” I look across, and see a man larger and heavier than myself; and when I see him, I pluck up heart, plant my foot on the plank, and cross in safety; and once I am over, I too can testify, The plank bears; I can say, It is trustworthy; I can give others the benefit of my experience: “ It has saved me, and now I can recommend it to you.” 3. It is all-important. It is worthy of all acceptation, and therefore of all attention. It is no trifling matter. 4. It is welcome-worthy. It is spoken of here as being “ worthy of all acceptation.” “ Oh, that dreary gospel,” I think I hear some one saying, “ I suppose we must needs have to do with it, or we cannot be saved. It is very much like a medicine. I am ill, I must take it, or I shall not recover, but it is bitter and repulsive.” Not so, says Paul; this gospel is “ worthy of all welcome.” I might compare it to those letters from beloved friends, which the arrival of the mail from some distant country brings to us. (J. H. Wilson, M. A.) For whom is the gospel meant I. Even a superficial glance at our Lord’ s mission suffices to show that His work was for the sinful.1. For the descent of the Son of God into this world as a Saviour implied that men needed to be delivered from a great evil by a Divine hand. You would never have seen a Saviour if there had not been a fall. Eden’ s withering was a necessary preface to Gethsemane’ s groaning. 2. If we give a glance at the covenant under which our Lord came, we soon perceive that its bearing is towards guilty men. If there had been no sins and iniquities, and no unrighteousness, then there had been no need of the covenant of grace, of which Christ is the messenger and the ambassador. 3. Whenever we hear the mission of Christ spoken of it is described as one of mercy and of grace. In the redemption which is in Christ Jesus it is always the mercy of God that is extolled--according to His mercy He saved us. 4. The fact is, when we begin to study the gospel of the grace of God we see that it turns its face always towards sin, even as a physician looks towards disease, or as charity looks towards distress. 5. The gospel representations of itself usually look sinner-ward. The great king who makes a feast finds not a guest to sit at the table among those who were naturally expected to come, but from the highways and hedges men are compelled to come in. 6. And ye know that the gospel has always found its greatest trophies amongst the most sinful: it enlists its best soldiers not only from amongst the guilty, but from amongst the most guilty. II. The more closely we look the more clear this fact becomes, for the work of salvation was certainly not performed for any one of us who are saved on account of any goodness in us.1. All the gifts which Jesus Christ came to give, or at least most of them, imply that there is sin. What is His first gift but pardon? How can He pardon a man who has not transgressed? 2. Our Lord Jesus Christ came girded also with Divine power. He says, “ The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.” To what end was He girded with Divine power unless it be because sin had taken all power and strength from man? 3. I will not omit to say that the great deeds of our Lord, if you look at them carefully, all bear upon sinners. Jesus lives; it is that He may seek and save that which is lost. Jesus dies; it is that He may make a propitiation for the sins of guilty men. Jesus rises; He rises again for our justification, and, as I have shown, we should not want justification unless we had been naturally guilty. Jesus ascends on high, and He receives gifts for men; but note that special word, “ Yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God may dwell among them.” 4. And all the gifts and blessings that Jesus Christ has brought to us derive much of their radiance from their bearing upon sinners. It is in Christ Jesus that we are elect, and to my mind the glory of electing love lies in this, that it pitched upon such undeserving objects. III. Now it is evident that it is our wisdom to accept the situation. IV. This doctrine has a great sanctifying influence.1. Its first operation in that direction is this: when the Holy Spirit brings the truth of free pardon home to a man it completely changes his thoughts concerning God. “ What,” says he, “ has God freely forgiven me all my offences for Christ’ s sake? And does He love me notwithstanding all my sin?” 2. Moreover, this grand truth does more than turn a man, it in spires, melts, enlivens, and inflames him. This is a truth which stirs the deeps of the heart, and fills the man with lively emotions. 3. Besides, this truth when it enters the heart deals a deadly blow at the man’ s self-conceit. 4. Moreover, where this truth is received there is sure to spring up in the soul a sense of gratitude. 5. And I think you will all see that free forgiveness to sinners is very conducive towards one part of a true character, namely, readiness to forgive others. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A faithful saying I. Here is a wonderful saying. It was but thirty years since the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ had been preached, yet these words had become a saying, a blessed proverb. It summed up briefly and yet fully the source and purpose of the gospel--its height and depth, its length and breadth. “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Look into it. No such wonderful saying was ever heard in the world before or since. The Jew was willing to believe that the God of Israel could admit into His high presence the holy men to whom He had entrusted some great enterprise, and who had proved themselves worthy of such an exceeding honour. Abraham, Moses, Elijah--for such men God might come in all the majesty of His splendour and commune with them. The Greeks believed that for the gifted and the great, for splendid heroes who had wrought prodigies of valour on the battle-fields or in the games, the gods might stoop to give some token of their favour and protection. That was familiar enough. But that God should care so much for men who had slighted Him, and forgotten Him, and insulted Him, and rebelled against Him! That God should care for coarse, low, ignorant people, whom it was a disgrace to notice, and who were incapable of any goodness! This was ridiculous, worse than merely incredible. To the Greeks such an idea was a folly, to the Jews it was an offence. Yet still more wonderful was the saying--that God, the God of Glory, should come down as a man, should become one of us and one with us, taking upon Himself not only our nature, but our curse--the awful load of the world’ s sin; and that He should bear for us all shame and agony! II. Experience has proved it a faithful saying. The early disciples passed from one to another, setting their seal to its truth, until it came to be supported by a host of witnesses. And since St. Paul wrote that, the great cloud of witnesses has ever been growing. There is nothing in the world to-day that has such testimonies to commend it as this gospel of our salvation. I call up the memory of saintly men and women in my own little native town, dear old souls, many of them poor, but with such purity in their faces, such love in their hearts, such peace in their lives. With others life was a hot and fevered unrest, but about these there was an atmosphere of holy calm. What was it that made them so bright, so happy, so hopeful, that kings might well have envied them? They are ready with the reason--“ It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Go to-day whither you will, north or south, east or west, and find the homes that are happiest, the lives that are sweetest, the souls that are sunniest, the hearts and hands that are most eager and most earnest in helping others--you shall find it amongst those who set their seal to this as true--“ It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Come yet again and stand by the deathbed; that rends the veil from all pretences. I see the face pinched and pale with sickness, yet is it lit up with a brightness as if the eyes did look within the veil. Fear is gone, and all is peace. Bend and listen as the lips are parted for their last utterance. “ It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” My brother, this gospel is no fancy of fanatics; no delusion of the dark ages. Nothing in this world comes to us so hallowed and so commended. Can I find another Christ Jesus? Can I find another salvation which comes with such evidence of its faithfulness as this? Surely it is worth my accepting. I will take for my own that Saviour who has come into the world to save sinners. If this is a faithful saying, then are there three things that do greatly concern us every one.1. If Jesus Christ has come into the world to save us, then we must be in great danger. Whatever is the use of trying to save a man if he is not in any peril! 2. If this be a faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, then surely none but Jesus Christ can save me. My struggles and resolutions cannot avail, or Christ need not have come. 3. If this be a faithful saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, then He has come to save me. If He has come to save sinners He means people who have sinned--real sinners--not good people who call themselves sinners be cause it sounds humble. The desperate cases are those which my Lord ever seeks first of all. Luther tells us, once upon a time the devil said to him, “ Master Luther, thou art a great sinner, and thou wilt be damned.” “ Stop, stop,” I said, “ one thing at a time. I am a great sinner, it is true--though thou hast no right to say so. I confess it. What next? Therefore thou shalt be damned,” quoth he. “ That is not good reasoning,” said I “ It is true that I am a great sinner--but it is written, ‘ Christ Jesus came to save sinners’ : therefore I shall be saved! Now go thy way. So did I cut off the devil with his own sword, and he went away sorrowing, because he could not cast me down by calling me a sinner.” (M. G. Pearse.) Christ’ s power to save I seem to see Saul rising on that road to Damascus, brushing the dust from his cloak, and wiping the perspiration from his excited brow, and then swinging out his hands towards all ages as he cries, “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” In my church in Brooklyn, at the close of the service one day, a man came from the back part of the house and sat down near the pulpit. I saw him waiting, so I came down at the close of the service, and asked him if he would not go in amongst those making inquiry for their souls. He said, “ No, sir; you cannot do me any good. I came from the Far West, but you cannot do me any good. The gospel is not for me--I am a victim of strong drink.” He said, “ I won’ t tell you my name; you know it. I rose to be one of the first men of my State. I have a beautiful wife and beautiful children, but am bringing them all to ruin. I thought if I came here I could be saved; but find I can’ t. Yesterday I was coming down on the Hudson River train. There was a man sitting beside me with a flask of strong drink. He asked me if I would have some of it. I said ‘ No’ ; but, oh, how I wanted it! The arid tongue of the liquor seemed thrusting itself from the side of the cork, and I felt I must fly from that presence. I went to the platform of the train and thought I would jump off; but we were going at the rate of forty miles an hour, and I came back. That thirst is on me, and you cannot do me any good.” I said, “ You do not know the grace of God. Come in here, and we will pray for you.” We prayed for him, and I then went to the drug store, and said to the doctor, “ Can you give this man anything to help him to destroy that thirst?” Well, the physician put up a bottle to help him. I said, “ Give him a little more,” and he put up another bottle. I then said to the man, “ Put your trust in God, and when this paroxysm comes on take your medicine.” He passed away from me into Boston, and was gone from me some weeks, when I got a letter enclosing the small amount of money I had paid for the medicine, and saying, “ Thank God, Mr. Talmage, I have got cured, and the fear of the thirst is put off, and I have not taken any of the medicine. I am preaching every night on righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, in one of our large halls, and I send you two papers to show how the Lord is blessing me.” I have heard from him since, and the Lord has seen him through, and will see him through. Oh, the grace of God! Try! Try it! (T. De Witt Talmage.) The mission of Christ to the worst All the great hereditary and historical religions of mankind, both of the East and the West, are religions designed for morally respect able people, for men who, in their own opinion, are good and deserving persons, or are earning merit and future bliss by trying to become so. That was and is the essence of Bhuddism, of Brahminism, of Laoutsaism, of Islam, and of the natural, philosophical religions of Europe and America. They are the religions of men who “ are going about,” like the Jews of the first century--the Jews of corrupted Judaism, “ to establish their own righteousness” and title to immortal life, or to Nirvana. The genuine Christianity, taught by the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, the one genuine message of the Eternal Creator to the human race, is the one and only religion proposed to, and pressed upon, the wicked. It is sent forth over all the world, as salvation for the lost, as complete and immediate salvation. (E. White.) The sinner’ s door When I began my ministry in Dundee, I had the privilege of meeting many of those who were blessed under the preaching of the sainted Murray M’ Cheyne, I was told of one case of conversion which is rather peculiar. The person was much troubled, his mind was filled with gloomy darkness, and he had no peace nor rest. One day, as M’ Cheyne was preaching to Christians, not to those outside of Christ’ s fold, the man got peace. After the service he went round to the vestry to see the minister, who did not need to inquire if the visitor had got peace, it shone in his face; so he simply asked, “ How did you get it?” He answered, “ All the time I’ ve been trying to enter in at the saints’ door, but while you were speaking I saw my mistake, and entered in at the sinners’ door.” It is the only way; you need not come to God as a saint, or a pretty good sort of a person, but simply as a sinner, wanting and needing salvation. (W. Riddell.) A gospel text Mr. William White, one of the London City Missionaries, relates the following interesting fact: “ Some years ago, through the kindness of the late Joseph Sturge, Esq., of Birmingham, a large grant of copies of The British Workman was made to the London City Mission, a portion of which was allotted for my district. Some time after distributing my share of that grant in my district, I visited a man who was very ill. After some conversation, I said, ‘ Well, my friend, the best news that any one can ever bring you is contained in this text from the Bible, “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”’ His face was immediately lit up with a smile, and raising himself in the bed, he pointed to the patched window and said, “ Oh, sir, I know that already. Look there: that’ s a piece of the paper you once gave me. My wife tore it up, and mended the window with just that piece of it that has that text on it. And since I’ ve laid here, day after day, I’ ve read it over and over till I’ ve got it off by heart.” The City Missionary adds: “ I believe the Holy Spirit made that text on the patched window a blessing to the man’ s soul.” Of whom I am chief.-- The chief sinners objects of the choicest mercy I. The salvation of sinners was the main design of Christ’ s coming into the world. II. God often makes the chiefest sinners objects of His choicest mercy. For the last, that God doth so, observe--1. God hath formerly made invitations to such. See what a black generation they were (Isaiah 50:1-11.) by the scroll of their sins. They were rebels, and rebels against Him that had nursed them: “ I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me” (Isaiah 1:2). He comes to charge them “ laden with iniquity” (verse 4). They had been incorrigible under judgments. "Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more" (Isaiah 1:5). 2. God hath given examples of it in Scripture. Manasseh is an eminent example of this doctrine. His story (2 Chronicles 23:1-21.) represents him as a black devil, if all the aggravations of his sins be considered. (1) It was against knowledge. He had a pious education under a religious father. An education usually leaves some tinctures and impressions of religion. (2) His place and station: a king. Sins of kings are like their robes, more scarlet and crimson than the sins of a peasant. Their example usually, infects their subjects. (3) Restoration of idolatry. (4) Affronting God to His very face. He sets up his idols, as it were, to nose God, and built altars in the house of the Lord, and in the two courts of His temple, whereof God had said He would have His name there for ever (verses 4, 5, 7). (5) Murder. Perhaps of his children, which he caused to pass through the fire as an offering to his idol (verse 6); it may be it was only for purification. “ Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other” (2 Kings 21:16). (6) Covenant with the devil. He used enchantments and witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit (2 Kings 21:6). (7) His other men’ s sins. He did not only lead the people by his example, but compelled them by his commands: “ So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen God had rooted out” (2 Chronicles 23:9), to make room for them. Hereby he contracted the guilt of the whole nation upon himself. (8) Obstinacy against admonitions: “ God spake to him and his people, but they would not hearken, or alter their course” (2 Kings 21:10). (9) Continuance in it. He ascended the throne young, at twelve years old (verse 1). It is uncertain how long he continued in this sin. 3. It was Christ’ s employment in the world to court and gain such kind of creatures. The first thing He did, while in the manger, was to snatch some of the devil’ s prophets out of his service, and take them into His own (Matthew 2:1), some of the Magi, who were astrologers and idolaters. To call sinners to repentance, was the errand of His coming. And He usually delighted to choose such that had not the least pretence to merit (Mark 2:17): Matthew, a publican; Zaccheus, an extortioner, store of that generation of men and harlots, and very little company besides. He chose His attendants out of the devil’ s rabble; and He was more Jesus, a Saviour, among this sort of trash, than among all other sorts of people, for all His design was to get clients out of hell itself. What was that woman that He must needs go out of His way to convert? A harlot (John 4:18), an idolater; for the Samaritans had a mixed worship, a linsey-woolsey religion, and, upon that account, were hateful to the Jews. What was that Canaanitish woman who had so powerful a faith infused? One sprung of a cursed stock, hateful to God, rooted out of the pleasant land, a dog, not a child; she comes a dog, but returns a child. 4. The commission Christ gave to His apostles was to this purpose. He bids them proclaim the promise free to all: “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). All the world; every creature. He put no difference between men in this respect, though you meet with them in the likeness of beasts and devils, never so wicked, never so abominable. This commission is set out by the parable of a king commanding his servants to fetch the maimed, halt, and blind, with their wounds, sores, and infirmities about them (Luke 14:21; Luke 14:23). 5. The practice of the Spirit after Christ’ s ascension to lay hold of such persons. (1) Some out of the worst families in the world; one out of Herod’ s (Acts 13:1), “ Now there were in the Church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.” It is likely to this intent the Holy Ghost takes particular notice of the place of Manaen’ s education, when the families where the rest named with him were bred up are not mentioned. Some rude and rough stones were taken out of Nero’ s palace. Yet some of this monster’ s servants became saints (Philippians 4:22): “ All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’ s household.” To hear of saints in Nero’ s family is as great a prodigy as to hear of saints in hell. (2) Some of the worst vices. The Ephesians were as bad as any, such that Paul calls darkness itself (Ephesians 5:8). Great idolaters. The temple of Diana, adored and resorted to by all Asia and the whole world, was in that city (Acts 19:27). Take a view of another corporation, of Corinth, of as filthy persons as ever you heard of, “ such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Well, then, how many flinty rocks has God dissolved into a stream of tears I Great sins are made preparations by God to some men’ s conversion; not in their own nature (that is impossible), but by the wise disposal of God, which Mr. Burgess illustrates thus: as a child whose coat is but a little dirty has it not presently washed; but when he comes to fall over head and ears in the mire, it is taken off, and washed immediately. So when a wicked man falls into some grievous sin, which his conscience frowns upon him and lashes him for, he looks out for a shelter, which in all his peaceable wickedness he never did. III. Why God chooses the greatest sinners, and lets His elect run on so far in sin before He turns them.1. There is a passive disposition in the greatest sinners, more than in moral or superstitious men, to see their need; because they have not any self-righteousness to boast of. This self-righteous temper is like an external heat got into a body, which produceth an hectic fever, and is not easily perceived till it be incurable; and naturally it is a harder matter to part with self-righteousness than to part with gross sins, for that is more deeply rooted upon the stock of self-love, a principle which departs not from us without our very nature; it hath more arguments to plead for it, it hath a natural conscience, a patron of it; whereas a great sinner stands speechless at reproofs, and a faithful monitor has a good second and correspondent of natural conscience within a man’ s own breast. Just as travellers that have loitered away their time in an alehouse, being sensible how the darkness of the night creeps upon them, spur on, and outstrip those that were many miles on their way, and get to their stage before them; so these publicans and harlots, which were at a great distance from heaven, arrived there before those, who like the young man, were not far off from it. As metals of the noblest substance are hardest to be polished, so men of the most generous, natural, and moral endowments are with more difficulty argued into a state of Christianity than those of more drossy conversations. 2. To show the insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, that men may not fall down and idolize their own wit and power. Two things are certain in nature: (1) Natural inclinations never change, but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron while that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature; water cannot but moisten, fire cannot but burn; so likewise the corrupt nature of man, being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents; and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man’ s own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel. (2) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature hath placed it in. A spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason, nor a man make himself an angel. It is Christ’ s conclusion, “ How can you, being evil, speak good things?” (Matthew 12:33-34). Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures than a viper can cashier his poison. Now, though this I have said be true, yet there is nothing man does more affect in the world than a self-sufficiency and an independency upon any other power but his own. This temper is as much riveted in his nature as any other false principle whatsoever; for man does derive it from his first parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature. If a putrefied rotten carcase should be brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world that we are unable to do anything of ourselves at first towards our recovery without a superior principle. The evidence of which will appear if we consider-- 1. Man’ s subjection under sin. He is “ sold under sin” (Romans 7:14), and brought into captivity to “ the law of sin “ (verse 23); law of sin, that sin seems to have a legal authority over him; and man is not only a slave to one sin, but divers(Titus 1:3), “ serving divers lusts.” 2. Man’ s affection to them. Pie doth not only serve them, but he serves them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure (Titus 3:3). They were all pleasures as well as lusts, friends as well as lords. Will any man leave his voluptuousness, and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? No piece of dirty muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one; nor a man that is born blind give himself eyes. IV. God’ s regard for His own glory.1. The glory of His patience. We wonder, when we see a notorious sinner, how God can let His thunders still lie by Him, and His sword rust in His sheath. “ I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man” (Hosea 11:9). If a man did inherit all the meekness of all the angels and all the men that ever were in the world, he could not be able to bear with patience the extravagances and injuries done in the world the space of one day; for none but a God, i.e., one infinitely longsuffering, can bear with them. Not a sin passed in the world before the coming of Christ in the flesh but was a commendatory letter of God’ s forbearance, “ To declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:25). This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 1:16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy.Praise for salvation The narration of personal experience may be very helpful to those who are wanting instruction or sympathy. Men are better able to grasp truth in the concrete than in the abstract. To see a sinner saved from sin is more helpful than to read of salvation. No one recognized this more clearly, or acted on it more wisely, than Paul; and some of the most instructive parts of his Epistles are those in which he recounts his own religious experience. We may similarly help others, especially our own children, and those who are within the sacred circle of friendship; but the narration of experience may be as harmful as beneficial, if it becomes frequent or formal. There is danger of egotism, till our own personality covers the whole horizon of our thought. There is risk of affected singularity, as if we wished to be distinguished from others and considered superior to them. Referring to himself he says-- I. That salvation came to one most undeserving. “ Chief of sinners though I am,” he exclaims, “ I obtained mercy,” “ that in me,” in the very depths of my nature, in my whole future destiny, Jesus Christ might “ show forth all long-suffering.” II. That his conversion was a pattern for all the future. III. That such conversion should express itself in praise to God is evident from the noble doxology which follows--“ Now unto the King eternal, immortal, incorruptible, invisible, the only (wise) God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Paul was always ready for a song of praise, and could sing as heartily in prison at Philippi as at the prayer-meeting beside its river. It is not often that God is spoken of as “ King,” and the expression rendered by our translators “ the King eternal,” but more correctly in the margin of the Revised Version “ King of the Ages,” is quite peculiar to this verse. What a helpful assurance this is that our God, our Saviour, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the supreme Lord of all the successive ages which stretch from the forgotten past into the infinite future; that He controls all stages of development in the natural realm, in the creation and dissolution of worlds, and in the kingdom of grace! (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Saul of Tarsus obtaining mercy I. Let us consider this mercy in reference to himself.1. In the first place, the mercy which he obtained pardoned all his sins. His sins, numerous and aggravated as they were, instead of being visited with deserved punishment, were all forgiven. The hand of mercy blotted out his iniquities as a cloud, and his transgressions as a thick cloud, so that in his own condition the promise of God to the penitent was fulfilled, “ I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” How complete and efficacious is the pardon which the penitent transgressor never fails to receive when he confesses his iniquities and cries, “ Lord, save me, or I perish” ! 2. The mercy which he obtained renewed and sanctified his heart and character. By this Divine and sanctifying illumination an entire change was effected in his sentiments, and feelings, and character; and though no new faculties were imparted to his mind, yet the original faculties of his mind received a new impulse and direction. His mind acquired new associations of ideas; new trains of thought and feeling; new views of himself, and of Christ, and of religion in general; so that he began to love what he once hated, and to hate what he once loved, and to declare, as the result of his own experience, “ If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” How warm and constant was his love to Christ, whose mercy he had obtained! “ Many waters could not quench it, neither could the floods drown it.” With what tender and earnest compassion did his spirit yearn over those who wilfully rejected the mercy which he had obtained, and which, in his estimation, was infinitely valuable! “ Of whom,” says he, “ I have told you often, and I now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.” How entirely was he devoted to the work in which he was engaged! What steady and unflinching fortitude and magnanimity he manifested, in the midst of all the afflictions and persecutions he endured! “ None of these things move me,” said he. And yet what deep humility was associated with all his holy excellencies, and his abundant usefulness! He was “ not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.” II. Consider this same mercy in reference to Jesus Christ. For He was its source and giver, and by Him was this apostle constituted a “ vessel of mercy, and a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master’ s use.” And if such a character as Paul’ s was formed by Christ, what, think you, must be His own character? If Paul was the workmanship of Christ, what, think you, must be the skill, and purity, and power of the heavenly Architect? There was much in the character of Paul that was great, and much in it that was glorious; but every attribute of his greatness and every beam of his glory was derived from Christ.1. In the first place, the mercy which Jesus Christ exercised towards him was long-suffering mercy. “ In me,” says he, “ Jesus Christ hath showed forth all long-suffering.” And in him it was indeed shown most evidently and extensively. Why did not flames from heaven descend, and consume him to ashes? Why?--for the same reason that they have not yet fallen upon you. “ Because He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2. The mercy which Jesus Christ exercised towards him was sovereign mercy. And so far was he from even expecting it, that his thoughts and affections were fully occupied in anticipating the havoc which he intended to make in the church at Damascus. Such was his character up to the very moment when the persecuted Saviour met him in the way. And yet, though he neither deserved this mercy nor desired it, nor expected it, he most abundantly obtained it, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. No reason, I apprehend, can be assigned, by us at least, why he should be converted at all, or why his conversion should take place at that time, and under those circumstances, except “ the good pleasure” of the Saviour’ s will. “ Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.” 3. The mercy which Jesus Christ exercised towards him was efficacious mercy; for it came to him, “ not in word only, but in power.” If ever any case of depravity and crime appeared to be invincible and desperate, this was the case. III. Consider this mercy in reference to ourselves and to sinners in general. The apostle further says in our text, that the mercy which he obtained at his conversion was intended to render him “ a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Christ to life everlasting.”1. In the first place, this pattern shows us that the conversion and salvation of a sinner’ s soul is effected by Divine mercy. Yes, throughout the whole work of man’ s redemption by the incarnation and sufferings of Christ, and throughout the pardon, and sanctification and spiritual progress of every saved sinner, mercy, sweet mercy reigns. Mercy determined on our salvation in the ages of eternity, and provided a Saviour for us in the fulness of time. Mercy arrests the sinner in his course, and enlightens his mind, and softens his heart and teaches him to pray, and enables him to be faithful even unto death. And mercy opens for him the gates of the celestial city, and conducts him to the throne, and places on his head the crown of everlasting life. 2. In the second place, this pattern shows us the ability and willingness of Christ to show mercy to the greatest sinners, who repent and believe His gospel. 3. This pattern shews what a believer may become through the Saviour’ s mercy.(J. Alexander.) The character and conversion of Saul of Tarsus Judgment and mercy are to be our songs in the house of our pilgrimage; and judgment and mercy are the chief subjects of God’ s Word. In one page of that Word we read of God’ s destroying the world with a deluge--in the other, of saving Noah and eight persons in the ark. In one page we read of His giving up the nations of the earth to the basest idolatry--in the other, of His calling Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and bidding him separate himself in mercy from them. In one page we read of His destroying the cities of the plain, and the inhabitants with them--in the other, of His rescuing Lot and his family lest he should be devoured in the coming devastation. God’ s wisdom and love are surprisingly manifest in these portions of Holy Writ, and in thus setting before us judgment and mercy. Some are monuments of His wrath, to alarm, arouse, and convict the impenitent, hardened, and profligate sinner; while others are monuments of His grace, His free mercy, and His sovereign love, to, show how boundless it is in its extent, and to animate penitent sinners to come to the same source from whence these individuals obtained so large a share. The apostle tells us that his conversion was “ a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on Christ to life everlasting.” Is there any one supposing that his sins are too peculiar and too aggravated to find mercy? I call upon him now to look at the peculiar case presented, at the specimen of the divine workmanship here brought to his view. It is to be held up as “ a pattern,” to show the vast and boundless extent of the grace of God in the conversion of the sinner, and the plenitude of the mercy of Christ in its extending to the utmost bounds of a sinner’ s guilt. Those of us who have believed through grace, ought to find our minds refreshed by looking at these patterns which God has set up in His Word. I. The sinfulness of saul’ s life before his conversion.1. He was a horrid blasphemer. “ I verily thought,” he says, “ that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; which things I also did in Jerusalem.” His name was like poison to his very soul; he never spoke of Him but with the most daring impiety; he would never examine the evidences of His mission, never look to the prophecies of olden time, never examine the types which the prophets represent and set forth of the great Messiah who was hereafter to come: but he took it for granted that He was an impostor, and he treated Him as such. He was a man of great learning, and he turned all his learning to despise his Saviour. He insulted Him and His disciples, and as far as lay in him he was determined that the name of Christ should never be known in the world, but as a name of execration fit only for the mouths of swearers and blasphemers. This was his determination. 2. He was a furious persecutor as well as a blasphemer. Whoever professed the name of Jesus Christ was the object of his inveterate rage. But let us trace the gross features in his character as a persecutor, in order to discover the strength of his enmity to Jesus Christ and His disciples. (1) He tells us that he was “ exceedingly mad against them.” And in Acts 9:1, there is a peculiar phrase used: “ Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter.” You have seen a man in a great passion; the passion affects his breathing, so that he breathes out his words; he cannot utter them with that coolness, and conciseness, and readiness, which he does when he is quite free from passion; but he breathes them out; it seems to affect all his powers. This is the exact metaphor used in the words of the passage: “ breathing out.” He was “ exceedingly mad against them” : not only angry, but mad; and not only mad, but exceedingly mad. (2) He threatened them with “ slaughter.” His tongue was a servant which he employed in the devil’ s service to a vast extent; he used the most desperate threats to these poor individuals, these lamb-like persons, of confiscation, of imprisonment, and even of slaughter. (3) He “ compelled them to blaspheme.” And methinks this is the cream of his defilement, that he was not content to be an infidel himself, that he was not content to degrade Christ himself, but he made this the price of being let loose from his grasp, that they should deny Christ, that they should forswear Christ, that they should give up Christ, and that they should sever themselves for ever from Christ. (4) He “ haled men and women to prison” : not only men but women. Their sex might have excused them and pleaded for pity; but that was nothing to him; women were no more regarded than men: his bowels were shut against the mother with the child at her bosom; she might plead them--it was of no use. (5) Look at another point of his character: “ many of the saints did he shut up in prison” ; not one family, but many, numbers; all within his own reach or power--he not only took them before the magistrates, but “ shut them up in prison.” And mark what he also tells us in Acts 26:1-32; he was not content with his rage exerting itself in Jerusalem, but he persecuted them “ even unto strange cities.” He extended this madness of persecution not only to Jerusalem and its suburbs, but to strange cities, cities that he had no connection with, and among whose inhabitants he had no need to go; only if there was a saint there, if there was one who named the name of Jesus there, that would bring him to that city. (6) He “ caused them to be put to death,” and triumphed over them in their sufferings. Acts 26:10. This was the character of Saul previous to his conversion. I do not know whether there is a persecutor present; of course I could not suppose that there is such a persecutor as Saul was. God be thanked that in happy Britain the government of the country would not allow it, or else the spirit, in numbers, is the same. But I refer to that man whose wife has just begun to be serious; he does not take a razor and cut her throat; he does not shoot her with a pistol; he does not drag her before a magistrate; but everything that can embitter her life, everything that can cross and aggravate her temper--this he does; and in this manner he persecutes her because she prays for him, because she loves Christ, and serves Him, and delights in His service. Art thou here, O man? Look at the spirit of the individual whom I present before you this evening, and see yourself, and hate yourself while you look at it. 3. He was not only a furious persecutor, but he was an injurious neighbour. He himself tells us this: “ Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious “ : that is, he never did any real good; that is, he never sought God’ s glory, or his fellow creatures’ true happiness: he would not only not enter in himself, but he would not let others enter in. How many widows did this man make! How many orphans did he make! How many hearts did he break! How much poverty did he occasion! 4. There was another point in his character: he was a proud Pharisee. This may appear light to some, but this was the crown of his character, this is the greatness of his guilt; this is (if I may use the expression) his scarlet and his crimson sin--that he went about to set up and establish his own righteousness, not submitting himself to the righteousness of God. “ Publicans and harlots,” says our Saviour, “ enter into the kingdom of heaven before them.” Now there are many individuals who are similar to Saul. We hear numbers say, “ I am not a liar; I am not a drunkard; I pay my way; I live respectably in the world, and endeavour to train up my children respectably; and if I don’ t go to heaven, who ought to go?” And where is Christ, and where is the Saviour of sinners? “ Yes, but then,” you say, “ I know I have done wrong in many things; we are all guilty in some respects: but then I have never been a great sinner, and I do hope that if I do as well as I can, the Lord Jesus Christ will help me, and give me some of His merit that I may die in peace.” Now this, though not uttered in such plain and direct language, is often implied, and is the meaning of thousands of sinners. II. The free grace of Christ exhibited in his conversion. Perceive how his conversion was effected by Christ. Imagine yourselves in Jerusalem a few minutes, and see Saul just as he is setting out on his journey to Damascus, for the sake of persecuting the poor saints in that city. See him mount his horse; see the numbers around him--what a splendid guard the man has. Look at the Sanhedrim, the chief priests and the great men of his nation coming to him, shaking hands with him, and saying, “ God speed your way, and give you the success of your mission” : look how the people are congratulating him all around. See the poor saints trembling. “ Now,” they say, “ I fear for the safety of my sister, who has gone to Damascus. Now is my dear friend who lives in that city about to be butchered by this furious tyrant.” See the people all running to John Mark’ s house, to engage in prayer, and bring down the blessing of heaven, that this man be stopped in his persecution; and going home to write letters, to prevent, if possible, the danger to which some of their friends and relations will be subject by this man’ s arrival. Never man thought himself more secure; never man thought he was going on a more virtuous embassy; and he had pretty nearly reached Damascus, he was within sight of the gates; and just as he was going forward, and some of the saints perhaps looking out of the windows, seeing him advancing, and trembling for fear of his entry--just as he approached the gate, the Lord Jesus Christ opened a window in heaven, and let one single ray of His glory fall down from heaven upon him. This was the manner of his conversion; now let us see what effect did his conversion produce? What effect did it produce on the spot? It turned proud Saul into humble Paul: he that was raging with madness against the disciples, was now trembling and astonished for himself. See what it did for him the three days afterwards. The light that came from heaven had taken away his natural sight, but how it had illuminated his mind. How great his anguish now he saw his past life! Oh, the grace that could soften such a heart, melt such a mind! But see what his conversion did for him in after days. And here mark, there was not only grace to make him a Christian, but there was grace to make him a minister: he was not only taken from the world as the Church are, but he was taken from the Church as Aaron was, and made a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now let us see him in his ministry. What was the subject of it? “ I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” And he went and preached boldly before kings, and rulers, and magistrates, and assemblies of different classes, the glories of his Saviour, and the triumphs of His grace. Oh, the labours of this man! Oh, the prayers of this man! Oh, the zeal of this man! Oh, the melting pity of this man over lost souls! Oh, the subjugating power of Divine grace, and the influence of Divine love! III. The design of christ in his conversion. I know not which to admire most, the sovereignty and grace of Christ in converting him, or the sovereignty and grace of Christ in exhibiting his conversion as a pattern to others, as an example from which they might take encouragement as long as time should last.1. Here is the pattern of the infinite merit of Christ’ s death. The atonement of Christ reaches back to the first sin, and extends itself to the last: “ He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “ He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.” 2. The unquestionable willingness of Christ’ s heart. 3. You here see the great design of Christ’ s gospel. Why is the gospel published? This is the pattern. To show you the great design of Christ’ s gospel--that is to encourage the souls of sinners to come to Him and be saved. 4. Again: look here and see the pattern of the renovating power of Christ’ s grace. Oh, how it changes the hearts and lives of sinners! In one of my village stations, a little time ago, I looked in at a cottage, and inquired of a poor woman there how things were going with herself and family. She said, “ Oh, sir, I have more reason to bless God for the gospel than I can tell you. When we first came to this cottage, both my husband and myself were drunkards, our children were but barely clothed, and everything we had in the world was marked by the extremest poverty and misery; but now, instead of that, the Lord laid hold of my husband’ s heart first, then He was pleased to convert me by the preaching at the place of worship; and now the children are blessed, and I am blessed, and we are all happy together.” And now you will see her one of the most respectable women in the village, with a little money in the savings’ bank: on the Sunday all the children are catechised, and the husband delights to read and pray with his wife and children. Is not this an exhibition of the renovating power of Christ’ s grace? And this is not a solitary instance: you yourselves know instances like this in the neighbourhoods wherein you reside, where Christ’ s renovating power has been manifested. You are to look at this for a pattern if you are ever downcast for any individual. Here see what the power of Christ’ s grace can do. In the first place, corruption has a power over the individual, and makes him a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious, and a Pharisee: and now the grace that has renovated his heart makes him a humble seeker of the Saviour, a zealous disciple of Christ, an anxious neighbour, desirous of the good of others, and pondering the way to heaven, and walking in it. (J. Sherman.) Salvation for the chief of sinners I. The fact which is here asserted by St. Paul. “ I obtained mercy.” II. The use which St. Paul makes of this great fact in his history. St. Paul speaks here of his conversion, not only in its reference to himself, but also in its reference to others. Perhaps more than any person that ever lived St. Paul lived for others; perhaps more than any person that ever lived St. Paul was the most useful to others. It was a great fact for himself; it brought Salvation to his soul, and he rejoiced in God for it. But it was a great fact for the world. Two things are especially, I think, to be noted in St. Paul’ s conversion. The one is its distinctness--it was a very marked conversion. His life was very decided before it and very decided after it. He was a prominent character, a well-known man, and it was a very distinct and a very decided conversion; but it is not upon that which he dwells in our text. There was another thing to be noted about the conversion of St. Paul, that it afforded a very wonderful exhibition and illustration of the long-suffering of Jesus Christ. The other apostles had been called by the Lord Jesus-Christ to serve and follow Him from a life of innocence, comparatively speaking, at all events from a life that was void of any opposition to Him. (E. Bayley, M. A.) Paul an example of mercy I. The improbability of Paul’ s obtaining mercy. “ Howbeit, I obtained mercy.” II. The mercy which, notwithstanding the improbability of the case, Paul did receive.1. It was sovereign in its source. Whence did it spring? Through what medium did it flow? Human merit could have nothing to do in the gift of mercy to the chief of sinners. Mercy always excludes merit, and most evidently so in the instance before us. 2. It was great in its degree. We estimate the greatness of mercy by the guilt of the offender, and by the effects it produces. 3. It was boundless in its blessings. Hear the elevated sentiment of this apostle, writing to the Ephesians: “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” ; blessings of the best kind; blessings adapted to the nature and necessities of the soul; blessings that are from heaven, that lead to heaven, that bring us into intimate connection with heavenly realities, and that are durable as their eternal enjoyment. It is the observation of a late author, Though God is sovereign in the bestowment of mercy, He is not niggardly. He goes beyond the humbled sinner’ s highest expectation. Where he looked for a single drop, there descends the copious shower. Where he hoped to receive the alms of one mite, he finds the collected treasures of a thousand ages, the great mountain of solid gold. III. The DESIGN of its bestowment.1. It was to illustrate Divine long-suffering. 2. It was to promote human encouragement. We here behold its majesty, its energy, and its triumph. (T. Kidd.) On patterns in religion Some men speak only of a salvation which they have heard of from others. Some teach others a salvation which they have experienced themselves. Paul was the chief of these. This personal element runs through all his writings. The stream of his teaching sprang at first, and still springs, from the fountain depths of his own soul, and it was, therefore, a living stream, like the river in Ezekiel’ s prophecy, which deepened as it flowed and healed wherever its waters descended. God had fulfilled to him the words, “ The water that I shall give him shall be within him a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life.” The point which comes before us to-day is this--his salvation ended not in himself, it was a pattern to encourage all other sinners to trust in the like forgiving mercy. We are very dependent on fashions and patterns in all parts of our life, to assist our labours, to stimulate our energies, to encourage our hopes. Examples act upon us more powerfully than arguments. Happy the Church which can say to all around, not only “ Believe the Gospel,” but “ See what it has done for us!--that it has given us peace with God, a new and nobler life within, of thought, of design, of love, of hope, of action. Come with us, and we will do you good.” The best recommendation of a remedy, and of teaching, is its visible effect on ourselves. Let us see, by looking more closely into the history of St. Paul, how remarkably he was a typical pattern of salvation by Christ in all its stages and developments from first to last. I. In his call. This was a supernatural and gracious work of God, brought about by an act above and beyond all ordinary moral laws. The act of placing saving truth before us as a heavenly vision is always the act of God alone, in His providence and grace. It is the result of a purpose of God, a call. Men do not discover truth savingly by mere study or experiment, as they find out the secrets of nature. Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. It is the Spirit who says to Philip on behalf of the Treasurer, “ Draw nigh to this chariot,” and opens to him the book of Esaias the prophet. If you have been visited with a view of the reality of Jesus Christ as your Saviour, this has been the act of God. “ Of Him are all things.” So it was with Saul of Tarsus. II. Paul’ s life is a pattern of arbitrary and sovereign selection to special spiritual advantages and special appointments--the result of an everlasting purpose of God. He is a chosen vessel to Me to bear My name before kings and peoples--a splendidly embossed golden vase in which sweet odours of truth shall be burned before all nations. The world is full of such special and individual destinations that can be traced to no other source than the special will of God. Thus, too, some nations, as Israel of old, and now the Saxon race. Yet this Divine predestination is quite consistent with man’ s ultimate freedom. The predestinations of God do not enslave, but liberate and energize the will of man. “ He worketh in us--to will.” The will is ours, the inspiration is God’ s. “ I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” But the special vocations of God’ s servants are not for their own private and personal behoof. They look toward the profit of many, that they may be saved. If Paul is the chosen vessel, it is that he may “ preach the Gospel to every creature.” “ To make all men see the fellowship of the mystery.” III. St. Paul was a pattern in his pardon. “ In him first Jesus Christ showed forth all long-suffering,” to encourage others, though vile as he, to wash in the same life-giving fountain. We need other and nearer patterns. And they abound around us. Would that some whose experience is large and exact, and who have seen into the secret of the salvation of many different kinds of souls, would write for us a variety of biographies to serve as encouraging patterns, suited to modern contemporary society. It seems useless to tell the modern young man, whose form of alienation from God, his heavenly Father, is not that of a cruel persecutor, that he may take courage to trust in the mercy of God from the example of St. Paul. It does not touch him. A pattern of modem spiritual life that sprang out of a modern callousness and love of trifling amusements, just like his own, is what he requires. Tell them of such “ patterns” as these, and they prove very helpful. God reveals Himself in many ways in nature, and Christ reveals Himself in many ways in the spiritual providence--not by books only, much less by sermons only--but by lives, somewhat akin to our own, and likely to move and touch and animate us by their example in kindred spheres of action. And so with women, and young women. The “ patterns” which are likely to affect them, in a way to draw them to Christ, in closer love, are not those set before us in “ Foxe’ s Book of Martyrs,” where men had to burn at Smithfield for denying transubstantiation, at the behests of Mary Tudor and her bishops. They must be drawn from nearer home and from our own day. And such “ patterns” of loving and noble lives, inspired with tender compassion, and industrious obedience, and diligent zeal in home duties are so numerous nowadays that a girl must live in a very heathenish circle if she knows of none which can help her to serve her Saviour. Let us not be so blind as to see no transfigurations of character except in the dead. There are around us not a few who shine already in the garments of immortality; who can be depended on for truth, for gentleness, for industry, for serious tenderness, and for active sympathy; and whose uplifted faces already gleam with the reflected light of that city of the living God to which they are moving upwards. But when all is said of the helpfulness of patterns of salvation in aiding us to believe and love the Lord, it remains true that earthly lives are but patterns of things in the heavens, and not “ the very image of the things.” They serve but as the shadows of the heavenly realities. They are but prophecies of a more glorious dawn. For the end is not yet, and when that which is perfect is come, that which is imperfect shall be done away. “ Then shall I be satisfied when I wake up in Thy likeness.” (E. White.) Paul’ s conversion a pattern I. In the conversion of Paul the Lord had an eye to others, The fact of his conversion and the mode of it--1. Would tend to interest and convince other Pharisees and Jews. 2. Would be used by himself in his preaching as an argument to convert and encourage others. 3. Would encourage Paul as a preacher to hope for others. 4. Would become a powerful argument with him for seeking others. 5. Would, long after Paul’ s death, remain on record to be the means of bringing many to Jesus. II. In his entire life Paul speaks to others.1. In sin. His conversion proves that Jesus receives great sinners. 2. In grace. He proved the power of God to sanctify and preserve. III. In his whole case he presents a cartoon of others.1. As to God’ s longsuffering to him. In his case longsuffering was carried to its highest pitch. Longsuffering so great that all the patience of God seemed to be revealed in his one instance. Longsuffering which displayed itself in many ways, so as to let him live when persecuting saints; to allow him the possibility of pardon; to call him effectually by grace; to give him fulness of personal blessing; to put him into the ministry and send him to the Gentiles; to keep and support him even unto the end. 2. As to the mode of his conversion. He was saved remarkably, but others will be seen to be saved in like manner if we look below the surface of things. Saved without previous preparation on his own part; saved at once out of darkness and death; saved by Divine power alone; saved by faith wrought in him by God’ s own Spirit; saved distinctly, and beyond all doubt. Are we not also saved in precisely the same way? (C. H. Spurgeon.) The Divine mercy unlimited John Newton, speaking of the sudden death of Robinson, of Cambridge, in the house of Dr. Priestly, said: “ I think Dr. Priestly is out of the reach of human conviction; but the Lord can convince him. And who can tell but this unexpected stroke may make some salutary impression upon his mind? I can set no limits to the mercy or the power of our Lord, and therefore I continue to pray for him. I am persuaded he is not farther from the truth now than I was once.” (S. Charnock.) Encouragement from the case of St. Paul I have heard it said of the elephant, that sometimes before he crosses a bridge he puts his trunk, and perhaps one foot, upon it; he wants to know if it is quite safe, for he is not going to trust his bulky body to things that were built only for horses and men. Well, after he has tried it, if he finds it strong enough, away he goes, and his great carcase is carried right across the stream. Now, suppose you and I sat on the other side, and said we were afraid the bridge would not bear us! Why, how absurd our unbelief would be. So when you see a great elephantine sinner, like the apostle Paul, go lumbering over the bridge of mercy, and not a timber creaks, and the bridge does not even strain under the load, why, then methinks, you may come rushing in a crowd, and say, “ It will bear us if it will bear him; it will carry us across, if it can take the chief of sinners to heaven!” ( C. H. Spurgeon.) John Newton’ s conversion I have never doubted the power of God to convert the heathen world since He converted me. (J. Newton.) An encouraging reflection It is no small encouragement to a sick man, to hear of some that have been cured of the same disease as his own, and that in a higher degree of prevalence. (J. Flavel.) 1 Timothy 1:17 Now unto the King eternal The King of the Ages “ The King eternal,” or, literally, as in the margin of the Revised Version, “ The King of the Ages,” words which do not simply tell us something about the King, but also give us some account of His rule; and put into the hands of Faith a key to the highest positions of modern thought and science. For in all their realms--of matter, mind, and spirit--there is one common element, viz., Law. Whether we look around us, or within, order and rule are being ever more clearly and universally demonstrated. But the Christian attitude is becoming more candid; and now accepts, or is learning to accept the truth of a widespread reign of law with less of fear than of gratitude. For is not this state of order and harmony just what we should expect in His working whose Being is the perfect harmony? For while we know this as an age of Law, and are sometimes perplexed by its inexorableness, the thoughtful mind asks: “ Have all the ages been as ordered? In the world of spirit and of matter have there not been whole epochs of distraction and ravage by undisciplined forces? For example, does not the earth on which we tread, bear in her very structure the record of ages of confusion and chaos, darkness and death? when lawlessness, not law, seemed to rule? when, so far as we can judge, there was no guiding thought, no ruling hand? In fact, does not the same defiance of law meet us today in the earthquake? Is law universal or only widespread?” But the deeper readings of science assure us that it is not only the quiet processes which gladden the eye and heart that have their ordered course. The silent and regular development through blade and ear to the full corn, is not more determined and invariable than is the dread convulsion that entombs its thousands; and it was through the exercise of unyielding law that that strife was wrought which has made the structure of our earth what we find it. This decided every event and ordered all the disorder of those ages of seeming unrule. And shall we not take the comfort the spiritual reading of this truth can give? For it is not only in the world of matter such a record of strife and confusion is written. In the brief history of our race there is the same tale in human characters. What is the meaning of such scenes as the French Revolution, for example? Are they the rough sport of unruled passion? Is there nothing determining their methods or moulding their results? What if that struggle and ruin, decay and destruction were the working and manifestation of a Divine health and order, casting away that which it could not assimilate and arrange? the removing of those things which could be shaken that those things which could not be shaken might remain? And these words, which speak of a “ King” of the Ages, tell us why. They point to its source--to One who makes and administers that law, who is in and yet above it. But the faith of a Divine rule of each separate age is not enough. The heart of man craves something more than even such a confidence. There is inwrought into our very being a longing for Unity; and the words we are now considering justify this instinct, and pledge its fulfilment. For we are assured that, if He is “ King of the Ages” in any adequate sense, they are bound together by the strong band of His will, which gives to them its own oneness and intimacy. They are no longer isolated units, but parts of a whole; and it is as a whole and not simply as units they are subjected. As the successive points of a circle stand in harmonious relation, not only to their common centre, hut through this to each other; so the ages, which make one mighty cycle, having but one Lord and one law, stand related amongst themselves with an inner harmony as deep and true as their hearts. And not only so. There is more than this close relation and perfect agreement between the ages. If this were all it would leave unfulfilled another instinctive craving of the heart--that of Progress and Consummation. But these words which speak of the “ King of the Ages” tell us there is one supreme will and word which they obey--one harmonious thought, which being the King’ s thought, must be a growing and deepening one. There is but little appearance of all this at times. Judging only of the part we see--that displayed on the earth and amidst ourselves--is not the show of things rather that of age at war with age? A backward movement, in which much that has been hardly won through centuries is easily lost in a moment? But it is only as the flow of the tide rolling inland, which surely advances, though seeming to recede; receding but to rally its forces and sweep onward to larger conquests. One perfect plan is being achieved, in many times and many ways indeed; yet in all, and through all, God is ever fulfilling Himself. Let us not, then, be troubled as though the issue is or could be uncertain, or the plan be marred. Trust--not only for the ages gone and the ages to come; but what is harder, for the age that now is. The “ King of the Ages” is Himself invisible; He is not, therefore, less King. Nor is His kingdom less real because its presence is silent and unsuspected. For there are latent glories in this rule of the “ King of the Ages” ; a glorious mystery which was hidden from the ages and generations until the “ fulness of the time,” when the “ Word became flesh and tabernacled amongst men,” whose humanity He thus united with Deity, that He might reconcile man, and in man, all creation unto God. (A. A. Dauncey.) King immortal Queen Elizabeth was once seized with a violent illness, accompanied with high fever. The Privy Council was hastily summoned from London, and in the ante-chamber of the room where she was believed to be dying, they sat with blank faces, discussing who was to be her successor. In the morning the worst symptoms abated, and in a few days she was convalescent. Our Monarch can have no successor. He is “ alive for evermore,” and of His kingdom there can be no end. (H. O. Mackey.) 1 Timothy 1:18 This charge I commit unto thee.Timothy’ s charge and warning The “ charge” to which Paul alludes does not refer to what he said in the third and fifth verses, but points on to what follows--to that good warfare which Timothy was summoned to undertake against evil. I. The chance, of which Timothy was reminded--1. Had been indicated by inspired prophets in the Church. Very significantly Paul says these prophecies “ went before on thee” ; that is, they were not only uttered upon, or over him, but they went forth “ before” him in his future course, revealing it and inspiring him to follow it--just as the consciousness of having a courier in front would direct and encourage the traveller. Hence Paul adds that “ by them,” or in them, Timothy might wage a “ good warfare” ; he was to feel like one clothed and armed in those prophetic hopes, in those believing prayers. And do not we know something of this? No man has ever done great work in the world unless he has a deep moral conviction that he is predestined to do it; and this was never exemplified better than in General Gordon, who, in more than one campaign, felt that he was invincible and resistless till his work was done. And in our lowlier spheres we should be the more watchful, earnest, and hopeful, because others have had great hopes about us, and because we have been set apart to be God’ s servants by many an act of dedication. It is a great thing to have prophecies going before us, and the prayers of dear ones encircling us so that in them we may war a good warfare. 2. For this charge involved conflict. 3. And for success in this warfare “ faith and a good conscience” are essential. “ Faith,” without a” good conscience,” is like a garrison summoned to defend one gate of the fortress, while a traitor is opening the other gate to relentless foes. This leads the apostle to give Timothy-- II. The warning which is contained in the last two verses.1. He speaks of some who had put away a good conscience, stifling its voice and thrusting it from them, with this result, that they had made shipwreck of faith. And this experience has often repeated itself in the history of the Church. Balaam put away a “ good conscience” when he paltered with his convictions to his soul’ s undoing. Saul, the king, did so when he disobeyed the distinct command of God, until he was no longer able to hear the Divine voice and resorted to the witch of Endor. Judas Iscariot did so when he resisted the promptings of the Holy Spirit and betrayed his Lord and Master; and in each case the sacrifice of conscience brought about “ the shipwreck of faith.” May God keep us undefiled, that we may never make shipwreck of faith! 2. Examples of this are pointed out to Timothy: “ Hymenaeus and Alexander.” The latter was a very common name, so that we cannot confidently identify this man with “ Alexander, the coppersmith,” who, Paul declares, in the Second Epistle, did him much evil; but Hymeneus was so uncommon a name that we may be sure it was he of whom the apostle says, in the Second Epistle, that he and Philetus were in grievous error, denying the doctrine of the resurrection, and declaring that it was past already. A blunted conscience evidently accompanied a darkened mind. 3. Paul did what he could to save and “ warn them, saying of them,” Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” A difficult passage, chiefly because we know so little of apostolic modes of Church discipline. It certainly did not mean that they were given over to perdition, for the object of the punishment was their salvation, “ that they might learn not to blaspheme,” that is, not to misrepresent and calumniate the truth of God. Here, as well as elsewhere, Satan is spoken of not as an independent hostile power, but as one who is allowed to work evil for a given purpose, which is often beyond the range of men to discover. Thus Job was left in the power of the adversary for a season; and similarly, the Lord Jesus said to Peter, “ Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” Paul himself speaks of the “ thorn in the flesh” as being “ the messenger of Satan to buffet” him. And when in the light of these passages we read this solemn declaration and couple it with 1 Corinthians 5:5, where Paul says of the incestuous offender, “ With the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,” we come to the conclusion that the apostles were gifted with, and sometimes used, the solemn power of inflicting disease on the body, in order to awaken in the offender, or in others, convictions of sin and longings for salvation. In the terrible cases of Ananias and Elymas, we see evidences of a power to punish given to those who could heal diseases and cast out devils, a power which no doubt was demanded by the exigencies of the Church, and certainly died with the apostles, who could not transmit it. But underlying its exercise was a principle of Divine discipline, which is applicable in every age; for there is no loss we sustain, no affliction we suffer, but may work for our spiritual welfare, warning us against evil, and stimulating us to holier endeavour and more earnest prayer. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) War a good warfare.-- A good warfare I. War, therefore, is inevitable. You must fight or fly; be the victor or the vanquished. Nay, if you mean to make sure your own salvation, and please Him who hath called you to be a soldier, there is not even that alternative. You are surrounded with foes you cannot shun. Flight would be ruin. The conflict cannot be avoided. Every step will be contested. Yet be not discouraged. The more strenuous the struggle, the more glorious the achievement. Your aid is omnipotent, your resources are infinite, and you “ war a good warfare.” Few, indeed, of the warfares waged by the powers of this world are worthy of the means employed and the men sacrificed to win them. But the Christian soldier “ wars a good warfare.” ; emphatically, pre-eminently” and peculiarly good; good in all its agencies, its aspects, and its issues. II. Have we not a good cause? Did the Israelites glory in a good cause, contending for the Land of Promise? the Crusaders, marching to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre? your forefathers, asserting with the sword their independence of Great Britain? But the Christian cause is the purest and noblest that ever kindled the enthusiasm of a people or won the admiration of the world. It is identified with all that is important in truth, beautiful in virtue, sublime in charity, or glorious in hope. It is the cause that marshals the cherubim, and stirs the deep vengeance of hell; that brought Jehovah from the throne of the universe to the manger. We fight, not to desolate provinces and degrade princes, but to convert earth into a paradise and enthrone humanity with its Redeemer. No wrongs have we to avenge, no malice to gratify, nor cruel thirst for blood. III. And have we an unworthy captain? What Hebrew warrior did not glory in his Joshua or his David? What mediaeval crusader did not proudly follow his Richard, his Philip, or his Bertrand? What Frenchman did not rejoice in the name of Napoleon, what Englishman in the name of Wellington, what American in the name of Washington? Who of all the myriads that took part in your late civil conflict, was not ready to cheer for Grant or Lee, for Sherman or Jackson? But “ who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength?” “ I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” It is the Captain of the Lord’ s host, the champion of our redemption. He comes to avenge us of our enemies, and lead our captivity captive. What are the qualities most desirable in a military leader? In the highest perfection, they are all found in Christ. Is it wisdom? He is the embodied wisdom of God. Experience? Ever since the original revolt in heaven He has been battling with the hosts of hell. Valour? Single-handed and alone He went forth to meet the Prince of darkness with all his dire array. Success? He foiled the cunning foe in the wilderness of Judaea, and triumphed over his embattled myriads upon the cross. Kindness? Once He died to save His enemies, and now He wears the name of every follower punctured with a spear upon His heart. Ability to reward? The thrones of heaven are His, and a kingdom such as earth never knew He promises hereafter to every conqueror. Such a Captain, who would not joyfully follow? IV. And what say you of our armoir? Our panoply is ample and impenetrable, and our weapons are effective because they are Divine. V. And what think you of our supplies? “ Who goeth a warfare at his own charges?” “ My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” What a measure is that, and what a medium of communication! “ He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think.” “ They who trust in the Lord shall not want any good thing.” Our Divine commissariat is furnished with all that we can possibly require in any emergency of the campaign. VI. And how like you our defences? “ God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake at the swelling thereof.” VII. And have you not seen the array of our allies? “ The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” “ The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even many thousands of angels; the Lord is in the midst of them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” “ Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” See them leading righteous Lot and his family forth from Sodom, before the fire-tempest descends upon the doomed city. See them deploying from the host of God to meet Jacob, returning from Padan Aram, about to encounter the formidable bands of his offended brother. See them, with their flashing cavalry and flaming artillery, covering all the mountain round about Elisha, and delivering a whole army into the hands of a single man. If heaven could spare so splendid an escort for the patriarch, so glorious a body-guard for the prophet, what millions on millions incalculable must be engaged on behalf of the whole Church militant in the wilderness! And if one angel could slay all the first-born of Egypt in a night, or destroy seventy thousand men of Israel at a stroke, or stiffen in death a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers with a blast of his breath, what have we to fear, around whom encamp myriads of celestial warriors? What power of hell shall scatter the cohorts of heaven? VII. And who ever had better comrades? They are called, and chosen, and faithful. Like Saul and Jonathan, they are stronger than lions and swifter than eagles. Like the intrepid son of Jesse, they can run through a troop and leap over a wall. One can chase a thousand, and two can put ten thousand to flight. The saints of all ages form but “ one army of the living God,” and the militant rear hold fellowship with the victorious van. IX. And who ever fought with greater success? What power has prevailed against the Lord’ s redeemed? Their interest is His; and to defeat them were to defeat Omnipotence. X. And who ever won so rich a reward? Where centres the ambition of earthly heroism? In the victor’ s palm, the monarch’ s crown, the empty plaudits of the multitude, “ a fancied life in others’ breath,” a name on the scroll of history, a niche in the temple of fame, a monumental column in the Capitol, a memory embalmed in the nation’ s heart, a tuneful immortality in the songs of ages. But your reward is “ a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (J. Cross, D. D.) 1 Timothy 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience.Faith and a good conscience I. What they are:--1. Faith. The term is in the Scriptures applied both to the revealed truth which a disciple believes, and to his act in believing it. Faith is objective, or subjective. It is at one time the truth which you grasp, and at another time your grasp of the truth. Both in the Scriptures and in their own nature these two are closely interwoven together. It is impossible everywhere to preserve and mark the distinction between the light that I look on, and my looking on that light. True, my looking on it does not create the light, but it makes the light mine. Unless I look on it, the light is nothing to me. If I am blind, it is the same to me as if there had not been light. In some such way are faith and the faith connected and combined. It is quite true that the gospel remains, although I should reject it: my unbelief cannot make God’ s promise of none effect. Yet my unbelief makes the gospel nothing to me--the same to me as if it had not been. The faith stands in heaven, although faith be wanting on earth; but if faith is wanting, the faith does not save the lost: as the sun continues his course through the sky although I were blind; but my blindness blots out the sun for me. 2. A good conscience. It is not necessary to explain what conscience is: my readers know what it is better than I can tell. Here the principal question is, Whether does the epithet “ good” refer to the conscience that gives the testimony, or to the testimony that the conscience gives. The term “ good” here belongs net to the testifier, but to the testimony. In one sense that might be called a good conscience, that tells the truth even though the truth torment you. When the conscience, like an ambassador from God in a man’ s breast, refuses to be silent in the presence of sin, and disturbs the pleasure of the guilty by uttering warnings of doom, that conscience is good, in the sense of being watchful and useful; but it is not the good conscience of this text, and of ordinary language. Both here, and in common conversation, a good conscience is a conscience that does not accuse and disturb. It is the same as peace of conscience. It is no doubt true that in an evil world, and through the deceitfulness of an evil heart, the conscience may sometimes be so drugged or seared that it may leave the soul undisturbed, although the soul is steeped in sin. It sometimes says “ Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. “ There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” ; but the conscience sometimes contradicts God, and says that there is peace to the wicked. This is, however, an abnormal state of things; as when an ambassador at a foreign court turns traitor to the king who commissioned him, and refuses to deliver his lord’ s commands to the court where he has been accredited. The conscience in man is intended to be God’ s witness, and to speak to the man all the truth. Taking conscience, not as twisted and seared by sin, but as constituted by God in the conception and creation of humanity, then a good conscience is peace of conscience. You have and hold a good conscience when that present representative of God in your bosom does not charge you with sin. By the light of Scripture we know that, as matters go among the fallen, a good conscience, if real and lawfully attained, implies these two things:-- (1) The application of the blood of sprinkling for the pardon of sin; and (2) Actual abstinence from known sin in the life through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. A good conscience--if it is not a cheat--implies a righteousness on you and a righteousness in you. Pardon and renewing combine to constitute, under the gospel, a good conscience. What God hath joined, let not man put asunder. The conscience is good when it truly testifies that God is at peace with you, and you are at peace with God. II. Their relations:--The text consists of two parts. The first is a command, the second is an example. The example, as is usual both in human teaching and Divine, is adduced for the purpose of enforcing the precept. Doubtless, Paul could have called up from his own experience many examples to show how good it is to hold both faith and a good conscience; but it suited his purpose better, in this instance, to adduce an example which shows the dread consequence of attempting to separate them. In point of fact, an example of these two rent asunder is more effective in proving the necessity of their union than a hundred examples in which the union remains intact. Thus, if proof were necessary, to divide a living child in two with Solomon’ s sword would constitute more vivid evidence that in a human being the left side is necessary to the life of the right, and the right to the life of the left, than the sight of a hundred unharmed children. When one side is wrenched off, the other side also dies: this is shorter and surer proof that the two are mutually necessary to each other’ s existence than a hundred examples of positive, perfect life. Besides, it is easier to find a foundation for a negative than for a positive example. In buoying a channel, they cannot well set up a mark where the ship ought to go; they set up a beacon on the sunken rock which the ship ought to avoid. Here a question of the deepest interest crosses our path and claims our regard. Granted that faith and a good conscience are linked so intimately together that the one cannot live without its consort, what is the specific character of the relation? Whether of these two is first in nature as cause, and whether follows as effect? Looking to the form of expression in the text, which is exact and definite, we find that in the case adduced it was not the dissolution of faith that destroyed the good conscience, but the failing of the good conscience that destroyed faith. These men put away the good conscience; then and therefore, they lost the faith. What then? As the continued possession of the faith depended on maintaining the good conscience, is it through prior possession of a good conscience that one may attain faith? No. The converse is the truth, fully and clearly taught in the Scriptures. You do not reach faith through a good conscience, but a good conscience through faith. A good conscience grows on faith, like fruit on a tree, not faith on a good conscience. A good conscience in both its aspects, as already explained, is the fruit of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God, either by the righteousness of Christ in justifying, or the new obedience in sanctifying. Now this specific relation is not reciprocal. The good conscience does not produce faith, as faith produces a good conscience. What then? If faith goes first as the cause, and a good conscience follows as the fruit, the good conscience obviously cannot subsist without faith; but may faith subsist without a good conscience? No. As to production at first, the relation is not reciprocal; but as to maintenance it is. We cannot say, as a good conscience springs from faith, faith also springs from a good conscience; but we can say, as the want of faith makes a good conscience impossible, so, also, the loss of a good conscience is fatal to faith. Some species of trees retain life in the roots although the head and stem are cut away. A young tree may spring from the old stump, and grow to maturity. But other species, such as the pine, will not thus spring a second time. When the mature tree is cut off, although the root, with a portion of the stem, is left, the tree does not revive. The root dies when the head is severed. There is an interesting analogy between a pine-tree and the pair which are joined in the text. It is not the tree’ s towering head that produces the root; the root produces the towering head. We can, therefore, safely say, If the root is killed, the head cannot live; but we may also say, If the head is severed, the root will die. Precisely such is the relation between faith and a good conscience. Faith is the producing, sustaining root, and a good conscience the stem that it sustains. Consequently, cut off faith, and a good conscience falls to the ground. Yes, this is the truth; but it is not the whole truth. We can also say, Destroy the good conscience, and faith cannot stand. Thus in one way only may the good conscience be obtained; but in either of two ways both may be lost. Let faith fail, and the good conscience goes with it; let the good conscience be polluted, and the faith itself gives way. In the first place, then, speculative error undermines practical righteousness. As belief of the truth purifies the heart and rectifies the conduct, so a false belief leads the life astray. The backsliding begins more frequently on the side of conduct than on the side of opinion: the good conscience is lost in most cases, not by adopting a heretical creed, but by indulging in the pleasures of sin. The conscience is more exposed in the battle of life than the intellect. And it is on the weak point that a skilful adversary will concentrate his attack. While the calamity is substantially in all cases the same, the faith may be shipwrecked in any of three distinct forms,--a dead faith, an erroneous faith, and no faith. In the first a form of sound words remains, but they are a dead letter; in the second, false views of Christ and His work are entertained; and in the third, the backslider sits down in the chair of the scorner, and says, No God, with his lips as well as in his heart. Among ourselves, perhaps a dead faith is the most common form of soul shipwreck. Faith and covetousness, faith and any impurity, cannot dwell together in the same breast. These cannot be in the same room with living faith. As well might you expect fire and water to agree. I knew a young man once who became what was called a Socialist. He attained a great degree of boldness in the profession of ungodliness. No God, or no God that cares for me, was his short, cold creed.:But I knew him and his communications before he had made shipwreck concerning faith. The second table of the law had, by indulgence of sinful pleasure, been rusted cut of his heart before the first table was discarded from his creed. He had cruelly dishonoured his father and his mother before he learned to blaspheme God. It cannot be comfortable to a young man in his strength to come day by day to open his heart to God, if day by day he is deliberately disowning and dishonouring his parents in the weakness of their age. The dishonourer of his parents finds it necessary to his own comfort to cast off God. This man put away his good conscience, and therefore his faith was wrecked. I knew another, who had in youth made higher attainments, and who, on that account, made a more terrible fall. He had experienced religious impressions, and taken a side with the disciples of Christ. I lost sight of him for some years. When I met him again, I was surprised to find that he had neither modesty before men nor reverence before God. He was free and easy. He announced plainly that he did not now believe in the terrors spiritual that had frightened him in his youth. I made another discovery at the same time regarding him. He had deceived, ruined, and deserted one whom he falsely pretended to love. Through vile and cruel affections he had put his good conscience away; and, to pacify an evil conscience, he had denied the faith. The belief of the truth and the practice of wickedness could not dwell together in the same breast. The torment caused by their conflict could not be endured. He must be rid of one of the two. Unwilling to part with his sin at the command of his faith, he parted with his faith at the command of his sin. But though the shipwreck of faith is often, it is not always, the issue of the struggle. When the conscience of one who tried to be Christ’ s disciple is defiled by admitted, indulged sin, the struggle inevitably, immediately begins. The Spirit striveth against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit. The sin often casts out the faith; but the faith also often casts out the sin. The outcome is often, through grace, the discomfiture of the adversary. “ Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory.” “ The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.” (W. Arnot.) A good conscience I. A good conscience. This expression may be used in more ways than one.1. A clean or pure conscience is a “ good conscience.” Keep your conscience pure. Do not sully it. Every wrong thing you say or do leaves a stain on your conscience--just like a black mark on a white piece of cloth or a sheet; of paper, and your great concern should be, not to have your conscience thus made black and foul. This applies alike to those who are Christians, and to those who are not. The best conscience has stains enough, and, as we shall see, needs to be cleansed. But in so far as your decision as to any action or course of conduct is concerned, it is of the last importance to keep your conscience clean. I need not say that this is not easy. It requires a constant effort--ay, a constant fight. Paul knew what this was. Good man as he was, he required to be ever on the watch to keep his conscience pure. 2. A cleansed and pacified conscience is a “ good conscience.” Perhaps some of you say, “ Alas, what you have said about the pure conscience is of little concern to me. At least, it can only be a thing of the future to me. What about the past? My conscience troubles me. It is defiled.” Now it is here that the gospel comes in, with the good news of cleansing for the conscience. It not only tells of provision of grace and strength in the Lord Jesus, to enable us keep the conscience clean, and do what it bids. It does more. It tells of pardon for sin, through the blood of Christ, who, by taking the guilt of sin upon Himself, and dying in the sinner’ s stead, removes the guilt, washes out the stains, and so brings back peace to the conscience. There is no conscience that does not need this cleansing, that does not need it again and again, whether the conscience is troubled about the sin or not. I have heard of an Indian having a dollar which did not belong to him. Pointing to his breast, he said, “ I got a good man and bad man here, and the good man say, the dollar is not mine; I must return it to the owner” ; and so he did. He could not have got the “ good conscience” otherwise, 3. A tender conscience is a good conscience. This comes pretty near my first gremark, instead of second, because it seems to come in most suitably after speaking of the cleansed and pacified conscience. If I can get peace for my conscience by going to the blood of Christ, does it matter very much my sinning again? Ah, yes. I heard the other day of a man having a “ strong conscience.” That is to say, he could go a great length and do very questionable things without his conscience being troubled. Perhaps in order to create a laugh, or to be thought clever, and make himself “ good company,” as it is called, he might exaggerate or go beyond the exact and literal truth, without it disturbing his conscience much. Now, that is not a tender conscience. Old Humphrey, speaking of such a one, says that he puts too much red in the brush! All such things should be avoided. It is very important to cultivate tenderness of conscience. Even if a thing is not altogether wrong or bad, if it has a doubtful look about it, it should not be done. There are some pieces of machinery which the smallest pin would damage or stop. Take a watch and let a grain of sand get into it, and all would go wrong. Let a grain of sand get into your eye, and you know what comes of it. Now, your conscience should, in this respect, just be like the watch--should just be like your eye--the least thing of wrong should be feared, and felt, and avoided; and if it does get in, there should be no rest till it is out. II. What it leads to. What is the effect of having a good or evil conscience?1. A good conscience leads to happiness and peace; an evil conscience to misery and despair. 2. A good conscience inspires with courage, independence, and fearlessness; an evil conscience fills with cowardice and shame. (J. H. Wilson, M. A.) Wrecked through losing a good conscience I had a friend who started in commercial life, and as a book merchant, with a high resolve. He said, “ In my store there shall be no books that I would not have my family read.” Time passed on, and one day I went into his store and found some iniquitous books on the shelf, and I said to him, “ How is it possible that you can consent to sell such books as these?” “ Oh,” he replied, “ I have got over those puritanical notions. A man cannot do business in this day unless he does it in the way other people do it.” To make a long story short, he lost his hope of heaven, and in a little while he lost his morality, and then he went into a mad-house. In ether words, when a man casts off God, God casts him off. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Faith the cabinet of conscience If faith be a precious pearl, a good conscience is the cabinet that contains it. This heavenly manna must be laid up in a heavenly pot. (T. Seeker.) A good conscience We have compared conscience to the eye of the soul. We may also compare it to the window of the soul A window is of use for letting light into a room; and also for looking through that you may see what is outside of the window. But if you want a good, correct view of the things that you are looking at through a window, what sort of glass is it necessary to have in the window? Clear glass. Suppose that the glass in the window, instead of being clear glass, is stained glass; one pane red, another blue, another yellow, and another green. When you look through the red glass, what colour will the things be that you are looking at? Red. And so when you look through the blue glass, all things will be blue. They will be yellow when you look through yellow glass, and green when you look through the pane of that colour. But suppose you have thick heavy shutters to the window, and keep them closed, can you see anything through the window then? No. And can you see anything in the room when the shutters are closed? No. It will be all dark. And conscience is just like a window in this respect. You must keep the shutters open, and the windows clean, so that plenty of pure light can get in, if you want to see things properly. God’ s blessed Word, the Bible, gives just the kind of light we need to have a good conscience. (J. H. Wilson, M. A.) Good conscience a man’ s longest friend It is a witty parable which one of the fathers hath of a man who had three friends, two whereof he loved entirely, the third but indifferently. This man, being called in question for his life, sought help of his friends. The first would bear him company some part of his way; the second would lend him some money for his journey; and that was all they would or could do for him; but the third, whom he least respected, and from whom he least expected, would go all the way, and abide all the while with him--yea, he would appear with him, and plead for him. This man is every one of us, and our three friends are the flesh and the world and our own conscience. Now, when death shall summon us to judgment, what can our friends after the flesh do for us? They will bring us some part of the way, to the grave, and further they cannot. And of all the worldly goods which we possess, what shall we have? What will they afford us? Only a shroud and a coffin, or a tomb at the most. But maintain a good conscience, that will live and die with us, or rather, live when we are dead; and when we rise again, it will appear with us at God’ s tribunal; and when neither friends nor a full purse can do us any good, then a good conscience will stick close to us. (J. Spencer.) Have made shipwreck. Shipwrecks I. The nature of such shipwrecks. We shall confine our meditations to the special aspects of this subject as they are here presented; “ concerning faith have made shipwreck.” But when has a man made shipwreck concerning faith?1. When he has lost his hold of spiritual truth. We know but little of these men, Hymenaeus and Alexander, but what we do know shows us that they had lost their grasp of Divine and apostolic teaching. Hence we read respecting Hymenaeus in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to Timothy, “ And their word will eat as doth a canker; of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.” Here we see then departure from “ the truth” ; also that such departure, in Paul’ s conception, was shipwreck. We read of Alexander in the fourth chapter of the Second Epistle. “ Alexander, the copper-smith, did me much evil; of whom be thou aware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words,” or the gospel which Paul preached. These men then had made “ shipwreck concerning faith.” They had lost their faith in the truth as embodied in Christ: and in the resurrection as taught by Him and His apostles. But such “ shipwrecks concerning faith” occur in the quieter and less keenly intellectual spheres of human life. The freshness of spiritual life is lost amidst life’ s cares, temptations, and prosperity, and with the freshness of the spiritual life there goes the beautiful and childlike grasp of faith. Let me ask you, what scepticism has to give you better than the truth, which you have already received from the lips of Christ. 2. Ship wreck is made concerning faith when men and women lose their faith in the nobleness of human destiny, and in the importance and possibility of attaining it. 3. A man has made shipwreck concerning faith when he loses those elements of character which are the results of faith. “ They that will be rich fall into temptation and snares; for the love of money is the root of all evil.” II. The causes of such moral shipwrecks,1. Trifling with conscience, or the severing of a good conscience from faith. This is clearly the thought of the apostle in these words. “ Holding faith, and a good conscience; which, some having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck.” “ A good conscience,” says Dr. Fairbairn, “ is here faith’ s necessary handmaid,” and is as essential as a living faith; indeed, is its necessary fruit. But there are men who sever the two. They imagine that a mere intellectual holding of the truth is enough; that it is not essential that it should influence the life. Such were the views of Hymenaeus and Alexander. They made shipwreck by trifling at first with the instincts and enforcements of conscience. It was this trifling with sin which led to the overthrow of faith. Sometimes faith goes first, and the obligation to morality is subsequently relaxed. But the converse of this is also true. 2. Another cause of moral shipwrecks is, according to the apostle, “ hurtful lusts.” There is, for instance, the lust after money. There is special reference to this here. “ They that will be rich,” rich at any cost, social, mental, or spiritual. “ Which some coveted after.” There is the lust after sinful pleasure. Pure pleasure is right enough but any pleasure indulged at the expense of conscience, any pleasure which soils the spiritual nature is altogether wrong. The pleasures of sinful gratification, of reading and amusements which appeal to the lowest passions, the bewitchment of drinking, are daily drowning men in destruction; leading to shipwrecks. III. The consequences of these moral shipwrecks.1. There is the shipwreck of happiness. “ Pierced themselves through with many sorrows” --with pangs of remorse. And what hell can be worse than that? 2. This is consummated in final retribution and overthrow. “ Drown men in destruction and perdition.” What these terrible words mean I cannot say. (R. A. Davies.) Making shipwreck of the soul I do not wonder that such an illustration should readily occur to the mind of Paul. He had not forgotten his terrible experience in the autumn of 62, just three years before. For fourteen weary days--the fierce Euroclydon blowing, and neither sun nor stars appearing--he had been tossed up and down on the angry sea of Adria, the vessel a mere plaything to the gale. Nor was this by any means his sole experience of the dangers of the deep. In writing two years earlier to the church at Corinth, he made mention of “ perils of the sea” he had already encountered, and stated that “ thrice he had suffered shipwreck.” As the first Christian missionary, he had made repeated voyages from Caesarea to Tarsus, and Antioch, and Cyprus, and various parts of Asia Minor, and had probably been eyewitness of many a sad maritime disaster. The records of Trinity House may inform us how many ships have been wrecked in one year, but, ah! where is the record that shall tell us how many souls have been lost? How many young men, for example, who left their peaceful, pious homes, perhaps a few years ago, and have been launched upon the open sea of city life with all its dangers and temptations, have, within the past few months, been caught by some fierce blast of vice or error, and hurled to moral and spiritual rain? I. A FAIR START. This thought is suggested by St. Paul’ s reference to the early promise which Timothy gave of a pious and useful life. When he speaks of “ the prophecies that went before on him,” I understand him to allude not to inspired predictions, in the usual sense of the term, but to the hopes which had been cherished, and the anticipations which had been expressed, regarding him, even from his childhood. People who knew the lad, his character, his training, his environments, augured for him a bright and honourable career. They said, “ That boy will turn out well. He will be a good man. He will make a mark on society. He will live to purpose.” And those “ prophecies” were justified.1. By the fact that he came of a good stock. What language can express the blessing that comes of a wise and godly upbringing! Many of us owe more than ever we can tell to the holy influences that gathered around us in our early days. Oh, with what tender and delightful associations is that paternal dwelling linked! Ay, and old grannie Lois, too, we remember how she would take down her spectacles from the chimney corner, and show us Bible-pictures that delighted our young minds, and then would urge us to give our lives to God. You came out of an admirable nest. The ship was launched from a first-rate building yard. 2. Those “ prophecies” were justified in the case of young Timothy, by his thorough acquaintance with Holy Scripture. What is that we read in Paul’ s Epistle to him (1 Timothy 3:15, Revised Version)? From a babe. It is the same Greek word which Luke uses when he says, “ And they brought unto Jesus infants, that He would touch them.” As soon as he was capable of learning anything he was taught the Word of God. The first impressions his mind received were of religious truth. His mother, as a pious Hebrewess, regarded it as her main duty to her child, to make him acquainted with Holy Scripture. Such instruction may be expected to have a salutary influence on the whole future life. A boy who knows his Bible, and is well up in Scripture studies, starts life with great advantage. He gives promise of keeping on the right rails. 3. There was yet another thing that justified those early “ prophecies” of a good career for Timothy. And this was the personal character of the lad. He was a well-disposed, quiet, thoughtful, serious youth. He never gave his mother any trouble. We read as much in the Acts of the Apostles, for it is there stated that “ he was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.” It is a good sign of a young fellow, when, in the town or village where he was born and bred, every one is ready to speak well of him. Thus we have seen what is meant by a fair start in life. It is like a vessel gliding down the slip on the launching day, when, all the hammering ended, and gay bunting flying everywhere, and loud huzzas rending the air, she softly glides out on to the open main! Who, on such a day, would augur her lying a pitiful wreck on some foreign reef? II. Now for the good equipment. It is thus described: “ Holding faith and a good conscience.” Two very excellent and necessary things. Shall we call conscience the compass to direct the ship’ s course, and faith the sails that are to impel her on her way? Well, no vessel that wants either of these things is fit to go to sea. Without the one, her path through the deep will be uncertain, and therefore dangerous; without the other, she will have no force to carry her forward. A man has a poor chance of a happy and successful voyage over the sea of life, if, in entering upon it, he lacks either a good conscience or a sound faith.1. “ A good conscience.” I take them in this order, because, generally, the whisper of conscience is heard even prior to the adoption of a definite faith. In matters of spiritual navigation, the compass is fixed before the canvas is set. Yours, sir, is a bad conscience, when, without upbraiding and making you miserable, it allows you to go into bad company, to frequent the haunts of dissipation, to profane the Lord’ s day, to neglect His ordinances, to read unclean literature, and to satisfy yourself with all sorts of vain excuses. Yours is a drugged and evil conscience, William, when you can lie down to rest at night and sleep soundly, though you have offered no prayer to God, and have no reason to know that He is at peace with you. “ A good conscience “ is one that is tender, sensitive, and pure; like a sound compass, whose magnetism has not been injured, it will guide you aright. To be altogether safe and good, it must be under the direction of God’ s truth; for the mere moralist may be scrupulously conscientious, and yet far from the standard which the gospel requires. But-- 2. You want something more. If you are to be fully equipped, you must also have a sound and living faith. You will not come to much good without this. A compass is an admirable thing, but you will not secure much speed if that is all the ship is provided with; there must also be the unfurled canvas, which, filled with the breath of heaven, will give it energy and motion. A living faith must be based on a definite creed. You cannot be a believer unless there is something that you believe. There is an affectation very popular at the present day, to believe nothing. No, no. Take away a young man’ s religion, and he is the easy prey of all manner of evil. If you want to destroy a man’ s morals, rob him of his Bible. A brig fifteen hundred miles out from land, without one square yard of canvas, is better off than a young man who has no religion and no faith. A man’ s very accomplishments have proved his ruin. Who will deny that decided genius has shipwrecked many a promising life? I have not a doubt that Burns, and Byron, and Shelley, and Goethe, and Paine, and Voltaire, that each of them, in the absence of a sustaining faith, suffered moral disaster just in proportion to his genius. If a ship is heavily freighted with costly treasures, all the more does it need to have its sails wellspread to the wind. Thus furnished with a good conscience and a true faith, you will sail the voyage of life in safety, and at last reach the everlasting haven. But stay, our text tells us-- III. Of a fatal disaster--a spiritual shipwreck. The apostle says that some persons--and he goes on to mention two instances, “ Hymeneus and Alexander” --having put away a good conscience, and lost their faith, had become morally shipwrecked. Paul does not for a moment hint that Timothy would do so. Nay, as he indicates in his Second Epistle, he was sure he would not do so. He who had begun the good work in him, would carry it forward to perfection. The compass is thrown overboard; the sails are carried away; the vessel is shattered on the rocks. Nearly every man who goes wrong begins by tampering with conscience. So long as a young Christian keeps a good conscience, I am not much afraid of his lapsing into scepticism. Foolish men! they hoisted their mutinous flags, and thought to draw away after them the whole Christian fleet: and, lo! there they are, lying two pitiful wrecks, over which the wind moans its eternal dirge. This has been the history of hundreds and thousands since. (J. T. Davidson, D. D.) The great shipwreck I. The sum of the Christian life. That is the whole, the union of all the parts. It has two chief parts: “ faith and a good conscience.” Faith is an outgoing, grasping, clinging, leaning mood of the soul. The Christian is always “ holding faith and a good conscience.” The word conscience means a fellow-knowledge--from con together, and science knowledge. And who is your fellow in this knowledge? The answer is--God. Conscience is the knowledge I have along with God. It makes me perfectly sure that its voice is the voice of God. God is thus in the conscience, judging all my actions. The heathen has his household god: yours is conscience. Conscience is very strong in the young. We knew perfectly what it was to hold a good conscience. And so did an Irish boy, whose master wished to lengthen a web that was short measure. He gave the boy the one end and took hold of the other himself. He then said, “ Pull, Adam, pull!” But the boy stood still. “ Pull, Adam!” he shouted again; but the boy said, “ I can’ t, sir.” “ Why not?” the master asked. “ My conscience will not allow me.” “ You will never do for a linen manufacturer,” the master replied. That boy became the famous Rev. Dr. Adam Clarke, and persuaded many to hold faith and a good conscience. You must not think that it is easy to keep a good conscience. You do yourself the greatest injury when in youth you disobey conscience. When men put away a good conscience, oh what tortures they often endure, day and night, in after years! I wish now to show you how faith and a good conscience always go together. They are like the right and left sides of a living man; there can be no health or power when either is palsied. Or they are like the sisters Martha and Mary in the home Christ condescends to visit, only they unite their gifts without blaming each other. The Christian is thus kept right towards God and man, and does equal justice to both worlds. The old fathers used to say that the Book and the Breast agree, and that conscience is naturally Christian. Perhaps you would be pleased with an illustration of this truth from the old world. About five hundred years before Christ, a Greek poet showed the workings of an evil conscience. Agamemnon, prince of men, just returned from the wars of Troy, was murdered by his own wife. His son, Orestes, must avenge his death, and so slew his own mother. After that deed of blood all joy forsook the lighthearted, dashing prince. Guilt lay heavy upon his soul, and he felt that he was hated of the immortals. The Furies, with their snaky hair and cruel scourges, were upon him, and chased him night and day. But who are the Furies? You know them well: they are self-accusing thoughts, which the poet describes as heaven-sent avengers of sin. Byron knew them well, for he says-- “ My solitude is solitude no more, But peopled with the Furies.” Orestes fled to the temple of Apollo, god of light, and kneeled at his altar, seeking guidance. While he knelt, the Furies slept on the altar steps. Is not that a beautiful idea? It is a sort of sermon teaching that the accusing conscience finds rest only in prayer to God. Apollo bid him go and give himself up to Divine justice, as represented by the sacred judges at Mars Hill in Athens. He did so, the Furies following him all the way. He owned his guilt before the judges, and declared himself ready to do whatever they recommended. In well-nigh such words as a Christian uses, they told him that he must have an atonement, and be cleansed by water and blood. Even they believed, in their own dim way, that “ without shedding of blood is no remission.” He was so cleansed, and then even the Furies were satisfied, and ceased from troubling. And the smile of heaven again came to Orestes, and he walked in the land of the living, a forgiven and joyous man. Oh, how perfectly Christ meets all the felt needs of such an awakened conscience! Thus the Christian is a man of faith and of a good conscience; not of faith without conscience, nor of conscience without faith. He is no spiritual paralytic, powerless on the one side: he is no miserable, limping cripple, whose doing is shamefully shorter than his believing; but his soul moves like the successful runner, on equal feet. Our text likens the soul to a ship. Now, a ship sails best when it is kept even by not being overloaded on one side. And thus balanced between faith and a good conscience--between a deep sense of sin and a thorough trust in the Saviour--the good ship of heaven, with swelling sails, catches the favouring breeze, and heads for the “ Fair Havens” above.II. The ruin of the soul. The history of this ruin has three stages; for it begins with the conscience, then reaches faith, and ends in shipwreck--“ which (good conscience) some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck.” Now your soul is an immortal ship in a dangerous sea. Conscience is the captain, reason the steersman, the Bible your chart, and your natural, appetites are the sturdy crew--good servants they, but the worst of masters. Only conscience can guide the vessel safely through the rocks and quicksands of temptation. But the crew sometimes mutiny and put conscience overboard, and then passion becomes the master and owner of the ship, and seizes the helm. “ Conscience,” our text says, “ which some having put away” --that is a phrase of violence. Only after a fierce struggle can conscience be put away. Unless the command be given again to the rightful captain, the ship drifts among the rocks, and the sea rushes in through the yawning bows, and ruin claims the whole for its own. The ruin of the soul begins with conscience, and usually with littles. Conscience is like the outer dyke in Holland, which the flood first assails. Little lies, hid under the cloak of outward decency, are like the little fox the Spartan boy hid under his dress till it gnawed into his very heart. Oppose the little beginnings of evil. When the conscience is wounded, faith decays and dies. A bad life is a marsh from which poisonous mists arise to becloud the mind. A bad heart forges notions to suit itself. Evidently Paul believes that our faith is shaken not so much by wrong arguing as by wrong living--Hymeneus and Alexander. Perhaps they grew too fond of wine, and fell upon mean tricks for hiding it; or they were very fond of money, and told lies to get it. And so they put overboard the troublesome captain, good conscience. Then they began to find fault with Paul’ s preaching; this sermon was not plain, and that did them no good; he was too hard on people, and pushed matters too far. Very likely they gave some fine name to their doubting, and protested that they could not endure bigotry, and that they wished more sweetness and light. But their falling away went from bad to worse, till they became stark blasphemers, and had publicly to be cut off from the Church. When Paul was shipwrecked, the crew lightened the ship by casting overboard the tackle and the cargo. Should you be caught in any hurricane of temptation, part with everything rather than lose a good conscience. All the money in the world, all the honours and pleasures on earth, cannot make up for the loss of that. Pray that to the Christian faith you may add Christian honour. The putting away of a good conscience, unless repented of, ends in shipwreck. A shipwrecked soul--what a thought! But this dark passage is not so dark as it seems. Hymeneus and Alexander had been cut off from the Church that they might “ learn not to blaspheme” (verse 20). The apostle would not despair even of these two blaspheming backsliders. He had a great hope that they would lay this warning to heart, and come again as penitents to the feet of Christ. Ours is a religion of hope, which teaches us not to despair of the greatest sinner, but to pray that even shipwrecked souls may be saved. (J. Wells.) 1 Timothy 2:1-2I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications.Prayer for others The true Christian, however, recognizes in human history the moral government of God, He believes, because God has declared it, that a mysterious but all-wise Providence governs the nations upon the earth; and that Jehovah continually regards the moral qualities of human agencies. He believes that the decay and calamities of successive empires have ever had a close and direct connection with their contempt of virtue and religion. I. The duty of prayer for others, and more especially for persons in authority, Intercessory prayer is here stated to be a duty; for when the apostle says “ I exhort,” he speaks by Divine command. If we recognize the authority of revelation, we must admit the act of intercession for others to be an act in precise conformity with the revealed will of God. But there are two results of the most beneficial kind which necessarily arise from intercessory prayer.1. In every case in which we implore God on behalf of others, we recognize Him as the source of power, authority, mercy and grace. The address we make to Him implies our conviction that He is the Preserver and the Benefactor from whom all succour is derived. 2. But prayer forgathers is, besides this, an act of charity. We cannot voluntarily exercise this duty but in the spirit of charity. Prayer for others implies, by its very act, our participation in their wants, our sympathy in their sorrows, our general interest in their welfare. II. But the nature and importance of this duty will be rendered more evident as we consider the design for which prayer for others is to be offered--“ that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” There are two ways in which public prayer may be supposed to be the direct channel of benefit to the community.1. In the first place, there is nothing which so tends to allay irritation, to excite compassion, to restrain envy and revenge, to calm the turbulent passions of every kind, as social prayer. Were large bodies of men honestly and frequently united in prayer to God for a blessing upon the community; were they to connect earthly government with God’ s kind purposes to the world of social order and of mutual good will, these united prayers would be found to be the strongest cement of the various parts of the social fabric, by bringing out before the minds of all the highest and the noblest motives by which intelligent beings, and at the same time capable of affection, can be influenced. Imagine the rich unfeignedly imploring God’ s blessing upon the poor--and where could be found room for the exercise of injustice and oppression? Imagine the poor praying for the rich--and where would be found room for the exercise of envy, of violence, of revenge, and of robbery? Imagine the rich praying for the rich--and where would be room for the display of rivalry, contention, and selfish ambition? Imagine the poor praying for the poor--how much kindness and mutual affection would be immediately drawn out into active operation! Imagine those in authority imploring God for a blessing on every measure they undertake, and upon all their national policy--and where would be any scope for individual and selfish aggrandizement? where would be any disunion of the interests of the ruler and the ruled? Or imagine the minds of the community united in prayer for those whom God has set over them--and where would be the wish for riot, for outrage, for insubordination, or violence? 2. But a second method in which prayer will powerfully act upon a nation is through the direct blessings which God, the righteous and the Almighty Governor, will certainly bestow. It is evident that God designs to bestow these blessings through this very channel. How easily can He send healthful seasons and external peace! How easily can He enlighten the minds, and prompt the measures of those by whom the affairs of the State are administered! (G. Noel.) Prayer for those in authority I. The duty enjoined in the words of our text--namely, “ that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and all that are in authority.”1. The constituent parts of this important duty. The several parts of public worship are comprehended in the text, in what the apostle denominates “ supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks.” By supplications we understand the deprecation of those calamities to which we are exposed in common with all men. The apostle next speaks of “ prayers” --by which we understand petitions--which it is our privilege to present to the throne of the heavenly grace, through Jesus Christ, for the supply of our various wants. The apostle, in connection with prayer, speaks of “ intercessions” --that is, prayer--for others; those petitions which we are called to offer for all sorts and conditions of men, according to their several necessities. To supplications, prayers, and intercessions, the apostle adds “ giving of thanks,” as an expression of our gratitude for all the benefits vouchsafed to us by the great Author of our being. 2. The extent of our Christian obligations in regard to this duty. The apostle teaches us that in our acts of public devotion we are “ to pray for all men.” Here is nothing partial, exclusive, or sectarian. But we are not only taught to pray for all men in general, but for our rulers in particular, whether supreme or subordinate. And as it is the Lord “ that giveth salvation unto kings,” to Him we ought to pray on their behalf, that He may bless them in their royal persons, families, and government. The honour, welfare, and happiness of nations depend much on the wisdom, piety, and government of those who reign. But in praying for all that are in authority, we should not only pray for kings and for ministers, but also for magistrates, who may either be a great blessing or a great curse. It becomes us to pray, from a consideration of the importance of their office. 3. The order in which this is presented by the holy apostle. “ I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications and prayers be made for all men.” This is not a secondary duty, a thing merely optional; no; it is a duty of paramount importance, which ought to take the precedency of every other in the public assemblies of the Church of God. The prayers of the people of God are more to be depended on than all the strength of our fleets or armies. II. The arguments by which this important duty is enforced.1. That as professing Christians we may give no just cause of offence to the government under which we live; “ that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” ; that we may be preserved “ from all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion” ; so live as the gospel may not be blamed; but that we who, by the principles of our Divine religion, are taught to abhor everything that would be injurious to others, conduct ourselves so as to prove that we are the friends of all and the enemies of none. If the State be not in safety, the subjects cannot be secure; self-preservation, therefore, ought to lead men to pray for the government under which they live. The psalmist, a true patriot, inspired with the love of his country, a holy zeal for the glory of God, and an ardent desire for the prosperity of both Church and State, says, when speaking of the people of God, “ I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good.” Let us, then, cultivate the spirit of true loyalty, patriotism, and religion, as that which is best calculated to promote our individual interest, the Church’ s good, and the commonwealth of the nation. 2. That we may secure the Divine approbation of our conduct, which is done by sincerely, faithfully, and affectionately praying for all men; “ for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God and our Saviour,” and therefore has the highest possible sanction. It is not said that it is good and acceptable in the sight of God to speak evil of dignitaries, by railing against those who are higher in rank, power, or authority than ourselves, whether in Church or State. The evil is prohibited; “ it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people” ; and, therefore, to indulge in it were a crime in the sight of God, as well as contrary to the rules of that society by which many of us profess to be governed, which says, that “ We shall neither speak evil of magistrates nor of ministers.” It is not said that it is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour to treat the office of rightful governors with contempt. 3. That the will of God, in reference to the salvation of our guilty race, may be accomplished. If we ask, what is the will of God our Saviour concerning the human race? we are taught to believe that it is gracious and merciful. He “ would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” Many have been saved in answer to prayer; and we, have good reason to believe that more would if we had prayed more. III. The inferences which may be deduced from the subject.1. That we are not good subjects unless we pray for all our constituted authorities. In early times, the members of the Jewish Church were called to pray for heathen princes, even for those who carried them away captive into Babylon, “ unto the God of heaven, for the life of the king and of his sons,” and in obedience to the command of God Himself, by the prophet Jeremiah, as a means of securing their own interests “ that ye may be increased therein and not diminished; seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” 2. If we are not praying subjects, we are not good Christians; for all good Christians are men of prayer, and no Christian can be satisfied with merely praying for himself, his family, or the Church of God. 3. We conclude, from the nature of this duty, that if we are not good Christians we shall never yield a conscientious obedience to the apostolic exhortation recorded in our text. (A. Bell.) The duty of prayer for all who are in eminent place I. On the object of government. I leave it to men of another taste and profession to enter minutely into the inferior objects of government, as well as into the means by which those objects may be obtained; and, keeping within the boundary of the text, shall observe that government is intended to promote security, happiness, piety, and religious influence. It has often been stated that a large portion of all codes of law, as of all history, is a proof of human depravity. Men have fallen from God; and, corrupted in their social propensities, they envy, injure, and destroy each other. All communities, therefore, have found it necessary to agree to some restraint, and to lodge in some hands a controlling power; the individual is to be blended with the general good, that the general may return individual advantage. Security, then, is one great object of government. And it is the glory of government to hold the shield over all--to defend the poor, the fatherless, and the widow, as well as the men of might, and the great, and the noble. Now, though under God, men’ s personal and social happiness greatly depends on their own industry and carefulness, yet has it some connection with the government under which we live. There are numerous ways in which religion and piety may be aided by the men who are in authority, and especially by kings becoming nursing fathers, and their queens nursing mothers. The word we render honesty is of rather questionable meaning; some translate it “ gravity” ; its general import is to behave decorously and worthily. As connected with godliness, it implies a desire that Christians may be allowed to conduct religious worship, and the whole of their profession, in a way suitable to religion itself; and that, being delivered from the evils of persecution, they may be exempt from temptation to act inconsistently with their high vocation. The gravity and dignity here mentioned convey, however, to me the idea of Christian influence--influence of character, of benevolent exertion. II. The best way of securing this object. There are numerous ways in which some good may be done, and in which, therefore, it is our duty to act. Home, and its immediate vicinity, and the nearest relations, are the great sphere of our influence; and here the Christian must act in promoting the morals, the intelligence, and the spirituality of all around him. The Christian, too, has political privileges; and in votes, and in petitions, and in every peaceful and constitutional way, it is his duty to act for the public good in the fear of the Lord. The laws, too, must be supported in their majesty by all--even by the humblest in society; as, without the countenance of the many, the few who have to enforce them, however elevated their rank and unbroken their integrity, will be too feeble, and the object of government will not be obtained. Nor must it be forgotten that well-directed charity is a most efficient way of promoting the security and happiness, as well as the godliness, of the community. The way, however, of securing this object marked out in the text is prayer. I attach importance to prayer, for the following reasons:--1. God generally deals with nations according to their moral character and piety. From the times in which the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman Powers were punished, to the days of revolutionary and sanguinary France, Providence has preached this awful doctrine. Hear Isaiah: “ If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” 2. That a nation’ s morals and piety will be in the degree of its prayerfulness. 3. I urge prayer, because the hearts of kings, and of nobles, and of senators--of all in authority--are at the disposal of Him who hears His people when they call. He can turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness; He bringeth to nothing the devices of the wise; He inspired Solomon with wisdom; by Him kings reign and princes decree righteousness. III. Our present inducement to seek this object in this way especially.1. You will see the necessity of prayer for the nation when I remind you of the hazard which always attends measures which have not been tried. 2. You will see the necessity of prayer for the nation when I remind you of the important business which its parliament has to transact. 3. The delicate position of the nations, and our connection with them, will further show the need of grace to enlighten all who take a lead in our public affairs. 4. There is another reason why, at this time, we should be earnest in prayer of a more religious kind--viz., the near approach of the latter-day glory in the Church. (J. K. Foster.) On intercession for others I am led by these words to consider the great Christian duty of praying for others. Perhaps there is none more neglected, with so little consciousness of sin in the omission of it. It is enforced by the example of the most eminent saints. Thus Abraham interceded with God for Sodom; and He said, in answer to his prayer, “ I will not destroy it for ten’ s sake.” Moses, the illustrious type of the great Intercessor, prayed for the people; and we learn that God would have destroyed the Israelites had not Moses His chosen stood in the gap: “ I prayed,” saith he, “ unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou hast redeemed through Thy greatness.” “ God forbid,” said Samuel, “ that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.” The Psalmist exhorts to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, “ They shall prosper that love thee” “ Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.” Isaiah expresses his determination not to hold his peace for Zion’ s sake and for Jerusalem not to rest “ until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.” Daniel humbled himself before God day and night, and fasted and prayed for the sins of the Jews. I would not, however, enforce this duty merely, or chiefly, because it is enjoined to us by thee precepts and recommended to us by the practice of patriarchs, judges, psalmists, prophets, and apostles, and of Him who is in all respects our great Example: it is rather because this duty is included within the general obligation of Christian love, of which it forms an essential part. Leaving, therefore, the question of the duty of intercession, I proceed to consider its advantages. I. Intercession for others may be considered as the means of exciting benevolent affections in ourselves. Ask me, What is the glory of an angel above a devil? I answer, It is the spirit of love which animates the one, of which the other is destitute. It is not the absence of external splendour, it is not the suffering and misery, it is the want of benevolence, by which a fallen spirit is degraded, and which makes him odious. Ask me, What is the peculiar glory of the gospel above every other religion? I reply, It is the spirit of love which breathes in it. The providence of God seems purposely to have placed the Christian in a scene where the exercise of love is needed, and his benevolent affections continually called forth; where wants and miseries present themselves on every side amongst his fellow-creatures and his friends. What can he do for them? His own means are insufficient to relieve them; but he can pray; he can implore God to supply what he cannot do. Have you a dear relation sick or afflicted? Are you indebted to a generous benefactor to whom you cannot repay the debt of gratitude? O what a just and noble return may you render him by your prayers! II. Intercession for others will also produce the spirit of love in those for whom we pray. Love creates love. You cannot meet your friend after your heart has been engaged in fervent supplication for him, without expressing that genuine tenderness which will produce a reciprocal regard in him. Intercession enlarges the exercise of friendship: it opens a new source of love. Let not a Christian say, I am forsaken--I meet with no acts of kindness. Has he then no Christian friends? Let him think of them as interceding for him. Intercession for our friends refines our friendship and redeems it from those debasing feelings by which the attachments of worldly men are so often degraded. III. The third advantage on intercession foe our friends consists in its exciting our love towards God. This is its direct influence. Can you go to the Father of Mercies day by day imploring blessings upon all you love? can you diversify these petitions, adapting them to the various necessities, sorrows, and circumstances of your friends? and do you not exclaim, How infinite the riches, how boundless the power, how vast the bounty of the Being I address? He is the Giver of all good things to my children, to my friend, to my neighbour, to my country, to the whole world, to the universe! IV. The last advantage which i shall mention in intercession for our friends is that it is the direct means of promoting their welfare. Why, when He intends to bless, may He not do so through the medium of prayer and intercession? Can anything be more consonant to the general analogy and constitution of the world? Even the great benefits of redemption are conveyed to us through the intercession of the Redeemer. What an example did He exhibit of the performance of this duty! V. Let us learn who has been our truest friend, to whom we have been most indebted. Think often of Him who has laboured the most for your welfare, who has most watched over your soul, and prayed the most effectually for you. Think of Him who now liveth to make intercession for you. That Friend is Christ. (J. Venn.) Gordon and intercessory prayer Canon Wilberforce told the following characteristic incident about General Gordon:--“ Just before General Gordon started, as he believed for the Congo, he sent to a prayer-meeting over which the Canon was presiding, asking for the prayers of those assembled. He said in his letter, ‘ I would rather have the prayers of that little company gathered in your house to-day than I would have the wealth of the Soudan placed at my disposal. Pray for me that I may have humility and the guidance of God, and that all spirit of murmuring may be rebuked in me,’ When he reached London on his return from Brussels, and his destination was changed, the General sent the Canon another message, ‘ Offer thanks at your next prayer-meeting. When I was upborne on the hearts of those Christians I received from God the spiritual blessing that I wanted, and I am now calmly resting in the current of His will.’” Pray for those in authority When Abraham Lincoln was going from Springfield to Washington he stood upon the platform of the car, and his old friends and neighbours were gathered round him to wish him an affectionate God-speed in the course upon which he was entering. He had come to rule and reign in times of difficulty and trouble, and he said, “ Well, friends and neighbours, there is one thing you can do for me that I ask you to do, and that is--pray for me,” and the train went off, bearing him to Washington. That is the spirit that one would desire to see amongst those who are in authority and influence, and it is the spirit that we well may cultivate towards those in authority over us. Prayer for those in authority Methodism in Ireland was, at the time of its union with England, looked upon with suspicion, and this was especially the case during the time of the rebellion. Lord Cornwallis happened to spend a few days with Speaker Foster. At that time Mr. Barber was stationed in that circuit as the minister. He and Mr. Foster’ s gardener, who was also a Methodist, were walking in Speaker Foster’ s grounds one day, when Barber, who was instant in season and out of season, asked the gardener to engage in prayer. They both knelt down, and Barber was praying aloud, when Lord Cornwallis and Speaker Foster, who were out walking, heard voices, drew near, and listened. Among the requests made to God were appeals for assistance to the Government, who were placed in such trying circumstances, and that God would bless and direct the counsels of the Lord-Lieutenant--Lord Cornwallis. Barber in his prayer breathed the deepest loyal devotion, and concluded by imploring a blessing upon the Methodists, and that they should be saved from the devil and Squire Ruxton of Ardee. “ Who is this squire?” asked Lord Cornwallis, and Mr. Foster replied that he was a neighbouring squire, who persecuted the Methodists. “ And what does this praying mean?” asked Lord Cornwallis. “ Oh,” replied Mr. Foster, “ this gardener of mine is one of those Methodist fellows, and I must dismiss him.” “ You will do no such thing,” said the other. “ Did you hear how he prayed for me, for the Council, for the King, and for the Government? Indeed, these Methodists must be a loyal people; and as for Squire Ruxton, just take my compliments to him, and tell him that I think these Methodists are very good people, and that he must leave them alone.” That prayer of poor Barber’ s put a stop to the worst persecution ever endured in that neighbourhood, and, while passes were required of others, free permission was given to the Methodist preacher to go where he liked and do what he liked. Prayer for rulers I. We ought to pray for those who are in authority more frequently and earnestly than for other men, because they more than other men need our prayers. In other words, they need a more than ordinary share of that wisdom and grace which God alone can bestow; and which He seldom or never bestows, except in answer to prayer.1. This is evident from the fact that they have a more than ordinary share of duties to perform. All the duties which God requires of other men, considered as sinful, immortal, and accountable creatures, He requires of rulers. It is incumbent on them, as it is on other men, to possess personal religion; to exercise repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; to love and fear and serve their Creator; and to prepare for death and judgment. In addition to the various personal duties of a moral and religious nature which are required of them as men, they have many official duties which are peculiar to themselves--duties which it is by no means easy to perform in a manner acceptable to God and approved of men. 2. They are appointed and they are required to be ministers of God for good to those over whom they are placed. There is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Since, then, legislators, rulers, and magistrates are the ministers and vicegerents of God for good, they are sacredly bound to imitate Him whom they represent; to be such on earth as He is in heaven; to fake care of His rights and see that they are not trampled upon with impunity; to be a terror to evil-doers and a praise and encouragement to such as do well. 3. As the influence of their example must be great, it is their indispensable duty to take care that this influence be ever exerted in favour of truth and goodness; and to remember that they are like a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid. Now consider a moment how exceedingly difficult it must be for a weak, short-sighted, imperfect creature like man to perform these various duties in a proper manner, and how large a share of prudence and wisdom and firmness and goodness is necessary to enable him to do it. Surely, then, they who are called to perform such duties in a peculiar manner need our prayers. II. Those who are invested with authority need more than other men our prayers, because they are exposed more than other men to temptation and danger. While they have a more than ordinary share of duties to perform, they are urged by temptations more than ordinarily numerous and powerful to neglect their duty. They have, for instance, peculiarly strong temptations to neglect those personal, private duties which God requires of them as men, as immortal and accountable creatures; and a performance of which is indispensably necessary to their salvation. They are exposed to the innumerable temptations and dangers which ever attend prosperity. How powerfully, then, must they be tempted to irreligion, to pride, to ambition, to every form of what the Scriptures call worldly-mindedness? It can scarcely be necessary to add that persons who are exposed to temptations so numerous and powerful need our prayers. III. This will appear still more evident if we consider that, should those who are clothed with authority yield to these temptations and neglect either their personal or official duties, the consequences will to thee be peculiarly dreadful. They will, like Jeroboam, make their people to sin. We are informed by an inspired writer that one sinner destroyeth much good. This remark is true of every sinner, but it is most emphatically true of sinners who are placed in authority. IV. We ought to pray with peculiar earnestness for all who are in authority, because our own interest and the great interests of the community require it. This motive the apostle urges in our text. Pray, says he, for all in authority, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. These expressions plainly intimate that if we wish to enjoy peace and quiet--if we wish godliness and honesty, or, in other words, religion and morality, to prevail among us, we must pray for our rulers. Farther, the peace and prosperity of a nation evidently depend much upon the measures which its rulers adopt in their intercourse with other nations. Once more, the peace and prosperity of a nation depends entirely on securing the favour of God. (E. Payson.) Christians exhorted to pray for the Queen and Parliament I. In the first place, with respect to the duty itself.1. The nature of it stands very distinctly expressed and announced in the text. Observe, however, that you are not to suppose from this, that kings, princes and senators, and “ all that are in authority,” are always to be considered as ungodly, unconverted men; not, it may be, a part of God’ s Church themselves. 2. As to the external circumstances, in which the duty is contemplated as being discharged, I would just remark that the apostle is giving direction to Timothy for regulating the actings and order of the Church as a society; and is, therefore, in the text, more especially contemplating the Church as such. 3. The internal feeling and state of mind with which the duty is to be discharged. There is emphatically demanded from us, in this duty, earnestness and warmth, sincerity and faith. Try to call into exercise a calm, resolute, honest sentiment of hearty faith in this agency which you exercise. 4. And consider, again, that in relation to this duty, every heart and every lip has its importance. It is the sum and amount of faith in the mass of the people, which is represented in the Scripture as prevailing with God. II. To mention some considerations, which should be felt to enforce and urge upon us its discharge.1. In the first place, to go to the highest at once, we have the Divine command as it stands in the text, and as that text is corroborated and sustained by other passages of the Divine Word. The will of God is the supreme source of moral obligation. 2. A consideration enforcing the discharge of this duty on Christians arises from the fact, that the possession of any power whatever involves an obligation to its proper and efficient employment. If, therefore, it be true that Christian men are contemplated as having the privilege of offering intercession for others, if they are possessed of this amazing power of presenting supplications which shall actually exercise a real agency with God and a beneficial influence upon man, the very possession of that power, that spiritual function, involves an obligation to its conscientious exercise. 3. But we go on to observe that there are these special considerations. You may put them to yourselves in some such way as this. The important position and aspect which these parties sustain in relation to God’ s government of the world. For kings and rulers, and men in authority, are represented as God’ s ministers. Because of this, we are called upon, both for their sake and our own, to commend them to God, that they may indeed be His ministers, by intelligently falling in with His will, and seeking voluntarily to accomplish His purposes. 4. Another consideration is the influence which the character, conduct, and determinations of those in authority must have upon the rest of mankind for evil or for good. 5. Another consideration which specially commends persons in authority to the intercessions of God’ s Church, is the view which Christians may perhaps feel themselves compelled to take of their condition and character. It may be, that Christians may be compelled to feel that a king is necessarily surrounded by circumstances dangerous to his religion, perilous to his soul. It may be, that Christians may think that the circumstances connected with distinguished rank are unfavourable to the proper exercise and culture of those principles and sentiments, which it becomes man as a sinner to entertain, and therefore to that state of mind which is a necessary preparation for the reception of the Gospel of God. It may be, that Christians may sometimes be compelled to think that persons in these high stations are not surrounded by the best, the most enlightened and scriptural, spiritual guides. III. Concluding observations. I think this subject should be felt to present to us the primitive Church in an interesting aspect, and in various ways to illustrate the greatness of our religion. This little society of Christian men--despised, persecuted, contemned--they had prayers for their persecutors; they had love for them. Let me observe, that the important Christian duty which I have been enforcing upon you tonight, must not be made a substitute for all other duties, which as Christian Englishmen you are called to perform. By being Christians, you ceased not to be citizens; as citizens, all your political duties remain the same; the only thing is, that you are to discharge them under religious motives, and with a conscientious desire in them to be “ accepted of God,” whether or not you are approved of men. (T. Binney.) Prayer for kings I. The apostle exhorteth christians to “ pray for kings” with all sorts of prayer; with δεήσεις, or “ deprecations,” for averting evils from them; with προσευχαὶ, or “ petitions,” for obtaining good things to them; with προσευχαὶ, or “ occasional intercessions,” for needful gifts and graces to be collated on them.1. Common charity should dispose us to pray for kings. 2. To impress which consideration, we may reflect that commonly we have only this way granted us of exercising our charity toward princes; they being situated aloft above the reach of private beneficence. 3. We are bound to pray for kings out of charity to the public; because their good is a general good, and the communities of men (both Church and State) are greatly concerned in the blessings by prayer derived on them. The prosperity of a prince is inseparable from the prosperity of his people; they ever partaking of his fortunes, and thriving or suffering with him. For as when the sun shineth brightly, there is a clear day, and fair weather over the world; so when a prince is not overclouded with adversity or disastrous occurrences, the public state must be serene, and a pleasant state of things will appear. Then is the ship in a good condition when, the pilot in open sea, with full sails and a brisk gale, cheerfully steereth on toward his designed port. Especially the piety and goodness of a prince is of vast consequence, and yieldeth infinite benefit to his country. So, for instance, how did piety flourish in the times of David, who loved, favoured, and practised it! and what abundance of prosperity did attend it! What showers of blessings (what peace, what wealth, what credit and glory) did God then pour down on Israel! How did the goodness of that prince transmit favours and mercies on his country till a long time after his decease! How often did God profess “ for His servant David’ s sake” to preserve Judah from destruction; so that even in the days of Hezekiah, when the king of Assyria did invade that country, God by the mouth of Isaiah declared, “ I will defend this city to save it for Mine own sake, and for My servant David’ s sake.” We may indeed observe that, according to the representation of things in Holy Scripture, there is a kind of moral connection, or a communication of merit and guilt, between prince and people; so that mutually each of them is rewarded for the virtues, each is punished for the vices of the other. 4. Wherefore consequently our own interest and charity to ourselves should dispose us to pray for our prince. We being nearly concerned in his welfare, as parts of the public, and as enjoying many private advantages thereby; we cannot but partake of His good, we cannot but suffer with him. We cannot live quietly if our prince is disturbed; we cannot live happily if he be unfortunate; we can hardly live virtuously if Divine grace do not incline him to favour us therein, or at least restrain him from hindering us. 5. Let us consider that subjects are obliged in gratitude and ingenuity, yea in equity and justice, to pray for their princes. They are most nearly related to us, and allied by the most sacred bands; being constituted by God, in his own room, the parents and guardians of their country. To their industry and vigilancy under God we owe the fair administration of justice, the protection of right and innocence, the preservation of order and peace, the encouragement of goodness, and correction of wickedness. 6. Whereas we are by Divine command frequently enjoined to fear and reverence, to honour, to obey kings; we should look on prayer for them as a principal branch, and the neglect thereof as a notable breach of those duties. 7. The praying for princes is a service peculiarly honourable, and very acceptable to God; which He will interpret as a great respect done to Himself; for that thereby we honour His image and character in them, yielding in His presence this special respect to them as His representatives. 8. Let us consider that whereas wisdom, guiding our piety and charity, will especially incline us to place our devotion there where it will be most needful and useful; we therefore chiefly must pray for kings because they do most need our prayers. II. The other (thanksgiving) i shall but touch, and need not perhaps to do more. For--1. As to general inducements, they are the same, or very like to those which are for prayer; it being plain that whatever we are concerned to pray for, when we want it, that we are bound to thank God for, when He vouchsafeth to bestow it. 2. As for particular motives, suiting the present occasion, you cannot be ignorant or insensible of the grand benefits by the Divine goodness bestowed on our king, and on ourselves, which this day we are bound with all grateful acknowledgment to commemorate. (I. Barrow.) The duty of public intercession and thanksgiving for princes I. It recommends a great duty to us, the duty of making supplications, prayers, and intercessions, and of giving thanks for kings, and all that are in authority. II. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.1. Our applications to God in behalf of the princes and rulers of this world are highly reasonable, as they are proper expressions of our good-will to mankind, whose fate is in their hands, and whose welfare in great measure depends upon their actions and conduct. 2. As the virtues and vices of those who govern, operate on all inferior ranks of men in the way of natural causes, so have they another and a more extraordinary effect; inasmuch as God doth often take occasion to reward or punish a people, not only by the means of good or ill princes, but even for the sake of them. 3. The cares of empire are great, and the burthen which lies upon the shoulders of princes very weighty; and on this account, therefore, they challenge, because they particularly want our prayers, that they may “ have an understanding heart to discern between good and bad, and to go out and in before a great people.” With what difficulties is their administration often clogged by the perverseness, folly, or wickedness of those they govern! How hard a thing do they find it to inform themselves truly of the state of affairs; where fraud and flattery surround and take such pains to mislead them! 4. That the providence of God doth, in a very particular manner, interpose towards swaying the will and affections, directing, or overruling the intentions of those who sit at the helm; for the king’ s heart is in the hand of God, as the rivers of waters; He turneth it whithersoever He listeth (Proverbs 21:1). He gives a bent to it this way or that, which it takes as certainly and easily as a stream is derived into the channels, which the hand of the workman prepares for it. These prayers are never so becomingly and forcibly addressed to God as in the great congregation. Blessings of a public nature and influence require as public and solemn acknowledgments; and the proper way of obtaining mercies, which affect many, is by pouring out the joint requests of many in behalf of them; for in the spiritual, as well as the carnal warfare, numbers are most likely to prevail. III. I proceed to consider the special motive there proposed, to quicken us into the exercise of it, that so we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. I shall briefly show in what respects the devotions recommended by the apostle contribute to this end; and how far, therefore, our own ease, advantage, and happiness are concerned in paying them. And--1. They have a plain tendency this way, as they are a prevailing argument with God so to dispose and incline the minds of princes that they may study to promote the quiet, good, and prosperity of their kingdoms. 2. Such prayers facilitate our leading a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; inasmuch as they express, in the most significant manner, our love, and zeal, and reverence towards the persons of princes; and by such instances of duty invite them to make us suitable returns. They effectually prevent those jealousies, which men clothed with sovereign power are too apt to entertain of their inferiors, and promote that good understanding between them, which is the common interest, and should be the common aim of both, and wherein the security and happiness of all well-ordered states chiefly consist. 3. A quiet and peaceable life is the fruit of these public devotions, as we ourselves derive from thence a spirit of meekness, submission, and respect to our superiors, and are led into an habitual love and practice of those mild graces and virtues which we, at such times, solemnly exercise and pray God to inspire us with; and which, when generally practised, make crowns sit easy on the heads of princes, and render them and their subjects equally a blessing to each other. IV. Press on Christians this duty.1. The princes for whom the apostle pleads were infidels, without Christ, aliens from His commonwealth and strangers from the covenants of His promise (Ephesians 2:12); and such also they were, by the permission of God, to continue for three hundred years after the coming of our Saviour, that so His gospel might not owe its first establishment, in any degree, to the secular powers, but might spread and fix itself everywhere without their help and against their will, and manifest to all the world its Divine original by the miraculous manner in which it should be propagated. If then the tribute of supplications and thanksgivings was due to those heathen princes, is it not much more due to those who are Christians, who are ingrafted as principal members into that mystical body, of which Jesus Christ is the head? 2. That the Roman emperors, for whom the apostle here directs that prayers should be made, were usurpers and tyrants, who acquired dominion by invading the liberties of a free people, and were arbitrary and lawless in the exercise of it. Their will and pleasure was the sole standard of justice; fear was the foundation of their government, and their throne was upheld only by the legions which surrounded it. Even for such rulers the first Christians were exhorted to supplicate and give thanks. How much more reasonably and cheerfully do we, who are met here this day, now offer up that sacrifice for a Queen, who wears the crown of her forefathers, to which she is entitled by blood, and which was placed on her royal head, not only with the free consent but with the universal joy and acclamations of her subjects. 3. Those who governed the world at or near the time of St. Paul’ s writing this epistle, had no personal merits or virtues to recommend them to the prayers of the faithful. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, under whom the Christian faith was disseminated, and for all whom, we may presume, the faithful equally made their supplications were not only bad princes but bad men, infamous for their lust, cruelty, and other vices; but they were in authority, and that gave them a right to be mentioned in the sacred offices of the Church. How different from their case is ours, whose eyes behold on the throne a Queen who deserves to sit there, as well by her virtue as by her birth. 4. The emperors of Rome, for whom the primitive Christians were obliged to pray and to give thanks, were their avowed enemies and persecutors, who did what they could to hinder the establishment of the Church of Christ, and to suppress those very assemblies wherein these devotions were offered up to God in their behalf. Whereas she, for whom we now adore and bless the good providence of God, is, by her office and by her inclination the defender and friend, the patroness and nursing-mother of His Church established among us. (F. Atterbury, D. D.) Prayer for others This stands out in the history of Paul more eminently than in that of any of the other apostles. He ceases not to make mention of others in his prayers. We may well suppose that that which was manifest in the example of the Lord, and that which the disciples, doubtless, took from His example, was eminently acceptable before God.1. A habit of praying for others, keeps our minds on a higher plane than does always thinking about our own selves. Praying for others increases in you those compassions and kindnesses toward men which society needs in every part. There is yet much rude and savage nature left among men. There is much of the forest and the wilderness left in society. We speak of them as “ the mass,” “ the rabble,” or “ the common people.” We think of them as we do of flocks of birds, without individualizing them; without specializing their wants, and temptations, and trials; without bringing ourselves into personal relations with them. They are mere animated facts before us. It is a bad thing for men to live, and grow up, and call themselves Christians, and form the habit of looking at the great mass of men and seeing nothing in them but their physical constitution and external relations. And the habit of praying for men brings back the manhood to your thought, and sympathy, and heart in such a way as to lead you to imagine their history, and to feel for them with a true-hearted interest. As we look at men without individualizing them, we are apt to think of them as so many forces without attributes. We see them working, delving, earning, achieving. They are to us very much like rains, like winds, like laws of nature. And the sight is a bad one because it hardens the heart. It is dangerous to look upon the weak side of men. Anything is dangerous to your manhood which takes your sympathy away from your fellow-men, and makes your heart hard toward them. What we need is to have such sympathy with men that every day we shall carry their cases before God, and look at their vulgarities in the light of God’ s pity, and not in the light of our own contempt and cynical criticism. 2. The habit of praying for men tends, also, to increase our patience and our tender helpfulness towards them, and prepares us for just thoughts concerning them. There is many a man who would not smite his neighbour with his fist, but who smites him unmercifully with his thoughts. There is many a man who would not pierce a fellow man with an instrument in his hand for all the world, but who does not hesitate to pierce him and wound him to the very quick with his thoughts. In the court-room of our own secret souls, we condemn men unheard. We argue their case, and they have no chance to make plea in return. And if we are Christian men, we shall see to it that that inside, silent hall of judgment, the soul, is regulated according to the most scrupulous honour, and conscience, and manhood, and sympathy. Nor do I know of any other way in which this can be so well done as by the habit of praying for others. Having, then, considered the duty, more particularly, of praying for all men, let us specialize.1. We naturally pray for our children first. We remember them in our family prayer. And how much better it is, in praying for them, to follow out the line of their disposition, and, as it were, to bathe our affection for them in the heavenly atmosphere! How much more beautiful they will be to us! 2. Then I think we ought to pray for our associates and our friends, not in the general way alone. General good wishes are not without their use; but special prayers are needful. I do not think that we sufficiently search out and know our friends. We are to pray for all that are despised. It is wholesome that from day to day we should send our mercies out, as it were. It is wholesome that we should have something to compare our lot with. As sweet is better to our taste when we have taken something sour, so joy is better for having the touch of sorrow near to it. 3. We are to pray for all those who are in peril and distress; for all those who are shut up in various ways. Prayer for such people keeps alive pity. It deepens humanity. 4. Then we are to pray for our enemies. That duty is made special. It is made one of the fundamental evidences of the relationship of God Himself. Once more. 5. We cannot fulfil the spirit nor the letter of this command if we pray only for our own sect. (H. W. Beecher.) Praying for others The ties which bind Christians to one another are at once so subtle and so real, that it is impossible for one Christian to remain unaffected by the progress or retrogression of any other. Therefore, not only does the law of Christian charity require us to aid all our fellow-Christians by praying for them, but the law of self-interest leads us to do so also; for their advance will assuredly help us forward, and their relapse will assuredly keep us back. (A. Plummer, D. D.) Aspects of the times; or, what the Church has to say of earthly governments I. Government is of God. It has its germ and root in the fatherly relationship. The early patriarch was monarch of his own house, lord of his own castle and flocks, and of the keeper thereof. II. Government as of God is to be obeyed. Conscience, which binds us by direct ties to the throne of God, must, of course, always be obeyed. III. Government as of God is to occupy a foremost place in our petitions. First of all--too often, indeed, it is last of all, and sometimes seldom at all. IV. Government blessed by God will thus ensure the weal of man. (W. M. Statham.) Intercessory prayer Prayer is a first necessity of the Christian life. Without it we are like soldiers in the arid desert, who grow more and more weary as they think of distant wells separated from them by relentless foes, and we are ready to exclaim, “ My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” When we pray we become conscious of the reality of unseen things until they completely outweigh in importance worldly affairs, and then it becomes possible to us, and even natural to us, to live as “ strangers and pilgrims.” The connection with what precedes is tolerably clear. Timothy had been exhorted to wage a good warfare on behalf of the truth, but prayer for himself and others was essential to victory, because it alone would bring into the field of conflict the unseen powers of heaven. Even the Pagan Greeks were said to be inspired in their fight against the Trojans by the thought that the gods were with them; but theirs was only dim and superstitious remembrance of the truth that heaven fights for those who pray--as Elisha found when the Syrians encircled the city. Prayer offered by the church in Ephesus in Rome, in Jerusalem, received answers in the spiritual victories of believers, and in the effects produced through their witness-bearing upon the hearts of the people. I. The variety of prayer is indicated by the use of these differing phrases, “ supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks.” We may think of these phrases separately in order to get a clearer notion of the meaning of each; but one shades off into another; and you can no more exactly define each than you can say of the colours of a sea at sunset, “ the blue begins just here, and the glow of crimson and the sheen of the gold just there.” The more you pray the more you will discover the variety of soul-utterances to God; the calm contemplation; the agonizing supplication; the childlike talk with the heavenly. Father; and the seraphic praisefulness. These are only known through experience. When the untaught, unmusical lad takes up a violin, it is as much as he can do to produce one steady tone, but in the trained hands of the accomplished musician that same instrument wails, and pleads, and sings. Much more varied are the utterances of the human soul, when a full answer is given to the prayer of the disciples, “ Lord, teach us to pray.” II. The subjects of prayer specially referred to in this passage are not the necessities of the saints themselves, but the wants of other men, and especially of all those who had authority and who exercised influence over society. Listen to what Tertullian says in his apology respecting the practice of these early Christians. “ We Christians, looking up to heaven with outspread hands, because they are free from stain; with uncovered heads, because there is nothing to make us blush; without a prompter, because we pray from our hearts; do intercede for all emperors, that their lives may be prolonged, their government be secured to them, that their families may be preserved in safety, their senates faithful to them, their armies brave, the people honest, and the whole empire at peace, and for whatever other things are desired by the people or the Caesar.” If that was the custom under heathen rule, how much more is it our duty under a Christian government! Therefore let us pray that our national affairs may be guided with wisdom; that amidst the tortuous channels of foreign policy, where so many cross currents and hidden rocks abound, the ship of state may be firmly anal safely steered; that questions likely to provoke anger and suspicion may be settled on fair principles of justice; and that in all home legislation inequalities and injustices of every kind may be swept away, the needs of a chronic pauperism met, temptations to drunkenness and profligacy lessened where they cannot be removed; and thus” God, even our own God, ‘ will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” We may fairly widen the application of these words still further. Some of our truest “ kings” are uncrowned. A man who directs and rules the thought of a nation has more power than one who gives expression to it; and we have seen instances in which a man has lost far more than he has gained by exchanging the position of an editor for that of a legislator. III. The issue of such prayers is thus described--“ That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty,” or rather “ in all godliness and gravity,” as those who are not perturbed by earthly strifes, but see in the state of society around them the germs of the righteousness and peace which are of heaven. IV. The acceptability of such prayers in the sight of God is expressly asserted. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Kings over-ruled by God And how many instances do we find in Scripture history, and in ancient and modern history, in which God has over-ruled the counsels of kings for the welfare of his Church! See how the heart of one Pharaoh was turned towards Joseph; how the madness and stoutheartedness of another issued in his own ruin and in the glory of God how Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, and even the wicked Belshazzar, all advanced the holy Daniel in the kingdom; how Cyrus and other Persian monarchs assisted in rearing the temple of the God of Israel; how Constantine was brought to acknowledge the true God; and how, in the days of our own glorious Reformation a wicked and ungodly king was yet made an instrument in God’ s hand of conferring the most unspeakable blessings on our land and on the world. (H. W. Sheppard.) 1 Timothy 2:3-4 In the sight of God our Saviour.The Saviour God Prayer is not everything, but it is “ good.” Effort is not everything, but it is “ good.” Fervent prayer and earnest work, blended in a good man’ s experience, become means of grace in no small degree. I. Let us think, by way of preparing our minds for this broad truth, of the title chosen by our apostle--“ God our Saviour,” or “ our Saviour God.” It is the good pleasure of God as the Saviour, that is uppermost in his mind. The intercessions of the Church as well as the intercessions of the Christ, are but the outgrowth of a Divine purpose, a saving purpose. Surely here is abundant proof, that whatever may be said of mediation, it cannot be an intervention by a third party between a guilty world and a holy Creator. Surely, also, we ought to look upon redemption as having its spring and source in an unsolicited love of the Divine heart. It would have been well had there been more use made of this beautiful phrase, “ God our Saviour,” and less of “ God the Sovereign,” which is not a Scriptural one. When the lost are found, they are found through the mercy of God our Saviour. II. Then let us observe, that if there be any meaning in words, here is also a divine preference disclosed to us; yes, and more than a preference, an energy going forth in order to attain the object of that preference “ who willeth that all men should be saved.” It is not that, of the two, He would rather men should be saved than that they should be lost. This would be a poor and pitiful rendering of the teaching here conveyed to us. Nor is it that there is a sentimental preference; this again might be very unpractical in its results. Many people are conscious of decided preferences, but the preferences are not thrown into their wills. “ God willeth.” Oh that is a strong will of God. He willeth, and lo, the creation became a fact. Are you afraid to allow that there is a strong will--the will of God our Saviour, behind all the acts and processes of Redemption? You say that a purpose may be thwarted and a preference crossed. Yes, yes, but don’ t let this beguile you into any loss of comfort which these words ought to bring you. Especially let them not rob you of any conviction about the absolute and irreversible favourableness of God to your personal, your present, and your future salvation. III. The breadth and grandeur of this statement my startle us. But what will familiarity with it do for us? “ Oh,” says one, “ it will not do to speak it out too boldly. Men will grow daring in their sins; and they will come to believe that if love be indeed almighty and all-embracing, they may do just as they like, and all will be right at last.” Do you not see, however, that, though our apostle entertained this conviction, he saw that all men needed to be prayed for and laboured for? He who is our Saviour God wills that all should be saved; therefore it is good and acceptable in His sight that we should pray for all without distinction, h true prayer becomes a purpose. He who prays for what God loves and wishes, must come to love what God loves; else his prayer is not a true prayer. Why was the Cross planted? Not that the good might be strengthened in their goodness, but that the bad might be assured there was a means whereby they might be recovered. The salvation of Christ is not simply a protection of virtuous men, but a recovery of the vicious; not simply an incentive to continuance in well-doing, but a restoration from evil-doing. What that salvation is, at which our apostle glances, you must look elsewhere to find. If he says, “ knowledge of the truth,” do not think that this requires a vast deal of learning to reach. Do not suppose that mere opinion, or Scripture knowledge even, is what he means. He means, that associated with salvation is a true knowledge, a true recognition of God as the Saviour. The false lie gives place to the true knowledge: there is nothing more than this in the phrase. You have believed Satan’ s lie, now believe God’ s truth. Salvation, again--do you ask what it is? It is a renewed moral energy--the power to do right, the strength to overcome evil. It is safety when the enemy may tempt or taunt. It is eternal life in Christ. It is to have God dwelling with, in us--the assurance of victory. (G. J. Proctor.) The Saviour--God The first name by which the great infinite Being was known to His creatures was that of the Maker of the world; but unless sin had entered into the creation, He could not have been known by the name of God the Saviour. The text says, it is His will, even our salvation. The good, the wise, the gracious will of our God and Maker is our salvation, and His will is the motive of all His actions. I. The apostle remarks, that there is one God. It has been said that the idea of eternity and the idea of a God are too much for us to meddle with. It is not too much to meddle with, but too much fully to understand. One God, one eternal Jehovah, who is above all, and over all, and in all, the only One depending upon none, and derived nor proceeding from none. II. The second thing in the text is, that there is one mediator. Here an interesting scene presents itself to our view. Three parties, God on the one hand, man on the other, and a Mediator, coming, mediating and acting between these two parties at difference, to bring them into union. Now, in order to be qualified to act between both, he must be acquainted with the nature, sentiments, and feelings of both. Agreeably to this, Jesus is revealed as truly and properly God, and therefore He has the same names given to Him, the same attributes ascribed to Him. Nor are we to confine His mediation to the days after His appearance in the flesh; He was the one Mediator from the beginning of the Creation. It was through faith in the seed of the woman who was to appear in the fulness of time to take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself that Adam and Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and all the fathers, entered into glory. He, as the alone Mediator, does and will continue to mediate until the whole scheme of mercy be completed. There is one God and one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. “ Who will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth” This implies that the truth must be revealed, or made known. But how is the truth to be made known for its acknowledgment and belief? God does not, as it is asserted in the Apocrypha, take a prophet by the hair of the head, and place him where his work awaits him; the truth is made known by the use of ordinary means. Now, let us consider the present state of human means. The progress of science and the perfection of navigation have opened up the possibility of sending the truth to every land to be acknowledged and received. Many motives might be urged. What Christ has done for you calls upon you to do something for promoting His interest in the world. The value that you yourselves put upon the salvation of your souls should induce you to send the truth to others. (A. Clarke, D. D.) Our Saviour God is our Saviour.1. He is a seeking Saviour. Were a king to enter a city he would expect and receive honour and applause. But the world would be astonished if instead of asking to be shown the principal buildings of the city, the king were to say to the mayor, “ Now let me go to your poor men and women who need my kingly help and sympathy: it gives me no pleasure to look on your splendour while I know your back slums are crowded with the miserable and degraded.” Ah, no king ever did this except the One who was crowned with thorns, and whose throne was a cross. 2. God is a gracious Saviour. He not only loves His friends, but He dies to save His enemies. 3. God is a truthful Saviour. His word may be relied on. No man yet, so far as I have been able to learn, ever trusted God and was lost. 4. He is a loving Saviour. A mother who has a crippled child, from whom all other people draw away and shudder because of its distorted face, will hug her babe to her breast and rejoice because she has love for it. Now, like a mother, God is our loving Saviour, not because there is anything good in us, but because His heart contains love for us. 5. The Lord is a powerful Saviour. 6. God is our present Saviour. He saves now. 7. God is our everlasting Saviour. If He were not able to “ keep us” I should doubt, and you would fear; but we rejoice to know that God is our ever lasting Saviour. (W. Birch.) Who will have all men to be saved. God would have all men to be saved Benevolence is a distinguishing feature of the gospel, which bears an aspect of mildness and compassion to every man. And it transfuses its spirit into the hearts of all who understand it, and submit to its influence. This disposition is founded upon two great principles which are recognized by Christianity--that we are all the children of an equal, creating love; and all redeemed by the same Divine sacrifice. I. To the appellation given by the apostle to gospel--it is “ the truth.” The unhesitating manner in which the founders of Christianity apply this epithet to the religious system they were charged to unfold to the world is a circumstance not to be passed over in silence. Had they been conscious of the absence of inspiration, and that the Christian code of doctrine had been an invention of their own, it would have been insufferable arrogance in them to have dignified it with the appellation of “ the truth.” They knew that this system was “ the truth,” because they knew that it came from God. The heathen sages had reason which was dark and beclouded, because it was only the reason of fallen creatures. The apostles had revelation, the mind of the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God. The gospel which they preached had the evidence of the old revelation of the law; for its principles were seen pictured in the hieroglyphics of the tabernacle. It had the evidence of the prophets; for they had jointly testified of Christ, His sufferings, His glory, His doctrines, in language of easy interpretation. They had the evidence of miracles wrought by Jesus Himself, in confirmation of His mission, and which they themselves had seen. But by designating the gospel “ the truth,” the apostle not only proclaims its divinity, and consequent in fallibility, but also calls the attention of men to it as a system of the utmost importance to them, and bound up with their best interests. It is represented in the text as truth which relates to salvation. God willeth all men to be saved by coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is this circumstance which strikes so deep an interest to our religion, and distinguishes it as “ the truth,” by way of eminence. All truth is not interesting to man; or, at least, every other truth is but partially so. It shows us the true propitiation--the blood of a divine sacrifice. It exhibits the terms of man’ s acceptance--his deep humiliation of soul, and his faith in the merits and intercession of the appointed Redeemer. It has promises for man’ s encouragement, warnings for his caution, precepts for his direction. It proclaims him immortal; teaches him that he is on his trial; sets before him the solemnities of the general judgment; and carries his hopes and fears into their highest exercise, and renders them of the best possible service to him, by opening to him the penalties of eternal destruction, and the glories of endless felicity. H. We observe in the text, that the knowledge of this truth is connected with salvation, as a means to an end; and connected, too, by no less an authority than the will of God. He that willeth “ all men to be saved” willeth them also “ to come to the knowledge of the truth” ; and from this the inference is irresistible, that the knowledge of the truth is essential to salvation. This subject deserves our serious attention; and there are two questions which arise out of it--What degree of that truth is necessary to be known in order to salvation; and how it must be known. The first question presents a point of necessary discussion; because if it were meant that, before a person could be saved, he should have a complete and accurate knowledge of all the truths of the gospel, every one would be excluded from the benefit. The truths revealed are the revelations of an infinite mind, and partake of its infinity. They relate to spiritual operations, of which we know little; and to a future state, of which we practically know nothing. For this reason the gospel must ever present something more to be known, as well as to be experienced; and it is to be the subject of development for ever. This is its perfection. But there are considerations which prove that a perfect knowledge of every part of the truth is not essential to mere salvation. Hence it is that divines have divided the truths of the gospel into two classes--those which are essential, and those which are nonessential. The distinction is just. There are truths which it is necessary we should know in order that we may be saved. The best way of determining what is essential for us to know, is to consider what is essential to faith. It is said, “ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Whatever, therefore, is essential for us to know, in order that we may believe, must be essential for us to know, in order that we may be saved. In order to faith we must know the purity of the Divine law in such a degree as shall convince us that we have violated it, and incurred the penalty of its maledictory sanction. We must know our inability to make atonement; for without this the undertaking of Christ is vain in respect to us. We must know so much of the evidence of Christ’ s mission as to receive Him as the divinely appointed Redeemer. We must know His meritorious death to be so satisfactory to the offended Deity, that for the sake of that He will impute our faith for justification. We must know the provisions made in the promises for supplying us with the help of the Holy Spirit for the renewing of our nature, and the support and comfort of our minds; and we must know the precepts of the gospel law, by which our minds and lives may be regulated according to the will of God. This knowledge is necessary for mere salvation: but we are far from saying that a higher degree of knowledge is useless. A higher degree of knowledge is, indeed, necessary in order to a confirmed faith; to enable us to meet and answer the objections by which we may be assailed; to qualify us to instruct the ignorant; to be a means of carrying us up to high attainments in religion; and to prepare us for extensive usefulness in the Church. The second question, how the truth must be known, in order that we may be saved, seems to be answered in the phrase, “ come to the knowledge of the truth.” This knowledge supposes curiosity to know the truth. It is lamentable that there is so little of this amongst men. In many instances truth is never thought of. This knowledge supposes the admission of truth into the understanding, and its influence upon the practice. Some men shrink back from this knowledge. They will not come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved. Whatever it cost us, we must know the truth, that we may walk by it, and be saved by its instrumentality. III. The text presents us with an interesting view of the connection of the Divine will with the salvation of man. “ Who will have all men to be saved.”1. The object of this will is the salvation of man. This has already been alluded to, but deserves a more distinct consideration. It is this which so gloriously displays the benevolence of God by the gospel. 2. That in the same sense He willeth all men to be saved. That this is Scripture doctrine, and that the word “ all” is to be taken in its most extensive sense, scarcely any other argument is necessary to prove than that of the apostle in the context. It is a feeble criticism to say that the apostle meant by the expression, “ all men,” all ranks of men; for that is the same thing. “ All ranks of men” are “ all men” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Here the remedy is declared to be as extensive as the disease. 3. The mode in which the Divine will is connected with human salvation remains to be considered. It is a natural question, “ If God willeth all men to be saved, why is it that any perish?” The answer is, If God willeth to save men by overcoming their wills by His omnipotent influence, all men must be saved; but He wills to save them according to the nature which He has given them; and we have the evidence of His Word, and of our own consciousness, that His will is a resistible will, and that His willing us to be saved does not effect our salvation without a corresponding determination of our own will. The principal opinions on this subject are these. Some persons have considered man, when under the gracious influence of God exerted upon him in order to his salvation, as wholly passive, and carried by irresistible force into a new condition. But if this be the case, then man is a machine. Another opinion therefore is, that the will is necessarily influenced in its determinations by motives of good and evil discovered to the understanding; and that in the case of those who are saved, such motives as must command the assent of the will are impressed by God upon the mind; and thus it is supposed that the person so operated upon is infallibly brought into a state of salvation without any violence to his free agency. If, however, God willeth all men to be saved, and proceeded in this way to the execution of His purpose, their salvation would be as certain as if they were machines. The doctrine is the same, though cloaked with a metaphysical garb. The opposite extreme to these opinions is, that man has a natural power to discern the right, and to choose it, independent of a Divine agency exerted upon his mind. Had man been left without any supernatural aids, he must have been as blind to discern what is good as he was unable to choose it. The plain facts before us, then, are, God willeth our salvation; He has appointed effectual means to this end; He has given us all the power to use these means; and to the use of them lie has promised His blessing. Whether we will actually “ come to the knowledge of the truth,” or not, is left ultimately with ourselves; but whether we will hear the voice of God, or whether we will forbear, we have motives, exhortations, promises; all that can move upon our fear, our love, our interest. To apply these motives is a part of our ministry. We are made ambassadors for Christ to persuade you to be reconciled to God. (R. Watson.) All men to be saved This large thought comes in primarily as an argument and a measure of intercessory prayer. It is one of the reasons that St. Paul gives why, “ first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks, should be made for all men.” The first reason is his own individual case--he himself was the monument of the power of intercession, when, with his dying lips, St. Stephen prayed for him as one of his murderers. The text is the second reason--Pray for all, for God loves all. Pray for persecuting kings--pray for Nero--for God wills the salvation of all. We are never so safe as when we are taking great views of God. Most of our sins and troubles are from having narrow previsions, which limit the Holy One of Israel. It is not a merely future tense, but it is the expression of the Divine wish and intention, which are to be the same for ever, whatever man may do to frustrate it--“ who wills that all men should be saved.” But the great point to which I wish to draw your consideration is, the Catholicity of the salvation which God wills and presents to man. That magnificent “ all” --who can reduce it?--“ all” to be saved. Has not God plainly shown you that He wishes you to be saved? Has not He so drawn, chastened, so converted, so held, so protected, so borne with you, so blessed you, that He has given the most unmistakable evidence that He would have you to be saved? And did you ever meet with the man who could tell you the contrary, of his own experience? It is remarkable, in the Old Testament, how often God is called, “ the God of the whole earth.” And David, probably in prophecy, loves the expression, “ The King of all the earth.” But if you ask me, more logically, Why it is that I believe that God wills the salvation of all His creatures? I answer--I find it in the congruity of all things. I find it in the law which must regulate the mind of a great Creator. I find it in the Fatherly character of God, and the “ tender mercies that are over all His works.” I find it in the immensity of the gift of His own Son, that blood is an equivalent, and much more to the sins of the whole world. I find it in the imagery of the Bible, which suits every land, and in those provisions of His grace, which are accommodated to the minds of the inhabitants of every clime. I find it in the free flowings of that Spirit, like the four winds of heaven, “ I will pour it upon all flesh.” “ If God wills the salvation of all men, why are not all saved? For who can resist His will?” If God willed the salvation of all His creatures, He willed also that the world which He had made should be a world of discipline and probation. Therefore He willed that the will of every living mar should be free--for this is an essential condition of probation. But what shall we say respecting the heathen? They have not even “ the knowledge.” But why? God willed them to have it, and made the most express provision that they might have it; for He laid it upon every soul that should ever know Him, and made it almost a condition of His presence in that soul, that it should impart again that knowledge to another. And this commission He gave to His whole Church. Am I to say then that, because, through my neglect, and selfishness, all men are not saved, and brought to the knowledge of the truth, therefore God did not will it? (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Redemption universal Let us go simply into these two investigations, what is pre-supposed of all men when we are bidden, as we are, in our text to pray for all men? and, secondly, when we are bidden, as we equally are, in our text to give thanks for all men. I. Now it can scarcely have escaped your attention that there is in our text an accumulation of phrase which must prevent our thinking that any prayer, except the largest and most urgent, will come up to the scope of the apostle’ s exhortation. These words forbid our thinking that St. Paul simply requires that we should be, in general terms, the well-wishers of mankind. Had his discourse referred exclusively to the household of faith, he could not have used more unrestricted language, nor sent us to our knees with a broader view of the blessings to be sought for in our wrestlings with God. We just wish by these means to show at the outset the wrongness of the opinion that we are only bidden to solicit for the mass of our fellow-men the common mercies of existence, that we may reserve petitions which have to do with God’ s nobler gifts for our pleadings on behalf of a select company of mankind. If you consider prayer attentively, whether it be for ourselves or for others, you must regard it as the most wonderful act which can ever be attempted by a fallen creature. We shall not hesitate to say that so long as the scheme of our redemption is kept out of sight, prayer is nothing but a great proof of human ignorance. There is a great deal taken for granted in prayer. When I pray, I assume that an access has been opened for me to the Father; I assume, that in spite of my apostasy, born though I have been in sin and cradled in corruption, God’ s compassions towards me may not be shut up nor alienated. I assume that some amazing corrective, as it were, must have been applied to human guiltiness, so that the pollution which naturally and necessarily clings to the fallen, is no hindrance to free admission to an audience of Him who is of purer eyes than to look unmoved upon iniquity. And how can I assume all this, unless I bring within my contemplations the mysteries of redemption, and, making my appeal to the wondrous achievement which Christ hath effected on my behalf, fetch from that an assurance that there lies no barrier between myself and the Lord? The whole work of human reconciliation is gathered into God’ s permitting prayer. The globe was convulsed and shaken to its very centre before it could become a platform on which man might kneel. It is a truth sufficiently simple to commend itself to every capacity, that if prayer is literally based upon redemption, then all who can be rightly the subjects of prayer must be strictly the subjects of redemption. I cannot pray for a man whom I know to have never been redeemed--a man for whom Christ Jesus did not die. Can I ask God to have mercy on that man’ s soul? Such is the use that we would make of the exhortation of our text. We infer from it the grand doctrine of Christianity, even that of Christ’ s having died for the whole world; and lest it should be thought that this inference is in any degree far fetched, we will just show you how St. Paul supports or authorizes his exhortation. You observe that the announced reason that all should be prayed for is that God is willing that all should be saved; and if God wills that all should be saved, assuredly all must have been put into a salvable state; in other words, all must have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. It does not fall within the scope of our argument to examine into the mystery of God’ s willing the salvation of all, when it is certain that nothing more than a remnant shall be saved. The character given to the living God--and who doubts that at the root of true religion lies the character of God?--the character given by St. Paul of the living God is that He is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe. In this same sense--for He is not spoken of as a different kind of Saviour, in the different senses, but as the same in kind though different in degree--in the same sense that God is especially the Saviour of believers, He is generally the Saviour of all men. This is St. Paul’ s statement; and if the living God is the Saviour generally of all in that very sense in which He is especially the Saviour of believers, then beyond question all must have been redeemed by Him; for redemption is that incipient form of salvation which may be common to all, and yet applied effectually only to some, O blessed Saviour, Thou didst take upon Thyself our nature, and didst ransom that nature, and therefore didst place within the reach of all who are born of this nature the choice things of forgiveness and acceptance; therefore is it that our prayers may, and must, go up to the mercy-seat on behalf of all; all shall be the subjects of our petition, for all are the objects of redemption; and we may now acknowledge and appreciate the justice of the ample terms in which the text is expressed: “ I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men.” II. We turn now to the second question--what is pre-supposed in regard of all men, when we are bidden, as we further are, to give thanks for all men? You will observe at once that thanksgiving must assume the existence of benefit. If I am to give thanks for all men, it is clear that I must be acquainted with some manifestation of kindness towards all, which may justly summon forth my praise on their account. But if we were guilty of an exaggeration in designating prayer as a giant act, we fall into no over-wrought statement if we apply such an epithet to the thanking God for our creation. Conscious to myself of the struggles within me of a principle which can never be extinguished, never be mastered by any process of decay, knowing that the present scene, whatever its cares or its joys, is but the first stage of an unlimited career along which I am appointed to pass--shall I praise God for having endowed me with existence, unless I have assurance that it is not impossible for me to secure myself happiness throughout the infinity of my being? Shall I thank God for the capacity of being miserable, unspeakably miserable, throughout unnumbered ages? I cannot do this. I cannot praise God for the bright sunshine that must light me to the dungeon; I cannot praise God for the breeze that must waft me to the whirlpool; I cannot praise God for the food that must nourish me for the rack! Life, the present life, that single throb, that lonely beat--can I praise God for this, if it must unavoidably usher me into a sphere of wretchedness whose circumference cannot be reached, or turn me adrift on an ocean of fire without a shore, or consign me to that mysterious death which consists in the being for ever dying, that wondrous immortality of being restored as fast as consumed and consumed as fast as restored? Better, oh! infinitely better for me if I had never been born, I cannot praise God for this. Creation can be no more a blessing than annihilation if I am not a redeemed man; it is this, and this alone, for which you require me to praise God. If I am a redeemed man it is possible that I may be saved; if I am not a redeemed man, then, so far as is revealed, it is impossible. As far as we know from the Bible it is impossible that any man shall be saved for whom Christ did not die. And how then can I give God thanks for all men, unless I believe that Christ died for all men? Shall I praise Him for the creation of others though I cannot praise Him for my own? Shall I sweep the harp strings, and bring out the melodies of gratitude, because God has so dealt with tens of thousands of my fellow-men; that if He had dealt” in like manner with myself, I should have worn sackcloth and gone all my days in inconsolable mourning? No! I cannot thank God for all men except on the noble principle that Christ has redeemed all men. Creation is a blessing if connected with redemption, but not dissociated from it. Thus, as we trust, we have sufficiently shown you that the universal redemption of mankind is pre-supposed when we are bidden to pray for all, and when we are bidden to give thanks for all. Our two topics may, therefore, be considered as sufficiently discussed, and it only remains to bid you strive to obey in your practice the exhortation of which we have shown you the propriety. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Knowledge of the truth.--Salvation by knowing the truth I. It is by a knowledge of the truth that men are saved. Observe that stress is laid upon the article: it is the truth and not every truth. Though it is a good thing to know the truth about anything, and we ought not to be satisfied to take up with a falsehood upon any point, yet it is not every truth that will save us. We are not saved by knowing any one theological truth we may choose to think of, for there are some theological truths which are comparatively of inferior value. They are not vital or essential, and a man may know them and yet may not be saved. It is the truth which saves. Jesus Christ is the Truth: the whole testimony of God about Christ is the truth. This knowledge of the grand facts which are here called the truth saves men, and we will notice its mode of operation.1. Very often it begins its work in a man by arousing him, and thus it saves him from carelessness. Perhaps he heard a sermon, or read a tract, or had a practical word addressed to him by some Christian friend, and he found out enough to know that “ he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God.” That startled him. “ God is angry with the wicked every day” --that amazed him. He had not thought of it, perhaps had not known it, but when he did know it, he could rest no longer. 2. The truth is useful to a man in another way: it saves him from prejudice. Often when men are awakened to know something about the wrath of God, they begin to plunge about to discover divers methods by which they may escape from that wrath. Consulting, first of all, with themselves, they think that if they reform--give up their grosser sins, and if they can join with religious people, they will make it all right. They have done all that they judged right and attended to all that they were told, Suddenly, by God s grace, they come to a knowledge of another truth, and that is that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. They discover that salvation is not by works of the law or by ceremonies, and that if any man be under the law he is also under the curse. 3. Moreover, it often happens that a knowledge of the truth stands a man in good stead for another purpose: it saves him from despair. 4. A knowledge of the truth shows a man his personal need of being saved. 5. A knowledge of the truth reveals the atonement by which we are saved: a knowledge of the truth shows us what that faith is by which the atonement becomes avail able for us: a knowledge of the truth teaches us that faith is the simple act of trusting, that it is not an action of which man may boast. II. A mere notional knowledge or a dry doctrinal knowledge is of no avail. We must know the truth in a very different way from that. How are we to know it, then?1. Well, we are to know it by a believing knowledge. You do not know a thing unless you believe it to be really so. 2. In addition to this, your knowledge, if it becomes believing knowledge, must be a personal knowledge--a persuasion that it is true in reference to yourself. 3. But this must be a powerful knowledge, by which I mean that it must operate in and upon your mind. A man is told that his house is on fire. I will suppose that standing here I held up a telegram, and said, “ My friend, is your name so-and-so?” “ Yes.” “ Well, your house is on fire.” He knows the fact, does he not? Yes, but he sits quite still. Now, my impression is about that good brother, that he does not know, for he does not believe it. 4. This knowledge when it comes really to save the soul is what we call experimental knowledge--knowledge acquired according to the exhortation of the Psalmist, “ Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” --acquired by tasting. I am now going to draw two inferences which are to be practical. The first one is this: in regard to you that are seeking salvation. Does not the text show you that it is very possible that the reason why you have not found salvation is because you do not know the truth? Hence, I do most earnestly entreat the many of you young people who cannot get rest to be very diligent searchers of your Bibles. The last inference is for you who desire to save sinners. You must bring the truth before them when you want to bring them to Jesus Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 2:5 One Mediator between God and man.The mediation of Christ That there has been a Mediator in this world is conceded by all except Jews and heathens. But respecting the precise nature of the work which He has undertaken and accomplished, there has not been even in those to whom the knowledge of this salvation has come, clear conceptions, nor correspondent emotions of gratitude and thanksgiving. With what distress would you gaze on the Divine power and infinity, and say, “ He is not a Man as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment; neither is there any days-man betwixt us, that might lay his hand on us both” ? With what anguish would you look around and inquire for some being able and ready to rescue you from perdition? But what, in such circumstances, you would look for in yam is now declared unto you. You are now taught on the authority of inspiration that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man. I. What is implied in the idea of a mediator between God and man? The fact of a mediation between one man and another implies a difficulty which it is not easy to reconcile. This is equally implied in the employment of a government to mediate between two other nations. Such measures are never adopted in the times of peace and of mutual friendship. So of our attitude to God. The fact that there is a Mediator between God and man unquestionably proves that there is an alienation which it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile. II. Alienation does not imply criminality in both the parties which are thus brought into conflict. On this subject a proverb seems to have obtained among men, that in cases of alienation there is transgression in both the conflicting parties. “ Both are to blame” is a maxim which has prevailed. It may perhaps be important to show the fallacy of the principle itself against which I am here contending. We are often asked, with a confidence amounting almost to the authority of inspiration, “ Do you not believe that in all cases of alienation there is blame on both sides?” To this we reply, “ We do not, we cannot believe it.” If the question still be pressed, we ask our inquirer, “ Do you not know that there is an eternal alienation between sheep and wolves; and have the sheep ever committed any aggression on the wolves?” You have all heard of the warfare which goes forward between the angels which kept their first estate and those spirits which have revolted from God. And is it not to be assumed that in this controversy the angels, who have always been spotless in the eyes of Jehovah, were free from the imputation of guilt? Pre-eminently is this principle applicable to Jehovah. Of what wrong, respecting us, has He ever been guilty? Who amongst those that have in former alines charged Him with injury or injustice has ever been able to sustain it? “ Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God,” etc. The objects around us were never created and never designed to be the cause of our transgressions. Our sins are not the result either of the example of those individuals or circumstances which God has placed around us. They are the fruit of our own hearts. There is an alienation from Him in the sons of men, and the causes of this alienation are not mutual: the criminality is altogether with us. III. But who is there that is adequate to undertake the mediatorial work? In human affairs there are many individuals who are equally competent to settle a difficulty and remove the causes of alienation which exist between a man and his neighbour. And in a great share of the instances which occur, any individual of a multitude that can be mentioned is equally as well qualified to undertake the work as any other individual that can be selected. Not so in the work of human redemption. Here there is but one Being in the universe who is competent to be a Days-man, a Mediator between Jehovah and His offending subjects (Isaiah 63:5). IV. To inquire why no other being but Christ is qualified for this work. And here I must frankly confess that of my own unaided reason I am incompetent to tell. And I apprehend that had the family of man been left to ascertain by their own intellectual powers what Mediator is suited to their circumstances, no one of them would have been able to discover the truth. His agony for reconciliation burst forth in the affecting question, “ Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings and calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Let us go to the Scriptures to ascertain what Christ is; and having thence derived a knowledge of His character, let us draw the only safe conclusion, that on account of the respects in which He differs from every other being in existence, He is chosen to be the Mediator between God and man. V. What, then, are the respects in which he differs from every other being? It must here be remembered that in certain respects He is God. I here refer to His original nature. Of Him, John in his Gospel says, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Nor was He God only. In some respects He differed in His mediatorial office from the Father. He assumed into immediate connection with Himself a human body and a rational soul. This was done in accordance with the prophets. Isaiah in prophetic vision declared, “ Unto us a Child is born,” etc. These expressions show the union of divinity with humanity in our Lord Jesus Christ, and indicate His wonderful adaptedness to the work of redeeming men from their sins and reconciling them to God. Are we, then, asked in what respects Christ differs from every other being? Is it demanded in what respect He differs from the Father? We reply, by the addition unto His own glorious nature of all the powers and faculties of man. He is at once Divine and human. Is it again demanded in what respects He differs from men? I reply, He is human and Divine. In these respects He is altogether diverse from any other being in the universe. And viewed in this attitude, we may wonder, and say in the language of the prophet, “ There is none like unto Thee, O God!” Having now learned from the Scriptures the qualifications of Him who undertook to be the Mediator for us, we can see His wonderful adaptations to the work which He has undertaken. Human salvation requires a thorough acquaintance with all the wants, perplexities, and temptations of man. In this respect, such a Mediator as He who has become flesh is wonderfully suited to our condition. He did not undertake to help the angels. The work of human salvation also requires a thorough knowledge of all the causes and a complete control of all the beings who have power either to advance or retard it. And what eyes but those which run to and fro through the universe are competent to see all the wants, and all the exposures, and all the means of relief which pertain to the condition of ruined man? What hands but those which formed the universe are competent so to direct all the influences of the material and the spiritual worlds in such a manner as to subserve the welfare of His people and cause them to conspire together for the promotion of their salvation? What other Presence, except that which pervades the universe, can be co-extensive with all the wants of His people who dwell in every part of the earth, who call upon Him for aid at every hour of the day and of the night What other knowledge but that which transcends all limitation, and is strictly infinite, can be adequate to an acquaintance with the condition, the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings, and the actions of all the immortal beings who inhabit the vast regions of His Mediatorship? And what memory short of that to which all past, present, and future things are equally known is competent to bring together all the particulars of thought, of feeling, and of action, which constitute the life of a human being; and accurately to weigh in the balances the gold and the dross of his character; and not only this, but to extend the process to all the sons of men, all the apostate, and all the holy angels? Yet all this knowledge must be possessed by the Son of Man; and all the powers to which we have referred must be held by Him who undertakes the work of a Mediator between God and man. This work has commonly been regarded and taught under three separate heads. The first is His office as a Prophet. This portion of His work was referred to by Moses when he said, “ A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever He shall say unto you.” In this office it pertained to Him to reveal the character, the law, and the gospel of God to the children of men, and cause it to be written and preached unto them. It also pertained to His work to open the understandings of His people, that they might know the excellency of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ. The next particular in the work of a Mediator is that of a Priest. He was a Priest, not indeed according to the order of Aaron, but of Melchizedek. As in the Mosaic history no priest is named as the predecessor of Melchizedek, so in human redemption there is no other priest but Jesus Christ. And in this Priesthood His work differed widely from that of other priests. They first offered sacrifices for their own sins, and afterwards for those of the people; but He had no occasion to offer sacrifices for Himself. “ He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. A third particular in this work is His office as the Ruler and Defender of the people of God. This is called His kingly office. In this respect the apostle declares that God “ hath put all things under His feet, and given Him to be Head over all things to the Church” (Ephesians 1:22). Such is the Mediator between a ruined world and the Holy One of Israel. A Mediator in some respects Divine, in other respects human. A Mediator who in the Scriptures is sometimes denominated God, at other times He is called Man. A Mediator who is set apart by Jehovah Himself to be the Prophet, the Priest, and the King of your souls; a Mediator whom, if you accept, on whom, if you rely, to whom, if you commit your immortal interests, you shall yet stand on Mount Zion with songs and eternal joy. This subject calls loudly on us to admire the wisdom and goodness of God. What could He have seen in us or any of our depraved race that induced Him to confer on us such an immense favour as this? All, He saw nothing but evil in our hearts, nothing but vice in our deeds. It was not owing to any righteousness in us, but of His mercy, that saved us. The subject calls on us to consider what our condition would have been had not Jesus undertaken to be Mediator between God and man. (J. Feet, D. D.) The one Mediator “ It is good for me,” said the Psalmist, “ to draw near to God.” It is the idea of all true religion that it can be nothing but good to get near to God--the nearer the better; that he who gets near Him finds peace, blessing, satisfaction of all wants; that away from Him is darkness and unrest. But why have a Mediator at all? Why have any one standing between you and God, instead of going direct to Him, and dealing with Him, without any Mediator? Just because our nature needs the Mediator. We cannot understand the mysteries of God, which pass our understanding. Out of the limits of our capacity, and out of the infinitude of God, springs that need of One who shall stand between Him and us, revealing the Infinite to the finite, the Divine to the human. And He who does this is called here emphatically “ the man Christ Jesus” ; “ for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?” And thus, in order that the life and character of God should be understood by us, they must be revealed to us by a man; by one in human form, and living under human conditions. It is only thus you can come to a real knowledge of any person. You must learn his character. Is it hard or tender; generous or narrow; wise or foolish? And so your only true knowledge of the living God must be a knowledge of His character, of His life, of His ways. And as these, the life, the character, the ways of the infinite and eternal God are far above, out of human sight, they must be brought near enough for us to see, revealed to us by a Mediator who is Himself a man, the man Christ Jesus. A God thus revealed we can know, can understand. This is the idea of the mediation of Christ; the revealing of what otherwise would be unknown and unknowable in God; so that we, seeing His face and understanding His character, may lose the ignorance that is full of darkness, and the fear that is full of torment, and may draw nigh to Him with true hearts, and in the full assurance of faith. The end was spiritual perfectness; the Church was but the means, and only useful as it served the end, and subject to such changes as might make it serve the end better. But the belief, in which many people seem to find the essential nutriment of their spiritual life, is altogether different from this. To them the Church is all in all, while Christ recedes into the distance; and where the Church is not He is not and cannot be. They do not deny that He is the original source of Christian life and all its blessings; but to this truth they add the error, that these blessings can reach the individual soul only through one channel of sacraments and ministries. They thus interpose between God and man a certain mediation of the Church’ s, apart from which they do not recognize any reality of Christian life at all, thus drawing across the Holy of Holies a veil as thick as that which was rent in twain on the day of the crucifixion. Be on your guard lest you should ever learn to regard any system, or creature, as possessing a right to come between you and your own Lord and master; or as having the power to add to or to take from what He has done, and is doing, for you as the one Mediator between you and God. Now, you may see another example of the tendency. I speak of--to substitute a lower mediation for the mediation of Christ, in the idea which many have (especially persons in whom feeling is stronger than reason) as to the relations which should exist between them and those who occupy the position of their spiritual guides and instructors, and whose duty it is, as such, to guide and instruct them. There is a strong desire in all minds, and particularly in minds of that class, for sympathy where feeling is deeply stirred, for counsel where the highest interests are involved; and there is, too, a strong inclination to depend on and defer to those, with whom that sympathy and that counsel are found. Sympathy is good; but it is dangerous, when in order to evoke or to secure it, you unbare the secrets of the soul, and have to relate, even to the friendliest and justest ear, the trials and difficulties which you find besetting your inner life. A human director or guide or counsellor is safe, not because he fills a certain office and is ordained to a certain ministry; but when his character is such, that you know by the instinct of the spirit that there is in him the mind of Christ, and that communion with him is communion with one who is near the Master, and who will help to bring you near. Unless he is this, he can do nothing for you; he cannot bring you nearer to Christ, he can only stand between Christ and you. Now, in these instances (and more might be mentioned) we see the one tendency, to push Christ away, and set something of our own, a church, a system, a sacrament, a priest, a teacher, in the Mediator’ s place; so that the truth becomes obscured to us that the life of every human soul is wrapped up in its direct communion with its God, through faith in God as Christ revealed Him, and service of God after the pattern of the Divine life of Christ. (R. H. Storey, D. D.) Christ Jesus the Mediator I. The necessity of a mediator. But there are difficulties existing--a mighty gulf separating God and man. He cannot cross to us; we cannot cross to Him. His holiness is one obstacle. “ He is of purer eyes than to behold evil.” Guilty and polluted as we are, we cannot approach that Holy Being without being at once consumed as were Korah and his companions. We at once see the necessity of a mediator. His justice is another obstacle. “ Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne.” Maintaining the honour and dignity of His government was another obstacle. The great Legislator of heaven has enacted a law that sin must be punished, that death must be the penalty of disobedience. That peace on earth and glory to God may harmonize, there must be a mediator. Thus we have noticed the need of a mediator on the part of Jehovah. The mediator is equally necessary on the part of man. Man needed One who would descend into the depths of ruin, place underneath him the arms of omnipotent love, and raise him up--One who could enter into his dungeon, strike off his fetters, and throw open the prison door for his release--One who can reveal the Most High as a God of mercy, compassion, and love, yearning over the wandering prodigal, and anxiously watching for the first sight of a trembling penitent returning home. II. Christ Jesus through “ the combination of the two natures is adapted to act as mediator.1. He is equal with God; He is “ the mighty God.”2. He is acquainted with the mind of God. Christ being human possesses three qualifications to act as mediator:--1. An affinity to our nature.2. A sympathy with our infirmities.3. An interest in our cause. From this subject we learn--1. To admire the wisdom of God in providing such a mediator.2. The love of Christ in occupying such a position.3. The folly of sinners in rejecting this mediator. (I. Watkins.) The mediator of the covenant, described in His person, natures, and offices Communion with God is our only happiness; it is the very heaven of heaven, and it is the beginning of heaven here on earth. The only foundation of this communion is the covenant of grace; and it is the great excellency of this covenant of grace, that it is established in such a mediator, even Jesus Christ. I. The only way of friendly intercourse between God and man. It is through a mediator; that is implied. Whether man in the state of innocency needed a mediator, is disputed among persons learned and sober; but in his lapsed state, this need is acknowledged by all. God cannot now look upon men out of a mediator but as rebels, traitor, as fit objects for His vindictive wrath; nor can men now look up to God but as a provoked Majesty, an angry Judge, a consuming fire. II. The only mediator between God and men. “ One mediator,” that is, but one. Some acknowledge one mediator of reconciliation, but contend for many of intercession. So is Christ said here to be “ one mediator,” that is, but one. This mediator is here described partly by His nature--“ the Man” ; and partly by His names--“ Christ Jesus.”1. His nature--the man” ; that is, “ That eminent man,” so some; “ He that was made man,” so others. “ But why is this mediator mentioned in this nature only?” (1) Negatively: not by way of diminution, as if He were not God as well as man, as the Arians argue from this Scripture; nor as if the execution of his mediatorship were either only, or chiefly, in His human nature, as some affirm. (2) Positively: to prove that Jesus Christ was the true Messiah whom the prophets foretold, the fathers expected, and who had in that nature been so frequently promised: as in the first gospel that ever was preached (Genesis 3:15), He is promised as the Seed of the woman. 2. His names--“ Christ Jesus.” Jesus, this was His proper name; Christ, this was His appellative name. Jesus: that denotes the work and business for which He came into the world. Christ: that denotes the several offices, in the exercise whereof He executes this work of salvation. III. That there is now no other way of friendly communion between God and man, but through a mediator. And, indeed, considering what God is, and withal what man is; how vastly disproportionable, how unspeakably unsuitable our very natures are to His; how is it possible there should be any sweet communion betwixt them, who are not only so infinitely distant, but so extremely contrary? God is holy, but we are sinful. In a word: He an infinitely and incomprehensibly glorious majesty, and we poor sinful dust and ashes, who have sunk and debased ourselves by sin below the meanest rank of creatures, and made ourselves the burden of the whole creation. If ever God be reconciled to us, it must be through a mediator; because of that indispensible necessity of satisfaction, and our inability to make it (Romans 8:7). If ever we be reconciled to God, it must be through a mediator; because of that radicated enmity that is in our natures to everything of God, and our impotency to it. IV. That there is no other mediator between God and man, but Jesus Christ. “ And one mediator” ; that is, but one. And indeed there is none else fit for so high a work as this but only He.1. The singular suitableness of His person to this eminent employment. To interpose as a mediator betwixt God and men, was an employment above the capacity of men, angels, or any other creature; but Jesus Christ, in respect of the dignity of His person, was every way suited for this work. Which you may take in these four particulars. (1) That He was truly God, equal with the Father, of the same nature and substance. For the further confirmation, take these arguments-- (a) He whom Scripture honours with all those names which are peculiar unto God, must needs be God. That Christ hath these names ascribed to Him appears from these instances: He is not only styled God--“ the Word was God” (John 1:1). (b) He in whom are those high and eminent perfections, those glorious attributes, of which no creature is capable, must needs be more than a creature, and consequently God.(2) As He is truly God, so is He complete and perfect man; having not only a human body, but a rational soul; and in all things was like to us, sin only excepted. That He had a real, not an imaginary, body, appears from the whole story of the gospel. (3) He is God and man in one person. V. The singular fitness of christ for this work of mediation arises from His being God-man in two natures, united in one person without confusion or transmutation.1. Had He not been truly God, He had been too mean a person for so high an employment. It was God that had been offended, an infinite Majesty that had been despised; the person therefore interposing must have some equality with him to whom he interposes. Had the whole society of persevering angels interposed on man’ s behalf, it had been to little purpose; one Christ was infinitely more than all, and that because He was truly God. 2. Had He not been completely man, He had been no way capable of performing that indispensably-necessary condition, upon which God was willing to be reconciled; namely, the satisfying of that righteous sentence which God had pronounced: “ In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). 3. Had He not been God and man in one person, the sufferings of His human nature could not have derived that infinite value from the Divine nature. We could not have called His blood “ the blood of God,” as it is called (Acts 20:28): it would have been no more than the blood of a creature, and consequently as unavailable as the blood of bulls, etc. (Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 10:4). 4. Had He not been God-man without confusion of natures, His Deity might either have advanced His humanity above the capacity of suffering; or His humanity might have debased His Deity below the capability of meriting, which is no less than blasphemy to imagine. And this is the first reason, the singular fitness of Christ for this work, because of the dignity of His person. The singular fitness of Christ for this employment in respect of the suitableness of His offices. There is a threefold misery upon all men, or a threefold bar to communion with God. (1) The guilt of their sins, which themselves are never able to expiate, or satisfy for. (2) The blindness of their minds, the cure whereof is too difficult for any creature-physician. (3) Their bondage and captivity to sin and Satan, which are enemies too strong for man to deal with. Suitably to these three great necessities, Jesus Christ is anointed of God to a threefold office, of a Priest, a Prophet, a King: the former of which offices he exercises on our behalf to God, and the last two from God to us. (a) The priestly office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against the guilt of sin. The work of the priesthood consisted, under the law, chiefly of these two parts.(1) Satisfaction for the sins of the people (Leviticus 4:15-19, etc.). (2) Intercession unto God on their behalf (Leviticus 16:15-17). Both which were verified in Christ our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14). His satisfaction, in discharging those debts which His people had run into with Divine Justice to the utmost farthing. (3) His intercession; this is the other part of His priestly office. His satisfaction--that was performed on earth; His intercession is per formed chiefly in heaven. By the former He purchased pardon and reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19, compared with verse 21), by the latter He applies the benefits He hath purchased. (b) The prophetical office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against the blindness and ignorance of our minds. He is that great Prophet of His Church whom Moses foretold, the Jews expected, and all men needed (Deuteronomy 18:15; John 1:24-25; John 1:45; John 6:14); that Sun of Righteousness, who by His glorious beams dispels those mists of ignorance and error which darken the minds of men; and is therefore styled, byway of eminency, “ that Light” (John 1:8), and “ the true Light” (John 1:9). The execution of this prophetical office is partly by revealing so much of the will of God as was necessary to our salvation; partly by making those revelations powerful and effectual.(1) In revealing the will of God. (2) In enlightening effectually the souls of His people. In causing the blind to see, and making them who were once darkness to be “ light in the Lord (Ephesians 5:8) Thus He instructs by His word and by His Spirit (1 Peter 1:12). (c) The kingly office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against our bondage to sin and Satan. He to whom “ all power is given in heaven, and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). (W. Whitaker, M. A.) Christ Jesus the only Mediator between God and men I. That God hath appointed but one mediator, or advocate, or intercessor in heaven for us, in whose name, and by whose intercession, we are to offer up all our prayers and services to God. Besides that it is expressly said here in the text, “ there is but one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” and that the Scripture nowhere mentions any other: I say, besides this, we are constantly directed offer up our prayers and thanksgivings, and to perform all acts of worship in His name, and no other; and with a promise, that the prayers and services which we offer up in His name will be graciously answered and accepted (John 14:13-14; John 16:23-24). St. Paul likewise commands Christians to perform all acts of religious worship in the name of Christ (Colossians 3:16-17). And indeed, considering how frequently the Scripture speaks of Christ as “ our only way to God, and by whom alone we have access to the throne of grace,” we cannot doubt but that God hath constituted Him our only mediator and intercessor, by whom we are to address all our requests to God (John 14:6; Ephesians 2:18). And we have no need of any other, as the apostle to the Hebrews reasons (Hebrews 7:24-25). “ But this person (speaking of Christ) because He continueth for ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood,” “ since He abides for ever, is able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” II. I proceed to show that this doctrine or principle of one mediator between God and man, is most agreeable to one main end and design of the Christian religion, and of our saviour’ s coming into the world, which was to destroy idolatry out of the world; which St. John calls “ the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). III. It is likewise evident from the nature and reason of the thing itself, that there is but one mediator and intercessor in heaven, who offers up our prayers to God, and that there can be no more. Because under the gospel there being but one high priest, and but one sacrifice once offered for sin; and intercession for sinners being founded in the merit and virtue of the sacrifice, by which expiation for sin is made, there can be no other mediator of intercession, but He who hath made expiation of sin, by a sacrifice offered to God for that purpose; and this Jesus Christ only hath done. He is both our high priest and our sacrifice; and therefore He only, in the merit and virtue of that sacrifice, which He offered upon earth, can intercede in heaven for us, and offer up our prayers to God. (J. Tillotson, D. D.) Only one Mediator Dora Greenwell’ s seemed to be a kind of dual nature religiously. On one side, as it were, she was High Church to the verge of Romanism; on the other, an earnest and simple evangelical Protestant. “ However much,” she said, “‘ I may appreciate the value of great Catholic ideas … When I kneel down to pray I am a Protestant; with Christ only between me and God, and between me and Christ--faith.” (Sunday at Home.) The atonement I. The necessity for a mediator is distinctly implied. Christ is a true mediator, because He blends two natures in His own, the Divine and the human. When a man is down in a horrible pit, a rope dangling above him would be a mockery if it were far out of his reach; and a ladder set in the miry clay beside him would be equally useless, if the ground above were at an unreachable distance from its highest rung. The only means of communication, which can bring him salvation, must reach the sunlit plain above him, and yet be within his grasp. So is it with the “ one Mediator.” As the God-man He reigns in the highest, yet reaches the lowest, and as the Son of man rather than the Son of David or the Son of Abraham, He touches every man, whatever his race or condition. II. The essence of the atonement appears in the statement that He, the mediator, Christ Jesus, “ gave Himself a ransom for all.” The idea of substitution, however little it commends itself to the judgment of some who have often very imperfectly considered it, is unquestionably involved in this. The Greek word translated here “ ransom,” means the redemption price paid for the deliverance of a slave or captive, and when Jesus “ gave Himself” (not money or power) a ransom for all, He was like one who takes the place of a prisoner that the prisoner may go free. If the captive refuses freedom he perishes, but the love of his would-be deliverer is none the less. Most of those who have rejected this great doctrine have done so because they have had pressed home upon them only one phase of it--as if that were in itself a complete and satisfactory account of a profound mystery. The atonement has sometimes been spoken of as a sort of legal transaction, having no essential bearing upon moral character, which will procure acquittal for the sinner at the bar of judgment without setting him free from the usurpation of sin.1. The God-ward side of the atonement is as important as it is mysterious, but it is not to be insisted upon as it it were all. The Scripture asserts again and again in types and in texts that it is in virtue of the death of Christ that God can justly forgive; that except for His sacrifice the Divine love could not reach us; that by Him satisfaction was made to the law of God, and that pardon was not, and could not be, a bare act of grace. These statements are beyond proof. They concern a sphere of existence about which we know absolutely nothing except what is revealed in Scripture. They have to do with the relations between the Eternal Father and the Only Begotten Son, about which the wisest of us are profoundly ignorant. We do not understand how the law of the Father required the sacrifice of the Son, nor how the death of the God-man affected the purpose of the Father; but are we to say, therefore, that there is no connection between them? Is that the only mystery in life? Why, what do you know of your own existence in its deeper relations? Yet it has been a frequent and grievous mistake of popular theology to dwell upon this aspect of the atonement only as if it contained the whole truth. But we must also remember that Christ’ s giving of Himself as a ransom for all was meant to have its influence on human hearts. This leads us to contemplate-- 2. The man-ward side of the atonement. The Cross of Calvary assured the world that the Divine love, even for sinners, was capable of the utmost self-sacrifice, which taught many to say, “ We love Him because He first loved us.” But there is yet another phase of Christ’ s atoning work which must not be lost sight of. We have seen that it vindicated Divine law, and revealed Divine love so as to touch the hearts of those who saw it, but it was meant also to exert an ethical influence over men. 3. The moral power of the atonement. Many sneer at professing Christians as men who persuade themselves that they are relieved from the punishment of sin, but who show no signs whatever of being redeemed from its power. But love such as God calls for, and the sacrifice of Calvary demands, is really a strong and active affection; indeed, we are told that “ love is the fulfilling of the law.” III. The propagation of this fundamental truth through the world is to depend upon testimony. Paul says that he himself was a living witness of it. This is our duty too. It may be that we have not any remarkable gifts like Paul’ s, but we may reveal to others the power of Christ to save from sin, if only we ourselves experience that power. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Jesus Christ the one Mediator between God and man Before entering upon the discussion of our text, we would offer a few remarks on the precise meaning of the term “ mediator,” in this passage. Now, by the word “ mediator,” in its general meaning, we understand one who interposes between two parties, either to obtain some favour from one to the other, or to adjust and make up some difference between them. But such a mediation may be either voluntary or authorized, assumed or commissioned. Moses was a mediator in the former sense, when he showed himself to his brethren “ as they strove, and would have set them at one again” (Acts 7:26). His interference was rejected, when he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler or judge over us?” It is not such a mediator that the text speaks of. It is not presumption, not unauthorized good intention in Christ when He mediates. But, again: the meaning of the term is modified by the relative condition of the parties to be brought together. These may be equal; and then each is privileged to commit his own part in the matter in hand to the care of the common arbitrator. A mediator, under such circumstances, becomes an umpire, a judge, a referee, to whom the interest of each party is committed, and by whose decision each party is bound. But this does not come up to the idea of Christ’ s mediation. A further notion of a mediator is that of one interposing between unequals: one that has been appointed by a superior, who has a right to make his own terms with an offending inferior, and to depute to whomsoever he may see fit the regulation of the manner in which intercourse is to be carried on between him and those with whom he may be willing to communicate. Moses, when called of God to the direction of Israel, is an instance of this authorized mediation between unequals; and, as such, was representative of the one great Mediator of whom our text speaks. By the term “ mediator,” then, we are here to understand one duly commissioned by God, with whom the power rests, to negotiate between Himself and man, in order, as God’ s vicegerent, to receive man’ s submission and obedience; and, as man’ s representative and advocate, to propitiate God’ s justice, and to procure and communicate God’ s blessing. I. The parties to be reconciled are “ God and man” ; the Creator and the creature; the rightful Sovereign and the rebellious subject; the kind Father and the ungrateful child. Strange, it may be said, that there should be variance between such: was it always thus? No: once all was harmony and peace and love. Whence, then, did the estrangement arise? From God? No: the profusion and magnificence and beauty of Eden forbid the entertainment of such a thought. It was in man that the alienation began. But how is the estrangement perpetuated? “ The carnal mind is enmity against God” : here is the sinner’ s having learned to hate what he feels he has abused, and manifesting the identity of interest and feeling between himself and that evil one whose cause he now maintains. The very purity of the Being he has injured makes his hatred but the more malignant: the very lack of palliation for his disobedience confirms him in his settled purpose still to sin with a high hand. Thus, what folly and pride began, folly and pride perpetuate. II. The person mediating--“ the man Christ Jesus.”1. As to His nature, we may remark, that the expression, “ the man Christ Jesus,” must not be considered as declarative of His humanity to the denial of His divinity. He is “ Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God” ; “ God over all, blessed for evermore.” But the Mediator is still the “ man Christ Jesus.” Our high notions of His Divinity must not cause us to overlook or deny His humanity. As His Divinity fits Him to act with God for man, so His humanity fits Him to act with man for God. But He must be sinless man. The slightest flaw in His moral character would make Him a criminal, and not an Advocate--would make His mediation offensive. The circumstance of having a tendency to sin would imply partiality: He would be prone to palliate rather than to condemn, and have a tendency to lower the standard of the Creator’ s requirements, in order to make easier terms for the creature. 2. Again, as to His commission. He is authorized and empowered by Him with whom alone the power rests. 3. His work is threefold: His atonement, intercession, and mission of the Spirit. III. The design or end of this mediation, Now, we must bear in mind that a mediator is required to consider the interests of both parties in behalf of whom he acts, and to make terms by which the honour of the superior, and the restoration to favour of the inferior, may be most effectually secured. With regard to the Almighty Ruler, His honour and sovereignty must be maintained, and His glory acknowledged and admired. Man’ s position is naturally now one of rebellion; but he must be brought to lay down his arms. Christ, in the person and place of man, has tendered and paid the penalty incurred, met the demands of offended justice, and now He tenders the submission of each individual child of man that receives Him as his Mediator by faith. The construction of man in his original form was a wonder of Divine skill: the formation of his spirit in knowledge, holiness, and happiness, bespoke a master hand; but, when all the beauty of this wondrous production had been marred by the fall, to re-construct, re-adorn, re-glorify the whole, was the act only of Him whose thoughts are not as our thoughts. Yet such is the effect of Christ’ s mediation. Intelligence continually enlarging and expanding in the unclouded presence of the very Source of truth; holiness everlastingly increasing in those regions where nothing entereth that defileth; love for ever glowing with increasing intensity before Him who is its very essence; happiness continually accumulating in the presence of Him who supplies it in inexhaustible abundance--these are the prospects of the redeemed soul: this is the high perfection to which the wisdom and power and love of Jehovah will bring the frail fragile thing that Satan shivered, and sin defiled. The glory of the perfections of Jehovah, then, are acknowledged and illustrated. But another end of this mediation was the good of man. Christ came to procure the outpouring of the blessing which sin had checked and intercepted. God now can visit those who had loved Him in Christ Jesus. We would now proceed to offer a few general observations which seem to be suggested by the whole subject.1. And, first, how great is the unfairness of those who affirm, and the folly of those who can be persuaded, that the tendency of the doctrine of justification by faith only, is to engender a careless and an antinomian spirit. 2. But another observation is this: How great are the injury and injustice done to Christ by the addition of other mediators! To endeavour to make out a necessity for the interposition of the virgin, of saints, or of any priestly mediator on earth, in order to our availing ourselves of the mediation of the Redeemer, is grounded on no warranty of Scripture, and reflects injuriously on the character of the blessed Jesus. (John Richardson, B. A.) The Man Christ Jesus. Christ’ s--a true and proper humanity In whatever way God is pleased to manifest Himself, the medium of manifestation must be limited and finite. His union with our humanity, as an organ of revelation, is no more inconceivable than with any other nature which is restricted and confined. He was pleased to assume our humanity as the form through which to reveal the Divinity, and had He not been conscious of a complete participation in human nature, He never would have adopted or employed the designation--Son of Man. Having taken our nature, the man Christ Jesus followed the laws of purely human development both in body and in mind. He not only represented but passed through every successive period or stage of life. In every sense He was a child--in every sense a youth--in every sense a man. The social affections enter immediately and inseparably into the very idea of our humanity. With these social feelings our Creator has endowed us, and has fixed our abode in a world in which they are ever being called into joyous play, and in which there exists the most beautiful provision for their gratification. Nor does Christianity interfere with these social ties and relationships. We are formed to love. Nor can we conceive of any principle, human or Divine, stronger or more impressive. It is the conservative principle of families and of society at large. A world without love would be a world in which every social bond would soon be loosened and broken, and the human passions become the play of so many lawless forces, which would ultimately involve society in eternal enmity and opposition. One of the most touching scenes in the social life and history of Christ is connected with His death. Not far from His cross, and just as He was in the act of giving up His spirit into the hands of His Father, He beheld His mother standing at a distance, burdened with sorrow and bathed in tears. While His development was from first to last without sin--while He was a living and pure model of that conduct which is pleasing to God--yet His fellowship with humanity was emphatically a fellowship of suffering. In suffering He surpassed all men. In proportion to the perfection, refinement, and sensibility of His nature, was the depth and keenness of His affliction. Never was sorrow like unto His sorrow. We wonder not, therefore, that Christ should have a deep and unmistakeable sympathy with suffering and with sorrow. Not that His sympathies could flow out only amid scenes of grief and distress. The subject of the purest social affections, He could freely mingle in the intercourse of men, and share in all their human joys. In Him we behold that Spirit of liberty with which the Divine life takes hold of, and appropriates to itself the relations of the world and of society. Christianity is eminently social in its character. True piety is cheerful as the day, and sheds its radiance over every scene. That school of spiritual life in which the Saviour taught His disciples differed from every other. Instead of a sour, austere, unyielding asceticism, He trained them to a comparatively unrestrained mode of life. Nor was it with poverty only that the Saviour sympathized. Nor must we lose sight of the truth, that the sympathy of Christ sprang from the purest and most intense love-that love, which, in seeking and in blessing its objects, asks not how, or when, or where. It is true that this loving, compassionate, sympathizing Saviour, has left this lower sphere of being, and hath passed into those higher heavens, in which room is found for nothing but the most refined and the most sublime enjoyment; and yet even there is “ He touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” His sympathies are still with us, whether we be in joy or in sorrow, and He can so communicate with our spirit, as to give us the consciousness of Divine succour and support. We are conscious of the fellowship of mind with mind. And what shall we say of those kindred virtues which clustered and shone like the most brilliant constellation in the life and character of the Man? Humility is the queen of graces. It is one of the rarest and the truest virtues. It is far removed from everything approaching to meanness of spirit. Having come into the world to offer himself a sacrifice for man, there was no act of hazard or of self-denial to which the Saviour was not prepared and willing to descend. Allied to this humility is meekness. Self-denial is nothing if clamorous and noisy. It does not lift up and cause its voice to be heard in the street. It is silent, unobtrusive, and retiring. If humility be not servility, neither is meekness to be looked upon as softness. Hence it is that we read of the gentleness of Christ. Not only was He harmless in life, but in death He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Not that He can be charged with timidity and weakness. His soul was full of manly energy. A spirit so humble, and meek, and gentle, could not be wanting in forbearance; but forbearance must not be understood as involving anything of timidity or cowardice. It is the highest manifestation of self-control. It follows that this forbearance carries with it the corresponding idea of patience. In forbearance there must be the power of enduring. But patience is not to be resolved into insensibility, any more than forbearance is to be resolved into cowardice. The Saviour of man could not only face opposition and danger, but He could with calm assurance bear every species of wrong and suffering which could be inflicted on His deeply sensitive and susceptible nature. It new only remains to add, that this patience was allied to the most child-like submission--the most perfect resignation. To give up our own individual will for the will of another in circumstances of deep suffering, is the perfection of Christian virtue. Nor were these virtues embodied and exemplified in the life of Christ otherwise than as a model and example to man. Our character and life should be the mirror in which His virtues are reflected; or rather, our life should be the counterpart of His. We must copy after our great pattern. It is not forbidden us in the arrangements of infinite wisdom and love to cultivate and cherish the social affections to the highest possible point, so long as they do not withdraw the heart from God, and the sublime objects of immortality. Nor can our Christianity have its full development but amid the scenes, and friend ships, and enjoyments of our present being. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report--if there be any force, and if there be any praise in them, think on these things, and these things do, and the God of peace shall be with you. (R. Ferguson.) The man Christ Jesus To pray for all, even for those that are most hostile or most alien (verse 3), is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour. It may well be so, it must be so. For it is in accordance with His mind and will as Saviour. He is our Saviour, it is true; but not ours only (verse 4). He will have all men- His greatest enemies, the most outcast prodigals, not excepted--He will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. If there are any for whom we cannot pray directly out of sympathy with them, we can pray for them out of sympathy with the Lord, who is our Saviour, and who is willing also to be theirs. All the rather will we pray for them all, when we bear in mind that they and we are all one. Yes! all are one, they and we are one; inasmuch (verse 5) as there is one God for all, one Mediator for all, one Saviour for all. There are not many Gods, so that one might belong to one God and some to another. There are not many Mediators, many Captains of salvation, under whose separate banners men might rank themselves at pleasure. There are not many ransoms, with blood of various hues to meet varieties of taste among the sprinkled worshippers. There is but one God, to whom all belong. One God for all. One Mediator for all. One ransom for all. And the ransom, the Mediator, Christ Jesus, is “ the man.” Not a man of a particular colour, whether fair, or dark, or of Ethiopian dye. Not a man of particular race, Jew or Gentile; of Shem, of Japhet, or of Ham. Not a man of a particular class or rank, whether of royal ancestry or of lineage proper to His birth in the stable of an inn. Not a man of a particular temperament, whether sanguine or morose, grave or gay. Not a man of a particular history, walking in a path apart. He is “ the man Christ Jesus” ; everywhere, always, to every one, the same; the man. Therefore they who love Him, the man Christ Jesus, may well be exhorted to pray for all men. I. He is the man all through; out and out the man. In soul, body, spirit; in look, voice, carriage, walk; in mind, heart, feeling, affection. In Him--in all about Him, all He is, and all He does, you see the man; not the man of honour, the man of piety, the man of patience, the man of patriotism, the man of philanthropy, but the man. The manhood in Christ Jesus is very noble, but it is very simple. And it is because it is so simple that it is so noble. None have ever succeeded in drawing His character since. Do you ever think of Him but just as the man? Other men you think of as distinguished by their features. You remember other men by their peculiarities of manner. But by what peculiarity do you remember the man Christ Jesus? Oh! it is a blessed thing to know that Jesus Christ is the man. The man for you, brother, whoever you are--and the man also, I thank God, for me! The man for the strong--the man for the weak I The man for heroes, for who so heroic as the man Christ Jesus? The man for you who toil in the carpenter’ s shop; in the like of which once He toiled, like you--the man Christ Jesus I II. He is simply man throughout; in every exigency, in every trial, simply man--the man Christ Jesus! In all His earthly and human experience, you never find Him other than man; you never find Him less than man; and you never find Him more than man. He is the Son of God, you know; the Father’ s fellow. But you never think of His being the Son of God as making His manhood at all different from yours. No! For you never find Him taking shelter from the ills to which flesh is heir in any power, or privilege, or prerogative of His Divine nature and heavenly rank. Thus, as the man Christ Jesus, He lies in His mother’ s bosom, and works at her husband’ s trade, He is subject, all His youth, to His parents, He is weary, hungry, thirsty, He is vexed, grieved, pained, provoked, His soul is exceedingly sorrowful, and at times His anger is stirred, He cries, and groans, and weeps, He bleeds, and quivers, and dies. Man’ s capacity of attainment, man’ s power of endurance--what man is fit for, what man can stand, with the help of God, you learn from the human history of the man Christ Jesus! III. He is the man exclusively, pre-eminently, par excellence, to the absolute exclusion of all others, He is the man, the only man, complete and perfect. He stands alone as man. Manhood, in its integrity, belongs to Him alone. Not otherwise, Oh, my brother sinner, could He be the man for you; the man for me. Let one gather up in himself all the fragments of the manhood which you and I share together. Let him collect in one heap, as it were, every particle of glory and beauty to be found anywhere among the ruins of humanity. Let him take every great man’ s quality of greatness, every good man’ s element of goodness. Take all the good, of all sorts, you can possibly discover in the records of good men of all the ages. Mix, compound, combine as you may please, you cannot get the man! For the man to meet my case, and satisfy the craving of my soul--must be no thing of shreds and patches; but complete, perfect, an Unbroken round, in himself one whole. No composite will do. He must be a single and simple unity; one, like the seamless coat, woven from the top throughout. But humanity, manhood, has never been thus one, inwardly and intensely one, since the fall. Men there have been, good and great. But they have been fragmentary; a bit of manhood in each; often a very beautiful bit of manhood; but set, alas! and often well-nigh lost, in a confused, chaotic jumble of inconsistencies and incoherences! And here is the man; the man Christ Jesus. All manhood is His; manhood such as yours and mine; but untainted, incorrupt, one and indivisible, which yours and mine is not. He is holy, harmless, undefiled; and separate from sinners. Nay, even if we could fancy a man more complete still, more completely uniting in himself the excellences of all other men, and more completely excluding their infirmities and faults; we cannot reach the idea of one who would not be more to some than he might be to others; who might be everything to you, and little, if anything at all, to me. No! If we would find one who is to be the man for me, for you, for all; we must ascend the stream of time, and fetch his manhood from beyond the flood, from beyond the fall! Then, in the unbroken image of God, manhood, human nature, the very self of man, was truly and- indeed one. Since then the manhood among men has been manifold and broken and fragmentary. The man who is to gather up the fragments must himself be whole. The only one who can be the head of all, because He can be the same to all, is He who takes our human nature--not as it is now, rent and torn by sin--but as it once was; one in unbroken, pure, and holy innocence, one in immaculate likeness to the Holy One. And who is this but the man Christ Jesus? IV. He is the man to mediate between God and man. To be the one Mediator, He must be pre-eminently and distinctively the man; the representative man; the one man. If mediation is a reality; if it is a real transaction outside of us; not an internal process, but the adjustment of an external relation, as all Scripture teaches us that it is; the mediator must be a third party, distinct from both the parties between whom He mediates. He may and must represent both. But He is to be confounded with neither, He is to be merged in neither. A man cannot have a mediator within himself; nor can he mentally create a mediator out of himself. He cannot be his own mediator. Every man is not a mediator, nor is it any man indiscriminately who can be a mediator. Nor will an ideal man, springing, as it were, fully grown, from the thoughtful head or fond heart, the living ideal outcome and expression of those human instincts that are opposed to evil, and yearn for good, suffice. No. Not though we give it a local habitation and a name, and call it the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth. If there is to be real and actual mediation in the fair and honest sense of the term, the man who is to be mediator must be found for me, not found by me, least of all found by me in myself. He must be born, not from among us, but from above. He mush be the man, not by assent or consent on the part of earth merely, but by the decree of heaven, or rather by the creative act of heaven’ s Lord, doing a new thing on the earth, bringing in anew the man, the second Adam! Thus three conditions come together and coalesce as identifying the man who is to be the mediator. First, He must be the man, not as manhood exists and appears, marred and broken, among the children of the fall, but as it was in its original oneness and perfection, when man really bore the image of his Maker. Secondly, He must be the man, not as suggested by men’ s own instincts, and impulses, and cravings, but as directly chosen, appointed, introduced by God Himself. And, thirdly, He must be the man, as being, in His wondrous person, one with God in the same true and real sense in which He is one with men. All these three conditions meet in the man Christ Jesus. And they meet in Him as the man who sounded the utmost depths of human experience, and in the strength of His pure and simple manhood, aided only by prayer and by the Spirit, withstood evil, mastered pain, and by suffering overcame the wicked one. Truly there is and can be but one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The man-- (1) Made, as to His human nature, by special miracle, in the unbroken image and likeness of God. The man (2) Who comes forth from God, bearing His commission to negotiate peace. The man (3) Who in respect of His Divine nature, unchanged, unchangeable, is one with God--the Son dwelling evermore in the Father’ s bosom. V. He is the man to give himself a ransom for all. He who would do this--must be one who is willing to take your place, and be your substitute; and fulfil all your obligations, and meet all your responsibilities. But more than that, He must be Himself free, under no obligations, under no responsibilities of His own. He must be one who owes nothing to God on His own account; no service, or righteousness, or obedience; and one also who lies under no penalty on His own account; against whom no charge can be brought. In whom are these qualifications found combined but in the man Christ Jesus? For His willingness who can doubt it? “ Lo, I come,” He says (Psalms 40:7). But willingness alone will not suffice. He who is to be your surety, your ransom, must be no common man. If He is one who, as a mere creature, is made under the law, as all intelligent creatures are made under the law, He cannot answer for others; He can but answer for Himself. Not even if He were the highest of the angelic host could He do more. Brother, thou needest a ransom, an infinite ransom, a perfect ransom, a ransom sufficient for the cancelling of all thy guilt and the perfecting of thy peace with God. No such ransom canst thou find in thyself, in me, in any angel. But God has found it. VI. He is the man to be testified in due time. A testimony for fitting seasons, a great truth to be attested as a fact at the right crisis of the world’ s history, to be ever afterwards preached and taught as the source of life to men doomed to die--is this marvellous constitution of the manhood of Christ Jesus; fitting Him for being the one Mediator, the one Ransom. It is the testimony for which I am ordained a preacher, an ambassador for Christ.1. It is my ordained and appointed testimony, or rather the Lord’ s by me, to thee, O sleeper--to thee, O doubter--to thee, whosoever thou art, who art living a godless, unholy life, unrenewed, unreconciled, unsanctified. It is a testimony in due time to thee. 2. It is the testimony with which I am charged to thee also, O downcast soul, who art afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, sin-laden, sorrow-laden, unable to see thy warrant for having peace and life with thy God. I testify to thee, the Lord testifies by me to thee, that all thou needest is in the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator, the Ransom, and in Him for thee. 3. It is a timely, seasonable testimony to thee also, O man of God, my son Timothy, O child of God, who hast quiet peace in believing, and art walking at liberty, having respect to all God’ s commandments. The testimony to thee this day is of the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator, the Ransom. And it is for every due time, every fitting season. For thyself, I urge thy recognition always of Him of whom I testify, the man Christ Jesus. For, whatever the time, whatever the season, it is a due time, a fitting season, for His being testified to thee, by the Spirit, as being present with thee. As thou walkest the streets, or journeyest along the road, He talks with thee by the way, and opens to thee the Scriptures concerning Himself; the man Christ Jesus, who taught thus of old in Galilee and Jewry, speaking as never man spoke. As thou sittest at meat, He breaks bread with thee, the man Christ Jesus, in whose living, personal, human, and Divine fellowship, the first disciples at Jerusalem did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. As thou visitest the fatherless and widows in their affliction, He goes with thee, the man Christ Jesus, who in all their affliction is Himself afflicted. As thou art wearied among the workers of iniquity whom thou art seeking to turn to righteousness, ready to complain, “ Who hath believed our report?” see, ever near thee, at thy side, the man Christ Jesus, who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, and whose prayer on the cross was,” Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (R. S. Candlish, D. D.) Christ, the mediating man Jesus Christ as standing for mediatorial purposes between God and man, is doing a work necessary to be done before satisfactory relations can be established between the sinner and the holy God. Our sins have separated us from God, and Christ lives to intercede, to mediate for us. Now, this fact has been so stated at times as to produce false impressions concerning God and His feelings towards men. It has been spoken of as though Jesus Christ had to stand for us in the presence of God, to offer Himself as a sacrifice, to persuade the Supreme to have pity, to take us back into His favour. God is thus represented as One who sustains a stern anger against the entire race, and who is determined to hold out in His terrible wrath against them. Now, I venture to assert that any teaching which leaves that idea of God upon the hearts of men is a gross libel of the Divine nature, utterly contrary to Scripture, and solemnly untrue. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 2:8 Pray everywhere.Prayer I. Let us consider THE SUBJECT OF . This is prayer. And what is prayer? Prayer is the breathing of desire towards God. Words are not essential to it. As words may be used without the heart, so the heart may be engaged where words are wanting. Words are not always necessary to inform a fellow-creature, and they are never necessary to inform God, who “ searcheth the heart,” and knoweth what is in the mind. What interesting looks will the hunger of the beggar at the door display! How is it in the family? You have several children: the first can come and ask for what he wants in proper language, and the second can only ask in broken terms, but here is a third who cannot speak at all: but he can point, he can look, and stretch out his little hand; he can cry, and shall he plead in vain? “ No! no!” says the mother, refuse him? his dimpled cheeks, his speaking eye, his big round tears, plead for him. Refuse him? Further, we notice the kinds of prayer. Prayer may be considered as public. There is also domestic prayer, by which we mean the prayer that is offered every morning and every evening at the family altar. Mr. Henry observes, “ A house without this has no roof.” Prayer may be considered as private. “ When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and pray to thy Father which seeth in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Prayer may be considered as ejaculatory, a darting up of the mind to God, as the word signifies. This may be done at any time, and under any circumstance. Nehemiah was the king’ s cup-bearer, and while he was in the room attending upon his office, he prayed to the God of heaven. II. Observe the injunction. “ I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” III. Where it is to be offered. “ Everywhere.” Now, this is opposed to restriction or respect. Let us see what we can make of it in either of these views. You remember the Assyrians thought that the God of Israel was the God of the hills, and not of the valleys. And when Balaam was baffled in one of his endeavours to curse Israel, he went to another place to see if he could be more prosperous, and to try if he could curse them from thence. You see how the devotions of the heathens always depended upon times, and places, or pilgrimages. Among the Jews, who were for a time under a Theocracy, God chose a place where He might reside, and where were the symbols of His presence, and there all the males resorted thrice in the year; but even then God said to Moses, “ In all places where I record My name, I will come unto thee and bless thee.” What think you of those sons and daughters of superstition and bigotry who would confine God to particular places and stations? Where was Jacob when he said, “ This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven” ? Where did Paul take leave of his friends? “ He kneeled down on the seashore.” Where did the Saviour pray? “ He went out into a private place,” “ He went into a desert place,” “ He went up into a mountain to pray.” When Jones, a famous Welsh preacher, was commanded to appear before the Bishop of St. David’ s, the bishop said to him, “ I must insist upon it that you never preach upon unconsecrated ground.” “ My lord,” said he, “ I never do; I never did; for ‘ the earth is the Lord’ s and the fulness thereof’ ; and when Immanuel came down to set His foot upon our earth, the whole was sanctified by it.” God is no more a respecter of places than of persons. This should also encourage you when you are under disadvantageous circumstances. For instance, if you are called to assemble in a very poor place, or in a very small place, He Himself hath said, “ Where two or three are gathered together in My name” --let it be where it will--“ there am I in the midst of them.” But now, further, as men may pray everywhere, so they ought to pray everywhere. The injunction not only allows, but enjoins, universal prayer. The duty is more opposed to neglect than even restriction. Men should pray everywhere, because they may die everywhere. They have died in all places: they have died in a bath, they have died in a tavern, they have died upon the road, they have died in the temple of God. You are therefore to pray everywhere. But what are we to say of those who, instead of praying “ everywhere,” pray nowhere? IV. Let us notice How this duty is to be discharged. It is to be offered up under three attributes.1. The first implies purity, “ lifting up holy hands.” Solomon says, “ The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.” David says, “ If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” You have heard the Dutch proverb, “ Sinning will make a man leave off praying, or praying will make a man leave off sinning.” These will not do well together, therefore they must be separated. It would be better for a man to neglect his benefactor than to call at his house to spit in his face, or to smite him on the cheek. James says, “ Can a fountain bring forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” 2. The second attribute is kindness. This is expressed by the opposite extreme. “ Without wrath.” There are those whose lives may be far from egregious vices, but whose tempers do not partake of the meekness and gentleness of Christ; they bring their rancorous spirit into their worship, and think to appease the anger of God for their uncharitableness by offering it up on the altar of devotion. “ He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 3. The third attribute is confidence. This is expressed negatively: “ I will that men pray everywhere,” not only “ without wrath,” but “ without doubting.” Our Lord says in the Gospel by St. Matthew, “ Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive.” This confidence includes a persuasion in the lawfulness of the things we pray for. Then it takes in confidence in the power of God. “ Believe ye that I am able to do this” ? This confidence takes in the disposition of God towards you; you are not only to “ believe that He is,” but that “ He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Especially you must have confidence in the mediation of Christ. (W. Jay.) A Scripture description of prayer I. The employment which is here commended.1. That prayer must be addressed exclusively to God. This grand truth is introduced, and ought to be solemnly and uniformly affirmed, in direct contradiction to those mistaken propensities and systems by which men have addressed invocations to idols--mere imaginary beings, or beings really existing but created and inferior. 2. Prayer must be offered to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an established and a cardinal principle in all revealed religion that man as a guilty sinner can have no access to God but through a Mediator--One whose merits, as having offered a sacrifice for sin, must be alleged as constituting a satisfactory ground for favour and acceptance. 3. Prayer offered to God through the Lord Jesus Christ must be presented by all mankind. The statement of our text is, that men are to “ pray everywhere” ; wherever men exist, men are to pray. The universal call to prayer arises from the fact that men are universally in precisely the same relationship to God. They are everywhere characterized by the same guilt, the same wants, the same responsibility. II. The spirit with which this employment is to be inseparably associated. “ I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.”1. First the apostle recommends importunity. Importunity is symbolized by the figure of the “ lifting up of hands” --an attitude which was practised in prayer in ancient times, as externally indicating the place from whence man expected blessing, even heaven the dwelling-place of God, and the spirit with which they desired to receive blessing, laying hold (as it were) by eagerness and by strength of what they desired to receive from Him. Who, for example, can pray for pardon, for sanctification, for knowledge, for love, for protection, for comfort, for victory over death and hell, and for the final enjoyment of a happy immortality in heaven--without importunity? It is palpable that coldness to a rightly regulated mind must be utterly and finally impracticable. 2. But again; the expressions of the apostle, when they recommend importunity, also recommend purity. “ Lifting up holy hands” --these expressions, or the epithets with which the expressions we have noticed already are connected, referring to a custom, frequent or universal among the Jews as well as other Oriental nations, of carefully washing the hands before they engaged in the performance of any act of devotion, this being intended to be the sign and symbol of moral rectitude and of the preparation of the heart. Hence it is that in the Old Testament Scriptures you find a connection established between the cleanness of the hands and the purification or holiness of the heart. For instance, in the Book of Job we have this statement--“ The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger” --there being of course an identification between the two expressions. In the twenty-fourth Psalm David inquires thus--“ Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” This being the import of the expression, we might refer it to the state, which must be rendered judicially pure or holy by the imputation of Christ’ s righteousness, dependence on whom we have already advocated and required; but we must especially regard it as referring to the heart, which must undergo the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, so as to be morally conformed to the character and the law of God. In all ages, God demands to be worshipped in “ the beauties of holiness.” 3. The apostle also recommends benevolence. “ I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath.” The expression “ wrath” of course must be regarded as having respect to other men; we are to be careful against indulging towards them resentment or dislike, arising from whatever source, and we are to cultivate towards them the spirit of benevolence and of good-will, these prompting on their behalf intercession for their interests before the throne and in the presence of God. The apostle well knew that there is a great disposition to the indulgence of selfishness in prayer; and hence it was that he bore in the present instance his solemn protest against it. 4. The apostle at the same time recommends faith. “ I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting” ; the term “ doubting” is placed as the converse of faith. Faith in regard to the exercise of prayer, must not merely have respect to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Mediator through whom prayer is to be presented, but must have respect to the entire testimony of God regarding prayer--in its mode, matter, and results. There may perhaps be stated certain limitations to the exercise of faith, as connected with the employment of prayer. Those limitations may justly have respect to the desires we are accustomed to present before the Divine footstool, for the impartation of what we deem temporal blessings. III. The reasons by which this employment in this spirit may especially be enforced.1. First, this employment in this spirit is directly commanded by God. 2. Again; this employment in this spirit is connected with numerous and invaluable blessings. Is it not associated with blessing to ourselves, and have we not been distinctly informed that the great instrument of the continuance of spiritual blessings to us, when converted by Divine grace, has been the agency of prayer? 3. And then it must be observed that the neglect of this employment in this spirit is attended and succeeded by numerous and by fatal evils. No man is a converted man who does not pray. No man can be a happy man who does not pray. No man can possess the slightest indication of the spiritual favour of God who does not pray. (J. Parsons.) Prayer without anger “ Anger,” says he, “ is a short madness, and an eternal enemy to discourse and a fair conversation: it is a fever in the heart, and a calenture in the head, and a sword in the hand, and a fury all over and therefore can never suffer a man to be in a disposition to pray. For prayer is the peace of our spirits, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our temper; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts: it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness: and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, and singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and rise above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over: and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from an angel.” (Jeremy Taylor.) Praying everywhere Forty years ago, Audubon, the distinguished American naturalist, was pursuing his vocation in a wild, remote, and, as he believed, perfectly uninhabited district of Labrador. Rising up from the bare ground after a cold night’ s rest he beheld, on one of the granite rocks which strew that desolate plain, the form of a man accurately outlined against the dawn, his head raised to heaven, his hands clasped and beseeching. Before this rapt and imploring figure stood a small monument of unhewn stones supporting a wooden cross. The only dweller on that inhospitable shore had come out from his hut to the open air, that without barrier or hindrance his solitary supplication might go up directly unto Him who does not dwell in the temples that are made with hands. Wrath and prayer Prayer is represented in the gospel as a holy and solemn act, which we cannot surround with too many safeguards, in order to prevent anything of a profane and worldly nature from interfering with the reverential freedom of this con verse between the creature and its Creator. Prayer prepares for acts of self-denial, courage, and charity, and these in their turn prepare for prayer, No one should be surprised at this double relation between prayer and life. Is it not natural that we should retire to be with God, that we may renew our sense of His presence, draw on the treasures of light and strength which He opens to every heart that implores Him, and afterwards return to active life, better provided with love and wisdom? On the other hand, is it not natural that we should prepare by purity of conduct to lift up pure hands to God, and carefully keep aloof from everything that might render this important and necessary act either difficult, or formidable, or useless? The words introduced at the end of the verse so unexpectedly, and which we believe, for a moment, excite surprise in every reader these words, “ without wrath and doubting,” contain a very marked and impressive allusion to the circumstances in which Christians were then placed. The question is anew brought before you at every new attack of your enemies; in other words, every new attack will necessarily tempt you to wrath and disputation as you are men, if it do not urge you to prayer as you are Christians. You cannot escape from wrath except by prayer, nor from hatred except by love; and not to be a murderer, since hatred is murder, you must as much as in you lies give life to him to whom you wished to give death. At least it is necessary to ask it for him, it is necessary by your prayers to beget him to a new existence; it is necessary in all cases, while praying for him, to exert yourselves in loving him. It is necessary that wrath and disputation be extinguished and die away in prayer. Two classes of men may excite in us wrath and disputation. The former are the enemies of our persons, those who, from interest, envy, or revenge, are opposed to our happiness, and more generally all those who have done us wrong, or against whom we have ground of complaint. The latter are those who become our enemies from the opposition of their views and opinions to ours, or the opposition of their conduct to our wishes. Both are to us occasions of wrath and disputation. The gospel requires that they be to us occasions of prayer. In regard to the former, I mean our personal enemies, I might simply observe that God does not know them as our enemies. God does not enter into our passions, or espouse our resentments. He sanctions and approves all the relations which He has Himself created, those of parent and child, husband and wife, sovereign and subject. But the impious relation of enemy to enemy is entirely our work, or rather the work of the devil. God knows it only to denounce it. Besides, in His eye the whole body of mankind are only men, and some in the relation which they stand to each other, only brethren. You would wish to pray for your friends alone; but this very prayer is forbidden, and remains impossible, if you do not extend it to your enemies. And if you persist in excluding them from your prayers, be assured that God will not even accept those which you offer to Him in behalf of the persons whom you love. Your supplications will be rejected; the smoke of your offering will fall back upon your offering; your desires will not reach that paternal heart which is ever open. Not only ought we to pray for our enemies, although they be our enemies; but we ought to pray for them “ because they are our enemies. As soon as they again become to us like the rest of mankind another distinction takes place, and a new right arises in their favour. They are confounded for a moment with all our other fellows, in order afterwards to stand forth from the general mass as privileged beings, with a special title to our prayers. When we meet with an opposition which frets and irritates us, Christian prudence counsels us to pray that the temptation may be removed; and, in particular, that our self-love and injured feelings may not weaken our love for our neighbour. But this prudence, if it counsels nothing further, is not prudent enough. If the same feeling which disposes us to pray does not dispose us to pray for our enemies or opponents, it is difficult to believe that it is a movement of charity. Charity cannot be thus arrested. Its nature is to overcome evil with good, and this means not merely that it does not render evil for evil, but that in return for evil it renders good. It would not be charity if it did less. Its first step overleaps the imaginary limit which it does not even see or know. It does not restrict itself to not hating; it loves. It would not do enough if it did not do more than enough. Can we renew our hatred for one for whom we have prayed? Does not every desire, every request which we send up to God for him endear him to us the more? Does not each prayer set him more beyond the reach of our passions? No; not till then is the work of mercy accomplished. We have no evidence of having pardoned an enemy until we have prayed for him. For to allege the gravity, the extent of the offence which we have received, has no plausibility. If we have brought ourselves to pardon him who has committed it, we might surely bring ourselves to pray for him; and if we cannot pray for him we have not pardoned him. An offence! But think well of it; can we really be offended? The term is too lofty, too grand for us. The offence may have grated very painfully on our feelings, or thwarted our interests, but it has gone no farther. Whatever injustice may have been done us, whatever cause we may have to complain, that is not the real evil. What evil absolutely is there in having our faith tried and our patience exercised? Because our fortune has been curtailed, our reputation compromised, our affections thwarted, does the world go on less regularly than it did? Not at all. The evil, the only real evil is the sin of that soul, the infraction of the eternal law, the violence offered to Divine order; and if any other evil is to be added to this, it will be by our murmurings, since the effect of them will be to make two sinners in place of one. Do you then seek a reason for refusing your intercession, and consequently your pardon to your adversaries? I have found one, and it is a fit ground for resentment: God your Father was insulted in the insult which you experienced. But show me, pray, the extraordinary man who, quite ready to pardon on his own account, cannot resolve to pardon on God’ s account! It may belong to God to be angry with them; us it becomes only to pity them, and pity them the more, the more grievously God has been offended. But alas! instead of seeing in the injury which we have received only an injury done to God, we insolently appropriate to ourselves the offence of which He alone is the object. In what hurts Him we feel ourselves offended, and consequently become angry, instead of being grieved. It will be well if, instead of praying, we have not cursed! Contrast the ordinary fruits of wrath and debate with these results of prayer. In yielding to the former, not only do you place yourself in opposition to the holy law of God, but you destroy the peace of your life and the peace of your soul; you aggravate the evils of a situation already deplorable; you kindle up hatred in the heart of your enemy; you render reconciliation on his part, as well as on yours, always more difficult; you run from sin to sin in order to lull your pride, and this pride gives you only a bitter, poisoned, and criminal enjoyment. How much better, then, is prayer than wrath and strife! But personal enemies are not the only ones who are to us the occasion of wrath and strife. The class of enemies, as we have already said, includes all those whose opinions, views, and conduct are in opposition to our interests or our principles. How little does the impatience which they excite differ from hatred! With regard to such enemies, our usual method is to hate in silence if we feel ourselves weak, or to dispute obstinately if we believe ourselves strong. The gospel proposes another method. It approves neither of hatred nor strife. Zeal, courage, perseverance, indignation itself, must all be pervaded with charity, or rather, proceed from charity. Indignation and prayer must spring from a common source; the former from love to God, the latter from love to men, and consequently both from love. How widely different is this conduct from that which is commonly pursued in the world! Let Government commit an error, it is greedily laid hold of and bitterly commented on; and this is all that is done. Let a religious teacher profess a system which is judged dangerous; his minutest expressions are laid hold of, and isolated so as to distort their meaning; his life is boldly explained by his opinions, or his opinions by his life, and there the matter rests. To pray, to entreat the Lord to shed His enlightening Spirit on this government, on that teacher, on that individual; to wrestle for them in presence of the Divine mercy, ah! this is what is seldom thought of. Ah! the Divine Intercessor must have fully established His abode in the soul before the spirit of intercession can dwell there! How difficult is it for the old leaven to lose its sourness! What seeds of hatred, what homicidal germs are in the heart which has received Jesus Christ! How much of Cain still remains in this pretended Abel! And what avails it to believe much if we love little, or to believe if we do not love? And truly, what have we believed, in whom have we believed, if we do not love? (A. Vinet, D. D.) 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:14 That women adorn themselves in modest apparel.Woman’ s true dignity If we lived in Turkey or in India, we should be better able to appreciate the wisdom of Paul’ s counsel in respect to the women of his day: and I am not prepared to mitigate or to apologise for his brave and wise words. Remember it was due to him more than to any other apostle that women had been so far emancipated as they were when this Epistle was written, for it was he who had taught that in Christ Jesus there was neither male nor female. But he grieved over some of the evils which at first arose from the great changes effected in their social position. Seclusion had been rigorously maintained by the customs of those Eastern cities. The picture in the Royal Academy, which represents a young girl, with slippers in her hand, drawing aside the curtain of the seraglio, and stepping across the body of a black slave, who is sleeping with naked sword in his hand, fairly represents the slave-like treatment of women in Ephesus in Paul’ s days. Indeed, even among the Jews the women who came to the synagogue were (and still are) kept out of sight in a carefully screened gallery. It was therefore not to be wondered at that the Christian women emancipated from such treatment felt themselves not only at liberty to assert their new-born rights but bound to do so, and that they claimed a prominence and a freedom which were good neither for themselves nor for the Church. And we must not forget that, so far as women had greater publicity in the heathen cities, it was at the risk of the virtuous reputation which Christians would be the most anxious to preserve. The priestesses of the temples, for example, were notoriously immoral, and the Hetairae were not only a recognized, but even a respectable class in Pagan society. I. He speaks of it first negatively, declaring that her dignity does not depend upon outward adornment; and this is always and everywhere true. It is probable that the women who came to the Christian assemblies in Ephesus arrayed them selves in costly attire, and sometimes made unbecoming display of their personal charms till the custom was becoming the sensation, if not the scandal, of the city. No one professing godliness ought to spend time, and taste, and money to the extent many do on mere personal adornment, as if the body was everything and the mind nothing, or as if the chief end of a woman’ s life was to win admiration not respect, to please man and not God. Even from a lower standpoint it is a mistake, and I venture to think that many a marriage has been prevented, and many a possibly happy home is fraught with anxiety, because of an expenditure on dress, which cannot be reasonably or rightly met. There are lives which might have been unspeakably happier if only they had been united, if the two young people had been content to face the world together with plain fare and simple habits. Listen to John Ruskin, “ I say further, that as long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendour of dress is a crime.” II. Woman’ s dignity is next set forth positively. “ I will,” says Paul, “ that women adorn themselves in--1. Modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety.” Society owes its tone more to women than to men. What they frown upon will be tabooed; what they thoughtlessly tolerate will grow in evil influence. 2. But in addition to this influence, which may be almost unconsciously exercised, the Christian woman is to adorn herself with “ good works.” She often does this behind the veil which is drawn over every home. There are those whose “ good works” are noble in their self-sacrifice and far-reaching in their issues of whom the Church hears little. Many a man can sympathize with that soldier who said, “ I can stand before the enemy, but I cannot stand before my sister’ s prayers.” And who does not know of more public work done by Christian women--such as that of our visitors and Sunday-school teachers; of saintly pleaders with the drunkards and the profligate;--of noble women whose writings have purged the atmosphere of moral corruption; of heroines like Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, who have trodden closely in the footsteps of the Lord. These have been clothed with “ good works.” (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The position of woman This was-- I. A bold declaration on the part of the apostle. “ Let the woman learn in silence (or rather in quietness) with all subjection, for I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in quietness” ; but the course he followed in this matter was wise, in the condition of life then prevailing. In our days there is no doubt a change of those conditions, which would make the rigorous application of such a rule unwise and unjust. Women, in larger numbers now than then, are of necessity independent, and are compelled to earn their own livelihood, and make their own homes; and being, in some respects, the weaker, they should have no artificial barriers put in the way of their doing so. There are disabilities, the relics of feudal times, which slowly, yet surely, are being swept away, though much still remains to be done. Under our English laws, for example, a woman may be compelled to pay taxes, though she has no right to influence the election of those who impose them--as her gardener or coachman may do. But the general law laid down by Paul still holds good. The public work of life, whether in the world or in the Church, is, broadly speaking, not woman’ s but man’ s. His is the life of turmoil, hers of quietude. She is receptive; he is aggressive: and it is not so much in her conspicuous activity as in her yielding affectionateness that her true strength is found. II. By a scriptural argument. He goes back to Eden for justification of his teaching--for he was accustomed to regard the facts of the Old Testament as symbolical and parabolical sources of perpetual instruction. “ Adam was first formed,” says he, “ then Eve.” Man’ s priority in creation, standing as he did alone and in immediate relation to God, was an indication of his place and power, as having the headship over her whom God made to be his helpmeet. But if the helpmeet becomes the head, and the head weakly yields, there comes an overthrow of the Divine order, as there did come in Paradise. Practical shrewdness and discernment; the firm and regulative judgment which should characterize the ruler, are less hers than man’ s. Her very excellencies, connected as they are with the finer sensibilities and the stronger impulses of a noble and loving nature, disqualify her for the headship, whereas the balance in man’ s nature is the other way; in the direction of the intellectual and the governing. But it is here asserted that “ Adam was not deceived,” and was therefore more guilty, because with his eyes open to the wrong he yielded to conjugal love. In other words, the will and the judgment were sacrificed to the affections--the essence of moral fall. Paul closes his remarks on woman by alluding to-- III. A blessed assurance. “ Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing” ; or, as the R.V. has it, “ through the childbearing.” Perhaps there was some hint here of the blessing that comes through pain and travail, of whatsoever kind it be; and also of the great and noble work possible only to motherhood. But the more correct translation gives us rather the thought of what may be called pre-eminently “ the childbearing “ --when Jesus Christ, the world’ s Saviour, was born of a woman, and appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh--for it was thus that the great promise was fulfilled which brought a gleam of hope into the darkness of Eve’ s despair, “ the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’ s head.” (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Advice against jewellery As to jewels, let me advise you not to buy any--even though you have the purse of Fortunatus, or may hereafter become wealthy. Some may be given you, but still I would say, do not wear them--unless, perhaps, now and then, with the pure desire of affording pleasure to the donors. A fancy for the possession and display of jewellery soon generates into a craze, ever growing, or unsatisfied unless in the ownership of gems superior to those of others around you. It is an unhealthy and vulgar feeling, Which has not seldom led to the ruin of women in all classes. Other reasons may be advanced against the indulgence of this false taste. Valuable jewels cannot but become, at times, a source of trouble and anxiety; and if lost or stolen, a bitter feeling of annoyance is retained. Opportunities for display are few; and often then, through disadvantageous comparison with others, are apt to give rise to heart-burning and envy--feelings which would never be experienced in such a way were the face resolutely set against such vanities. (Lady Bellairs.) A passion for extravagant dress The Empress Josephine had twenty-four thousand pounds for her personal expenses, but this sum was not sufficient, and her debts increased to an appalling degree. She rose at nine o’ clock. Her toilet consumed much time, and she lavished unwearied efforts on the preservation and embellishment of her person. Huge baskets were brought to her containing different dresses, shawls, and hats. From these she selected her costume for the day. She possessed between three or four hundred shawls, and always wore one in the morning, which she draped about her shoulders with unequalled grace. The evening toilet was as careful as that of the morning--then she appeared with flowers of pearls, or precious stones in her hair. Bonaparte was irritated by these expenditures; he would fly into a passion, and his wife would weep and promise to be more prudent; after which she would go on in the same way. It is almost incredible that this passion for dress should never have exhausted itself. After her divorce she arrayed herself with the same care even when she was no one. She died covered with ribbons and pale rose-coloured satin. As long as the heart is unrenewed by Divine grace, regard for the outward is even greater than regard for the inward. True religion reverses all this, and gives “ the things unseen and eternal” their rightful place. The most humbly dressed believer in Christ has a better garment than the empress, even the wedding garment of Christ’ s righteousness. A good use for ornaments Some of you might do great good with articles which you might very readily spare. You have ornaments which Christian men and women are better without, which, if broken up or sold, would aid the good cause. I wish many would follow the example of Oliver Cromwell, when he went into Exeter Cathedral, and saw twelve massive images of the apostles in silver. “ Oh, oh,” said he, “ what do these gentlemen here?” “ They are the twelve apostles,” was the reply. “ Very well,” said he, “ melt them down, and send them about doing good.” I wish Christians would do that with some of their gold and silver jewellery. Anyhow, for our own sakes, lest the canker get into our gold, and the rust into our silver, use it for doing good. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A becoming adornment Goethe was in company with a mother and daughter, when the latter, being reproved for some thing, blushed and burst into tears. He said to the mother: “ How beautiful your reproach has made your daughter! The crimson hue and those silvery tears become her much better than any ornament of gold or pearls; those may be hung on the neck of any woman; these are never seen unconnected with moral purity.” A full-blown flower, sprinkled with purest hue, is not so beautiful as this child, blushing beneath her parent’ s displeasure, and shedding tears of sorrow for her fault. A blush is the sign which nature hangs out, to show where chastity and honour dwell. The charity purse Howard, soon after his marriage, “ sold some jewels his wife had no longer any inclination to wear, and put the money into a purse called by herself and her husband the charity purse.” (J. Stoughton, D. D.) Woman’ s sphere of influence For so far as a woman is sincere to the nature God has given her, her aspiration is not so much that the world should ring with her fame, or Society quote her as a leader of fashion, but that she should bless and be blessed in blessing. It is not that she should wish for power, but that she should wish for a noble, not an ignoble power. It is not that she should not wish to queen it in this world, but that she should wish to queen it, not by ostentation of dress or life, nor by eclipsing others, but by manifestation of love, by nobility of gentle service, by unconscious revelation in her life, and conscious maintenance in others by her influence, of all things true and pure, of stainless honour in life, of chivalrous aspirations in the soul. (Stoleford A. Brooke, M. A.) Silence of women Why, Doctor, exclaimed a shallow, talkative lady, who was in the room with Dr. Johnson, but of whom he took little notice, “ I believe you prefer the company of men to that of ladies.” “ Madam,” he replied, “ I am fond of the company of ladies; I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, and I like their silence.” Professing godliness.--The profession of godliness Such is the description and character of Christians in early days, such of all true Christians in every day. In no one point of view is the inconsistency of the Christian world more strikingly apparent: they would be thought to embrace the gospel of godliness without an idea of becoming godly. What should we think of a physician who had no interest in the science or practice of medicine? What of a husbandman who disliked and avoided the employments of the field? What of a soldier who declined all discipline and all obedience? But, to say the truth, and to do men justice, such instances in the natural world are extremely rare; it is only in the spiritual world, only where God, and the soul, and eternity are concerned, that we find men lost in apathy, and acting in contradiction to their pretended faith; and casting off the consideration of those liabilities and duties upon which they have openly entered. There are men, indeed, who, when charged with such palpable inconsistency, and feeling uneasy under the shame of it, at once deny that they do set up any profession at all; and make a sort of merit of saying that they do not pretend to any of the distinguished excellencies of the Christian character. But this flimsy pretext of honesty can avail them but little. Ii they pretend not to what the gospel requires, why pretend to the gospel at all? Nay, it is a melancholy fact that the generality of heathen in our Indian and other foreign possessions manifest a far more abiding sense of their various deities and idols than the generality of Christians do of the true and holy God. They fear the object of their worship, they respect it, they daily remember it. The wicked enemy, who drove man from paradise with a corrupted flesh into a corrupted world, still uses that flesh and that world as instruments of keeping up and increasing our estrangement from God. I have a message to deliver to-day to every soul that is in earnest in the great work of salvation; not to teach, but to remind you of what the truth really is: be it then understood, be it taken to heart, that godliness is the great good, in the present life, to which Christ came to bring us, as the means of our final recovery and blessedness. (J. Slade, M. A.) 1 Timothy 2:13 For Adam was first formed.Man and woman: their relative work As to the question, “ Which is the most important, man or woman?” if I may be allowed to speak in editorial style, I should say, “ the discussion must now stop.” Let those who like it “ sit apart upon a hill retired” and discuss the kindred questions, “ which is the most important, convex or concave, night or morning, east or west, green land or glancing water?” For ourselves we are, I hope, content to take Florence Nightingale’ s advice--“ Keep clear of all jargons about man’ s work and woman’ s work, and go your way straight to God’ s work in simplicity and singleness of heart,” each one to do what each one can do best. Now, we know that, as a rule, some things that women can do right nobly at a crisis, are not best for them to do when men are to be had. As a rule, I think it is not best for women to man a lifeboat; but one black night at Teignmouth last year, when the men were all out of the way, or else were not sharp enough, the women got the lifeboat out. With shrill, quivering cheers they carried it through the battling breakers, dragged a vessel off the sand-bar, and saved precious life. When we hear that they did all this without any help from the unfair sex, who can help saying, “ Well done!” I go farther and say that, as a rule, in my private opinion, it is not best for women to preach in public, but where, in exceptional cases and with extra ordinary gifts, women like Mary Fletcher and Priscilla Gurney go out of their way, and all by themselves publicly launch the lifeboat of the gospel to snatch souls from the sea of sin and from the rocks of death, again I say to the praise of grace, “ Well done!” They remind me of the Roman who said, “ I have broken the law, but I have saved the State!” They are under a higher law than the law they violate, and I am no more able to doubt the validity of their orders than I can doubt the sanity of the New Testament. (C. Stanford, D. D.) Punishment no hindrance to salvation 1. The punishment of the woman--“ in child-bearing.”2. The comfort of the woman--“ she shall be saved.”3. The condition of the salvation--“ if they continue.” Wherein is implied an exhortation to continue in faith, etc. Many observations might be raised.1. The pain in childbearing is a punishment inflicted upon the woman for the first sin. 2. The continuance of this punishment after redemption by Christ, doth not hinder the salvation of the woman, if there be the gospel-conditions requisite. 3. The exercise of faith, with other Christian graces, is a peculiar means for the preservation of believers under God’ s afflicting hand. I shall sum them up into this one. The continuance of the punishment inflicted upon the woman for the first sin doth not prejudice her eternal salvation, nor her preservation in child-bearing, where there are the conditions of faith and other graces. I. Concerning the punishment. Child-bearing itself is not the punishment, but the pain in it. For the blessing, Increase and multiply, was given in innocency. And because this punishment is the greater, it is disputed in the schools whether Adam’ s or Eve’ s sin were the greater. We may, I think, safely make these conclusions.1. In regard of the kind of sin, it was equal in both. They both had an equal pride, an equal aspiring to be like God. 2. In regard of the first motion to this sin, Eve’ s sin was the greater. She was the seducer of Adam, which the apostle expresseth in the verse before the text. 3. In regard of the woman’ s condition, the sin was greater on Adam’ s part. (1) Because he, being the man, had more power to resist, more strength to argue the case. (2) Eve had a stronger and craftier adversary to deal with, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field (Genesis 3:1), animated and inspired by a craftier devil. The stronger the tempter, the more excusable the sin. (3) Eve had the command of not eating immediately from her husband, which laid not altogether so strong a tie upon her as it did upon him, who had it immediately from the mouth of God, and therefore was more certain of the verity of the precept. II. Of what nature is this punishment?1. It is not a punishment in a rigid sense, nor continued as such. (1) Because it is not commensurate to the nature of the sin, neither is it that penalty which the law required. Death was due, and death immediately upon the offence; but death was kept off by the interposition of the mediator, and this which is less than death inflicted at present. Where death is deserved, and a lighter punishment inflicted, it is rather an act of clemency than strict justice, and may be called by the name of a partial pardon or reprieve, as well as a punishment. (2) It is not a reparation of the injury done to God. One reason of the institution of punishment is to repair the damage the person offended sustains by the malefactor, as far as he is capable. (3) It is not continued as a part of satisfaction to the justice of God; as though Christ needed the sufferings of the creature to make up the sum which He was to pay for us, and which He hath already paid. These punishments are to awaken men to a sight of their first sin. (4) The proper impulsive cause of punishment is wrath. In inflicting it He preserves the authority of a Judge; in preserving under it, and pardoning the sin for which it was inflicted, He evidenceth the affection of a Father. 2. Yet it is in some sort a punishment, and something more than an affliction. (1) In respect of the meritorious cause, sin. This is not inflicted as an act of absolute sovereignty, but a judicial legal act upon the demerit of sin. (2) Because if man had stood in innocency, neither this grief, nor indeed any other, had been. III. This punishment doth not hinder salvation though it be continued.1. God intended not in the acceptance of Christ’ s mediation to remove in this life all the punishments denounced after the Fall. God takes away the eternal, but not the temporal. Some parts of Christ’ s purchase are only payable in another life, and some fruits of redemption God intends for growth only in another soil; such are freedom from pain, diseases, death, and sin. But the full value of Christ’ s satisfaction will appear when there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, when the day of redemption shall dawn, and all tears be wiped from believers’ eyes. But God never promised the total removal of them in this life to any saint; no, though he should have all the faith and holiness of all the catalogue of saints in the Book of Life centred in him. 2. Christ never intended, in the payment of the price of our redemption, the present removal of them. He sent, after His ascension, the Spirit to be our Comforter, which supposeth a state wherein we should need comfort; and when are we under a greater necessity of comfort than when the punishment of sin is actually inflicted on us? 3. Christ intended, and did actually take away the curse of those punishments from every believer. 4. Hence it will follow that to a believer the very nature of these punishments is altered. In the one the sting remains; in the other it is pulled out. The cord that binds a malefactor and a patient may be made of the same hemp, and a knife only go between; but it binds the malefactor to execution, the other to a cure. 5. Therefore all temporal punishments of original sin, though they remain, do not prejudice a believer’ s present interest. (1) They cut not off his relation to God. (2) They debar not from the presence of God. God may be and is as near to us in supporting as He is in punishing. (3) They break not the covenant. His rod and His stripes, though they seem to break ore, backs, make no breaches in His covenant (Psalms 89:32-34). 6. Add to all this, that the first promise secures a believer under the sufferings of those punishments. God’ s affection in the promise of bruising the serpent’ s head was more illustrious in His wrath than the threatening. There are the bowels of a father in the promise before there was the voice of a judge in the sentence. But it may be asked, What is the reason these punishments are continued since the redemption wrought by Christ? There are reasons-- (1) On God’ s part. (a) It is congruous to the wisdom of God to leave them upon us while we are in the world. (b) It is congruous to the holiness of God. God keeps up those punishments as the Rector and Governor of the world, to show His detestation of that sin which brought a disorder and deformity upon the creation, and was the first act of dishonour to God, and the first pollution of the creature. (c) It is a declaration of His justice. (d) It is useful to magnify His love. We should not be sensible of what our Saviour suffered, nor how transcendently He loved us if the punishment of sin had been presently removed upon the first promise.(2) On our parts. It is useful to us (a) To make us abhor our first defection and sin. (b) To make us fear to sin and to purge it out. Sin hath riveted itself so deep that easy medicines will not displace it. It hath so much of our affections that gentle means will not divorce us from it. We shall hate it most when we reap the punishment of it. (c) To exercise grace.1. Faith and trust--“ She that is desolate trusts in God” (1 Timothy 5:5). The lower the state, the greater necessity and greater obligation to trust; such exercises manifest that the condition we are in is sanctified to us. 2. Obedience in a believer hath a greater lustre by them. It was the glory of Job that he preserved his integrity under the smartest troubles. 3. Humility. These punishments are left upon us to allay our pride, and be our remembrancers of our deplorable miscarriage. 4. Patience. Were there no punishments there would be but little occasion for patience. (S. Charnock.) . 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:14 That women adorn themselves in modest apparel.Woman’ s true dignity If we lived in Turkey or in India, we should be better able to appreciate the wisdom of Paul’ s counsel in respect to the women of his day: and I am not prepared to mitigate or to apologise for his brave and wise words. Remember it was due to him more than to any other apostle that women had been so far emancipated as they were when this Epistle was written, for it was he who had taught that in Christ Jesus there was neither male nor female. But he grieved over some of the evils which at first arose from the great changes effected in their social position. Seclusion had been rigorously maintained by the customs of those Eastern cities. The picture in the Royal Academy, which represents a young girl, with slippers in her hand, drawing aside the curtain of the seraglio, and stepping across the body of a black slave, who is sleeping with naked sword in his hand, fairly represents the slave-like treatment of women in Ephesus in Paul’ s days. Indeed, even among the Jews the women who came to the synagogue were (and still are) kept out of sight in a carefully screened gallery. It was therefore not to be wondered at that the Christian women emancipated from such treatment felt themselves not only at liberty to assert their new-born rights but bound to do so, and that they claimed a prominence and a freedom which were good neither for themselves nor for the Church. And we must not forget that, so far as women had greater publicity in the heathen cities, it was at the risk of the virtuous reputation which Christians would be the most anxious to preserve. The priestesses of the temples, for example, were notoriously immoral, and the Hetairae were not only a recognized, but even a respectable class in Pagan society. I. He speaks of it first negatively, declaring that her dignity does not depend upon outward adornment; and this is always and everywhere true. It is probable that the women who came to the Christian assemblies in Ephesus arrayed them selves in costly attire, and sometimes made unbecoming display of their personal charms till the custom was becoming the sensation, if not the scandal, of the city. No one professing godliness ought to spend time, and taste, and money to the extent many do on mere personal adornment, as if the body was everything and the mind nothing, or as if the chief end of a woman’ s life was to win admiration not respect, to please man and not God. Even from a lower standpoint it is a mistake, and I venture to think that many a marriage has been prevented, and many a possibly happy home is fraught with anxiety, because of an expenditure on dress, which cannot be reasonably or rightly met. There are lives which might have been unspeakably happier if only they had been united, if the two young people had been content to face the world together with plain fare and simple habits. Listen to John Ruskin, “ I say further, that as long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendour of dress is a crime.” II. Woman’ s dignity is next set forth positively. “ I will,” says Paul, “ that women adorn themselves in--1. Modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety.” Society owes its tone more to women than to men. What they frown upon will be tabooed; what they thoughtlessly tolerate will grow in evil influence. 2. But in addition to this influence, which may be almost unconsciously exercised, the Christian woman is to adorn herself with “ good works.” She often does this behind the veil which is drawn over every home. There are those whose “ good works” are noble in their self-sacrifice and far-reaching in their issues of whom the Church hears little. Many a man can sympathize with that soldier who said, “ I can stand before the enemy, but I cannot stand before my sister’ s prayers.” And who does not know of more public work done by Christian women--such as that of our visitors and Sunday-school teachers; of saintly pleaders with the drunkards and the profligate;--of noble women whose writings have purged the atmosphere of moral corruption; of heroines like Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, who have trodden closely in the footsteps of the Lord. These have been clothed with “ good works.” (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The position of woman This was-- I. A bold declaration on the part of the apostle. “ Let the woman learn in silence (or rather in quietness) with all subjection, for I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in quietness” ; but the course he followed in this matter was wise, in the condition of life then prevailing. In our days there is no doubt a change of those conditions, which would make the rigorous application of such a rule unwise and unjust. Women, in larger numbers now than then, are of necessity independent, and are compelled to earn their own livelihood, and make their own homes; and being, in some respects, the weaker, they should have no artificial barriers put in the way of their doing so. There are disabilities, the relics of feudal times, which slowly, yet surely, are being swept away, though much still remains to be done. Under our English laws, for example, a woman may be compelled to pay taxes, though she has no right to influence the election of those who impose them--as her gardener or coachman may do. But the general law laid down by Paul still holds good. The public work of life, whether in the world or in the Church, is, broadly speaking, not woman’ s but man’ s. His is the life of turmoil, hers of quietude. She is receptive; he is aggressive: and it is not so much in her conspicuous activity as in her yielding affectionateness that her true strength is found. II. By a scriptural argument. He goes back to Eden for justification of his teaching--for he was accustomed to regard the facts of the Old Testament as symbolical and parabolical sources of perpetual instruction. “ Adam was first formed,” says he, “ then Eve.” Man’ s priority in creation, standing as he did alone and in immediate relation to God, was an indication of his place and power, as having the headship over her whom God made to be his helpmeet. But if the helpmeet becomes the head, and the head weakly yields, there comes an overthrow of the Divine order, as there did come in Paradise. Practical shrewdness and discernment; the firm and regulative judgment which should characterize the ruler, are less hers than man’ s. Her very excellencies, connected as they are with the finer sensibilities and the stronger impulses of a noble and loving nature, disqualify her for the headship, whereas the balance in man’ s nature is the other way; in the direction of the intellectual and the governing. But it is here asserted that “ Adam was not deceived,” and was therefore more guilty, because with his eyes open to the wrong he yielded to conjugal love. In other words, the will and the judgment were sacrificed to the affections--the essence of moral fall. Paul closes his remarks on woman by alluding to-- III. A blessed assurance. “ Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing” ; or, as the R.V. has it, “ through the childbearing.” Perhaps there was some hint here of the blessing that comes through pain and travail, of whatsoever kind it be; and also of the great and noble work possible only to motherhood. But the more correct translation gives us rather the thought of what may be called pre-eminently “ the childbearing “ --when Jesus Christ, the world’ s Saviour, was born of a woman, and appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh--for it was thus that the great promise was fulfilled which brought a gleam of hope into the darkness of Eve’ s despair, “ the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’ s head.” (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Advice against jewellery As to jewels, let me advise you not to buy any--even though you have the purse of Fortunatus, or may hereafter become wealthy. Some may be given you, but still I would say, do not wear them--unless, perhaps, now and then, with the pure desire of affording pleasure to the donors. A fancy for the possession and display of jewellery soon generates into a craze, ever growing, or unsatisfied unless in the ownership of gems superior to those of others around you. It is an unhealthy and vulgar feeling, Which has not seldom led to the ruin of women in all classes. Other reasons may be advanced against the indulgence of this false taste. Valuable jewels cannot but become, at times, a source of trouble and anxiety; and if lost or stolen, a bitter feeling of annoyance is retained. Opportunities for display are few; and often then, through disadvantageous comparison with others, are apt to give rise to heart-burning and envy--feelings which would never be experienced in such a way were the face resolutely set against such vanities. (Lady Bellairs.) A passion for extravagant dress The Empress Josephine had twenty-four thousand pounds for her personal expenses, but this sum was not sufficient, and her debts increased to an appalling degree. She rose at nine o’ clock. Her toilet consumed much time, and she lavished unwearied efforts on the preservation and embellishment of her person. Huge baskets were brought to her containing different dresses, shawls, and hats. From these she selected her costume for the day. She possessed between three or four hundred shawls, and always wore one in the morning, which she draped about her shoulders with unequalled grace. The evening toilet was as careful as that of the morning--then she appeared with flowers of pearls, or precious stones in her hair. Bonaparte was irritated by these expenditures; he would fly into a passion, and his wife would weep and promise to be more prudent; after which she would go on in the same way. It is almost incredible that this passion for dress should never have exhausted itself. After her divorce she arrayed herself with the same care even when she was no one. She died covered with ribbons and pale rose-coloured satin. As long as the heart is unrenewed by Divine grace, regard for the outward is even greater than regard for the inward. True religion reverses all this, and gives “ the things unseen and eternal” their rightful place. The most humbly dressed believer in Christ has a better garment than the empress, even the wedding garment of Christ’ s righteousness. A good use for ornaments Some of you might do great good with articles which you might very readily spare. You have ornaments which Christian men and women are better without, which, if broken up or sold, would aid the good cause. I wish many would follow the example of Oliver Cromwell, when he went into Exeter Cathedral, and saw twelve massive images of the apostles in silver. “ Oh, oh,” said he, “ what do these gentlemen here?” “ They are the twelve apostles,” was the reply. “ Very well,” said he, “ melt them down, and send them about doing good.” I wish Christians would do that with some of their gold and silver jewellery. Anyhow, for our own sakes, lest the canker get into our gold, and the rust into our silver, use it for doing good. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A becoming adornment Goethe was in company with a mother and daughter, when the latter, being reproved for some thing, blushed and burst into tears. He said to the mother: “ How beautiful your reproach has made your daughter! The crimson hue and those silvery tears become her much better than any ornament of gold or pearls; those may be hung on the neck of any woman; these are never seen unconnected with moral purity.” A full-blown flower, sprinkled with purest hue, is not so beautiful as this child, blushing beneath her parent’ s displeasure, and shedding tears of sorrow for her fault. A blush is the sign which nature hangs out, to show where chastity and honour dwell. The charity purse Howard, soon after his marriage, “ sold some jewels his wife had no longer any inclination to wear, and put the money into a purse called by herself and her husband the charity purse.” (J. Stoughton, D. D.) Woman’ s sphere of influence For so far as a woman is sincere to the nature God has given her, her aspiration is not so much that the world should ring with her fame, or Society quote her as a leader of fashion, but that she should bless and be blessed in blessing. It is not that she should wish for power, but that she should wish for a noble, not an ignoble power. It is not that she should not wish to queen it in this world, but that she should wish to queen it, not by ostentation of dress or life, nor by eclipsing others, but by manifestation of love, by nobility of gentle service, by unconscious revelation in her life, and conscious maintenance in others by her influence, of all things true and pure, of stainless honour in life, of chivalrous aspirations in the soul. (Stoleford A. Brooke, M. A.) Silence of women Why, Doctor, exclaimed a shallow, talkative lady, who was in the room with Dr. Johnson, but of whom he took little notice, “ I believe you prefer the company of men to that of ladies.” “ Madam,” he replied, “ I am fond of the company of ladies; I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, and I like their silence.” Professing godliness.--The profession of godliness Such is the description and character of Christians in early days, such of all true Christians in every day. In no one point of view is the inconsistency of the Christian world more strikingly apparent: they would be thought to embrace the gospel of godliness without an idea of becoming godly. What should we think of a physician who had no interest in the science or practice of medicine? What of a husbandman who disliked and avoided the employments of the field? What of a soldier who declined all discipline and all obedience? But, to say the truth, and to do men justice, such instances in the natural world are extremely rare; it is only in the spiritual world, only where God, and the soul, and eternity are concerned, that we find men lost in apathy, and acting in contradiction to their pretended faith; and casting off the consideration of those liabilities and duties upon which they have openly entered. There are men, indeed, who, when charged with such palpable inconsistency, and feeling uneasy under the shame of it, at once deny that they do set up any profession at all; and make a sort of merit of saying that they do not pretend to any of the distinguished excellencies of the Christian character. But this flimsy pretext of honesty can avail them but little. Ii they pretend not to what the gospel requires, why pretend to the gospel at all? Nay, it is a melancholy fact that the generality of heathen in our Indian and other foreign possessions manifest a far more abiding sense of their various deities and idols than the generality of Christians do of the true and holy God. They fear the object of their worship, they respect it, they daily remember it. The wicked enemy, who drove man from paradise with a corrupted flesh into a corrupted world, still uses that flesh and that world as instruments of keeping up and increasing our estrangement from God. I have a message to deliver to-day to every soul that is in earnest in the great work of salvation; not to teach, but to remind you of what the truth really is: be it then understood, be it taken to heart, that godliness is the great good, in the present life, to which Christ came to bring us, as the means of our final recovery and blessedness. (J. Slade, M. A.) 1 Timothy 3:1-7 The office of a bishop.The office of a bishop a good work If a man desire the office of a bishop from right principles, he desireth. not a secular dignity--not a good benefice--not a post of honour or profit--not an easy idle life--but he desireth a work; a good work indeed it is: but still it is a work. I. It may properly be called a work, if we consider the duties of the office, which require the utmost assiduity, and some of which are peculiarly painful and laborious. II. It is a good work, whether you consider, for whom, with whom, or for what you work. The ministers of the gospel work for God, who is carrying on the grand scheme of salvation in our world. His immediate service is the peculiar business of their lives. Ministers also work for Jesus Christ. It was He that originally gave them their commission; it was He that assigned them their work; it is He that is interested in their success. Again, the ministers of the gospel work for the souls of men. To do good to mankind is the great purpose of their office. Let us next consider with whom the ministers of the gospel work; and we shall see how good their employment is. “ They are workers together with God.” (2 Corinthians 6:1). They are also co-workers with Jesus Christ, promoting the same cause for which He became man; for which He lived the life of a servant, and died the death of a malefactor and a slave. They may also be called fellow-workers with the Holy Spirit, whose great office it is to sanctify depraved creatures, and prepare them for the refined happiness of heaven. They also act in concert with angels; for what are these glorious creatures but “ ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation” ? (Hebrews 1:14). An angel once condescended to call a minister of the gospel his fellow-servant (Revelation 19:10). Ministers also are engaged in that work in which the apostles went before them. The office of a bishop will farther appear a good work, if it be considered for what it is that ministers work. They do not indeed work for a reward upon the footing of personal merit; but they hope for it on the plan of the gospel, through Jesus Christ. In this view, like Moses, they have “ a respect to the recompense of reward” (Hebrews 11:26). And thus it appears, their laborious and painful work is good--good in itself, good for the world, and good for themselves. (S. Davies, M. A.) The ideal minister The apostle who most boldly maintained the brotherhood of believers clearly recognized the necessity for order and office in Christian communities. I. The moral characteristics of the ideal pastor are strongly insisted upon. Strangely enough, nothing is said about his piety, his love to God, his communion with Him, his delight in Him, his devotion to Him; but this is naturally presupposed as the basis of the rest. It is not alluded to here, partly because Timothy did not require to be reminded that personal religion is the first essential in all spiritual work, and partly because he was less able to judge of inward piety in others than of the qualities mentioned here.1. Self-rule is one of the principal of these, and it is to display itself in all directions. The bishop is to be sober, exercising habitual self-restraint, not only in respect of intoxicating drinks, but also in respect of indulgence in pleasures of all kinds, setting an example of dominion over the carnal and sensuous. But temper is to be as much under control as other passions, for the Christian teacher must be no “ brawler,” no striker, “ but patient.” 2. Again, sound judgment is a qualification much needed by every pastor and teacher. This is no doubt one reason of Paul’ s for urging on Timothy, as he does in the sixth verse, that a pastor in the Church should not be a “ novice,” i.e., a recent convert. If the young life of a plant be exposed to the glare of the sunshine, death will supervene. And in the life of every creature--insect, and bird, and beast, and most of all in the life of man--the period of development must precede the period of manifestation. 3. Another characteristic of the ideal minister should be open-heartedness and open-handedness. The phrase “ given to hospitality” in Authorized Version, or more correctly “ a lover of strangers,” denotes what was relatively more important then than now. II. The relations of the minister to those around him, his right relation with God being pre-supposed.1. He is to be the husband of one wife. 2. Then allusion is made to the pastor’ s own house as distinguished from God’ s house. So it is urged that any leader in the Church should rule well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. On which Dr. Reynolds has beautifully said, “ The child-life of the pastor’ s home should suggest the sacred ness of a temple and the order of a palace.” And is not this true for us all? Is it not in the home that we are the most tested, and is it not there we can best glorify God? 3. The relation the pastor should hold towards the world. Much stress is laid in this passage on being “ blameless,” and having “ a good report of them that are without” --those, namely, who are outside the kingdom of Christ. We cannot afford, as Christ’ s representatives, to defy the world’ s opinion about us so far as moral reputation is concerned. The world is a poor judge of doctrine, of motive, and of religious hopes and thoughts; but it is a keen and on the whole an accurate judge of character; and when the members and leaders of the Church are recognized by the world as honest, sincere, trusty, pure men and women, Christ will win the day against His foes. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Preference for the ministry A remarkable avowal of the late Senator John A. Logan is reported by a clergyman in a letter to us. He says that in talking with the senator not long before his death, Logan said: “ I have often thought that I would like to be in the ministry.” I replied: “ To have done that, general, you must have surrendered many ambitions.” “ That,” was his noble reply--“ that would be nothing. The end will soon come, and these things will then be seen to be worthless.” I was convinced of his transparent honesty when he uttered these words, and am of opinion that he simply spoke as he believed and felt. (Philadelphia Press.) The dignity of the Christian ministry Moreover, if we weigh all things in the balances of justice, we shall see that there is no king, whatever may be the pomp that surrounds him, who as a king is not in dignity below, I will not say a bishop only, but even a simple village pastor, regarded as a pastor. We have only, in order to realize the fact, to cast our eyes on the functions of the pastor and of the king respectively. What do the labours of princes regard? Is it not that evil-doers may be kept down by the vigilance of the law, and that the good may not be disturbed? That is to say, so to act that the persons and property of the citizens of the state shall be in safety? But how much more excellent is the aim of the minister of the gospel, who desires to establish in each individual soul the serenest tranquility by quieting and subduing the lusts of the world! The king’ s labours are intended to secure that the state shall live at peace with its neighbours; the priest’ s aim is that every one may be at peace with God, that each may possess peace within, and that no one may have it in his heart to injure another. The prince designs to protect the house, lands, and cattle of particular persons from the violence of depredators. But what does the priest design? To defend the property of the souls entrusted to him, their faith, their charity, their temperance, their purity against the assaults of the devil; property which confers happiness on those who possess it, and the loss of which plunges them into the direst misfortune... In one word, all that comes under the management of the prince is earthly and transient; but that which occupies the pastor is divine, celestial, eternal. And, therefore, as much difference as there is between the heaven and the earth, between the body and the soul, between temporal goods and eternal possessions, so much difference is there between the functions committed to the king and the trust devolved on the priest. (Erasmus.) A well-governed family When there is to be a real order and law in the house, it will come of no hard and boisterous or fretful and termagant way of command. Gentleness will speak the word of firmness, and firmness will be clothed in the airs of true gentleness. How many do we see who fairly rave in authority, and keep the tempest up from morning till night, who never stop to see whether anything they forbid or command is in fact observed! Indeed, they really forget what they have commanded. Their mandates follow so thickly as to crowd one another, and even to successively thrust one another out of remembrance. The result is, that by this cannonading of pop-guns, the successive pellets of command ment are in turn all blown away. If anything is fit to be forbidden or commanded, it is fit to be watched and held in faithful account. On this it is that the real emphasis of authority depends, not on the windstress of the utterance. Let there be only such and so many things commanded as can be faithfully attended to; these in a gentle and film voice, as if their title to obedience lay in their own merit; and then let the child be held to a perfectly inevitable and faithful account; and by that time it will be seen that order and law have a stress of their own, and a power to rule in their own divine right. The beauty of a well-governed family will be seen in this manner to be a kind of silent, natural-looking power, as if it were a matter only of growth, and could never have been otherwise. (Horace Bushnell.) Luther and his children Luther used to teach his children to read the Bible in the following way. First, to read through one book carefully, then to study chapter by chapter, and then verse by verse, and lastly word by word, for, he said, “ It is like a person shaking a fruit tree. First shaking the tree and gathering up the fruit which falls to the ground, and then shaking each branch and afterwards each twig of the branch, and last of all looking carefully under each leaf to see that no fruit remains. In this way, and in no other, shall we also find the hidden treasures that are in the Bible.” (J. Stewart.) A minister above the love of money A little while ago, in Calcutta, a native, a Christian merchant, was deeply interested in a community of “ outcasts,” and he made an offer of £60 a-year to any native Christian who would go and live among these people, and teach them the Word of Life. The offer had no sooner been made than a candidate for the office appeared. Who was he? As humble and devoted and consistent a Christian as you ever met. He was a professor in a missionary college, M.A. and LL.B. of the Calcutta University, and drawing a salary of £200 a year. Such was the candidate for this office of £60 a year! (Christian Herald.) A liberal bishop Bishop Baring’ s generosity and munificence were unbounded. One instance may be given out of many. He was spending the Sunday with a vicar blessed with very moderate means and a large family. His lordship noticed the pale faces of the children, and said to their mother, “ You must take these little ones to the seaside, and their father, too, must have a complete rest. I will provide his duty for six weeks.” The good lady wondered where she was to find the wherewithal to carry out this excel lent scheme. As the bishop, however, shook hands with her on leaving he put a £50 note into her hand in the kindest way, and solved the difficulty. It is not, however, every one who has such hereditary wealth as the late Bishop of Durham. (Christian Herald.) Ministers not contentious (Revised Version):--How a soft answer can turn away wrath, as well as dissatisfaction, is illustrated in the following anecdote of the late President Wayland. Deacon Moses Pond went to Dr. Wayland once with the complaint that the preaching did not edify him. “ I’ m sorry,” said the pastor; “ I know they are poor sermons. I wish I could make them better. Come, let us pray that I may be able to do so.” The deacon, telling the story, used to say, “ Dr. Wayland prayed and I prayed; he cried and I cried. But I have thought a hundred times that it was strange that he did not turn me out of the house. I tell you there never was a better man nor a greater preacher than Dr. Wayland.” (W. Baxendale.) Apt to teach.--The pulpit a light and Tower These three words are but one in the Greek. Ignorance is the inheritance of our fall in Eden. The grand work of the ministry of Christ is to illuminate the darkened mind. There is a fire that does not give light, and a cold phosphorescent flame that yields no heat. Our teaching, while it dispels the darkness of sin, must shed its beams to warm the frozen virtues into life.1. To meet the claims of a good teacher one must he willing to learn. The apostles, dropping their nets and other worldly craft, went to a school of the prophets, such as never before or since existed on earth. Its sole instructor was the Great Teacher, the Creator of all things. They learned wisdom without a book from the source of all knowledge. 2. If we would be apt to teach, we must have a lesson to impart. 3. To be apt to teach, one must be master of the lesson he would impart. 4. To be apt to teach, a sacred enthusiasm is indispensable. 5. To be apt to teach under the wings of the Eternal Spirit, Holy Dove, we must gather strength and success by prayer. 6. Apt to teach, finally, has the element of faith. (W. H. Van Doren.) Take care of the Church of God. Pastoral care Observe the sacred charge committed to God’ s appointed bishops, or shepherds, or pastors. I should, first of all, insist that Christ’ s pastors, who take care of the Church committed to their charge are to take care of their food--that they shall have nothing to eat but what is pure and wholesome. That in the care which God’ s servants have to take of the Church committed to their charge, they have to nourish three descriptions of character, or three classes of the family specified in Scripture--as babes, young men, and fathers. This care taken of the Church must be with all tenderness, but with all firmness, and under the consciousness of responsibility. It must be with all tenderness. We must be gentle, as the apostle says, “ even as a nurse cherisheth her children; and because we were desirous of your welfare, we were ready to impart unto you our own souls, because ye were dear to our souls.” But we are not only to use tenderness--“ in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves” --towards the lambs, the weak lings, the little ones; but we must use all firmness. Moreover, if we would fake care of the Church of God, it must be by keeping our hearts and thoughts fixed on our responsibility. (J. Irons.) Not a novice.--Vanity in preachers I. Young preachers are especially subject to such vanity. It is the novice that is liable to be “ lifted up with pride.”1. The young are naturally disposed to over-rate their abilities. 2. They are peculiarly susceptible to adulation. The more unenlightened and unreflective men are, the more they are given to flattery. II. The devil’ s destiny must follow such vanity. “ Fall into the condemnation of the devil.” (The Homilist.) Ministerial pride rebuked An aged Scotch divine had occasionally to avail himself of the assistance of probationers. One day, a young man, very vain of his accomplishments as a preacher, officiated, and on descending from the desk, was met by the old gentleman with extended hands, and expecting high praise, he said, “ No compliments, I pray.” “ Na, na, ha, my young friend,” said the parson, “ nowadays I’ m glad o’ onybody.” Rowland Hill on ministerial work:--No man ever had stronger views than Mr. Rowland Hill of the true nature of the ministerial work, and of the necessity of a humble dependence on the Lord’ s assistance for a blessing in it. One of his remarks was, “ If favoured at any time with what is called a good opportunity, I am too apt to find myself saying, ‘ Well done!,’ when I should lie in the dust, and give God all the glory.” Another was, “ Lord, make me distrustful of myself, that I may confide in Thee alone; self dependence is the Pharisee’ s high road to destruction.” He was accustomed strongly to urge on all who entered the sacred office the necessity of maintaining Christian and heavenly tempers among their people. “ Some folks,” he would say, “ appear as if they had been bathed in crab verjuice in their infancy, which penetrated through their skins, and has made them sour-blooded ever since; but this will not do for a messenger of the gospel; as he bears a message, so he must manifest a spirit of love.” He used to like Dr. Ryland’ s advice to his young academicians--“ Mind, no sermon is of any value, or likely to be useful, which has not the three R’ s in it,--Ruin by the Fall, Redemption by Christ, Regeneration by the Holy Spirit.” Of himself he remarked, “ My aim in every sermon is a stout and lusty call to sinners, to quicken the saints, and to be made a universal blessing to all.” It was a favourite saying with him, “ The nearer we live to God, the better we are enabled to serve Him. Oh how I hate my own noise, when I have nothing to make a noise about! Heavenly wisdom creates heavenly utterance.” In a letter to Mr. Jones, he observes, “ There is something in preaching the gospel, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, I long to get at. At times I think I feel somewhat like it, and then I bawl almost as bad as the Welshman. If we deal with Divine realities, we ought to feel them such, and the people will in general feel with us, and acknowledge the power that does wonders on the earth; while dry, formal, discussional preaching leaves the hearers just where it found them. Still, they who are thus favoured had need to be favoured with a deal of humility. We are too apt to be proud of that which is not our own. Oh humility, humility, humility!” It is no wonder, with such impressions as to the nature of his work, and the state of his mind, that Mr. Rowland Hill’ s preaching was so honoured and blessed of God. “ Lord, help!” was his constant and earnest prayer, and it was heard. (Scottish Christian Herald.) Humility in ministers The Rev. George Gilfillan, who died in 1877, was not only an author of some distinction, but a wit. A congregation to whom he had been preaching presented him, when a probationer, with a suit of clothes; and after he had put them on, the old ones were tied up in a bundle. “ Where shall I send them?” said the tailor. “ I will take them myself,” said Mr. Gilfillan; “ I have carried them too long upon my back to be ashamed of carrying them under my arm.” There was no false pride about him. He gave due honour to old friends. (Christian Herald.) Ministerial pride rebuked The American religious journal, the Independent, relates the following story of rebuked vanity, which was told recently in a gathering of ministers, by the Rev. Dr. Gould, of Worcester. “ A certain Rev. Samuel Smith had been discoursing very learnedly and loftily, and was now walking home with his brother, eagerly waiting for some word of commendation. Not finding it forthcoming, he dropped a slender oblique hint, to see what could be drawn out. He was somewhat startled and shocked by the outburst: “ I tell you, Sam, what it is. Instead of preaching “ Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” you seem to have been preaching Samuel Smith and him dignified.” How necessary it is for preachers of the gospel to hide themselves in the shadow of Christ’ s Cross, and to forget themselves in the majesty of the message which they deliver. I. A minister of good report:--About thirty years ago the present Bishop of Minnesota went to Chicago, and built a church near the business centre of the city. In those days there were no street cars, and it happened that the reverend gentleman took up his residence in West Chicago, convenient to an omnibus line. It frequently occurred that the omnibus would be crowded, and many obliged to take “ deck passage.” The writer was riding on the seat with the driver one Saturday night, when the conversation turned upon Sunday labour and the consistency of professed Christians, the driver thinking it rather hard that he should be obliged to labour on Sunday, while others should take their rest. It appeared from his conversation that his faith in Christianity was rather weak; but turning to me he said, with considerable emphasis, “ There is one clergyman whom I respect and believe to be a consistent Christian.” Being a little curious to know who the clergyman was, and upon what evidence he had based his opinion, I asked him for an explanation. “ Well,” said he, “ there is the Rev. Mr. Whipple, who built that church down town; he has a free pass over this line, but walks down and back on Sundays rather than compromise his Christianity; that proves to me that he is a consistent Christian.” It sometimes occurs that a clergyman’ s most eloquent sermon is being preached when he least expects it; and any private Christian may preach the same kind of sermon. (Christian Age.) The causes and remedies of pride You can hardly fail to perceive that this reasoning of St. Paul’ s proceeds on the supposition that they who know but little are most in danger of pride. It is just because man is a novice that he is likely to be lifted up. Is it not a confessed and well-known fact that the arrogant and conceited person is ordinarily the superficial and the ignorant? You will hardly ever find the man of real power and great acquirement other than a simple and unaffected man. It would scarcely ever lead you to a false estimate of persons, were you to take it as a rule, that where there is the manifestation of conceit, there is shallowness of intellect. And why is this, but because he who knows most is most conscious how little he knows? Can he be vain of his mental power who, having applied it to the investigation of truth, has discovered little more than that truth would exhaust power a thousand-fold greater? Can he be proud of his scientific progress who, having laboured long and hard, finds himself only a beginner, so vast are the spreadings which lie dimly beyond? Oh! it is not, and it never will be, the man of experience who shows himself haughty and conceited. We have thus taken the case generally of a novice in knowledge, as it helps to place under a clearer point of view the gist of St. Paul’ s argument--namely, that ignorance is the great parent of pride. But we will now confine ourselves to such particular branches of life as must have been referred to by the apostle, when he penned the direction for the exclusion of a novice; and forasmuch as it is the novice in Christian doctrine of which he speaks, we shall perhaps thoroughly compass his argument if we give our attention to knowledge of ourselves, in the two grand respects of our state by nature and our state by grace. Of all knowledge there is confessedly none which is either more valuable in itself, or more difficult of attainment, than self-knowledge; none more valuable, for a man has an immeasurably greater interest or deeper stake in himself than in the whole surrounding universe; none more difficult of attainment, for we have it on the authority of the Bible itself, that none but a Divine Being can search the human heart. And if we were not able to show of all knowledge whatsoever that it is a corrective of pride, or at least reads such lessons to each, as to his incompetence and insignificance, as leaves him inexcusable if he be not humble, we should have no difficulty in doing this in regard to self-knowledge. Let it be, if you will, that the study of stars in their courses might tend to give a man high thoughts of himself; for, indeed, till you look closely into the matter, there is something ennobling--something that seems to excuse, if not to form, a lofty estimate of power--when, with daring tread, the astronomer pursues the heavenly bodies into untravelled regions, tracking their wanderings and counting their revolutions; but in regard, at all events, of self-knowledge, there can be no difficulty in showing to any one who will hearken that pride can subsist only where this knowledge is deficient. If we consider man in his natural condition, how could any one be proud who thoroughly knew that condition? Self-knowledge--knowledge of the body--as appointed to all the disorders of the grave, would be the most effectual corrective to the self-complacency, of which beauty is the food. Who, again, could be proud of rank, puffed up because of some petty elevation above his fellow-men, who was deeply aware of his own position as an accountable creature? Who, once more, could be proud of his intellectual strength, of his wit, his wisdom, his elocution, who knew the height from which he had fallen--and saw in himself but the fragments--we had almost said the rubbish--of what God designed and created him to be? Indeed, you have here in the general the grand corrective to pride. Men have but to know themselves as fallen and depraved creatures, and we might almost venture to say that they could not be proud. But we have spoken of self-knowledge as though it were knowledge of man in regard only of his natural condition. We must, however, consider him as a redeemed being, and not merely as a fallen; for possibly, though knowledge of him in his ruined state be the corrective of pride, it may not be the same with knowledge of him in his restored state. Yes, a slight knowledge of the gospel, so far from generating humility, may even tend to the fostering pride. There is such an opposition between man ruined and man redeemed, if in the one state he may be exhibited as loathsome and worthless, in the other he may be thought of some such importance as ransomed by Christ whilst angels were left to perish, that it is hard to avoid on first hearing of the gospel, feeling that, after all, our degradation must have been exaggerated and our insignificance overdrawn. Thus the novice is once more in danger of being lifted up with pride. As the novice in that knowledge which has to do with man fallen, so the novice in that knowledge which has to do with man redeemed, is liable, through his knowing but little, to the thinking more highly of himself than he ought. And will not the danger diminish as the gospel is more thoroughly studied and understood? Yes, indeed; for what were it but the worst libel on the system of Christianity to suppose it not adapted to the producing humility? And if to this argument for humility, which is interwoven with the whole texture of the gospel, you add the constant denunciations of that gospel against pride--its solemn demands of lowliness of mind as essential to all who would inherit the kingdom of God--you will readily see that the further a man goes in acquaintance with the gospel, the more motives will he have to the abasing himself before God. Redemption as a scheme of wonders into which the very angels desire to look, may kindle in him a dream of his importance; but redemption as emanating from free grace, will convict him of his nothingness; and redemption as requiring from him the mind which was also in Christ, will cover him with confusion. And thus we reach the same conclusion, when we examine self-knowledge in regard to our condition as redeemed, as we reach when we examine it in regard of our condition as fallen. It is the novice who is in most danger of pride; it is his being a novice which exposes him to danger. (H. Melvill, B. D.) 1 Timothy 3:8-13 Likewise must the deacons be grave.The ideal deacon I. Deacons should be of noble character (1 Timothy 3:8).1. They were to be grave--i.e., of serious deportment--not sharing in the follies and gaieties of pleasure loving cities like Ephesus, but revered as men living in a higher and purer atmosphere. 2. Not double-tongued, saying one thing to this man and another to that, and thus giving rise to misunderstandings and differences. Gossip is sometimes as harmful as slander. 3. Not given to much wine. Such temper ance should be a characteristic of any true Christian, and is absolutely essential to one who would lead and represent the Church. 4. Not greedy of filthy lucre, or “ base gain.” II. Deacons should re strong in the faith (1 Timothy 3:9). “ Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” III. Deacons should be trusted by the church (1 Timothy 3:10). “ Let these also first be proved,” for their qualifications ought to be evidenced and recognized, in order that they may have the confidence of their brethren. IV. Deacons may look for the recompense of reward (1 Timothy 3:13). The phrase “ purchase to themselves a good degree,” or, as in Revised version, “ gain to themselves a good standing,” includes the idea of obtaining high reputation amongst the brethren; and that is not without its value. But it implies, also, advance in faith, in courage, and in wisdom, as the result of active and faithful service. And this is the preparation for, and the pledge of the honour which will be given in, the last great day--honour which will vary among the saints according to the measure of their capacity and fidelity. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Double tongued During the civil war in America, three Northern officers were appointed on a commission with three Southern officers, after the battle of Prairie Grove, to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. While the commission was sitting, an aged farmer strayed into the room, thinking it was the provost’ s office. His eyes were dim, but he quickly noticed the uniforms, and supposing himself in the presence of the Northern staff, began protesting his loyalty to the Union. One of the officers facetiously advised him to be cautious, and, pointing to the Southern officers, told him to look at them. The old man put on his spectacles, and recognizing the uniform, explained that his heart was with the South in the great struggle, and that his only son was a soldier in the Southern army. Gazing around the room, he recognized the Northern uniforms also, and was bewildered. At last he leaned both hands on the table, and surveying the entire party, he said, “ Well, gentlemen, this is a little mixed; but you just go on and fight it out among yourselves. I can live under any government.” (Christian Herald.) An equivocal life to be avoided Some time ago two travellers went to Africa. Coming to a lake, one sought to find whither the current tended by throwing a float on its surface; and slowly, but surely, it floated eastward. “ The current is eastward,” said the traveller, satisfied with his discovery. Some time afterwards another traveller stood by the same lake, asking” himself the same question, “ Whither does the current tend?” He, too, cast a float upon the surface of the water, which at once floated westward. “ The current is towards the west,” he said; and, following out his discovery, he gained its out-let, and so traced it to where it emptied itself into the Atlantic Ocean. Let us see to it that our life is not uncertain, like this lake, at one time seeming to be going heavenward, and at another seeming to be going with the world. But rather may we, who bear the name of Jesus, let our lives run like a quiet and steady stream, and, as we go, leave a bright record of our lives behind us. (Christian Herald.) Holding the mystery of the faith. Accepting mysteries of the faith I can drink of the clear cold spring, and be refreshed, though I may not hope to pierce the awful foundation of granite from whence it comes rushing up. I can take of the grain of the tawny sheaves, or of the laden vine, though I cannot tell how the unconscious root and fibres select, elect--never mistaking--out of a common soil that which shall produce their specific fruit. I can rejoice in the shining sun, and fan my cheek with the breathing wind, though I am ignorant as an infant of the great palace of light, and “ know not when the wind cometh, nor whither it goeth.” Even so; I stoop my parched lips to the “ living water,” and I rise revived; and I know not man nor woman who ever sought to do so and was hindered. I am content with that. (A. B. Grosart.) The mystery of the faith I. Now there is a prevailing error to which we are exposed in the present day, of not sufficiently recognizing in revealed truth mysteries which lie beyond the reach of human comprehension. By far the greater portion of the doctrines which compose the scheme of Christianity are mysteries which pass man’ s understanding. Such, for example, is the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. Here, however, let me observe that although a mystery, it is a mystery of faith. It is not a revelation of which the mystery affords any excuse for unbelief. It is a mystery, I confess, upon God’ s part, of incomprehensible wisdom, power, and love; but yet it is a mystery upon which we may rely with the fullest assurance. It is the more important to observe this, because there are many minds before which the mysteries of Divine truth present themselves as an apology for unbelief. The facts of Christianity, and the doctrines which flow out of them, are amply attested. There is a marvellous self-evidencing property in the Gospel. Crowded though it be with mysteries, it is so constructed as to bespeak its suitableness to the moral necessities of the fallen. We appeal, then, not only to the evidence upon which the truth of the gospel rests, as contained in God’ s Word, but also to the results which have attended its proclamation, in corroboration of its claim, mystery though it be, to implicit faith. It is this mystery which has conferred upon mankind ten thousand blessings for time, the pledges and foretokens of yet richer blessings in eternity. II. But here the practical question arises, what is it to “ hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience” ; or, in other words, to what course of action are we summoned by the direction which the apostle here gives? Now, a pure conscience is “ a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man.” It is a conscience enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and free from accusation, whether on the ground of duty omitted or of precept infringed. To hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience, is therefore to be so under the influence of revealed truth as to be thereby impelled to practise all that God has enjoined, and to avoid whatsoever God has forbidden. Now, for nothing is the Bible more remarkable than for the practical nature of all its disclosures. There is not a doctrine of revealed truth which is not both designed and adapted to influence the daily life and conversation; and never can the truth be held in a pure conscience but where the creed which is professed is exemplified in the conduct. Take, for example, any of the elementary truths of revelation, and you may discern at once their practical character. There is the revealed truth of the omnipresence of God, a truth which no man can hold the mystery of the faith and yet deny. According to this doctrine, we believe that God is everywhere and at all times present. Never can we escape from His observation--never elude His watchful inspection. This is a part of the mystery of the faith. And so with regard to every component part of the mystery of the faith. To hold it in a pure conscience is to allow every Christian doctrine to have its legitimate influence over the entire walk and conversation. This, then, it is to “ hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” It is to make every revealed doctrine a fresh motive for striving after moral perfection. Alas! there may be a “ holding the mystery of the faith,” but not “ in a pure conscience.” There may be familiarity with Christian truth, orthodoxy of creed, clearness in the enunciation of the Gospel mysteries, zeal in the maintenance of the truth, and skill in contending against error, where, nevertheless, we look in vain for a correspondence between the profession of the lip and the language of the daily life. The mystery of the faith is held; it is expounded, professed, defended, and yet it is not held in a pure conscience. Its influence is counteracted by a life not regulated by the principles confessed. (Bp. Bickersteth.) 1 Timothy 3:11 Even so must their wives be grave.The pastor’ s wife A good example is the pastor’ s first ministry, and Paul associates the wife in this ministry, when he wishes the wives to be “ grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.” This has been felt to be so important that in certain churches, those of Hungary, the minister has been made positively responsible for the conduct of his wife. He is everywhere so morally, and the responsibility is a grave one, the ministry may suffer considerably if it is not regarded. How much may the humours and vices of the wife (slander, avarice, negligence, display, etc.), compromise the respectability of the pastor? And conversely: Julian the apostate, observing that one cause of the success of the gospel was the purity in the manners of its followers, and especially its ministers, and wishing to enable paganism to compete with Christianity, ordered the pagan priests to maintain their wives, children, and domestics in the same sanctity of manners. (Vinet.) Talebearing discouraged Hannah More had a good way of managing tale-bearers. It is said that whenever she was told anything derogatory of another, her invariable reply was, “ Come, we will go and ask if this is true.” The effect was sometimes ludicrously painful. The tale-bearer was taken aback, stammered out a qualification, or begged that no notice might be taken of the statement. But the good lady was inexorable; off she took the scandalmonger to the scandalised, to make inquiry and compare accounts. It is not very likely that anybody ever a second time ventured to repeat a gossipy story to Hannah More. Milton being asked if he intended to teach his daughters languages, replied, “ No, one tongue is enough for a woman!” (E. J. Hardy, M. A.) 1 Timothy 3:12 Husband of one wife.A negligent father I was once the guest, says Mr. Moody, of a Christian man, whose children were turning out badly. One night a conversation took place about them; and with tears trickling down his cheek he said, “ My four eldest sons turned out badly, and I am afraid that the others are following their example.” I said: “ Let us look into this thing. Tell me about your family. How many nights do you go to church?” “ On Sunday night. I am an officer in the church, and I am there on Sunday night.” “ What about Monday?” “ Oh, I am a deacon, and I am at the church on Monday night.” “ What about Tuesday night?” “ I am connected with the city government, and I have to attend committee-meetings of the council.” “ Wednesday night is prayer-meeting, and you go to church?” “ Yes.” “ That is how you are occupied four nights. What do you do the other three?” “ I belong to the Masons. I hold a high office in the lodge, and have to be there.” “ That accounts for five nights. Of course, as you hold a high social position, you are often out at dinner-parties and committees. You go out perhaps one night each week to dinners and committees.” “ It will average all that.” “ Then,” I said, “ there is one more night, that is, Saturday night; what do you do then?” “ Oh, I am superintendent of the Sabbath school, and I lock myself in my room and prepare the lesson for my Bible-class on the following day.” “ You don’ t let your children into your room then, do you?” “ No; certainly not.” “ Then your children have to get off early in the morning, and they are away from family prayer?” “ Yes; some get off early, and others rise late, and they are not present at morning worship.” “ And you have to get away as early, as possible to your business” as soon as I get through worship I am off. What time do you take dinner. At six o’ clock.” “ You see your children at six. But you are not always prompt. I suppose half-past six, is it not?” “ Yes, that is about the average.” “ And your meetings begin about half past seven; so that you have but little time with your children. What have you done for them?” And at that very time he was trying to be made mayor of the city. He dropped his head, and said that he had never thought of it in that light before. There are many just like that. They are giving their time to public affairs, to the utter neglect of their children and their homes. Evils of polygamy Titus, brother of Africaner, was the only individual on the station who had two wives, and fearing the influence of example, I have occasionally made a delicate reference to the subject and by degrees could make more direct remarks on the point which was one of the barriers to his happiness; but he remained firm, admitting, at the same time, that a man with two wives was not to be envied, and added, “ He is often in an uproar, and when they quarrel he does not know whose part to take.” He said, he often resolved when there was a great disturbance, he would pay one off. One morning I thought the anticipated day had come. He approached my door leading an ex upon which one of his wives was seated. “ What is the matter?” I inquired. Giving me a shake of his hand, and laughing, he replied, “ Just the old thing over again. Mynheer must not laugh too much at me, for I am now in for it.” The two wives had quarrelled at the outpost, and the one in a rage had thrown a dry rotten stick at the other, which had entered the palm of her hand, and had left a piece about an inch long, and the thickness of a finger. The hand had swollen to nearly four times its usual size. “ Why” I asked, “ did you not bring her sooner?” “ She was afraid to see you, and would not come till I assured her that you were a maak mensche” (a tame man). Having made an incision and extracted the piece of wood, she was melted into tears with gratitude, while I earnestly exhorted her to a better way of life. (Dr. Moffatt.) Purchase to themselves a good degree.--The good degree The words refer, in the first place, to a faithful discharge of the duties attached to the office of the deacon. They that have “ used the office of a deacon well” are they who have laboured in the diaconate with honour to themselves and glory to their Master; for “ well” is the same word used in the latter part of the verse, and translated good--a good degree. It is the specific term for the beautiful in human action, in contrast to the grudging discharge of mere obligation. It implies in the labourer not only diligence and zeal, but also carefulness and purity of motive; and the best use of every power and opportunity that God has entrusted to us--the frank, loving, self-abandoning, self-forgetting discharge of a holy obligation. Such an idea cannot be confined to any special office, and it is not, therefore, the particular work done which is thrown into the front, but the grace shown in the mode of doing it--the beautiful discharge of duty for God, in whatever sphere of the Church it may be, and whatever the exact nature of the duty Which is done. But, further, the words furnish a stimulating motive to this earnest discharge of duty, by setting before the soul’ s desire a certain advantage that is to be secured by it. Here we must carefully put away the idea of buying--that is, of meriting in any way, as if we bargained with God. It has been thought that the word “ degree” refers to ecclesiastical position and church office; but such a meaning would be an appeal to professional selfishness, and would be utterly out of harmony both with the spirit of St. Paul, and with the meaning of his language. We must look much deeper to find the mind of God. A good degree is a degree full of honour, praise, and joy, and such as the soul may covet with all the force of a renewed and sanctified affection. In what consists the good degree, which results from the honourable discharge of duty? I. It consists in a higher state of spiritual life, a stronger faith, a brighter hope, a more entrancing and captivating love; in short, a larger possession of god, as if the Deity within flung His own grace and glory over the soul in which He dwells. Grace is but the soul’ s health, the restoration of a sin-stricken creature into the full enjoyment for which it was intended. A large measure of grace is, therefore, a high measure of health--and is not health delightful? Is there pleasure in the aching head, in the weary limb, in the scorching fever, or the racking pain, or the feebleness and languor and strange incapacities of sickness and disease? But must not the same thing be true of the soul? Doubts, fears, alarms, conflicts, strange searchings of heart, dim gropings of spirit, and occasional agonies of conscience, and the gnawing aching pain of a self-upbraiding memory, are all the symptoms of spiritual sickness. That the honourable discharge of every duty promotes the health of the soul is clear enough. The more constantly duty is done, the more constantly faith and hope and love are present; and then they grow by exercise till they become the soul’ s habit, its very life, the breath of its being, a part of the living self in the all-pervading presence and power of God. That this high measure of spiritual life is the good degree of the text, is shown by the last words, “ great boldness in the faith.” The literal meaning of the word translated “ boldness” is freedom, frankness, and confidence of speech. It has two relations. One looks toward man when the soul, rich in its own love for Christ, and actually overflowing with icy in the Holy Ghost, pours out to others the fulness of its own affection--not with an effort, but freshly, naturally, spontaneously, as the living spring within the soul itself, the power of the Holy Spirit of God flows forth into utterance. Such a boldness of speech to others about their souls implies a glow and warmth of emotion, a strength of experience, and a power of love such as might fill the soul of an angel. Then there is another meaning of the word. It is used elsewhere for boldness of access to God. II. But a good degree includes a further idea, and that is a higher state in glory, a place nearer God in the world to come, a more perfect knowledge of Him, and a more entrancing enjoyment of Him for ever and ever. This, we must bear in mind, springs from the other, and is but its completion. God is infinite. His gifts will be boundless as Himself; His gifts of knowledge, of holiness, of strength, of joy and rapture, will be infinite. There is in God no limit whatever. If for all eternity we shall enjoy more and more of God, it will be because the power to enjoy grows by enjoyment as the soul becomes larger and larger with the God who fills it. Grace here increases the capacity for glory hereafter. The more grace, the more glory. (E. Garbett, M. A.) Faithfulness in an inferior position leads to a higher Dr. Morrison wrote to his friends in England and asked them to send him out another missionary. A young man from the country came and offered himself. He came to the office of the Missionary Society and was introduced to the gentlemen of the board and had a long talk with them. They then asked him to call again in an hour or two, and they would give him an answer. In talking the matter over after he was gone, they came to the conclusion that this young man would not do to go as the colleague of Dr. Morrison. Finally, they said to Dr. Phillips, one of their members: “ Doctor, you see the young man and tell him that we do not think him fit to be a missionary; but that if he would like to go out as servant to the missionary we will send him.” The doctor did not like much to do this; but he did it. He told the young man just what the board said. Now, many a young man would have been angry on hearing this, and would have said: “ No, I shall do no such thing. If I can’ t go out as a missionary, I won’ t go at all.” But this young man did not feel or act so. After hearing what the doctor said, his answer was: “ Well, sir, if the gentlemen don’ t think me fit to be a missionary I will go as a servant. I am willing to be a hewer of wood, or a drawer of water, or do anything to help on the cause of my heavenly Master.” He was sent out as a servant, but he soon got to be a missionary, and turned out to be the Rev. Dr. Milne, one of the best and greatest missionaries that ever went to any country. (R. Newton, D. D.) 1 Timothy 3:15 That thou mightest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God.What the Church should be I. The glorious name of the Church--“ The Church of the living God.”1. It is called the Church. What is a church? It is an assembly; and a Christian Church is an assembly of faithful men; of men who know the truth, believe it, avow it, and adhere to it. The Greek word signifies an assembly summoned out of the whole population to exercise the right of citizenship. An ecclesia, or Church, is not a mob, nor a disorderly gathering rushing together without end or purpose, but a regular assembly of persons called out by grace, and gathered together by the Holy Spirit. Those persons make up the assembly of the living God. 2. But the title grows upon us when we read it as “ the Church of God.” There is a synagogue of Satan, and there is a Church of God. There are churches so-called which are not of God, though they take upon themselves His name; but what an honour it is to be one of the assembly of God, to be one of those whom God has chosen, whom God has called, whom God has quickened, whom God has sanctified, whom God loves and calls His own I How honoured is that assembly in which He resides I The title is enhanced in its excellency by the word which it is applied to God. 3. It is “ the Church of the living God,” not thy congregation, O Diana, though they said of thee that thou didst fall from heaven, for thou art a lifeless image! What was Diana of the Ephesians? What life or power was in that senseless block? Timothy knew that the assembly which gathered in the name of Diana was not called out by a living god. It is a glorious fact that our God, the God of the Church, liveth and reigneth, and that He shows His life all around us. We see Him sustaining nature, ruling providence, and reigning in the midst of His Church; and while we see Him we adore Him. If you have never been quickened by the Spirit of God, if you are dead in trespasses and sins, what have you to do with the Church of the living God? Oh ye dead and corrupt, how can ye have communion with the living in Zion. II. Her design in reference to God. The apostle speaks of the Church of the living God as the house of God.1. I suppose we are to understand by the Church being God’ s house, that it is the place of His worship. As of old the Temple was the holy place to which the children of Israel went up in pilgrimage, the point towards which they opened their windows when they prayed, and the place of the one altar and the one sacrifice; so now the Church of God is the sole place of God’ s true worship. He is spiritually worshipped nowhere else. Do not dream, ye ungodly, that ye can worship the living God. The first essential to your acceptance is that ye accept His salvation. 2. But I like better still to get away from the somewhat ceremonious idea of a temple to the more familiar thought of a house or home. The Lord makes the Church the place of His indwelling. The thought itself is charming. It is that old prophecy fulfilled, “ I will dwell in them and walk in them.” God calls His Church a house in the sense of His residing there. Of the Church we read, “ God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.” 3. In his own house a man not only dwells, for he might do that in any inn; but there he feels himself to be at home, and therefore it is the place of his manifestation. You do not see the man on the bench, for there you see the judge; nor on business, for there you see the trader; but at home, with the children, as one of them, you see the man, the father, the husband; you see his heart and soul. And God is not seen in all the universe with anything like the degree of clearness that He is beheld in the midst of His people. The Lord God is more gloriously manifested in His people than in all the works of creation. 4. A man’ s house is also the place of his paternal rule, In the Church we are under the present rule of our heavenly Father. In the Church of God you will sometimes see this very remarkably. 5. Once again, it is for his own house that a man works and spends his strength; it is the object of his choicest purposes. If a man shall compass sea and land to gain gold, it is for his house. If he rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness, it is still for his house. And so the great Householder ruleth all things for His chosen family, and the end and the design of all providence, if we were to trace it to its ultimate object, is the good of them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose. We will not leave this point without observing how holy, then, should all members of Christian Churches be! “ Holiness becometh thine house.” How obedient also should we be; for if we are a part of the house of God, let it be our joy to submit ourselves to the Master. How struck with awe ought every church member to be to think that he is built into God’ s house. “ How dreadful is this place! It is none other than the house of God.” At the same time, how full of love ought we to be, for God is love! A house is no home if love be absent, and a Church is unchurchly if there be division among the brethren. III. The design of the Church in reference to the truth. Paul compares it to a pillar and its pedestal or basement; for that, I think, would be a fair translation. The temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was adorned with more than a hundred columns of stupendous size. They were mostly of Parian marble, and were either furnished by the various cities of Asia as offerings to the goddess, or were contributed by wealthy men and princes. These pillars are said to have been immense monoliths: single stones of sixty feet in height, and they were set upon a basement which was elevated ten steps above the surrounding area. Diana had her pillar and her basement, but she had no pillar or basement of truth, hers was all imposture throughout. Now, Paul calls the Church of God the basement and pillar of the truth. What does he mean? Notice, that she is not the creator of the truth, nor the inventor and fashioner of doctrine. Let it be remembered also, that the figure must not be pushed beyond what it was meant to teach. In a certain sense the Church cannot be the pillar and ground of the truth. Truth is true of itself, and owes its origin to God Himself and the nature of things. The Church is not here described as the deepest foundation of the truth, for the basement of the pillar of truth rests on a rock, and the Church rests on God, the Rock of ages. But truth in itself is one thing, as truth as existing in the world is another thing. I daresay the proverb is true, but truth never prevails till some living mind believes it, vindicates it, and proclaims it abroad. The person who thus takes up a grand truth, declares it, fights for it, and makes it known, may be very properly called the pillar and the basis of the cause; for the spread of the principle depends upon him. We may say of the Reformation, Luther was its pillar and basement; or of Methodism the same might be said of Wesley. Note how in another place Paul says that James and Cephas and John seemed to be pillars; that is to say, they were upholders of the good cause. Notice that the text speaks of “ the Church of God,” meaning all the people of God, and not the clergy alone. What does the expression mean--the pillar and basement?1. I think it means, that in the Church the truth should abide. In the Church of the living God it always does abide, even as a pillar stirs not from its place. In the confession of the Church made by each one of her members, in the teaching of her ministers, and in the witness of the whole body, truth will be found at all times. The Church of God is not the quicksand of the truth, but the pillar and pedestal of it: she is not the floating island of the truth, but the eternal column of it. 2. It means that in the true Church the truth is uplifted as upon a pillar. Truth not only rests there as a pedestal, but it stands upright as a pillar. It is the duty and the privilege of the Church of God to exalt the truth into the open view of all mankind. Possibly you may have seen the column of Trajan, or the column in the Place Vendome in Paris; these may serve as illustrations. Around these shafts you see the victories of the conqueror pictured in relief, and lifted into the air, that all may see them. Now, the Church of God is a pillar which lifts up and publishes, far and wide, the achievements of our conquering Lord. 3. Again, a Church is intended by God to set forth the truth with beauty; for in a temple pillars and columns are meant for ornaments as well as for service. God’ s service should be formed in the beauty of holiness. 4. Once more, it is the Church’ s business to maintain the truth with all her might. She is set as a brazen wall and an iron pillar against all error. The truths which may be derived from the text are of one order.1. The whole Church is to maintain the truth. 2. Next, remember that a Church is unchurched which is not faithful to the truth. 3. Next, recollect that any Church fails in her design as being the pillar and pedestal of the truth in proportion as she departs from the truth. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Proper behaviour in God’ s house It was no vain superstition which prompted old Dr. Johnson to uncover his head, while standing within the deserted walls of a ruined chapel, in the Orkneys, saying to his less devout companion, “ I look with reverence upon every place that has been set apart for religion.” The crying sin of our own day is the sin of irreverrence the only occasion when our blessed Lord is said to have been angry, was when He saw His Father’ s house profaned. Many years ago, a worthy minister of the Scottish Kirk, attended a missionary meeting in London, and spent a Sunday there. A journey from Scotland to the great city was then not so common an occurrence as to pass without notice, and, on appearing in his own pulpit again, he wished to “ improve” the occasion for the spiritual benefit of his flock. He accordingly remarked, in the course of his morning sermon, “ I have three wonders to tell you of to-day, which I saw when in London,” and then went on in his usual vein of preaching, without the slightest reference to his promise. On leaving the place of worship, many inquiring looks were cast at the worthy man, as much as to say, “ You have forgotten to tell us the three wonders!” At the afternoon service the building was crowded to overflowing, curiosity (as usual) bringing out more people than a sense of duty. After concluding the accustomed worship, the venerable preacher remarked, “ Well, my friends, I have now to tell you of the three wonders I saw in London.” Amidst breathless silence, he thus went on: “ The first wonder I have to tell which I saw in London is, when I took my place in the pulpit, the folks were all waiting for me, and I had no occasion to wait for them; and I never saw the like of that here. The second wonder which I saw in London is, that as the prayer was drawing to a close, there was no jostling and making a noise; and I never saw the like of that here. The third wonder is, that there was no reaching for hats, and bundling up of Bibles, when the last psalm was a-singing, and no going out while the blessing was being pronounced; and I never saw that here, till this afternoon.” Church manners have certainly improved very much, everywhere, since then, but the day has not yet dawned when most congregations would not be the better for hearing this simple story. We have come to this place to worship God, and we may properly ask ourselves whether we have really been doing what we came for? Have we borne our part in the solemn service with heart and voice? The responsive part of our beautiful worship is one of its most striking and important features. There is something so animating in the hearty acclaim of a multitude of voices, that every tongue should be unloosed, and every heart give utterance to its gratitude and joy. “ What would be thought if but a single bird should celebrate the dawn with his feeble note? It is when the air is filled with melodious voices, and, when from every bush and tree-top, and through all the fields and groves, there is the cheerful commingling of tuneful praise, that the responses of the birds are worthy of the morning. And, surely, the service of the temple calls for a spontaneous utterance from all the worshippers. Who that has listened to the waves, as they come breaking upon the shore in distant, strong and stately rhythm, has not felt their power? And there is nothing like this massing of sound to be moving and inspiring. There are times when the still small voice shall suffice; but, for the ends of public worship, even the inanimate world bespeaks something more” (John Cotton Smith). We are learning to behave ourselves properly in God’ s holy temple, here, that we may enjoy the worship of the heavenly sanctuary hereafter. The things which we now behold are but shadows of the true and the enduring. (J. H. Norton.) The Church the house of God I. Here is The Church of God. In common discourse, we generally mean by this word a building set apart by Christian people for public worship; but it is doubtful whether the Greek term which we translate “ church,” is ever used in Scripture in this sense. The original word signifies an assembly, an assembly of any kind; and it is frequently so translated in our English Testament. But we must follow the word yet farther. It is often used to signify all the churches that are in existence at the same time on the earth. And even yet we have not done. There is one meaning more which the expression bears, and the highest of all. It has nothing to do now, however, with the merely nominal Christian; it takes now a purely spiritual though a wide sense. By the Church, then, as we are using the word to-day, we mean all the people of God of every age and nation viewed as one assembly. This we are now to look on in a particular light. II. It is a house.1. It has a foundation. And it is one part of vital godliness, and the main part, to understand this. It is not self-evident. Men do not see the foundation of a building. The child that comes into this house of prayer never thinks of the buried work which bears up its walls. Set him to build a mimic church in imitation of it; he lays no foundation whatever. But the architect, the practical workman, begins with the foundation. He cannot overlook it, for he understands its importance. So the mere pretender to godliness thinks that the Church has little to do with the Lord Jesus, but to bear His name. He imagines that he himself can do without Him. 2. The materials, too, of this house are found mentioned in Scripture. They are, however, the very last we should have thought likely to build it. We come, then, to this conclusion--no meanness, no guilt, will cause God to reject any one of us. But though all alike earthly and all vile, yet these materials, in some points, differ very much from each other. We see among them men of all countries, all classes, all characters, all ages; here a poor man, there a rich and noble one; here a man of the loftiest intellect. One thing more, however, must be said of these materials--in all this diversified mass there is nothing to be found which is not prepared for the heavenly building before it goes to it. True, God does choose in His wonderful mercy earthly and base materials wherewith to build His house; there could not be baser; but He does not leave them base, no, nor yet earthly. He works on them. Though He does not find them fit for heaven, he makes them so. 3. But materials, however selected and prepared, will not of themselves form a building, no, not even if east on a good foundation. There must be, further, a putting of them together. They must be sorted and arranged and united; each one must go into its proper place; otherwise they will be a confused heap, not a house. Now, there is a great overlooking of this fact amongst us, as applied to the Church. We almost forget that God has a Church. We feel as though we stood alone before Him, and were to be saved alone. III. We have now looked at the Church as a house, but the text goes farther; it calls it The House of God.1. He is the Builder of this house. The plan of it is His, and so is the progress and completion. 2. He is also the Owner of this house. He is building it for Himself. “ This people,” He says, “ have I formed for Myself.” 3. And He, too, is the great Inhabitant of this house. It is built for this very purpose, to be “ a habitation of God through the Spirit.” “ Behold,” says St. John, when speaking of it as the new Jerusalem, “ Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.” (C. Bradley, M. A.) In the house of God 1. Thou oughtest to behave thyself quietly.2. Thou oughtest to behave thyself attentively.3. Thou oughtest to behave thyself seriously. (P. Carter.) The house of God I. The house of God is the dwelling-place of God.1. The house of God should be the abode of love. The Church is not only the place where the Father dwells, but where His sons and daughters live in mutual confidence under the sway of supreme love to Him. It is this loving confidence which is the essence of a home. A splendid house with luxurious appointments is not a real home if love is not in it. III. The house of God should be the sphere of service. The Church is our Lord’ s instrument of working. IV. The house of God is to be the maintainer of God’ s truth. There seems to be little doubt that Paul meant what the grammatical structure of the sentence states--that the Church, which is the house of God, is also “ the pillar and ground (or basement) of the truth.” The Church, then, is to be what Christ was, the Witness of the Truth. It is through human experience that the world will know it. God’ s truth cannot become influential and living if it is left in texts and creeds, in symbols and in formulas. It must enter into men’ s consciousness; it must become a living experience; it must find expression in character and action, and reveal itself in love, worship, and obedience. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Which is the Church of the living God. The Church and soul-life I am to treat of the Church as the promoter of soul-life among men who are already really regenerate. Let us proceed, then, to inquire whether or not the Church sustains a developing and perfecting relation to the soul-life of its own numbers. I take the ground that it does sustain such a relation, and I argue this-- I. From the general drift of divine revelation as to the influential position which the Church sustains in the great redemptive economy. One of the grandest facts in the history of man is, that God has never taken one discoverable step, nor put forth one visible act, for his redemption, but through the Church. This is true both of the primary and completed history of redemption. Not a priest was consecrated, not an altar was built, not a victim was appointed, not a bard touched his lyre, not a prophet raised his voice, and not a hope was cherished in the primary dispensation under the law, but through the Church. When the elaborated principles and purposes of redemption were fully enunciated in the finished acts of the gospel, still God spoke and acted by the Church. His disciples were living scions of the same goodly fellowship. Not a miracle did Christ work, not a truth did He utter, not a pang did He endure, but for His Church. And His servants were as their Master in this matter. Every journey which they made, every insult which they received, every book which they penned, and every martyrdom which they welcomed, was for the Church. From all this, it is clear that the Church is not a matter of trivial import in the world, but is one of the great moral forces in the universe. She is no less than the subservient apparatus of redeeming love, the scaffolding which men and angels mount to pry into the secret architecture, and steal a thought from this stupendous temple. So that the Church is not the arbitrary mandate of the servant, but is the authoritative institution of the Lord. She was to form a sort of centre in Jehovah’ s boundless empire, the palace of the great King, from which He should sway the sceptre of moral administration in mercy and in peace. II. From the intimate relations which exist between her and “ Christ our life.” One of the most difficult points in this discussion will be to define, with anything like clearness and comprehensiveness, the specific union which binds Christ and His Church together. Happily our text introduces us into the central idea of this unity by the use of the one word “ living” --“ The Church of the living God.” This fearful appellation of the Deity is used very seldom in the Scriptures, and never but upon occasions and subjects of very great importance. For instance, we find it in the deep soul-struggle of David when he cries, “ My soul thirsteth for God, the living God,” indicating the most intense longings of an immortal soul after its original life-sources. Again, it is used in the supernatural revelation of Christ’ s Divinity, made to Peter: “ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” She is called the “ Church of the living God.” Now, we never read of the Church as the “ Church of the most high God,” although we read of the “ servants of the most high God.” We never read of the Church of the everlasting God, although we read of the “ commandment of the everlasting God.” We never read of the Church of the holy God, although we read that the “ Lord our God is holy” : nor of the Church of the mighty God, although we read of Christ, that “ His name shall be called the Mighty God.” But when the inspired pen comes to give us the intricacies of His relations to the Church this mystical language is invoked. She is coupled with Him either as the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, or as Mount Zion, the city of the living God. Herein we discover the nice distinction which the Holy Spirit uses in gospel definition. The Church is united to Christ, not as a dead bride, “ for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” She is allied to Him, not as to a God of the imagination, but as to the Fountain of all vitality. She possesses Him, not as the personated ideal life of God, but as the God of life--“ the living God.” Here, then, life throbs after life. To be sure, God is the cause of all causes, the life of all lives, the prolific original of every existence. He is not only the Universal Life, but the “ living God” universal. In Him all lives “ live and move and have their being,” from leviathan that lashes the ocean into fury, to the insect that imperceptibly wheels in the eddies of the air. But in the Church there is an embodiment of every attribute and perfection of “ the living God,” which forms an inherent indwelling, and not a mere relation of influence. The life of His inferior creatures gives expression to His government, but the Church gives expression to His personality, to all His moral nature, and you can see it nowhere else as you find it there. God dwells in the midst of His Church in tangible reality. The Church can say, as no other body of men can say, “ We are made partakers of the Divine nature.” The life of the Church has been her most glorious characteristic; for it is a remarkable fact that, outside of the Church, no great moral forces have yet been discovered in the elevation and salvation of the race. III. From the general tenor of scriptural thought and expression, which treats of the Church as the church. IV. From the historical life-developments of the Church itself. Real soul-life has always been found in the Church, and it has not been found out of it. God has always largely wrought out the life of the Church by the Church. Men never look elsewhere for light but to the sun. Men never look for soul-life but to the Church. Sometimes that life has been extremely feeble in the Church. The reason is, that, like all other sorts of life, it has always dissolved itself in a succession of classified manifestations. You always find it in the same place and under the same conditions. You always find flower-life in the rosebud, and forest life in the forests. You always find sympathetic life in the heart, and intellectual life in the brain. Where, then, will you look for soul-life but in the Church? Where will you look for this overmastering impulse but where the living God has planted it? Life of His planting is deep seated in that palpitating soul-nature which is so nearly allied to His own essence. You can only see it in its developments. But where it exists there will inevitably be “ first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” The Divine life will develop itself in its fecundity of blessings. A living Deity must have a living temple. Yet no device of man can fabricate this life; every spark of the fire and every form of the flame is from “ the living God.” Man’ s appendages may enfeeble it, mystic observances may out-dazzle it, but it burns divinest in its own radiance. These are my arguments in support of the proposition that the Church sustains a developing and perfecting relation to the soul-life of its own members. Soul-life in the Church is capable of enkindling the same life in others. The newly-awakened power of this fellow ship out-weighs all other feelings, and subordinates them to itself. It betokens a coincidence of motive, sentiment, and principle, which enhances the life of the whole body, and blends the common force of the community into the tenderest relationships. Their organic life is a sacred trust, and “ the living God” claims its use. They are the leaven, and in a silent, secret process of fermentation they are, by the forces of their continued operations, to diffuse the moisture through every particle of the mass. And yet no one must lose himself in the aggregate--no one must invite insignificance. The most self-depreciating member can stamp the impress of his moral life on every other living soul of the fellowship. (T. Armitage, D. D.) The Christian Church, the House of God Sacred tropology, by which I understand the various figures and similitudes whereby persons, characters, and events are brought under our notice, and made familiar to our minds, in the Bible, opens to the student of Holy Scripture, a field of thought and inquiry at once most beautiful and instructive. God the Father, for instance, is represented as a King, a Governor, a Householder, a Parent, a Master. God the Son is brought before us as the Word, a Shepherd, a Kinsman, a Redeemer, Rock, Light, Vine, Door, Bridegroom, Prince of Peace; God the Holy Ghost, as Fire, Water, Comforter, Witness, Spirit of Adoption, Fountain. Faithful Christians are called saints, disciples, children, servants, friends, priests, and kings unto God. Ministers are designated by suitable titles--watchmen, shepherds, ambassadors, stewards. I. The house itself, called pre-eminently “ the house of God.” There is fitness, design, beauty, and force in comparing the Church of the living God, wherewith we have membership, and to which we owe allegiance, unto His house.1. Its Builder is God Himself. A system at once so simple and stupendous, as that exhibited in the origin and end of the Church, could no more have been the result of human device, than the creation of the universe, with all the harmonies of its movements, and all the beauty of its parts. Unfathomable love designed, unsearchable wisdom contrived, and Power Almighty executed that device of goodness to a lost and ruined world embodied in the gospel. When the command of the Most High came to Moses in the wilderness, whither he had lead the chosen host, saying, “ Make Me a tabernacle that I may dwell among them,” every portion of that mysterious tent, even to the very meanest, was to be made according to a pattern shown him by God Himself. And wherefore? Because it was to be a type of His Church, in which, as to its spiritual form, character, use, appointments, end, nothing was to be of human device. 2. Its chief corner-stone is Christ Jesus. The voice of prophecy attests this glorious element of the Church’ s stability. 3. The apostles and prophets are the foundations on which the Church is built. II. The inhabitants of the house.1. He hath given Jesus Christ to be the Head over all things to His body the Church, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. He, then, is the High Priest over the house of God. He is the Master of that great family, both in heaven and earth, which is called by His name. 2. The indwellers of this house of God are all they who enter the Church by baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. III. The blessings of God’ s house, the Church.1. The Church affords shelter and sanctuary to its faithful indwellers. “ The sparrow,” saith the inspired Psalmist, “ hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young; even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God.” Without the Church’ s pale, the sinner is houseless, naked, miserable. 2. The Church, God’ s house, is a state of discipline and government. Order is heaven’ s first law, and without it the whole frame and fabric of Society would fall into cureless ruin. 3. But food is also necessary to the family of heaven, and the Church of God affords it. 4. The great Head of the spiritual family administers His house by stewards. 5. One of the chief blessings in the Church, considered as the house of God, here or in heaven, is gracious intercourse and communion. IV. The end for which that house was founded, and that family organized. (R. P. Buddicom , M. A.) The Church of the living God I. In the first place, then, I observe that the Church bears testimony to a truth--to a special truth--and in this relation it may be termed “ the pillar of the truth.” It is a pillar of testimony. That truth is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Of that revelation the Church holds the record, maintains the verity, and illustrates the power. The Church itself is a witness that such a revelation has been given. We trace this body of Christian believers through past ages, until we reach a period when it did not exist. It bears witness to the New Testament account of its own origin. It is itself an abiding evidence to the authenticity of that account. We may try this evidence by negative and positive tests. In the first place, if the New Testament does not furnish a satisfactory account of the origin of the Christian Church, nothing else does. Or, if we assume that there never was an actual personality such as that to which the Church bears witness, and upon which it is founded--that this is only an ideal life, which, by a process of mythical evolution, has been developed from a slender reality into that which stands on the pages of the Gospel--we may well ask, how has this accretion crystallized into such harmony, and produced an ideal that satisfies the loftiest conceptions of all ages and all men? If such a person could not have been fabricated, or mythically evolved within the time when we must admit the existence of our written records, we are driven upon the positive test that such a Being did live and teach and act, and the Church stands firm as a pillar of testimony to that Divine manifestation in Jesus Christ. Moreover, while the Church preserves the record and maintains the verity of this revelation, it also illustrates its power. Again, taking the Church as it stands to-day--an undeniable, existing institution--and tracing back we come once more upon the fact to which it ascribes its origin. I need not say what a remarkable period that was in the history of mankind. An exhausted world, a troubled world, a world lying in the sad twilight of an eclipse. And then, suddenly, a new era emerging from the old--a sharp, distinct furrow breaking up the surface of history, new ideas, a new faith, a new life. An evident transformation--in its rapidity, depth, and thoroughness, really a miracle of transformation. There is no effect without a cause. And for such a stupendous effect as this there must have been a special cause. Where can we find such a cause? In the conditions of the old world, just alluded to? That Church stands yet, an unimpeachable witness to the revelation of God in Christ, and the operation of that truth in the earth. Divine in its origin like the creative act in the material world, like the procedure of the material world since the creation it now works by ordinary laws and in human conditions. It is advanced by human instrumentalities. It is distorted by human errors. It is hindered by human sins. And yet it manifestly triumphs, as an intrinsic power, through these instrumentalities. It dissipates these errors. It melts away these sins. It evidently acts as a special truth, a Divine force, in the world. It changes customs. It moulds manners. It works into laws. It springs up into beneficent institutions. It transfigures the lives of men. It survives the wreck of dynasties. It abases the proud. It exalts the humble. It reveals the worth of humanity. It gives to the lowliest a faith that is more glorious than a crown, a dignity grander than coronation robes. Even when evoked for evil, it serves the good. II. I have been speaking of the Church as the witness, the pillar of testimony to a special truth. In the next place, let me refer to it as in a certain sense the ground of all truth. And, as I have suggested, there is a sense in which the Church is not only the “ ground of the special truth” which characterizes the New Testament, but, as it rests upon, so, in turn, it enshrines--or, I might say, incarnates--the ultimate verity which exists behind all forms of truth, behind the visible facts which science explores and the invisible things which faith apprehends. Thus it affirms an “ eternal and immutable morality,” enthroned above the fluctuations of expediency and the caprice of self-will--a reality of Spiritual Being from which all life springs forth--and so authenticates conscience, vindicates prayer, explains the order of the physical world, and interprets the aspirations of the human soul. And this also is certain: the facts of science cannot be cancelled. Therefore, in relation to the great interests of religion, they must be adjusted. The Church, as assuming to be the “ ground of truth,” must try them by the simple truth. And, in this computation, what are facts? The naturalist verifies the objects of his senses and his reason, and calls them “ facts.” But the Christian believer, in his own consciousness, has the same evidence of “ facts.” The geologist is not more confident as to the trilobrite in the rock, or the astronomers as to Sirius in the sky, than is the devout soul as to communion with its Saviour and its God. The philosopher points his telescope, or arranges his microscope, and tells what God has done in the world without--in the glittering armies of heaven, or the infusorial myriad fold throbbing with the universal life. But the mourner takes the lens of faith, and gazing through the broken tomb of Jesus, commands the horizon of the immortal world. Through the clear-shining of his tears the penitent looks into his own heart, and in the illumination of Divine love beholds new hopes, new purposes, new possibilities, quickened in the transfiguration of a regenerated life. He knows in whom he has believed. He knows what Christ has done for his soul. He knows into what an atmosphere he mounts by prayer. And here let me make a practical suggestion based upon this unity of truth. No exhortation to the young minister is more common than that he should “ study the Bible.” But this does not imply mere textual study. We are studying the Bible when we study any truth. That live Scripture is to be read, and learned, and applied in the presence of all nature and all history. We must carry its light into the world around us, and come back with our knowledge and experience to find in it fresher reality and profounder depths of meaning. III. But I proceed to observe that this is “ the Church of the Living God.” Not only does it bear witness to a special truth--not only does it affirm all truth--it is also the vehicle of Divine life. (E. H. Chapin.) The Church of the Living God But what does it mean when it is said so expressly, “ the Church of the Living God” ? Is it in contrast to the temples of the heathen, whose gods are dead, and cannot hear, or speak, or see. Or does it mean more expressly that it is “ the Church of God” who is “ living” to keep, guide, bless, and give life to His people; and, therefore, because it is “ the Church of the Living God,” it can never die. It may be changed, but it cannot die. Christ lives, and we are all members of Christ. Living members of a Living Head; and from that Head life is ever flowing down into the body. Therefore, “ the Church” in Him cannot help being “ a living Church.” And we are “ the temple of the Holy Ghost who liveth in us.” But this is only a part of what it means. It must, like its great Author, if it is a Living Church, show signs of life. Now, what are the evidences of life? Let us take the analogy of the human life.1. To make human life there must be the breath. Every one who lives must, of necessity, breaths. So it is with “ the Church,” and with every member of the Church. There is a breath. The Holy Spirit is the breath. We must breathe that breath of the Spirit; and thus breathe warm thoughts, loving thoughts, happy thoughts, holy thoughts. 2. But the breath requires feeding with words which look and express this inward feeling. Words of praise, words of prayer, words of glory, words of power. Can there be life without expression? If it be not in speech, will it not be by some other way? 3. And can it go on without growth? If the man be a man of God, and if the Church be “ the Church of the Living God,” there must be growth. The man’ s soul must grow. All the fruits of the Spirit must grow in him. It is equally the consequence and sign of life. A Church which does not grow may doubt whether it is a Church at all! 4. And with the growth and the breathing will come action! Action in accordance with the principle which is working within us. 5. There must be expansion. It is the principle of all true religion, and of every Church. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) The Church: its nature and functions Laying aside the notion of infallibility, let us proceed to consider how properly, without any such futile and arrogant claim, the Church is called the pillar and ground of the truth.1. In the first place, and chiefly, the Church is so called, because, to use the language of our Twentieth Article, she is a “ witness and keeper of Holy Writ.” Christianity is found in the Bible, and originally and purely nowhere else. Who should keep the book but those that use it? Who be anxious for its preservation but those who value it, make it the rule of their life? This is at once natural and necessary. Who keep the records of literature and science but men of learning; and who the divine record of religious knowledge but men of religion? They ever have kept it and ever will keep it, as long as religion exists in the world. 2. But further, the Church does not barely keep the volume, attesting its authenticity and watching over its integrity, and so acting as a pillar and ground of the truth; but she seeks to promote the truth by a system of instruction, the basis of which is the contents of that volume. She does not act simply as a publisher of the book, but as a lecturer upon it. Her thoughts axe not her own. She makes no such arrogant pretension. She has light, but it is borrowed light. She shines, but it is by reflection from the Holy Book. It is further worthy of remark, that the Church in the discharge of this function, is not doing a merely optional thing; she is necessitated to do it. The office is inseparable from her being. 3. It would be a further illustration and enforcement of this point to show in what manner the Church is required to discharge this duty. She is required to circulate the Scriptures. (William Sparrow.) The pillar and ground of the truth.-- The pillar and ground of truth I. That the Church is the pillar and ground of truth.--1. That by the Church in this text he does not mean only the ministers.2. It is far from concluding that one Church is the pillar of truth to another.3. It is plain from all reason as well as Scripture, that truth is the pillar and growth of the Church, and not the Church of truth (Ephesians 11:20-21; 1 Corinthians 3:9-11). Here we may inquire what that truth is which the apostle speaks of. There is a truth of history that we take delight in; to know what is doing in distant countries, or has been done in former ages, but this is rather our entertainment than our concern. There is a truth of argument. This is still more engaging, as it is the proper food of our reason. There is also a truth of conversation; which is what we call integrity. Besides these, there are truths of philosophy, that have no con-tern with the doctrine of Christ Jesus. But the truth that our apostle means is of another kind.1. It is about the greatest concerns.2. It comes with the fullest evidence.3. It is always the same.4. It is followed with the best effects. (T. Bradbury.) The pillar and ground of the truth I. LET US THE HERE TO GOD. He is called the “ living God” and He is thus designated not in this place only, but also in numerous other places. He is self-existent and independent. There never was a time when He began to exist, and there never will be a time when He will cease to exist--He has “ neither beginning of days nor end of life.” He is also “ the Fountain of Life” to all other beings throughout the whole creation. There is also a higher life, which, if we are Christians indeed, we have received from Him. II. Let us consider the significant name here given to the Church of God. It is called the house of God. “ The house of God, which is the Church of the living God.” He dwells in them individually, taking up His abode in their heart, and making it a holy temple unto Himself. “ Know ye not,” asks our apostle in writing to the Corinthians, “ that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?” He dwells also among His people collectively, being present in all their assemblies, as it is written, “ In all places where I record My name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.” But there is another sense in which the word house issued in Scripture, and in which it may with propriety be understood here. It sometimes stands for the inhabitants of the house, the household, or the family. Thus it is said of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, that he was “ a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house” ; meaning all his family. The Church is the family of God. How great, then, is the privilege of those who belong to the house and family of God! III. Let us consider the important office sustained by the Church in the world. It is present in the text as “ the pillar and ground,” that is, the stay and support “ of the truth.” In furtherance of this object, its ministers are to preach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The members of the Church also are to co-operate with its ministers in giving support and currency to the truth. IV. To call your attention to the manifest duty that rests upon us as members of the visible Church of Christ, and particularly as members of that apostolical branch of it established in these kingdoms. “ That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” There is also another duty that rests upon us as members of the Church--we must live the truth. In other words, we must exemplify its holy effects in our life and conversation. But there is a third duty which we are called upon to discharge as members of the Church, namely, to make known the truth, as far as we can, to those who are ignorant of it. (D. Rees, M. A.) Security of the Church Speaking of that enormous mountain peak known as the Matterhorn, which is the universal admiration of Alpine travellers, a writer says that the materials of which it is composed are remarkable, and he goes on to gives the following description: “ Few architects would like to build with them. The slope of the rocks to the north-west is covered two feet deep with their ruins, a mass of loose and slaty shale, of a dull red brick colour, which yields beneath the feet like ashes, so that, in running down, you step one yard and slide three. The rock is indeed hard beneath, but still disposed in thin courses of these cloven shales, so finely laid that they look in places more like a heap of crushed autumn leaves than a rock, and the first sensation is one of unmitigated surprise, as if the mountain were upheld by miracle; but surprise becomes more intelligent reverence for the Great Builder when we find, in the middle of the mass of these dead leaves, a course of living rock, of quartz as white as the snow that encircles it, and harder than a bed of steel. It is only one of a thousand iron bands that knit the strength of the mighty mountain. Through the buttress and the wall alike the courses of its varied masonry are seen in their successive order, smooth and true as if laid by line and plummet, but of thickness and strength continually varying, and with silver cornices glittering along the edge of each, led by the snowy winds and carved by the sunshine.” Now, all this suggests a parable. The Church of God, that glorious mountain of His habitation, is apparently built of very frail materials. The saints are, to all appearance, more like “ a heap of crushed autumn leaves than a rock,” and beneath the feet of tyrants and persecutors they seem to yield like ashes; and yet the Church defies the storm and towers aloft, the obelisk of the truth, the eternal pillar of almighty grace. Faith, with eagle gaze, perceives the thousand iron bands which prevent the disintegration of the mass, and the central foundation harder than a bed of steel upon which the colossal fabric rests. The Church abideth for ever: infinite love, faithfulness, and power sustain her, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 3:16 And without doubt great is the mystery of godliness.Mystery I shall deliver the nature of the thing itself in this definition, viz., that a mystery is truth revealed by God above the power of natural reason to find out or comprehend.1. That it is a truth. By which we exclude everything from being a mystery that is absurd and contradictions, since a truth can by no means be so. 2. That it be revealed by God, viz., as to its existence, that there is such a thing. For otherwise, as to the nature of the thing itself, and several other respects in which it may be known, the revelation of it is not supposed to extend so far. 3. That it surpasses all the power of natural reason to discover or find it out. 4. That it be such a thing as bare natural reason (even after it is discovered) cannot comprehend. I say comprehend, that is, know it perfectly, and as far as it is capable of being known (1 Corinthians 13:12). That the mysteriousness of those matters of faith is most subservient to the great important ends of Religion, and that upon these following accounts. I. Because religion, in the prime institution of it, was designed to make impressions of awe and reverential fear upon men’ s minds. Distance preserves respect, and we still imagine some transcendent worth in things above our reach. Moses was never more reverenced than when he wore his veil. Nay, the very sanctum sanctorum would not have had such veneration from the Jews had they been permitted to enter into it, and to gaze and stare upon it as often as they did upon the other parts of the Temple. The high priest himself, who alone was suffered to enter into it, yet was to do so but once a year, lest the frequency of the sight might insensibly lessen that adoration which so sacred a thing was still to maintain upon his thoughts. In all great respect, or honour shown, there is something of wonder; but a thing often seen (we know), be it never so excellent, yet ceasing thereby to be new, it ceases also to be wondered at. Forasmuch as it is not the worth or excellency, but the strangeness of the thing, which draws the eyes and admiration of men after it. For can anything in nature be imagined more glorious and beautiful than the sun shining in his full might? and yet how many more spectators and wonderers does the same sun find under an eclipse? But to pursue this notion and observation yet farther, I conceive it will not be amiss to consider how it has been the custom of all sober and wise nations of the world still to reserve the great rites of their religion in occulto. Thus how studiously did the Egyptians, those great masters of all learning, lock up their sacred things from all access and knowledge of the vulgar! II. A second ground of the mysteriousness of religion (as it is delivered by God to mankind) is his most wise purpose thereby to humble the pride and haughtiness of man’ s reason. In short, man would be like God in knowledge, and so he fell; and now, if he will be like Him in happiness too, God will effect it in such a way as shall convince him to his face that he knows nothing. The whole course of his salvation shall be all riddle and mystery to him; he shall (as I may so express it) be carried up to heaven in a cloud. Instead of evidence springing from things themselves, and clear knowledge growing from such an evidence, his understanding must now be contented with the poor, dim light of faith, which guides only in the strength and light of another’ s knowledge, and is properly a seeing with another’ s eyes, as being otherwise wholly unable to inform us about the great things of our peace, by any immediate inspection of those things themselves. For as the primitive effect of knowledge was first to put up and then to throw down, so the contrary method of gram and faith is first to depress and then to advance. The difficulty and strangeness of some of the chief articles of our religion are notable instruments in the hand of God to keep the soul low and humble, and to check those self-complacencies which it is apt to grow into by an over-weening conceit of its own opinions more than by any other thing whatsoever. For man naturally is scarce so fond of the offspring of his body as of that of his soul. His notions are his darlings; so that neither children nor self are half so dear to him as the only begotten of his mind. And therefore in the dispensations of religion God will have this only begotten, this best beloved, this Isaac of our souls (above all other offerings that a man can bring Him) to be sacrificed and given up to Him. III. God has been pleased to put a mysteriousness into the greatest articles of our religion, thereby to engage us in a closer and more diligent search into them. He would have them the objects of our study, and for that purpose has rendered them hard and difficult. For no man studies things plain and evident, and such as by their native clearness do even prevent our search, and of their own accord offer themselves to our understandings. The foundation of all inquiry is the obscurity as well as worth of the thing inquired after. And God has thought good to make the constitution and complexion of our religion such as may fit it to be our business and our task; to require and take up all our intellectual strength, and, in a word, to try the force of our best, our noblest, and most active faculties. For no man can outlive the reasons of inquiry so long as he carries any thing of ignorance about him. And that every man must, and shall do, while he is in this state of mortality. For he, who himself is but a part of nature, shall never compass or comprehend it all. Truth (we are told) dwells low, and in a bottom; and the most valued things of the creation are concealed and hidden by the great Creator of them, from the common view of the world. God and diamonds, with the most precious stones and metals, are couched and covered in the bowels of the earth; the very condition of their being giving them their burial too. So that violence must be done to nature before she will produce and bring them forth. And then, as to what concerns the mind of man, God has in His wise Providence cast things so as to make the business of men in this world improvement; that so the very work of their condition may still remind them of the imperfection of it. (R. South.) The mystery of godliness I. That the scheme of godliness is greatly mysterious with regard to its contrivance. Thus, how the case of man’ s fall was to be met, and how his salvation was to be wrought out in perfect harmony with all the Divine attributes, remained a profound secret, until God Himself was pleased to announce it to the world. Even angelic intelligence was inadequate to its contrivance. II. That the scheme of Godliness is greatly mysterious with regard to its mode of development. That, in fact, its main and most important truths should have been so long concealed from the world, or only he darkly shadowed forth by types and figures; that their revelation should have been so gradual, and so late in reaching its consummation may well be reckoned a mystery. Why did He suffer so many millions of the race for whose benefit it was designed, and for whose salvation a knowledge of it seems necessary, to die without even having heard of it? III. That the scheme of Godliness is greatly mysterious with regard to the nature and mode of its operations. We gather from the words of our Lord, that the operations by which the Holy Spirit regenerates men through the system of evangelical truth would be inscrutable. “ The wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. How, for instance, does this system of truth illuminate the mind, convey conviction to the judgment, awaken and alarm the conscience, gain the assent of the understanding, fill the sinner with penitence and godly sorrow, win his affections, subdue his whole soul to God, and transform him, a guilty and polluted spirit, into a new creature in Christ Jesus? What is the nature of those unseen, impalpable operations by which man is enlightened, pardoned, and born again? How is celestial light produced in the sin-darkened mind? IV. That the scheme of Godliness is greatly mysterious with regard to its triumphs. The external means and agency by which these triumphs are secured may be plain and obvious enough as facts; but then they seem altogether inadequate to achieve them. V. That the scheme of Godliness is greatly mysterious with regard to its consummation. Its character is thus uniform from the beginning to the end. This grand drama of truth and mercy was opened by the most mysterious resolutions and stupendous acts; it is sustained and carried on by the sublimest evolutions and agency; and it will close amid the most transcendent and ineffable scenes of grandeur and bliss. All the dead are to be raised. Men and devils are all to be arraigned before the judgment-seat of Christ. The old heavens and earth are to pass away. A new heaven and earth of surpassing beauty and holiness are to be created for the reception of the redeemed.1. This subject teaches us the necessity of implicit faith in all the truths and doctrines which God has revealed in His Word. This, indeed, we shall often find to be necessary. Mysterious facts which baffle our reason, demand our faith. In His darkest utterances, God must be implicitly credited. 2. This subject teaches us the necessity of cherishing the spirit of patience and humility. This, too, we shall find to be all-important. We cannot anticipate the end, nor rush to its disclosures before the time appointed by the Father. 3. This subject teaches us that we ought most gratefully to receive the unspeakable and eternal benefits which this grand and mysterious scheme of godliness was designed to confer on redeemed men. To refuse them, or even to be unconcerned about them, is surely the blackest and most hateful ingratitude, and must form the very climax of rebellion and guilt! (S. Lucas.) The mystery of godliness I. A mystery is something kept secret, locked up from the view of men. This sense of it agrees to the doctrines of Christianity upon a threefold account.1. As they were concealed from former ages.2. As they are yet so from the greatest part of the world.3. As they continue so in some degree to God’ s own people. The temple of God is not to be opened till we get to heaven, and there we shall see the ark of His covenant. Upon these accounts it may be said our gospel is hid; it was so to the Jews, it is so to those that are lost; and, in part, it is so to the believer him self; and therefore it may be called a mystery.1. It is called a mystery from its importance.2. It is called a mystery because it never could have been known but by revelation.3. A mystery is something above the comprehension of our reason. The things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. And this leads me to-- II. Show that the mystery of any doctrine does not hinder it from being true.1. The difficulty or easiness of a doctrine does not make it the matter of our faith, but we go entirely upon the sufficiency of the evidence. 2. This obtains in every part of life, and it is strange we should exclude it from religion. 3. It is no way unaccountable that the nature and the designs of God should be” incomprehensible to us. 4. It is necessary that our understanding should honour the revelation of God by a subjection, as well as our wills by a compliance. 5. These are not mysteries of man’ s forging, but we have them in the Book of God. 6. They are not concealed by any party or tribe among us, but lie open to be seen and read of all men. Therefore-- 7. The design of preaching them is not to set up the tyranny of priests, but to lead people to a veneration for their God, a dependence upon Him, and an application to Him. III. What is the benefit of having mysteries in the Christian religion? Why could not our lawgiver have done as others did, only laid before us a set of rules, and distributed them under the several heads of practice, without ever engaging our faith in any speculations at all? When the law is established by faith, it gets a firmness and an influence that it could never have had any other way.1. By the mysteries of the gospel we are led to an esteem for the salvation itself that God has given us, because thus we see that it was the contrivance of infinite wisdom. 2. We have the best arguments for our duty from the incarnation, satisfaction, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 3. We have the noblest example of all practical holiness from God’ s being manifest in the flesh. 4. We are in particular inclined and encouraged to the duty of prayer, by this new and living way that is consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. (Hebrews 10:20). 5. We have the best hope of succeeding in the whole work of our duty, from the redemption that is now established. 6. By these mysteries the principles of all practical religion are enlarged and encouraged. It is in a meditation upon these that we stir up the grace of God that is in us. 7. We are by this means kept low in our own eyes; as we find there are things above the reach of nature, and beyond the comprehension of faith. 8. This shows us the necessity of depending upon the Spirit for illumination, as well as upon Christ for acceptance. 9. This teaches a greater value for the revelation God has made of Himself. 10. This draws out our desires towards heaven, without which there can be neither the purity nor the comfort of religion. We long to be where the veil is taken off from the object, and the fetters from the faculty. IV. When the apostle calls this a great mystery, i suppose He does it in a way of pre-eminence to what is contained in other religions, more especially these two.1. The mysteries of the heathen. 2. There were mysteries in the Jewish religion. (Psalms 111:4; Psalms 48:9), in the midst of His temple, and He was terrible out of His holy places. (1) The mystery of godliness is in this respect greater than any among the heathen in that we learn it at once. Here are no years thrown away in a tedious preparation. There is no keeping of people in a preparatory dulness. (2) This mystery is about matters of more importance to our final happiness. This is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. (John 17:3). (3) These mysteries were given us by God Himself. (4) These mysteries are to be diffused and made known. 2. There were undeniable mysteries among the Jews, (1) Our mysteries are distinguished from those that God gave to the Jews by their continuance. (2) Our mysteries refer us to themselves. The Jews had a respect to something else. (3) Our mysteries come in a nobler way, in a method more agreeable to the lofty nature of a rational soul. (4) This mystery is attended with a greater influence, both as to purity and peace. It is further said that this mystery is great without controversy. 1. It does not mean there should be no dispute about it. The natural man never did, and never will receive the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness to him. 2. This mystery is without controversy to all the ages of God’ s people. 3. This mystery is without controversy to those whom the grace of God has brought from the darkness of infidelity. 4. This is a mystery without controversy, because it still continues to be a mystery after all the ways that men have taken to explain it. A few practical directions about the use that should be made of mysteries in religion.1. If you would treat Christianity or any particular article as a mystery, be careful to separate the doctrine from all the mixtures that curiosity or superstition have brought into it. 2. Read the Scriptures diligently, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 3. Attend the ordinances of the gospel. He that walks with wise men shall be wise. 4. Pray for the Spirit. 5. Take care of quarrelling about these mysteries, and becoming vain in your imaginations. 6. Be more concerned about the improving of a mystery than the explaining it. (T. Bradbury.) The mystery of godliness I. Let us inquire what are the features of mystery which belong to the scheme of redemption.1. It is a mystery if we consider the subjects of that redemption. 2. There is mystery in the mode of this redemption. 3. There is mystery in the magnitude of the accruing consequence of this redemption. The feud between heaven and earth has been adjusted by it. 4. It is a mystery, because no human wisdom could ever have devised it. It is a gem of grace dug from the deepest mine of the Divine intelligence, and lifted from the profoundest recess of the Divine compassion. 5. It was a mystery which baffled the malignant wit of devils to explain. 6. And if it passed the understandings of the dark confederacy of hell, it equally exceeded the capacity of angels to unravel its intent. 7. It is a mystery which will need eternity to explore it. II. Observe the appropriateness of the phrase--“ the mystery of godliness.”1. It is so, because it reveals the only basis of godliness. 2. By a belief in this we become entitled to all the blessings of godliness. 3. By its influence on heart and life it leads to the practice of godliness. 4. Because the whole redounds to the honour and glory of God. From this mystery we may learn to raise our appreciation of the greatness and sublimity of the Christian revelation. (A. Mursell.) The mystery of godliness I. The mystery of Godliness itself.1. The fact that God was manifest in the flesh. (1) The manifestation affirmed is the manifestation of God. It is the manifestation of Jehovah--of the Creator, Preserver, and Lord of all--of Him to whom all worship is due, and all dominion and glory belong. This much lies upon the very surface of the text. Is there nothing more to tell? There is more. God is One. But the Persons of the Godhead are three. And this is not the manifestation of the First, or of the Third, Person of the Godhead, but of the Second. It is the manifestation of God the Son. (2) As to the other question--the nature of this manifestation--we remark that it was personal. There are many manifestations of God--manifestations of Him in the world and in the Church, in His works, and in His Word. But these are manifestations of character and perfections. A manifestation of the Divine wisdom, and power, and holiness, and love, is a manifestation of God; but it is not a personal manifestation. It is a manifestation of the attributes and glory of God, and of the attributes and glory of the Persons in the Godhead; but it is not a manifestation of the Persons themselves. There is a manifestation of the Father in those who are His children; there is a manifestation of the Son in those whom He is not ashamed to call His brethren; and there is a manifestation of the Spirit in all whom He regenerates and sanctifies. Yea, doubtless, the Divine Persons are thus manifested. But, though the manifestation be a manifestation of Persons, it is not a personal manifestation of them. They are manifested mediately, not immediately--as the worker is manifested by his work. There is no immediate personal manifestation of God, which has been afforded to man, except that manifestation of Him which constitutes the mystery of godliness. We do not overlook the manifestations of God that were enjoyed by the patriarchs--such as that which Abraham had in the plains of Mature, and that which Jacob had at Peniel. These were foreshadowings of that mystery of godliness which the fulness of time disclosed. The personal manifestation of God is highly to be prized. We may judge of it by the desire which is felt to see the sage or philosopher who has enriched the stores of our knowledge by his speculations and discoveries. We may have read the great man’ s history again and again; we may be familiar with what he has achieved; we may have seen the fruits of his genius, his toil, his valour; we may possess his portrait too; but the effect of it all will be, not to diminish, but to increase, the desire to behold his person, and to see himself. Just so it is in the case before us. The knowledge of God’ s ways and doings, the light east upon His character and glorious perfections by the teachings of Scripture and the experience of the Church, will never quench the desire for the vision of God Himself. We must further remark, with respect to the nature of this manifestation of God, that it was a manifestation “ in the flesh.” “ God was manifest in the flesh.” We read of the Holy Ghost coming down in a bodily form, like a dove. But the Holy Ghost was not a dove. He took, for the occasion, the visible form of a dove; but there was no real dove in the case, any more than there is in the image or likeness of a dove which the pencil of the artist may create. God the Son, however, was man. He was Man as truly and really as He was God. Had He come with no more than the figure or likeness of a man--that likeness being temporarily assumed--it could not so well be said that God was manifested. It may serve to open up still farther this manifestation of God in the flesh, if we explain a little, as we can, and as Scripture enables us, how the manifestation was brought about. This much we are in a condition to say--that God was manifested in the flesh by the assumption into His Person, on the part of the Son, of the human nature, as consisting of a true body and a reasonable soul. The Son assumed human nature into His Person. He assumed it into His Person so that God the Son and the man Christ Jesus were not two Persons, but one. It was not that a new Person was constituted out of two Persons previously existing. His human nature never existed by itself, or as a person; and the Person of the Son was eternal. Into that Person the human nature was taken, or assumed, as has been said--the identity of the Person remaining unchanged. There was no conversion of the Divine into the human nature. Had that been the case, He must have ceased to be God by becoming man. Nor was there any mixture of the natures. The two natures did not become one nature, combining their attributes. There was a union, however, between the two natures. But this union was not like other unions with which we may be acquainted. It was unlike the union between the soul and body of man. It was unlike it in this--that body and soul make but one nature between them. It was unlike the union between Christ and believers; for that is a union where distinct personality is preserved. And it was unlike the union among the Persons in the Godhead. The cases, indeed, are completely in contrast. There, we find distinct Persons, and one nature. Here, we find one Person, and distinct natures. 2. Passing now from the fact declared, that God was manifest in the flesh, we come to the reason of it. The reason was no other than the salvation of sinful man. A created nature was necessary, because a created nature alone could suffer, and on a created nature alone the stroke of wrath could fall. He took not, however, the nature of angels. The human nature was necessary, to connect Him more closely with our broken covenant, on the one hand, and with us who broke it, on the other. It was flesh that He took, because He was to be the second man, the last Adam; and, in that capacity, to magnify the law and make it honourable, and bruise the serpent’ s head. But a finite nature must have failed by itself. It need not have failed in purpose, or for want of will; but it must have failed in sufficiency, and for want of strength. II. The circumstances that commend the mystery of Godliness to our faith and admiration. (A. Gray.) God was manifest in the flesh.--The important mystery of the Incarnation I. I am to illustrate the doctrine of God manifest in the flesh. It is an undoubted truth, that the perfections and glory of God the Father were manifested in the Incarnation, life and death of His only begotten Son. If these, in one respect, veiled the Divine glory, they gave, in another, a new and fuller view of its brightness. The Scripture conceals not the reasons why God was thus manifest in the flesh. Perhaps, some may inquire, how can it be said that God was manifest in the flesh? Did not the nature He assumed, and the purposes of humiliation and suffering for which He assumed it, obscure, rather than manifest, His Deity? If, however, some circumstances of Christ’ s incarnation indicated meanness and abasement; in others, Divine majesty and greatness were manifested. Heaven and earth, angels and devils, kings and subjects, friends and enemies, unite to do honour to His birth. Let me now direct your attention to the practical improvement of this subject. Judge not the opinions or character of any man, or society of men, by their outward circumstances. Despise not, for His birth, His poverty, or mean appearance, the man who teaches an excellent doctrine, or who exhibits an eminently virtuous example. Just ideas, and a correspondent behaviour, not wealth or indigence, are the true tests of worth. Think how wretched and forlorn thy circumstances, which required so great and astonishing means of deliverance. Admire and improve this amazing condescension. Let the warmest gratitude inflame every breast while contemplating the love which gave rise to this condescension. Labour that He who was manifested in your nature may also be manifested in your persons: or, as Paul expresses it, “ That the life of Jesus may be made manifest in your body” (2 Corinthians 4:10). Reflect how highly human nature is dignified and ennobled by the incarnation of the Son of God. Improve and exult in the foundation laid, by God manifest in the flesh, for the encouragement of faith. Sink not under thy doubts and fears; for to rescue sinners from destruction He, who was in the bosom of the Father, pledged His heart as their ransom that, as their Advocate, He might approach to God and successfully plead their cause. II. Paul describes this doctrine as a mystery. The word “ mystery” is borrowed from the secret religious rites and exercises among the heathen, to which only a few, after trial of their secrecy, were admitted by the Hierophant or Mystagogue. Hence, it is transferred to the incarnation of Christ, and its important causes and consequences, which could be discovered only by the Spirit, not by our senses, imagination, or intellectual powers. To men, who have no other guide than nature’ s light, the wonders of redeeming love were wholly unknown: and unknown they must have for ever remained, had not the first stewards of the mysteries of God learned them by inspiration, and been authorized to teach them. Under the Old Testament the Jews had only dark types and obscure prophecies of those good things to come. The wisdom of God in a mystery was a hidden wisdom, which none of the princes of this world knew; for, had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. Again, the gospel is a mystery; for to few who enjoy the external dispensation of the gospel is its native beauty and Divine energy inwardly revealed. Saints alone are divinely enlightened to perceive its certainty and glory. III. The doctrine of our Lord’ s incarnation, and of its causes and consequences, is, without controversy, a great mystery. It has not only been confirmed by the fullest evidence; but it is without controversy to all to whom Jesus hath manifested the Father’ s name. Well, too, may this doctrine be termed great. It exhibits truths in their own nature transcendently excellent. All this, however, wilt not excuse our stumbling at this wisdom of God in a mystery, or these deep things of God. IV. The doctrine of our Lord’ s incarnation is a mystery of Godliness. It is allowed that truths altogether unknown, and doctrines perfectly unintelligible, can be no motives to piety. But, notwithstanding this, motives to piety may be derived from that, in a mystery, which is known and understood. Though I cannot comprehend the doctrine of the Trinity, or the Divinity and Sonship of Christ, I may understand enough of the love of the Father, in sending His Son to be the Saviour of the world, and of redemption being purchased by His blood, to influence my temper and conduct. Articles of natural religion deeply affect us which yet are obscurely and imperfectly known. Now, all this was revealed that we might be sanctified through the truth. The view which it exhibits, both of the justice and goodness of God, affords the strongest motives to reverence of God’ s authority, value for His favour, trust in His mercy and obedience to His laws. V. The doctrine of the incarnation is the pillar and ground of the truth: not of truth, or even religious truth in general, but of the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, in which that plan of redemption is published: which reason could never have discovered. The original word, rendered ground, occurs nowhere else in the sacred writings. But it evidently signifies that upon which anything firmly rests. Here, therefore, where it relates to a building, and is joined to the word “ pillar,” it means foundation. A pillar only supports part of a fabric. A foundation bears the weight of the whole building. The metaphor intimates that the doctrine of the Person and Incarnation of Jesus is necessary to the support of the whole doctrine of redemption; and that, if the doctrine of the Incarnation were taken away, the whole doctrine of redemption would fall to the ground. Every other article of faith rests upon, and derives stability from, its connection with this. If the Son of God did not assume a true body and a reasonable soul, He was not the “ Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” The first thing in a building is the laying the foundation; and the first thing peculiar to Christianity which the apostles taught was the incarnation of Jesus, and His redeeming us to God through His blood: though to pave the way for this truth being received, they also inculcated the principles and obligations of natural religion, and the evidences of Christianity, from prophecy and miracles (1 Corinthians 15:1-3). And now, what is the conclusion of the whole matter? Think it not strange that the gospel often meets with bad entertainment, that some pronounce the mysteries of its foolishness, and others account the godliness these mysteries tend to produce an insupportable yoke. Learn from this subject to distinguish true religion and genuine piety from counterfeit appearances. Heathenism and popery have their mysteries; but they are mysteries of iniquity. Entertain this doctrine in a manner suitable to its nature. It is a mystery. Affect not to be wise above what is written. Admire and adore what thou canst not fully comprehend. It is a mystery of godliness. By indulging ease and security, while profligate and immoral, act not as if it were a mystery of iniquity. Remember that mere speculative knowledge will condemn, not save thee. It is the pillar and ground of truth. Prize that gospel which has published to thee a doctrine so transcendently glorious and important. (J. Erskine, D. D.) The Mystery of godliness The greatness and importance of the truth which the Church was to maintain is given as a motive to fidelity on the part of Christians. I. The contrast between flesh and spirit. “ He was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit.” For it is not what appeals to our natural observation, to our sensuous nature, or to our purely intellectual faculties, which awakens the conviction that He is our Lord, but it is His Divine touch, felt upon heart and conscience, which leads us, like Thomas, to fall at His feet and say, “ My Lord and my God.” II. The second suggested contrast is between the angels and the nations. “ He was seen of angels and preached unto the Gentiles.” These are again natural opposites. Angels are the blessed inhabitants of a higher sphere; Gentiles are the most corrupt and debased inhabitants of this lower world. And it is His glory that His claims have been admitted by opposing and divergent nationalities, by the most varied types of men, as rightful King of all the world. III. The last contrast drawn here is between the earthly and the heavenly. “ He was believed on in the world, received up into glory.” What a contrast between the celestial brightness and purity in which He is enshrined, and the disease, the death, and the sin prevailing in the world. I know not how we Christians could still work hopefully if it were not that Jesus, the Almighty purifier, the one Saviour, can be believed on, and is believed on by us in the world--as One able and willing to bring salvation to the lost and degraded. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The fountain opened; or, the mystery of godliness revealed 1. Godliness is either the principles of Christian religion, or the inward disposition of the soul towards them, the inward holy affection of the soul. The word implieth both: for godliness is not only the naked principles of religion, but likewise the Christian affection, the inward bent of the soul, suitable to Divine principles. There must be a godly disposition, carrying us to godly truths. These blessed truths of the gospel, they require and breed a godly disposition; the end of them is godliness; they frame the soul to godliness. Thus we see the truths themselves are godliness, carrying us to God and holiness. Hence follows these other truths briefly.1. First of all, that no truth breeds godliness and piety of life but Divine truths; for that is called “ godliness,” because it breeds godliness. All the devices of men in the world cannot breed godliness. 2. Again, hence, in that Divine truth is called godliness, it shows us, if we would be godly we must be so from reasons of Christianity; not, us I said, by framing devices of our own, as graceless foolish men do. But if we will be godly, it must be by reasons and motives from Divine truth. That breeds godliness. 3. Again, hence we may fetch a rule of discerning when we are godly. What makes a true Christian? When he nakedly believes the grounds of Divine truth, the articles of the faith, when he can patter them over--doth that make a true Christian? No. But when these truths breed and work “ godliness.” For religion is a truth “ according to godliness,” not according to speculation only, and notion. Religious evangelical truth is “ wisdom” ; and wisdom is a knowledge of things directing to practice. A man is a wise man when he knows so as to practise what he knows. The gospel is a Divine wisdom, teaching practice as well as knowledge. It works godliness, or else a man hath but a human knowledge of Divine things. Therefore a Christian hath godly principles out of the gospel, and a godly carriage suitable to those principles. Now this godliness is “ a mystery.” What is a mystery? The word signifies a hidden thing.1. A mystery is a secret, not only for the present, but that it was a secret, though it be now revealed; for the gospel is now discovered. It is called a mystery, not so much that it is secret, but that it was so before it was revealed. 2. In the second place, that is called a mystery in the Scripture which, howsoever it be clear for the manifestation of it, yet the reasons of it are hid. As the conversion of the Gentiles, that there should be such a thing, why God should be so merciful to them, it is called a mystery. 3. In the third place, a mystery in Scripture is taken for that that is a truth hid, and is conveyed by some outward thing. Marriage is a mystery, because it conveys the hidden spiritual marriage between Christ and His Church. So, then, the whole evangelical truth is a mystery. For these reasons:--1. First of all, because it was hid and concealed from all men, till God brought it out of His own bosom: first to Adam in paradise, after the Fall; and still more clearly afterwards to the Jews; and in Christ’ s time more fully to Jews and Gentiles. It was hid in the breast of God. It was not a thing framed by angels or men. Christ brought it out of the bosom of His Father. 2. Again, it is a mystery; because when it was revealed, it was revealed but to few. It was revealed at the first but to the Jews--“ God is known in Jewry,” etc. (Psalms 48:3). It was wrapped in ceremonies and types, and in general promises, to them. It was quite hid from most part of the world. 3. Again, when Christ came, and was discovered to the Gentiles, yet it is a mystery even in the Church, to carnal men, that hear the gospel, and yet do not understand it, that have the veil over their hearts. It is “ hid to them that perish” (2 Corinthians 4:3). 4. In the fourth place, it is a mystery, because though we see some part and parcel of it yet we see not the whole gospel. We see not all, nor wholly. “ We see but in part, and know but in part.” (1 Corinthians 8:9.) 5. Yea, and it is mystery in regard of what we do not know, but shall hereafter know but is the doctrine of the gospel itself only a mystery? No. All the graces are mysteries, every grace. Let a man once know it, and he shall find that there is a mystery in faith; that the earthly soul of man should be carried above itself, to believe supernatural truths, and to depend upon that he sees not, to sway the life by reasons spiritual; that the heart of man should believe; that a man in trouble should carry himself quietly and patiently, from supernatural supports and grounds, it is a mystery. That the carriage of the soul should be turned universally another way; that the judgment and affections should be turned backward, as it were; that he that was proud before should now be humble; that he that was ambitious before should now despise the vain world; that he that was given to his lusts and vanities before should now, on the contrary, be serious and heavenly minded: here is a mystery indeed when all is turned backward. In Christ all is mystery: two natures, God and man, in one Person; mortal and immortal; greatness and baseness; infiniteness and finiteness, in one Person. The Church itself is a mystical thing. For under baseness, under the scorn of the world, what is hid? A glorious people.1. Is it so that religion is a mystery? Then, first of all, do not wonder that it is not known in the world: and that it is not only not known, but persecuted and hated. Alas! it is a hidden thing. Men know not the excellency of it. 2. Again, if it be a mystery, then it should teach us to carry ourselves suitable to it. Nature taught even the heathens to carry themselves reverently in their mysteries; Procul este profani, “ Away begone all profane.” Let us carry ourselves therefore reverently toward the truth of God, towards all truths, though they be never so contrary to our reason. 3. Again, are these things mysteries, great mysteries? Let us bless God, that hath revealed them to us, for the glorious gospel. Oh, how doth St. Paul, in every Epistle, stir up people to be thankful for revealing these mysteries! 4. Again, it is a mystery, Therefore it should teach us likewise not to set upon the knowledge of it with any wits or parts of our own, to think to search into it merely by strength of wit and study of books, and all human helps that can be. It is a mystery, and it must be unveiled by God Himself, by His Spirit. We must not struggle with the difficulties of religion with natural parts. It is a mystery. Now, therefore it must have a double veil took off: a veil from the thing, and the yell from our eyes. It is a mystery in regard of the things themselves, and in regard of us. It is not sufficient that the things be light-some that are now revealed by the gospel, but there must be that taken from our hearts that hinders our sight. 5. Again, being a mystery, it cannot be raised out of the principles of nature, it cannot be raised from reasons. But hath reason no use, then, in the gospel? Yes. Sanctified reason hath to draw sanctified conclusions from sanctified principles. Thus far reason is of use in these mysteries, to shew that they are not opposite to reason, They are above reason, but they are not contrary to it, even as the light of the sun it is above the light of a candle, but it is not contrary to it. Here it is the greatest reason to yield reason to faith. Faith is the reason of reasons in these things, and the greatest reason is to yield to God that hath revealed them. Is not here the greatest reason in the world, to believe Him that is truth itself? 6. Again, seeing it is a mystery, let no man despair. It is not the pregnancy of the scholar here that carries it away. It is the excellency of the teacher. If God’ s Spirit be the teacher, it is no matter how dull the scholar is. 7. It is a mystery, therefore take heed of slighting of Divine truths. The empty shallow heads of the world make great matters of trifles, and stand amazed at baubles and vanities, and think it a grace to slight Divine things. This great mystery of godliness they despise. How shall we come to know this mystery as we should, and to carry ourselves answerable? We must desire God to open our eyes, that as the light hath shined, as the apostle saith, “ The grace of God hath shined” (Titus 2:11); as there is a lightsomeness in the mysteries, so there may be in our eye. Now, the Spirit doth not only teach the truths of the gospel, but the application of those truths, that they are ours.1. Again, if we would understand these mysteries, let us labour for humble spirits; for the Spirit works that disposition in the first place. 2. And bring withal a serious desire to know with a purpose to be moulded to what we know; to be delivered to the obedience of what we know; for then God will discover it to us. Wisdom is easy to him that will. Together with prayer and humility, let us but bring a purpose and desire to be taught, and we shall find Divine wisdom easy to him that will. None ever miscarry in the Church but those that have false hearts. 3. And take heed of passion and prejudice, of carnal affections that stir up passion; for they will make the soul that it cannot see mysteries that are plain in themselves. As we are strong in any passion, so we judge; and the heart, when it is given up to passion, it transforms the truth to its own self, as it were. Even as where there is a suffusion of the eye, as in the jaundice, or the like, it apprehends colours like itself; so when the taste is vitiated, it tastes things, not as they are in themselves, but as itself is. So the corrupt heart transforms this sacred mystery to its own self, and oft-times foreeth Scripture to defend its own sin, and the corrupt state it is in. It will believe what it list. Therefore it is of great consequence to come with clean hearts and minds to the mysteries of God. “ Great mystery.”1. That is the adjunct. It is a “ great mystery” And here I might be endless; for it is not only great as a mystery--that is, there is much of it concealed--but it is a great and excellent mystery, if we regard whence it came, from the bosom of God, from the wisdom of God. 2. If we regard the end of it, to bring together God and man--man that was fallen, to bring him back again to God, to bring him from the depth of misery to the height of all happiness; a “ great mystery” in this respect. 3. Again, it is “ great,” for the manifold wisdom that God discovered in the publishing of it, by certain degrees: first, in types, then after he came to truths; first, in promises, and then performances. 4. Again it is a great mystery, for that it works. For it is such a mystery as is not only a discovery of secrets, but it transforms those that know it and believe it. We are transformed by it to the likeness of Christ, of whom it is a mystery; to be as He is, full of grace. It hath a transforming, changing power. 5. If we consider any part of it--Christ, or His Church, or anything--it is a mystery, and “ a great mystery.” It must needs be great, that the very angels desire to pry into (1 Peter 1:12). 6. If we regard those that could not pry into it; as it Isaiah 1 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 2:8 that the wise men of the world understood nothing of it. 7. Again, it is a great mystery, because it makes us great. It makes times great, and the persons great that live in those times. What made John Baptist greater than all the prophets and others in those times? Because he saw Christ come in the flesh. Let us take heed, therefore, that we set a higher price on religion. It is a mystery, and a great mystery; therefore it must have great esteem. It brings great comfort and great privileges. 8. Again, it is a great mystery, if compared to all other mysteries. Creation was a great mystery for all things to be made out of nothing, order out of confusion; for God to make man a glorious creature of the dust of the earth, it was a great matter. But what is this in comparison for God to be made man?1. First of all, learn hence from blessed St. Paul how to be affected when we speak and think of the glorious truth of God; that we should work upon our hearts, to have large thoughts and large expressions of it. St. Paul thought it not sufficient to call it a mystery, but a great mystery. He doth not only call it riches, but unsearchable riches. Out of the riches and treasure of the heart the mouth will speak. (1) And that we may the better do this, let us labour to have as deep conceits in our understandings as we can of that mystery of sinfulness that is in us, and that mystery of misery. (2) Again, if we would have large and sensible thoughts and apprehensions of these things, such as the blessed apostle, let us set some time apart to meditate of these things, till the heart be warmed; let us labour to fasten our thoughts, as much as we can, on them every day; to consider the excellency of this mystery of religion in itself, and the fruit of it in this world and in the world to come. It is a good employment; for from thence we shall wonder at nothing in the world besides. What is the reason that men are taken up with admiration of petty mysteries, of poor things? Because their thoughts were never raised up to higher considerations. 2. Let us bring great endeavours to learn it, and great respect towards it, and great love to God for it. Let everything in us be answerable to this “ great mystery,” which is a “ great mystery.” “ Without controversy.” It is so under the broad seal of public confession, as the word in the general signifies; by the confession of all, it is “ great.” It is a confessed truth, that the “ mystery of godliness is great.” As if the apostle had said, I need not give you greater confirmation; it is, without question or controversy, a great mystery. (1) First, in itself, it is not to be doubted of. It is a great grounded truth, as lightsome and clear as if the gospel were written with a sunbeam, as one saith. There is nothing clearer and more out of controversy than sacred evangelical truths. (2) And as they are clear and light-some in themselves, so they are apprehended of all God’ s people. However it be controverted by others, yet they are not considerable. All that are the children of the Church, that have their eyes open, they confess it to be so, and wonder at it as “ a great mystery.” They without all doubt and controversy embrace it. Things are not so clear in the gospel that all that are sinful and rebellious may see whether they will or no. 1. I will only make that use of it that a great scholar in his time once did upon the point, a noble earl of Mirandula. If there be no calling these things into question, if they have been confirmed by so many miracles, as they have been in a strict sense, why then, how is it that men live as if they made no question of the falsehood of them? What kind of men are those that live as if it were “ without controversy,” that Christian truths had no truth at all in them? Men live so carelessly and profanely, and slight and scorn these great mysteries, as if they made no question but they are false. 2. Again, in that he saith, “ without controversy,” or confessedly, “ great is the mystery of godliness” : here we may know, then, what truths are to be entertained as catholic universal truths, those that without question are received. Now we come to the particulars of this great mystery. “ God manifested in the flesh.” This, and the other branches that follow, they are all spoken of Christ. Indeed, the “ mystery of godliness” is nothing but Christ, and that which Christ did. Christ was “ manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.” So that from the general we may observe this, that “ Christ is the scope of the Scripture.” Christ is the pearl of that ring; Christ is the main, the centre wherein all those lines end. He begins here with this, “ God manifested in the flesh” ; not God taken essentially, but taken personally. God in the Second Person, was manifested. All actions are of persons. The Second Person was incarnate. The Three Persons are all God; yet they were not all incarnate, because it was a personal action of the Second Person. And why in that Person?1. Because He was the image of God. And none but the image of God could restore us to that image. He was the Son of God, and none but the natural Son could make us sons. By “ flesh,” here, is meant human nature; the property of human nature, both body and soul. And by “ flesh” also is usually understood the infirmities and weakness of man, the miserable condition of man. In that God, the Second Person, appeared in our nature, in our weak and tainted disgraced nature after the Fall; from hence comes-- 1. First of all, the enriching of our nature with all graces in Christ, as it is in Colossians 2:3. 2. The ennobling of our nature. In that God appeared in our nature it is much ennobled. 3. In the third place, hence comes the enabling of our nature to the work of salvation that was wrought in our nature. It came from hence, “ God was in the flesh.” 4. And hence comes this likewise, that whatsoever Christ did in our nature, God did it, for God appeared in our nature. He took not upon Him the person of any man, but the nature. 5. Hence comes also the union between Christ and us. Whence is it that we are “ sons of God” ? Because He was the “ Son of Man,” “ God in our flesh.” There are three unions: the union of natures, God to become man; the union of grace, that we are one with Christ; and the union of glory. 6. Hence likewise comes the sympathy between Christ and us; for Christ is said to suffer with us. 7. Hence likewise comes the efficacy of what Christ did, that the dying of one man should be sufficient for the whole world. It was, that “ God was in the flesh.” The apostle may well call this, “ God manifest in the flesh,” a “ mystery,” and place it in the first rank.1. And shall we think that so great a mystery as this was for small purpose? that the great God should take upon Him a piece of earth? Oh what boldness have we now to go to “ God in our flesh” ! 2. Again, from this, that God was “ manifest in our flesh,” let us take heed that we defile not this flesh of ours, this nature of ours. What? Is this “ flesh” of mine taken into unity with the Second Person? Is this “ flesh” of mine now in heaven, “ sitting at the right hand of God?” 3. Likewise, it should teach us to stoop to any service of Christ or our brethren. What! Did the love of God draw him into the womb of the virgin? Did it draw Him to take my nature and flesh on Him? Take heed of pride. God Himself emptied Himself, and wilt thou be full of pride? He became of “ no reputation” (Philippians 2:7), and wilt thou stand upon terms of credit? 4. Lastly, let us labour that Christ may be manifested in our particular flesh, in our persons. As He was God manifest in the flesh in regard of that blessed mass He took upon Him, so we would every one labour to have God “ manifest in our flesh.” How is that? We must have Christ as it were born in us, “ formed in us,” as the apostle speaks (Colossians 1:27). (R. Sibbes.) The mystery of the incarnate God The Christian system is a great and holy mystery, presenting an important function for the maintenance of Divine truth. Mystery may only be a secret, and comprise nothing difficult in itself. When broken the secret may be the plainest thing. The calling of the Gentiles was such a concealment. But there are many who deride this view, who speak of mystery as incompatible with the purport of a revelation. Now this objection surely goes too far and urges too much. For it would then be inconsistent for any religion to pretend a Divine authority. Religion must, in addressing us, though its information be most scant, tell us of Deity, insisting on spiritual relations and eternal issues. The poorest pretext of any religion must be a theism. “ Who can by searching find out God?” So vainly empty is the adage, Where mystery begins, religion ends l Nor less light is the remark, that ere a proposition be believed all its terms must be appreciated. There is something in every term of knowledge which defies this rigid perception. Others diversify the objection by taking for granted that revelation can only be an appeal to our reason, and that it will therefore contain no mystery; nothing but what is intelligible to reason. We cheerfully subscribe that reason must judge its evidence, that reason must ascertain its scope. The mystery is no object of our faith apart from the testimony which avouches it, and from the fact in which it consists. The proper notion for us to form of a revelation is that its essentials shall entirely exceed our powers of discovery. The light of reason has become so common a phrase that it may seem hazardous to call its correctness in question. But it is unmeaning. Reason can boast no light. It is only a capacity to judge upon any subject presented to it. It finds a general analogy of its function in the bodily eye. That does not impart the elemental light, but receives it, together with the impression of those images which it unveils. It is nothing more than an organ to be exercised upon things without. Reason is no more the source of knowledge than corporeal vision is that of day. A moral sun and a spiritual world are as much needed by the one as the physical sun and material world are for the other.1. The ancient mysteries were only affectations of the wonderfulness ascribed to them. They surrounded themselves with a purposed reserve. They included nothing which might not readily be apprehended. If there was difficulty, they contrived it. If the course of revelation was slow, they made it slow. If the curtain was laboriously raised, they had hung it heavily that so it might be raised. All was intended to excite curiosity, to produce impression, to strike the aspirant with artistic effects. It was the scenery of a theatre. Unlike this wilful perplexity, this ample drapery to cover nothing, the mystery of godliness was really transcendent. It muffled itself in no fold, it was abhorrent from all disguise. It spoke in no swelling words of vanity. It encircled itself with no seeming of doubt and amazement. The cloud which was upon it was of its own glory. 2. The effect which initiation in the ancient mysteries wrought upon the mind of the candidate was generally that of disappointment and aversion. The man of intelligence, though he came to them a believer, could not go forth from them with any assurance. Indignation at the banded impostors was his first feeling. Contempt of the mummeries, however splendid, practised upon him would quickly follow. They had spoken “ lies in hypocrisy.” Their “ deceit was falsehood.” If any particle of the truth was in their possession, they had “ held it in unrighteousness.” But they who have “ knowledge in the mystery of Christ” rise in every sentiment of gratitude and satisfaction with every step of that knowledge. Nothing has failed of their expectation. Nothing has sunk in their esteem. It is marvellous in our eyes! 3. Much delay attended the probation of those who sought enrolment among the enlightened in the ancient mysteries. Their trials were protracted. Before the profession was attained there was every harassing and tedious ceremonial. Lustration followed lustration, each power of endurance was tasked to the utmost, subterranean chambers reverberated to each other, there was a prison-house and escape from its horrors was not sure, panic congealed the stoutest frame, all extremes of sensation were combined, and the whole service was fenced round with every caution against eager impatience or inquisitive haste. But the mystery of godliness knows no such suspicious restrictions. “ Learn of Me” is the language of its Founder. A docile temper is the exclusive condition. We haste and delay not. 4. The most awful vows of secrecy were exacted of those who received the supposed purgation of these mysteries. A universal execration fell orb the betrayer. “ We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” “ We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.” “ To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery.” They “ used great plainness of speech.” 5. The whole arrangement of this singular discipline was invidious. It looked unfavourably on the great mass of our race. Selfish in its aims, destitute of any noble philanthropy, it intended the perpetual thraldom of the multitude in ignorance and degradation. It was the most cruel and potent auxiliary of priestly device and political despotism. In contradistinction to this haughty insolence, this vile contempt, with which the Mystagogues spurned and branded the species, Christianity surveys our nature in its broadest features, its truest intimacies, its grandest generalities. If it be marked by a partiality, it is toward the poor. It says: “ How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” It says: “ Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted!” Among its brightest; evidences, crowning all its miracles, is this attestation: “ To the poor is the gospel preached.” Its mercies are unto all. We may suppose that the inspired writer of the text, in styling the mystery of God indubitably great, bore in mind the common separation of the less and the greater ceremonies through which the respective postulants were called to pass. These were deemed alone worthy of the epithet, and alone capable of justifying it. Now the greater mysteries of the Pagan world pretended to solve religious difficulty. They promised that a great portion of the popular credulity might be simplified. They construed facts into allegories. They stripped the fable of its accessories, and exposed the moral which was couched in it. But the mystery of godliness was a grand interpretation. It was a key to cyphers. It was the substance of shadows. It was the fulfilment of visions. It gave light and meaning to “ the dark sayings of old.” Those greater mysteries boasted of a predominant doctrine. We do not with certainty know what that was. Whether the unity of the Divine nature or the immortality of the soul has been questioned, we think that we may conclude, with perfect confidence, that it was neither the one nor the other. Now, the mystery of godliness has its cardinal truth. It is the Incarnate Word. All connected with this manifestation is like itself. It is sin-offering and propitiatory sacrifice. We receive the atonement. A form of doctrine is declared to us. It is the glorious gospel of Christ. Those greater mysteries commanded a powerful influence. The chambers of imagery would not be soon forgotten, even if its import was explained. Terror sometimes prevailed, or it yielded to joy and repose. Some felt an immitigable dread, others a calm relief. The mystery of godliness is power. Christ dwells in the heart by faith. All the springs of our being are moved. His love constraineth us. Those greater mysteries claimed to impart an inward life. The spirit was supposed to emerge from a mystic death, to acquire new powers, and to occupy new relations. The regimen of its novitiate was called its birth. The man who had passed through these exercises was publicly hailed as endued with an existence higher than intellectual. He was of a privileged class. This new birth is to holiness. It is regeneration, a making of us again. It is renewing, a making of us afresh. With a marked description is this mystery announced; it is the mystery of godliness. This mystery is characterised by its attributes of purity and pious excellence. They belong to it. It has a tendency to inspire them. They are its ever-present glories and its invariable emanations. But here rebuke is dealt. Those arcana to which the mystery of holiness is opposed, were the scandal of the ages through which they survived. They were “ works of darkness.” But the proposition of the text is not exhausted. It asserts a particular use which the mystery of godliness subserves in relation to the truth. How is the mystery of the Incarnation the pillar and ground of the gospel? Its importance to the whole scheme of redeeming mercy is thus declared, and that importance is easily vindicated. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.) The Incarnate God vindicated I. The fact of a Divine incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ. The proposition is complex, and we will, in the first instance, reduce it to its parts.1. The manhood of Messiah. 2. That Messiah always possessed the Divine nature while He has assumed our own. Though there may be none who argue from His Godhead against the reality of His Manhood, however it is to be feared that too many extenuate it, it is most common to argue from His Manhood against His Godhead. (1) Titles of Divinity and Manhood are given to Him. He is the Son of God and the Son of Man. (2) Attributes of infinity and limitation are ascribed to Him. (3) Representations of self-sufficience and dependence are assigned to Him. II. This great mystery of godliness, God the Son taking our nature, is entitled a manifestation. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. To know the only true God is to know Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. As we cannot understand God, who is a Spirit, God is manifest in the flesh. It is the sensible copy, the transparent mirror, by which He will be known. A manifestation is a making clear of that which is difficult and obscure. It is of frequent occurrence when the later Scriptures speak of Christ. “ The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.” Now there were works which He was to do as well as revelations to unfold. Nor let us suppose that this manifestation was always unperceived and unappreciated. He was actually recognized. “ In the beginning of miracles He manifested forth His glory, and His disciples believed on Him.” (R. W. Hamilton, D. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 4:1-3 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times.A great heresy “ The Spirit” referred to is unquestionably the Holy Spirit of God, who had been promised to the Church as its abiding teacher and comforter. In all their agencies and appointments the apostles sought His direction. It sometimes came in outward events, sometimes in strong impulses, and sometimes in the distinct utterances of men who were recognized by their brethren as inspired prophets. The trained ear of a musician can discover meanings and suggestions in a harmony which to an ordinary listener is nothing but a pleasant sound. And the conscience of one who habitually lives near God and listens for Him is sensitive to His whispers, and finds the meaning and the value of the promise “ I will guide thee with Mine eye.” Among the functions of the Holy Spirit was the occasional revelation of coming events; for there were in this sense “ prophets” in the Christian Church, as truly as there had been under the Jewish dispensation. Nor were these always prominent and well-known men. Ananias and Agabus. Glimpses of the future came to some whose one qualification was that they stood on heights of spiritual communion--just as from the summits of the Rigi we have seen flashes of distant scenes through the broken clouds, which would be utterly hidden from one standing on a lower level. It was probably through one of the unknown prophets of the early Church that the distinct prophecy had been given to which Paul here alludes, which pointed out the speedy coming of a great heresy, the main outlines of which were definitely foreshadowed. Let us look at this great heresy, which has often and in various forms repeated itself even down to our own day. I. As to the source of the heresy Paul speaks in no wavering tones.1. Be traces it through the human agents to demon power. The Scriptures affirm that this world is the scene of conflict between evil and good, and that outside the range of our senses is, on the one side, the Holy Spirit of the living God, and on the other side are principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of the world. The alternations of night and day, of storm and calm, are not more real than are the vicissitudes of this great contest going on in the hearts of men. Allusion is made here to “ seducing spirits” ; but mysterious and mighty as may be their power, they are not omnipotent, nor are they resistless, but have control over those only who (to use Paul’ s phrase) “ give heed” to them. Whether we are tempted to false thoughts, or to impure acts, or to anything else that is evil, it is not in vain that the summons is heard, “ Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” 2. But while we must guard against the evil thoughts which sometimes, as we are conscious, do not arise from ourselves, we have to give heed to this warning against the human agents of wickedness, of whom the apostle says, “ They speak lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” If there was one iniquity which more than another aroused the anger of our Lord, it was hypocrisy. A man who is false and unreal has no part in the kingdom of light, but is silently, if not openly, fighting against it. And the evil man here described has his “ conscience seared with a hot iron” --a phrase which blazes with the apostle’ s holy indignation, but expresses a tremendous fact. Just as seared flesh has lost its sensibility, the once delicate nerves in it being destroyed, so there are consciences which nothing can affect. Appeals to honour and to shame are alike useless. The fatal influence exercised by such men was seen in the early Church, and is felt around us still, for no one can fall to be a power either for good or evil. Dr. Chalmers admirably puts it in these words: “ Every man is a missionary now and for ever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society; or he may be a blessing, spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world; but a blank he cannot be. There are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters. We are either the sower that sows and corrupts, or the light that splendidly illuminates and the salt that silently operates; but, being dead or alive, every man speaks.” II. The nature of the heresy thus originated, and propagated, next demands notice. The danger in our day is not towards unwholesome asceticism but towards unwholesome indulgence. Not fasting, but feasting, is the peril of the modern Church. Why then did Paul speak so strongly as he does here against asceticism? That error, which appeared and reappeared like the fabled Phoenix, was this: that there was an evil creator aa well as a good creator, and that while the flesh with all the matter belonged to the evil one, only the spirit belonged to the latter. That was the philosophical reason given for neglecting the body, for eschewing all fleshly relations, and for abstaining from the material satisfaction of appetite; and against it the apostles protested with all their might, and no wonder. For if this were true, God was not the good creator of all things. If this were true, God had not come really in the flesh, seeing that flesh was the product of an alien and hostile power. Hence many came to deny the true humanity of our Lord; they said His body was only a phantasm, not a reality, which implied that His temptations, His sufferings, His death and resurrection took place in appearance only. Paul was not “ striving about words to no profit” when he struck out vigorously against this pernicious doctrine; and before you dismiss such language in the New Testament as exaggerated, try to see what really lay behind it. Even Satan may appear as an angel of light, especially when seen down the vista of eighteen centuries. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Forbidding to marry.--The doctrine, which forbiddeth to marry is a wicked doctrine I. How far the popish doctrine forbiddeth to marry. II. That the popish doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, is a wicked doctrine.1. That doctrine which is a false doctrine, and contrary unto the Word of God, is a wicked doctrine: but the popish doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, is a false doctrine, and contrary unto the Word of God: therefore it is wicked. (1) The popish doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, forbiddeth that which the Word of God alloweth. (a) The Word of God alloweth marriage, and maketh no exception of the clergy, or any under the celibate vow. That which God did at first institute and appoint, surely the Word of God doth allow (Hebrews 13:4). (b) The Word of God is so far from excepting the marriage of the clergy, that it doth plainly allow the marriage of such persons. (i.) In the Old Testament times the prophets, priests, Levites, and all those who attended more immediately the service of God, and at the altar under the law, were allowed to marry. Abraham, who was a prophet and priest in his own house, did not take Sarah to be his wife without God’ s allowance; otherwise, surely, God would not have so signally owned his marriage, as to make promise of the Blessed Seed unto him hereby. Rebekah was a wife of God’ s choosing for Isaac. God never blamed Moses, that great prophet, for marrying Zipporah; neither was Aaron faulty because he had his wife and children. Isaiah, that evangelical prophet, was married, and had children too, in the time of his prophecy; which the Scripture, in the recording of it, doth not impute to him for any iniquity. The priests and Levites generally did marry; and, however some of them are reproved in Scripture for divers sins, yet matrimony is never in the least charged upon them for any crime. (ii.) In the New Testament times ministers have a plain and express allowance to marry, as will appear by two or three places of Scripture (1 Corinthians 9:5; Titus 1:6; 1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 3:4-5; 1 Timothy 3:11-12).(2) The popish doctrine, which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and all under the celibate vow, forbiddeth that which the Word of God in some case doth command (1 Corinthians 7:1-2). 2. That doctrine which, under the show of piety, doth lead unto much lewdness and villainy, is a wicked doctrine: but the popish doctrine, which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, under the show of piety, doth lead unto much lewdness and villainy: therefore this doctrine is a wicked doctrine. Whatever it be that leadeth unto lewdness and villainy, is devilish and wicked. “ He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). 3. That doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of any, that hereby they may merit the kingdom of heaven is a wicked doctrine: but the popish doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, forbiddeth the marriage of such, that thereby they may merit the kingdom of heaven. 4. That doctrine which is a badge or character of antichrist is a wicked doctrine: but the popish doctrine which forbiddeth the marriage of the clergy, and of all under the celibate vow, is a badge or character of antichrist: therefore this popish doctrine is wicked. III. Answer the popish arguments which they bring to prove the unlawfulness of the marriage of the clergy, and such who are under the celibate vow.1. Their first argument is drawn from the uncleanness which they affirm to be contracted by marriage; such as the clergy, and all who are more immediately devoted unto God, must abstain from. This they endeavour to prove-- (1) By the Levitical uncleanness (Leviticus 15:1-33.); and the speech of Abimelech unto David (1 Samuel 21:4). (2) Such as are married, they say, “ are in the flesh,” therefore unclean, and so “ cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). Answer 1. There is no uncleanness or unholiness in marriage itself, or in any use thereof; which is evident, because marriage was instituted in Paradise, in the state of man’ s innocency; and marriage, being God’ s ordinance, must needs be holy, because all God’ s ordinances are so. Moreover, the Scripture calleth marriage “ honourable in all,” where “ the bed is undefiled” by adultery (Hebrews 13:4). 2. The papists will find it difficult to prove that there was ever any Levitical uncleanness by the use of marriage; that Scripture in Leviticus 15:1-33. speaking of something else, as will appear unto such as read and seriously weigh the place. 3. It is a gross misinterpretation of Rom 8:8, to apply it unto married persons, as if they were the persons spoken of by the apostle “ that are in the flesh,” and “ cannot please God.” 4. As to their inference from 1 Corinthians 7:5,--because such as would “ give themselves to fasting and prayer,” must abstain for a while, therefore ministers must abstain from marriage altogether, is such a non sequitur, as the schools will hiss at. 2. The second popish argument is drawn from 1 Corinthians 7:1, “ It is good for a man not to touch a woman” ; and, verse 8, “ I say therefore unto the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.” If it be good for the unmarried and widows to abide in a single estate like unto the apostle, then, say they, it is evil for such to marry; and therefore the clergy should abstain from this evil. That may be good for some, which is evil for others. A single estate may be good and best for such as have the gift of continency, and are persuaded in their heart that in this estate they may most glorify God; whereas this estate may be evil for such as are without this gift, or in likelihood may most glorify God in a married estate. It may be good at some time not to marry; namely, in the time of the Church’ s persecution; and all that have the gift at such a time, should choose the celibate estate, that they might be the more ready both to do and suffer for Christ, and be the more free from temptations to apostasy. The apostle is so far from asserting it to be an evil for any in the worst of times to marry, that he asserteth the quite contrary when there is a necessity for it: “ If need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry” ; (1 Corinthians 7:36, 38). 3. The third popish argument is drawn from 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 : Answer1. It is not universally true, that all who are “ unmarried do care for the things which belong to the Lord, how they may please the Lord,” and that hereby they are taken off from minding and caring for the things of the world. As to the latter, who intermeddle more with secular affairs than many of the popish unmarried clergy? 2. Neither is it universally true, that such as “ are married do care for the things of the world” chiefly, so as to neglect the things of God; as instance may be given in the holiness of many married persons, which the Scripture doth take notice of. It is said that “ Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:22). Abraham, who is called “ the friend of God” ; Moses, unto whom the Lord “ spake face to face” ; Samuel, who was so highly in favour with God; David, who was “ a man after God’ s own heart” ; Isaiah, Ezekiel, and almost all the prophets, were married persons: and we hardly read of any in the Old Testament that were famous for integrity and zeal for God, but they were such as were married. 3. Men may “ care for the things that belong unto the world” moderately, and labour to please their wives in the Lord subordinately, and not transgress the bounds of their duty. (T. Vincent, M. A.) Celibacy, its advantages and disadvantages This state is as honourable, useful, and blessed as that of marriage. John was the unmarried disciple whom Jesus loved. The family at Bethany of two sisters and a brother was the family that Jesus loved. They had all loveworthy characters even by Him. The advantages of celibacy are threefold--1. It is a state of larger liberty.2. It allows more money to give away.3. It affords more time for direct work for God. The dangers are twofold--1. For the women; they are liable to become shallow and frivolous, mere butterflies or wasps. 2. For the men; they are liable to become selfish and sensual, mere octopi, grasping all for their own self-indulgence. The one safeguard is to live close to Christ. (R. A. Norris.) 1 Timothy 4:4-5 For every creature of God is good.Our charter of freedom In meeting the heresy which he foresaw, the apostle asserted one of the noblest principles in our heritage as Christians: “ Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.” In other words, a common meal may become a sacrament to us if it be rightly received: and to a true follower of Christ no relationship will prove more saintly than that between husband and wife; nothing more pure than fatherly and motherly love; nothing more promotive of spiritual life than the duties and responsibilities of sons and daughters to their parents. All things and all relationships may become holy to us. This was the teaching of Paul, and of his Lord and ours. You see, then, that Paul wisely meets the error by stating the truth, which must conquer it. I. The explanation of this principle. The apostle maintained a truth, which being received will always save the Church from the old error, in whatever form it comes. He declared that everything was made by God, and that everything God made was good, and only became bad when used in a wrong spirit. Our heavenly Father would have us take His gifts as constituting a holy eucharist, bringing blessing to us and evoking praise and thanks to Him. A truth which condemns alike the ascetic in the Romish Church, and the Plymouth Brother, who thinks that business is worldly, social joys pernicious, and newspapers fatal to one’ s spiritual welfare. Be brave and be trustful in the use of all that God has given you. It was characteristic of the religious faith of the Hebrews that it maintained the doctrine, that all things were of God; that there was one Creator, all-wise and all-good. II. The application of this principle.1. In its application to the natural world it is doubtless generally believed amongst us. Flowers and fruits, and golden corn and waving trees, all originated in God’ s thought, and are the products of His laws. But do not these words of Paul warrant us in going further? Is not the ever-living, ever-present God, who makes the flowers and rules the world, the ordainer of our lot, the appointer of our circumstances? And if this be so, does not belief in it give sacredness to earthly duties, and dignity to those which are most trivial? 2. Make application of this truth to the occupation of life. There are times when we feel as if we could do better work than falls to our share. In the depressed condition of commerce especially, well-educated men are forced to take up employment which leaves their best and most cultivated powers unused. But we believe that what God has ordained, as well as what He has created, will prove to be good and best in the long run “ that drudgery is as Divine as dignity; and that training for the hereafter is more valuable than triumph here. Everything depends on how you receive and do your work. You may go to your office as a grumbling slave, or you may go as Christ’ s happy servant. No occupation (unless there be sin in it) is to be spurned, no creature of God is to be rejected,” but we are to say with the apostle, I know, and am persuaded of the Lord Jesus, ‘ that there is nothing unclean of itself.’“ Evil is not in the thing, but in the spirit which wrongly receives, or uses, the thing. III. The testing power of this principle. Nothing is to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving. But that implies that you ought to reject what you cannot receive with thanksgiving to God. Prayer and thanksgiving to God may be to you what the legendary Eastern king found his formula to be, for when a cup of poison was put within his reach, and he took it into his hand, he named the name of God and made the sign of the cross over it, according to his constant custom, and the poisoned chalice was suddenly shattered in his hand and all the poison was spilled. Name God’ s name over everything doubtful, and no poison of sin shall hurt you. IV. The twofold reason given for this principle. In the fifth verse the apostle explains more fully how common things are made sacred. I say advisedly made sacred, for the word he uses means just that. It does not signify that the things are declared to be holy, but that they are actually made holy by the Word of God and prayer.1. Now the “ Word of God” is not the utterance of His name over food as a sort of talisman. The allusion is to “ the Word,” or command of God, which expressly gave permission and authority to man to use whatever was suitable for him in the vegetable and in the animal kingdom--“ Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” That Divine ordinance makes all things sacred for the use of man; but man’ s loyal and grateful acceptance of it must be combined with the ordinance, in order to make his use of things a right and not a usurpation. Hence the apostle says, everything is made sacred by the Word of God. 2. And prayer, and these which God has joined let no man put asunder. In the former phrase you see the top of the ladder which reaches heaven, in the latter you see the foot of it resting on the earth--and to a prayerless man it is only a vision of glory beyond his reach. God’ s Word to you bestows the gift, but your word to God must appropriate the gift, or else it is not sacred and Divine. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Water the good creature of God A minister who had lately occupied the pulpit of a brother was dining with the family of the absent minister, when the conversation turned upon the subject of teetotalism. The lady who presided at the table said, “ Ah! I do not like your doctrines; you go too far in refusing the good creatures of God.” No notice was taken of the remark for some time; the minister kept on with his dinner, but at last he said, “ Pray, madam, can you tell me who made this?” pointing to a glass of water that stood before him. The lady replied, “ Why, God, I suppose.” “ Then,” said the minister, “ Madam, I think you do us an injustice when you accuse us of refusing the good creatures of God.” Silence again reigned. By and by he said, “ Madam, can you tell me who made yours?” pointing to the glass of beer that the lady preferred. “ I can’ t exactly say I can. “ Then, madam, replied he,” allow me to say there is some apparent inconsistency in your first remark. You prefer taking a thing man has made to that which God has bountifully provided, and yet you accuse me of rejecting God’ s creatures, because I prefer water to beer. Madam, I leave the matter to your more serious consideration.” The lady has since seen her error, and joined the ranks of the total abstainers. If it be received with thanksgiving. Grace at meals I. What the scriptures teach.1. That it consecrates food to a holy use (1 Samuel 9:13; Matthew 15:36; 1 Corinthians 10:30-31; 1 Timothy 4:4-5).2. That danger or the need of utmost haste should not interrupt it. Acts 27:35.3. That it is a religious duty (Romans 14:6; Colossians 3:17; 1 Timothy 4:3).4. That we do not live by bread alone (Matthew 4:4). II. Reasons for saying grace.1. Because we have health.2. Because we have appetite.3. Because we have food.4. Because we depend upon God’ s bounty for the providential supply of daily food (Psalms 145:15-16).5. Because analogy confirms its practice. When we receive presents from friends, it is a pleasure to express our thankfulness; how much more to acknowledge our gratitude to God for food to nourish us and for temporal comforts. III. What its omission shows.1. That we are unrenewed in heart.2. Or, that we are thoughtless and ungrateful. How base a thing is ingratitude. How inconsistent in a professor of religion. IV. benefits.1. It sets a good example and lets others know that we are the Lord’ s.2. It promotes gratitude.3. It promotes morality and religion in the family. (L. O. Thompson.) .A lesson in thanksgiving King Alphonso X., surnamed “ The Wise,” succeeded to the throne of Leon and Castile in 1252. On learning that his pages neglected to ask the Divine blessing before partaking of their daily meals, he was deeply grieved and sought diligently to point out to them the evil of this omission. At length he succeeded in finding a plan. He invited the pages of his court to dine with him. A bountiful repast was spread, and when they were all assembled around the table the king gave a signal that all was in readiness for them to begin. They all enjoyed the rich feast, but not one remembered to ask God’ s blessing on his food. Just then, unexpectedly to the thoughtless guests, entered a poor, ragged beggar, who unceremoniously seated himself at the royal table, and ate and drank undisturbed, to his heart’ s content. Surprise and astonishment were depicted on every countenance. The pages looked first at the king, then gazed upon the audacious intruder, expecting momentarily that his majesty would give orders to have him removed from the table. Alphonso, however, kept silence; while the beggar unabased by the presence of royalty ate all he desired. When his hunger and thirst were appeased he rose, and without a word of thanks departed from the palace. “ What a despicable, mean fellow!” cried the boys. Calmly the good king rose, and with much earnestness said: “ Boys, bolder and more audacious than this beggar have you all been. Every day you sit down to a table supplied by the bounty of your heavenly Father, yet you ask not His blessing, and leave it without expressing to Him your gratitude. Yes, each and all of you should be heartily ashamed of your conduct, which was far worse than was the poor beggar’ s.” 1 Timothy 4:6-10 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things.Counsels to God’ s servants The wise counsels given here to Timothy have their value in every age, and in every land, for those who are called upon to teach and warn their fellows. I. Make known the truth, and the truth will strengthen you. “ If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be nourished.” The verb used by Paul does not signify, as our translation of it does, the reminding people of what they knew already but had forgotten; it simply means that the doctrine unfolded in the previous verses was to be presented in a suitable way to the minds of others.1. It is to be noted that neither here nor elsewhere was Timothy called upon to be a dictator, but a teacher, he was to give counsels rather than commands. Religious truth demands the willing assent of mind and of conscience, and is valueless if it is imposed as a creed by force or fraud. Like the germ of life in a seed of corn it must be received into a kindly soil; for only when soil and seed work together is a harvest possible. You may build a wall or a house on any soil--clay, or rock, or chalk--delving away till a smooth surface is prepared to receive the bricks and mortar superimposed upon it, and the stability of your building will not be much affected by the nature of the ground. But it is not thus you can get a harvest. A harvest cannot be had on every soil, because it is the product of life, and life needs to be in contact with certain forces before it can multiply itself. So in the higher sphere. You can make a child learn a creed and repeat it without fault, but that mental structure is only like the dead work of the builder. Truth needs to be welcomed by love, and thought, and will, as the seed must be received into good soil, and then the increase comes. 2. Observe also the reflex action of such teaching. If you put others in mind of these things you will yourself be “ nourished.” This is but throwing into another form the familiar truths, “ There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth” ; “ Give and it shall be given you.” How true this is, especially in mental and spiritual experience. We give our sympathy, without stint, to some one in trouble, and our tenderness of feeling is thereby intensified. We use what little knowledge we have of God’ s Word, or of Christian experience, and our knowledge grows. II. Reject the false and trivial for the true and real.1. Timothy is warned against “ profane and old wives’ fables,” or in modern parlance, against stories which are the veriest chatter of old women. Probably Paul alludes to the fables and endless genealogies of which he elsewhere speaks. Foolish and trivial discussions and fanciful theories have often been allowed to overlay the truth of God, to its complete hiding, or at least to its sad enfeeblement. They are like a heap of decaying refuse covering the verdant grass, whose pale and enfeebled shoots show what its effect has been even after it has been cleared away. Let the truth about sin, and about Christ the Saviour from sin, be kept in the light; and beware lest it be covered over and forgotten under oratorical prettinesses, or philosophical speculations. 2. The man of God has something better to do than amuse his imagination or the imagination of others, and must “ exercise himself rather unto godliness.” God does not ask us to give up pleasures or even follies for the mere sake of cultivating an ascetic temper, but in order that we may be the more free for higher pursuits and a nobler service, knowing that those who would attain unto godliness must “ exercise” themselves thereunto. To spend the week in thoughtlessness and triviality, and then to sit with inert mind under the preaching of the truth on Sunday, with an occasional spasm of repentance, or a feeble attempt at the repetition of a prayer, is only to mock God with unreality. III. Keep the body in its true place as subordinate to the spiritual life. The Revised Version is to be preferred to the Authorized in its rendering of the eighth verse, “ bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things.” The apostle’ s reference is not to the asceticism which by flagellations and vigils kept the body under, but to the gymnastic exercises of the athlete, of which he had been reminded by the verb used in the preceding verse. IV. Let hope in the living god be your inspiration in labour and suffering. “ For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.” This verse explains what Paul meant by living a life of godliness. “ Life” is not mere existence, however prolonged, nor mere enjoyment of existence; but existence used for others, in the strength and under the blessing of God. The true saint “ labours and suffers reproach” --or rather, “ toils and strives” --in the service of his God; and he is not troubled when ill-requited, nor disheartened by seeming failure, because he trusts in the living God, in whom he has an endless heritage of peaceful and most blessed life. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) A good minister of Jesus Christ I. A man’ s goodness as a minister of Christ is disclosed in the faithfulness of his subordination to the authority of Christ. II. A man’ s goodness as a minister of Christ is disclosed in the persistency of his adherence to the doctrine of Christ. III. A man’ s goodness as a minister of Christ is disclosed in the steadfastness of his imitation of the example of christ. IV. Lastly, a man’ s goodness as a minister of Christ is disclosed IN THE devoutness of his dependence on the grace of Christ. (J. Brock, D. D.) Nourished in the words of faith M’ Cheyne seems invariably to have applied for his personal benefit what he gave out to his people. To do so was a fundamental rule with him; and all pastors will feel that, if they are to prosper in their own souls, they must so use the Word--sternly refusing to admit the idea of feeding others until satiated themselves. And for similar ends, it is needful that we let the truth we hear preached sink down into our own souls. We, as well as our people, must drink in the falling showers. Mr. M’ Cheyne did so. It is common to find him speaking thus, “ July 31, Sabbath Afternoon, won Judas betraying Christ: much more tenderness than ever I felt before. Oh, that I might abide in the bosom of Him who washed Judas’ feet, and dipped His hand in the same dish with him, and warned him, and grieved over him--that I might catch the infection of His love, of His tenderness, so wonderful, so unfathomable!” (Memoir of M’ Cheyne.) Soul food A great man had a camel that was wasting away, until it seemed at the point of death. “ See,” cried he, to the simple son of the desert, “ here is my camel: I have tried cordials and elixir, balsams and lotions. Alas! all are in vain.” The plain man looked at the hollow sides, the staring bones, the projecting ribs. “ Oh, most learned philosopher,” said he, “ thy camel needeth but one thing!” “ What is it, my son?” asked the old, wise man, eagerly. “ Food, sir--good food, and plenty of it.” “ Dear me,” cried the philosopher, “ I never thought of that!” Friend, are you in low spirits? There’ s your cure. You don’ t want pity, don’ t deserve it. Give your starved soul more prayer, more communion with God, more meditation on the Word. Then go and try to do good to somebody about you. That’ s the sure cure for your misery. 1 Timothy 4:7 And exercise thyself rather unto godliness.The believer exercising himself unto godliness I. The nature of the duty which the text recommends.1. This duty includes a strict and impartial inquiry into our own hearts, as to what may be therein likely to prevent our advancement in godliness. 2. This duty requires an habitual attention to the duties of the closet. 3. This duty involves the exercise of much holy watchfulness and care in the ordinary pursuits of business, so that they may not be permitted to take away the heart. 4. This duty will call for occasional communion with our Christian friends. 5. This duty requires an earnest solicitude for the right improvement of our respective trials. 6. This duty demands of us a careful avoidance of such companions, conversation, and pursuits, as we have found in time past to be injurious to the advancement of personal piety. II. The motives which should induce us to the performance of this duty.1. We shall do well to remember that no great advancement will be made in godliness without this exercise. 2. Let us seriously consider that our progress in true godliness will make ample amends for whatever difficulties we may have to encounter in its attainment. 3. There is much reason to believe that this exercise unto godliness will never be sincerely made in vain. 4. It is of importance to consider that unless we exercise ourselves unto godliness, so far from making further advances in the Divine life, we shall go backward, not forward. 5. It is worthy of our serious regard, that so far as we feel an unwillingness to exercise ourselves unto godliness, we give affecting proof of the want of a principle of godliness in our hearts. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.) The law of spiritual growth The man who is content to pass along with an aimless existence; or, only seeking daily supplies for daily needs, never looking hopefully into the future, and never seeking to excel; does injustice to his higher nature, and grovels on a plane but little elevated above the demands of animal existence. No aim can so call out all the powers of the human mind, and soul, as the aim after God-likeness. For what is godliness? Is it not God-likeness? a seeking to be like God? Yet the question at once arises, How can man be like God? God is infinite, man is finite. Yet with all this disparity, the Bible exhorts us to set the Lord always before us, and to grow up into His likeness. What may be termed the physical attributes of God, those which pertain to Him as Maker of all things, Ruler over suns and systems, the Upholder of the universe; these man can neither comprehend nor copy, they are beyond his reach. It is God’ s moral qualities that we are to copy and emulate. All of God’ s moral attributes are comprised in His holiness. For holiness is moral perfection. As applied to God, it means that wholeness and completeness of the Divine nature, from which nothing can be taken, to which nothing can be added. It includes, therefore, truth, love, mercy, goodness, and the like; because the absence of either would mar the wholeness and completeness of the Divine character. The presence of every virtue is needed to make complete the full circle of holiness, and they are all found in perfect fulness in God. The man, then, who sets before himself the aim to be God-like, places above him the grandest aim that a created mind can reach after. Godliness, then, as spoken of in the text, is only another name for holiness in action, i.e., practical piety. But you may say this holiness or godliness is not attainable. It is not to the full extent of the original which you are told to copy, because there are two elements in God’ s holiness which can never exist in man so long as he tabernacles in the flesh--the complete absence of sin, and the presence in full perfection of every virtue. The result of this godliness will show itself in a variety of ways. It will give a man the victory over himself. The cultivation of this holiness will enable a man to overcome the world. This godliness, so grand in itself, and in its results, can be secured only by exercising ourselves to attain it. It does not come of itself, nor by retired meditation, nor by earnest prayer, nor by diligent reading of God’ s Word. All these things are aids and adjuncts, but none of them, nor all combined, will give us godliness. It is the result of moral principles put into active exercise; and demands the full bent, and strenuous exertion of the mind. There is much meaning in the original word which the apostle here uses, and which is translated “ exercise.” The literal rendering is--Be gymnasts in godliness. The idea, then, of the apostle is, that in order to attain unto godliness, we must be moral gymnasts, willing to use as severe discipline; to undergo as painful privations; to bear as torturing an exercise of flesh and blood; as the gymnast did, who trained himself to win the wreath of ivy at the Isthmian festival, or the garland of wild olives which crowned the conqueror at Olympia. And why should we not: The aims are infinitely higher, and the rewards are infinitely greater. The arena in which we are to perform this exercise is in the Church of God. Thus true religion is a very personal and practical thing. Personal; because it is thyself that is to do the exercise; it is an individual act, and no amount of exercise done by those around you in the same family, the same Church, can avail to your benefit. It is thyself that must be the moral gymnast in this spiritual conflict. And it is practical; because the things in which we are to exercise ourselves unto godliness are all around our daily life. And to this repressive work, which demands constant exercise, there is to be added an aggressive work; a watching of opportunities for good, a going out into the field of active Christian exertion. Moral powers, like the muscles of the body, are developed by exercise. The unused arm shrivels up; the unused hand loses its cunning; the unused brain loses its force. Our moral character is a thing of growth, and of slow growth; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. Character is principle put into practice and developed under trial. (Bishop Stevens.) Exercise unto godliness Religion is not a dead, inoperative thing; but vital, active, energetic, self-diffusive. There is an exercise unto health. This is necessary for students and persons of sedentary occupations, and the neglect of it has ruined many a fine constitution. But what is the health of the body to that of the soul? What is the discipline of the muscular system to that of the moral affections? There is an exercise unto gain. This is one of man’ s chief pursuits; and what efforts have we all witnessed, what strenuous and unresting toil, what sleepless vigilance and incessant study, to lay up treasures here below! But what are earthly goods to heavenly? There is an exercise unto pleasure. There is an exercise unto knowledge. This is nobler, but not the noblest. Wisdom is better than knowledge, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There is an exercise unto glory. This was the all-controlling and all-absorbing pursuit of the great military nations of antiquity, and some of them made all virtue to consist in this single aim. There is an exercise unto patriotism. This is a worthy competition, by all admired and praised. How many of you who hear me have begun this exercise? Be not ashamed of it, nor weary in well-doing. It is a holy service, and fraught with perfect freedom. How many of you have hitherto neglected this exercise? Enter upon it at once. It must be done, or all is lost. (J. Cross, D. D.) A heart exercised unto godliness necessary to make a good minister I. I am to show what this heart exercise unto godliness is.1. It pre-supposeth a man to be truly godly. That professor or minister that is not godly can never exercise himself to godliness. It is impossible to act without a principle of acting, and exercise doth naturally require a power of it. He can never exercise himself to running, that wants feet to run with; or to wrestling, who wants arms; nor the ungodly exercise themselves to godliness; on the contrary, “ an heart they have exercised with covetous practices.” 2. Making religion our business. In this the apostle gave himself a pattern to us. “ Herein,” says he, “ do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offence, toward God and toward men.” Godliness should be our great work, how to advance it in ourselves and others. Now we will make religion our business, if we take it not only by fits and starts, but make it our daily work, as men exercise themselves in their callings. 3. It imports a vigorous following of it, as wrestlers and runners ply their work vigorously. To be a little more particular, I will touch at four things. (1) We should exercise ourselves to the knowledge of these things pertaining to godliness, that we may be full of eyes, and “ by reason of use, have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (2) We should be exercised in combating the lusts of our hearts, beginning the war against the devil at home. Like Paul, “ we should keep our bodies under, and bring them into subjection; lest that by any means, when we have preached to others, we ourselves should be castaways.” (3) We should be exercised to the performing of our duties, and that in a spiritual manner. (4) We should be exercised in the life of faith, without which, in vain will we attempt the other parts of the exercise of godliness. II. To show the necessity of the exercise of the heart unto godliness, to make a good minister.1. It is necessary to make a man faithful in his work, and to cause him to take God for his party, with whom he hath to do. 2. It is necessary to give a man a sense of the weight of the work, and the worth of souls, without which he cannot be a good minister (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). It is a weighty work. 3. It is very necessary to fit a man to suffer for truth. 4. It is most necessary to fit us for the performance of the several duties of our calling, whether in preaching, administering the sacraments, visiting families, or the sick. (T. Boston, D. D.) A heart exercised unto godliness necessary to make a good Christian The apostle gives us here a short, but substantial description of the Christian life. It is an exercise, it is not a name. Again, Christianity is not an easy exercise, but such as wrestlers or runners used, exerting all their might and skill to gain the victory. The true Christian life is heart exercise to godliness. For illustrating this I shall-- I. Show some weighty truths imported in this.1. Habitual godliness is absolutely necessary to salvation. 2. No person goes to heaven sleeping. The Christian life is an exercise. 3. They must have true courage that shall come to heaven. They have to wrestle also with the world. No man can go through it to heaven, but he will find it a place filled with snares, and that will require courage to face the difficulties in it. 4. People must either give up the name of Christians, or else abandon their old exercise to sin and ungodliness. II. Show some things in which the exercise to godliness consists.1. In carrying on a constant trade with heaven, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the exercised soul is employed in exporting his weakness, poverty, and wants, and importing strength and fulness from God. “ They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” 2. In a spiritual performance of duties. (1) In getting the soul fixed in that point, what is sin and what is duty in particular cases, before we put hand to it. (2) In doing the duty because it is the will of God, which must be not only the rule but also the reason of your duties, otherwise they are but bodily exercise. (3) In doing our duty to the glory of God. (4) In doing our duties in the strength of Christ. (T. Boston, D. D.) 1 Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things.The profit of godliness Not only is this the testimony of a great man, but the testimony of a good man, the testimony of a Christian man; a man, therefore, who had experience as to the utility of that concerning which he makes affirmation. He did not speak on the report of others, but he had brought the matter to the test of personal experiment; and from what he had realized in himself he could say, “ Godliness is profitable unto all things.” I. What is godliness? It is real, vital, experimental, practical religion--genuine Christianity--a religion concerning God, the great, the wise, the blessed God.1. Godliness comprehends a genuine fear. For where there is no fear of God there is no genuine piety--there is no religion. 2. Godliness means the saving knowledge of God, “ whom to know is life eternal.” 3. And then, where there is knowledge of God, saving knowledge, there must be love to God; and no man can love an unknown object. 4. Then just in proportion as we love God (and this is essential to godliness) we shall be concerned to entertain intercourse with God. 5. Then perceive that this will lead to conformity to God--likeness to God. Such, indeed, is the very nature, such the constitution of the human mind, that it contracts a resemblance to those objects with which from inclination it is the most conversant. Apply the remark where you will, it will hold. Look at the man of this world; where are his thoughts? Why, the world is his object, and he becomes more and more worldly: and so of every other class. Now look at the man of God: his thoughts rise to God, his affections are spiritually placed on God: there is his object, there is his all; and, beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus, he catches the impress of it. 6. Let me say, too, that all Scriptural piety is practical. All that godliness which is genuine must lead to holiness of life and conversation. II. What, then, are the advantages of godliness? “ Godliness is profitable.” As though the apostle had said, “ It is not merely a very harmless and innocent thing, and therefore no person should be afraid of it.” This would have been very low praise, if it had been praise at all. It is not merely said “ that it is profitable for some things” ; nor is it affirmed concerning it that it is profitable for many things; but the affirmation is without qualification, “ Godliness is profitable for all things.” “ The life that now is.” You cannot hear this without at once in your minds adverting to the beneficial influence of godliness on a man’ s external circumstances. Then consistent godliness gives a man character. Besides, godliness saves a man from intemperance: and what a vast benefit is this! When a man becomes truly godly, he becomes industrious. You never saw an idle Christian. And then the Lord will bless the man that fears Him. Besides, godliness is beneficial considered in its influence in preserving and prolonging the life that now is. Then is it not true that ungodliness tends to impair and destroy life? Godliness is profitable in its beneficial influence on all the relations of life--on all the grades in society. Let me just add here that godliness is profitable at all the periods of life. It is profitable in the morning of life. Oh! how it brightens the morning: and is not morning the best part of the day? And if it be bright in the morning, oh! may it not bless the noon? Then if it brighten the morn and bless the noon, how will it cheer the evening of life! Learn the inconsistency and folly of those who, while they admit the profit of godliness, make no effort to avail themselves of its advantages. Let me recommend this religion to you on the principle of self-interest. (R. Newton.) The advantage of godliness Among the other advantages which it secures on this side eternity, one is the improvement of the human mind--I mean of his intellectual qualities: the improvement of his judgment, his discrimination, his mental faculties. I shall draw your attention to four reasons why the religion of Christ, when received into the heart, improves the human mind. I. Its tendency is to subjugate the passions. It is more than its tendency; it is its direct effect. Not that man is wholly without restraint; there are three things which may operate to check the evil passions of the heart.1. Conscience has some power.2. Reason.3. Self-interest. Self-interest can do something to check the passions, because it will say, “ This will do you an injury.” But they are unable to do this perfectly, and that for two reasons.1. That passion is greatly assisted by powerful allies. Satan sits at the right hand of the human heart, blowing up the coals of evil which are in the heart into a flame of sin, which marks the demon’ s power over fallen man. But religion comes to counteract this; the grace of God, by applying to the mind Divine truth and disposing the mind to love and embrace it, improves the mind-- (1) By strengthening it. It gives such views, and principles, and motives, as direct the conduct. (2) By enlightening it. The tendency of religion on the mind is to make it see more accurately, reason more correctly, and feel more properly. II. It presents right principles of action.1. It presents a principle extremely weighty to regulate the mind aright and make it decide right on such things as it is called to judge respecting it. It enables the mind to realize eternity; to be influenced by it at such times and in such places as an individual living in preparation for it should be influenced and guided in relation to an appearance before the great tribunal. 2. Religion produces the realization of another object which tends to guide the mind aright. What is that which will decide the rectitude of the whole life? The apostle has stated it--“ Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” ; because all that is not done according to this motive is not done according to the will of God. 3. Religion influences the mind and will aright, and therefore elevates the mind, because it furnishes a directory--the Scriptures. Religion has this influence, because-- III. It presents to the mind the highest subjects of contemplation.1. It brings to the mind the things of God. It takes the mind, by contemplation, up into the mount, as Moses was taken up to converse with God; or as the disciples were taken up into the Mount of Transfiguration to behold the glory of Christ and to hear Him talk with Moses and Elias. It has an elevating effect. 2. It makes the mind serious; and seriousness improves the mind. Trifling is the mark of a light mind, and does not improve it. Religion, as it induces habits of seriousness, cannot fail to improve the mind. 3. The study of God’ s Word tends to strengthen the mind; and that which strengthens the mind improves it. 4. Religion gives acquiescence to the will of God; and this improves the mind. The mind that is opposed to the will of God is always battling; but the mind that yields to the will of God is always going right. IV. By the internal peace, the peace of soul which religion is calculated to produce, and which it actually does produce; it raises the human mind. When the mind is at peace, it can operate calmly, and is therefore more likely to regulate the judgment and guide it aright. It has often been remarked what effect religion produces in seasons of great danger. This was strikingly observed in the case of the loss of the Kent East Indiaman. There were some persons on board under the influence of religion; and some of these, even females, became objects of admiration, because of their remarkable presence of mind. And this power of religion has often been remarked in our pious soldiers and sailors: their minds have been composed in the hour of danger and of battle; and they have been distinguished by their energy and calmness. In fact, almost all that distinguishes the rational from the irrational is seen in the Christian. The Christian in this world is always in danger. We cannot but observe, then--1. How superior is the state of the human mind in those who have religion to the state of the mind in those who have it not. 2. In attentively reading the history of the world, we may state, without fear Of contradiction, that the minds of men have been improved in proportion to the degree of religion they have possessed. (R. Sibthorp.) The advantages of practical religion 1. “ Godliness is profitable,” as it tends greatly to alleviate the sorrows of life. 2. Godliness is profitable because it imparts sweetness to the enjoyments and an additional relish to the pleasures of life. It is a libel on piety, to represent it as something gloomy and morose. 3. “ Godliness,” because it confers upon its possessors pleasures peculiarly its own, “ is profitable.” 4. Godliness is profitable, as it disarms death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom. 5. “ Godliness is profitable,” for it prepares its possessor for eternal glory. From this subject we learn the importance--the value of religion. But, in fine, if religion is so profitable, I need scarcely, except for the purpose of excitement, remind you that it is personal religion that alone can be beneficial to any of you. (Dr. Beattie.) Godliness I. The nature of godliness.1. Knowledge of the perfections of God--of the person and work of Christ as the Mediator--of man’ s state as a fallen creature--of his duty and privileges as redeemed by Christ. (1) As to the perfections of God. This knowledge is to be found nowhere but in the Book of God. (2) Here alone we obtain a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) Here we are made acquainted with man’ s state as a fallen creature. (4) As to his duty and privileges. Now, the knowledge of all this is essential to true religion in any soul. 2. Obedience to the commands of God. 3. The transformation of the soul into the image of God. II. The fruits, or tendencies and effects, of godliness.1. For the increase of worldly comfort.2. For the establishment of respectability of character in the world.3. For the improvement of the human mind. (P. M’ Owan.) The gain of godliness I. And, first, what is godliness? It is a real belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; our Maker, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. It is believing in Him, as He is made known to us in the Bible, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us see, whether, even in this world, godliness is not great gain. In the first place, the Scripture gives a general promise that the godly man shall have good things in this world.1. For godliness fits a man for every station. It is that character on which favour, honour, and esteem surely follow. 2. The godly man alone really enjoys the things which God gives him here. 3. But further, the godly man alone has the privilege of know ing that all things shall work together for his good. 4. But after all, if you would know the great gain of godliness, even in this life, you must try it. II. And this word brings us to the full gain of godliness. If in this life only the believer had hope in Christ, he might still be deemed of all men most miserable. (E. Blencowe, M. A.) That godliness generally makes men happy in this life I. It is to be observed that under the Jewish dispensation temporal promises were most expressly made to obedience, and most particularly with regard to the national success of the righteous against their public enemies (Deuteronomy 32:29). II. Therefore it is to be observed in the next place, and the observation holds more universally true, that religion and virtue, whenever they obtain generally so as to prevail in a nation, do bring along with them very great temporal blessings. III. As to the case of particular and private persons, about whom is much the greatest difficulty, there are several considerations necessary to be taken in in order to determine with any exactness how far godliness having the promise of the present life can be applied to them in this mixed and disorderly state of things. And--1. Religion and piety does not generally alter the natural circumstances or the relative states and conditions of men. If a man be poor or be a servant or slave, his being pious and religious will not certainly make him rich or gain him his freedom. 2. Godliness and true holiness does not exempt men from the unavoidable casualties of nature, such as sickness, death, and the like. 3. Righteousness and piety do not exempt men from such afflictions as God sees necessary either to make trial of their virtue or to make an example of it. 4. Religion and virtue do not always secure men from all the consequences of their own former sins. 5. Righteousness and true holiness do not secure men from the consequences of other men’ s sins also: from oppression and unrighteous judgment. (S. Clarke, D. D.) The profitableness of godliness How generally men, with most unanimous consent, are devoted to profit, as to the immediate scope of their designs and aim of their doings, if with the slightest attention we view what is acted on this theatre of human affairs, we cannot but discern. Profit is therefore so much affected and pursued, because it is, or doth seem, apt to procure or promote some good desirable to us. It hath been ever a main obstruction to the practice of piety, that it hath been taken for no friend, or rather for an enemy to profit; as both unprofitable and prejudicial to its followers: and many semblances there are countenancing that opinion. For religion seemeth to smother or to slacken the industry and alacrity of men in following profit many ways: by charging them to be content with a little, and careful for nothing; by diverting their affections and cares from worldly affairs to matters of another nature, place, and time, prescribing in the first place to seek things spiritual, heavenly. It favoureth this conceit to observe that often bad men by impious courses do appear to thrive and prosper; while good men seem for their goodness to suffer, or to be nowise visibly better for it, enduring much hardship and distress.1. We may consider that piety is exceeding useful for all sorts of men, in all capacities, all states, all relations; fitting and disposing them to manage all their respective concernments, to discharge all their peculiar duties, in a proper, just, and decent manner. If then it be a gross absurdity to desire the fruits, and not to take care of the root, not to cultivate the stock, whence they sprout; if every prince gladly would have his subjects loyal and obedient, every master would have his servants honest, diligent, and observant, every parent would have his children officious and grateful, every man would have his friend faithful and kind, every one would have those just and sincere, with whom he doth negotiate or converse; if any one would choose to be related to such, and would esteem their relation a happiness; then consequently should every man in reason strive to further piety, from whence alone those good dispositions and practices do proceed. 2. Piety doth fit a man for all conditions, qualifying him to pass through them all with the best advantage, wisely, cheerfully, and safely; so as to incur no considerable harm or detriment by them. Is a man prosperous, high, or wealthy in condition? Piety guardeth him from all the mischiefs incident to that state, and disposeth him to enjoy the best advantages thereof. It keepeth him from being swelled and puffed up with vain conceit. It preserveth him from being perverted or corrupted with the temptations to which that condition is most liable; from luxury, from sloth, from stupidity, from forgetfulness of God, and of himself; maintaining among the floods of plenty a sober and steady mind. Such a wondrous virtue hath piety to change all things into matter of consolation and joy. No condition in effect can be evil or sad to a pious man: his very sorrows are pleasant, his infirmities are wholesome, his wants enrich him, his disgraces adorn him, his burdens ease him; his duties are privileges, his falls are the grounds of advancement, his very sins (as breeding contrition, humility, circumspection, and vigilance), do better and profit him: whereas impiety doth spoil every condition, doth corrupt and embase all good things, doth embitter all the conveniences and comforts of life. 3. Piety doth virtually comprise within it all other profits, serving all the designs of them all: whatever kind or desirable good we can hope to find from any other profit, we may be assured to enjoy from it. He that hath it is ipso facto vastly rich, is entitled to immense treasures of most precious wealth; in comparison whereto all the gold and all the jewels in the world are mere baubles. He hath interest in God, and can call Him his, who is the all, and in regard to whom all things existent are “ less than nothing.” The pious man is in truth most honourable. The pious man is also the most potent man: he hath a kind of omnipotency, because he can do whatever he will, that is, what he ought to do; and because the Divine power is ever ready to assist him in his pious enterprises, so that “ he can do all things by Christ that strengtheneth him.” The pious man also doth enjoy the only true pleasures; hearty, pure, solid, durable pleasures. As for liberty, the pious man most entirely and truly doth enjoy that; he alone is free from captivity to that cruel tyrant Satan, from the miserable slavery to sin, from the grievous dominion of lust and passion. As for all other profits, secluding it, they are but imaginary and counterfeit, mere shadows and illusions, yielding only painted shows instead of substantial fruit. 4. That commendation is not to be omitted which is nearest at hand, and suggested by St. Paul himself to back this assertion concerning the universal profitableness of piety; “ For,” saith he, “ it hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” As for the blessings of this life, although God hath not promised to load the godly man with affluence of worldly things, yet hath He promised to furnish him with whatever is needful or convenient for him, in due measure and season, the which he doth best understand. Particularly there are promised to the pious man, A supply of all wants. “ The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish.” A protection in all dangers.--“ The eye of the Lord is on them that fear Him, on them that hope in His mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.” Guidance in all his undertakings and proceedings.--“ The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” Success and prosperity in his designs.--“ Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” Comfortable enjoying the fruits of his industry.--“ Thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands.” Satisfaction of all reasonable desires.--“ The desire of the righteous shall be granted.” Firm peace and quiet.--“ Great peace have they which love Thy law.” “ The fruit of righteousness is sowed in peace.” Joy and alacrity.--“ Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” Support and comfort in afflictions.--“ He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Deliverance from trouble.--“ Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Preservation and recovery from mishaps, or miscarriages.--“ Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.” Preferment of all sorts, to honour and dignity, to wealth and prosperity.--“ Wait on the Lord, and keep His way; and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land.” Long life.--“ The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.” A good name endureth after death.--“ The memory of the just is blessed.” Blessings entailed on posterity.--“ His seed shall be mighty on earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed.” “ The root of the righteous shall not be moved.” It is indeed more frequently, abundantly, and explicitly promised unto God’ s ancient people, as being a conditional ingredient of the covenant made with them, exhibited in that as a recompense of their external performance of religious works prescribed in their law. The gospel doth not so clearly propound it, or so much insist on it as not principally belonging to the evangelical covenant, the which, in reward to the performance of its conditions by us, peculiarly doth offer blessings spiritual, and relating to the future state; as also scarce deserving to be mentioned in comparison to those superior blessings. But infinitely more profitable it is, as “ having the promises of the future life,” or as procuring a title to those incomparably more excellent blessings of the other world; those “ indefectible treasures,” that “ incorruptible, undefiled, and never-fading inheritance, reserved in heaven for us.” (I. Barrow.) The profitableness of godliness 1. We may consider that religion doth prescribe the truest and best rules of action; thence enlightening our mind, and rectifying our practice in all matters, and on all occasions, so that whatever is performed according to it, is done well and wisely, with a comely grace in regard to others, with a cheerful satisfaction in our own mind, with the best assurance that things are here capable of, to find happy success and beneficial fruit. Of all things in the world there is nothing more generally profitable than light by it we converse with the world, and have all things set before us; by it we truly and easily discern things in their right magnitude, shape, and colour; by it we guide our steps safely in prosecution of what is good, and shunning what is noxious; by it our spirits are comfortably warmed and cheered, our life consequently, our health, our vigour, and activity, are preserved. The like benefits doth religion, which is the light of our soul, yield to it. Pious men are “ children of the light” ; pious works are works of light “ shining before men.” What therefore law and government are to the public, things necessary to preserve the world in order, peace, and safety (that men may know what to do, and distinguish what is their own), that is piety to each man’ s private state and to ordinary conversation: it freeth a man’ s own life from disorder and distraction; it prompteth men how to behave themselves toward one another with security and confidence. 2. We may consider more particularly, that piety yieldeth to the practiser all kind of interior content, peace, and joy; freeth him from all kinds of dissatisfaction, regret, and disquiet; which is an inestimably great advantage: for certainly the happiness and misery of men are wholly or chiefly seated and founded in the mind. If that is in a good state of health, rest, and cheerfulness, whatever the person’ s outward condition or circumstances be, he cannot be wretched: if that be distempered or disturbed, he cannot be happy. 3. Seeing we have mentioned happiness, or the summum bonum, the utmost scope of human desire, we do add, that piety doth surely confer it. Happiness, whatever it be, hath certainly an essential coherence with piety. These are reciprocal propositions, both of them infallibly true, he that is pious is happy; and, he that is happy is pious. All pious dispositions are fountains of pleasant streams, which by their confluence do make up a full sea of felicity. 4. It is a peculiar advantage of piety, that it furnisheth employment fit for us, worthy of us, hugely grateful and highly beneficial to us. Man is a very busy and active creature, which cannot live and do nothing, whose thoughts are in restless motion, whose desires are ever stretching at somewhat, who perpetually will be working either good or evil to himself; wherefore greatly profitable must that thing be which determineth him to act well, to spend his care and pain on that which is truly advantageous to him; and that is religion only. It alone fasteneth our thoughts, affections, and endeavours, on occupations worthy the dignity of our nature. 5. It is a considerable benefit of piety, that it affordeth the best friendships and sweetest society. (I. Barrow.) Temporal blessings, support under trouble, and sanctified afflictions I. Godliness is profitable for the obtaining of all temporal good things that we stand in need of. In that catalogue of the Christian’ s possessions and treasures, which St. Paul has drawn up (1 Corinthians 3:22).1. As to riches. “ The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich (Proverbs 10:22). To all this we may still add, that religion brings contentment to the mind, and “ godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). If it does not bring the estate to the mind, it brings the mind to the estate; and that is much the same thing, it is altogether as well. Thus it is that “ a little that a righteous man hath, is better than the riches of many wicked” (Psalms 37:16). And he is truly richer with a little, than the others are with a great deal. 2. To honour and good reputation. A blessing which the wise man rates at a higher price than gold and silver, or any of the riches of this world (Proverbs 22:1). 3. Pleasure. “ Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). (1) As to bodily health, without which we can neither enjoy ourselves, nor anything. (2) A peaceable mind, If the mind be not in tune, the sweetest harmony will make no music in our ears. I must not here pass by an objection or two which may possibly be made against the pleasantness of religion. One is, that it requires some difficult and distasteful duties, as repentance, self-denial and mortification. But as well may one object against the pleasantness of health, because it may be sometimes necessary to take distasteful medicines, either to recover or to preserve it. Another objection against the pleasure of godliness is taken from the uncomfortable lives of some godly persons. II. Godliness is profitable for the life that now is, to support us under troubles and afflictions whenever they befall us. Here let us inquire what those peculiar supports under afflictions are, which are the proper fruits of godliness. They are chiefly these--1. The testimony of a good conscience. This, St. Paul tells us was his rejoicing in all his tribulations, and at last in the near views of death (2 Corinthians 1:12). 2. A sense of pardon and reconciliation with God is a further support under worldly troubles. Pardon takes away the curse from affliction, and a sense of pardon is a sovereign balm to ease the anguish of the mind. 3. The comfortable hope of heaven, where these present afflictions shall be felt no more, and where they shall be abundantly compensated with fulness of joy for ever. 4. There are the supporting influences of the good spirit of God, which are promised in the gospel to all believers. III. That it secures a sanctified use of afflictions, as well as a happy issue of them; which is therefore a present, as well as a future benefit. (D. Jennings.) The present life 1. It is a mysterious life.2. It is a trying life.3. It is a preparatory life.4. It is a short life.5. It is a precarious life. (The Homilist.) Godliness I. The principle. II. The practice. Godliness must be exercised; religion is a personal matter. He must exercise himself vigorously. III. The profit. (D. Thomas.) The profit of godliness I. “Bodily exercise” is of considerable profit. St. Paul is speaking of the training in the gymnasium. He allows it profits a little. Yet it is not all. No man is necessarily better in heart and life for having the muscles of his arm increased in girth half an inch or an inch. A sound constitution does not necessarily involve goodness in character. If so the Kaffir or Zulu would be the best man upon earth, which he is not. “ Bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” The discipline of godliness does make a man better inwardly. And the goodness passes from the centre outwards. It includes even that measure of advantage which may be derived from the culture of the body. II. There is another view of this phrase, “ bodily exercise,” which we ought to notice before passing on. A large class of writers understand by it not so much athleticism as asceticism. The soul should bear empire over the body; but it should also reverence and care for the body. The laws of the body, of health, of sustenance are equally laws of God, with those of the soul. The perfection of manhood is attained when the laws of both, according to their kind and function, are duly observed. Asceticism is immoral, because it violates wantonly the law of God in one of the fairest provinces of His creation--viz., the delicate, sensitive, serviceable body of man. Yet even asceticism, in certain forms, profiteth a little. “ Allow not nature more than nature needs,” says Shakespeare. Self-denial in bodily indulgence might put some of us into more robust mental health, and impart to us a finer spiritual tone. I am not sure but that “ bodily discipline” might (as St. Paul says) “ profit a little.” If any bodily appetite or habit rises into mastery over the mind or soul, it must be put in check with a firm hand, and with patient self-denial. So far “ bodily exercise,” discipline, is not only profitable, but imperative. III. The higher principle including all that is serviceable in both athleticism and asceticism, and immeasurably more beside, is godliness. It grows also by use. “ Exercise thyself unto godliness.” We grow patient by being patient. We become industrious by refusing to be indolent and by working hard. We learn to love best by loving. We become religious by praying and communion with God. Begin to make God’ s law a ruling influence and power in your life. Think out what His will is about, say, that temptation which is coming to you to-morrow; then keep to His will, and pass the temptation by. That is the discipline of godliness. IV. This is profitable for all things--unlike athleticism, which profits only for soundness of health and toughness of muscle.1. For the body itself godliness is profitable. Disease, weakness, morbidness are far more the devil’ s work than God’ s. 2. For the mind. He who ordered the planets in their orbits, and the seasons in their unvarying round, has not left the human mind without its law; Godliness brings man into harmony with the Author of his being. 3. For faith. But godliness advances faith. The more godlike we grow, the simpler, clearer, stronger is our faith in God. Live holier lives, live less selfish lives, and you will believe more in God and His Son. 4. The affections. This great reverence for the God who is great and good and loving enlarges our heart and our affections. Godliness is instinctive chivalry. If by your evil passion and harshness, your self-indulgence, your weakness and wanton folly, you blight the lives of others, I tell you, you are ungodly men. Godliness is profitable to the home. 5. Business. Be a godly man. Fear God rather than turns of fortune or than opinion. De like God--true, reliable in your word and deeds. (A. J. Griffith.) The profitableness of godliness I. A man quickly learns if he wishes to live profitably he must have regard to law. We cannot violate law without suffering for it. Disobedience entails destruction, obedience informs with life. II. Let us carry this examination into greater detail. The most profitable human existence is that existence which secures the greatest benefit to the greatest number of faculties. If we resolve a human being into its elements, we shall find it divisible into body, mind, and soul, or, as some would put it, moral instincts. The true philosophy of living consists in the development of this tripartite. We pass, then, to consider the influence of rigidly religious life upon these sides of our nature.1. If we practise the precepts of the gospel we will eschew those evil acts which occasion uneasiness and remorse; our temperament will maintain an even tranquility, our happiness will be full and satisfying. It has been truly said that an atheistic age is a barren age. We may safely say, then, that for the growth of the mind a godly life is best. 2. But the mind sends down its roots deep into the encompassing body upon which it acts and is acted upon. Physiologists tell us that a healthy mind conduces to a healthy body. If a Christian life produces vigour and clearness of intellect, then it must have a similar effect on the body. A religious life, then, we assert to be physically beneficial. 3. Passing to the region of the spiritual we are relieved from all necessity for discussion. Spirituality can only exist amid holy influences. The man who sins deadens his moral instincts, makes them useless here, and entails the penalty which such misuse is visited with hereafter. 4. But we cannot have obtained anything like a reliable knowledge of the relative value of two courses of life if we have excluded from our calculations all thought of suffering and sorrow. As we cannot by human device stave off sorrow, it behoves us to consider how it can be most successfully met. Mr. Spurgeon has said that if we take our troubles to God He will carry them for us; but if we take them anywhere else they will roll back again. III. Passing from the individual man to his business interests, we proceed to consider whether godliness is inimical to worldly success now, all that Christianity enforces is the necessity of strict honesty. Religion will not transform the dunce into a genius, but sinfulness will transform the genius into a dunce. And if all things are considered, I feel confident that the just man gains in more than mere clear-headedness. Deceit is a most deceitful helper. Henry Ward Beecher tells a story of a man in the Canadian backwoods who, during the summer months, bad procured a stock of fuel sufficient to serve the winter’ s consumption. This man had a neighbour who was very indolent, but not very honest, and who, having neglected to provide against the winter storms, was mean enough to avail himself of his neighbour’ s supplies without the latter’ s permission or knowledge. Mr. Beecher states that it was found, on computation, that the thief had actually spent more time in watching for opportunities to steal, and laboured more arduously to remove the wood (to say nothing of the risk and penalty of detection), than had the man who in open daylight and by honest means had gathered it. And this is oftener the case than we are disposed to allow. What appear to be short cuts to wealth are never safe ones, and very generally they prove to be extremely circuitous. Relaxation, too, is necessary for all men. Consider, then, whether the frivolous and enervating gaiety so frequently indulged in, or the innocent and energizing merriment of the godly, will best enable a man to recuperate the waste occasioned by business life. IV. We cannot isolate ourselves from others; we are bound by innumerable bonds to the system of human interests. Our welfare is knit up with the welfare of the world. The man, then, who strives to suppress swindling, and who by the nobility of his own character rebukes all cheatery, is doing a grand service for mankind. He is making property more secure, and society more stable. If irreligion was crushed prosperity would visit this country with her brightest blessings and most permanent happiness. The gospel is also the more potent than all the antidotes which economists prescribe for the diminution of crime. V. It is true godliness, not sham or selfish godliness, that proves profitable. VI. Having thus glanced at the profitableness of religion in this life, let us bestow a moment’ s thought upon that other life which is eternal. If we lose this, what profit is it that we have been successful in business! We have gained the lesser by losing the greater. The course which in the end will prove profitable cannot be a selfish one. Love to God is indissolubly intertwined with love to man, and the glory of God must issue in man’ s exaltation in the best and truest sense. (J. G. Henderson.) What is the profit of godliness? That men, by godliness, should reap a fruition and harvest hereafter is not surprising to those who have at all been instructed in religious things; but there are many who have supposed that godliness was in a man’ s way here. What is godliness? So that godliness means something more than merely religion, in the narrow and technical sense of the term. It means having a wise view of all the laws of our being and condition, and living in conformity to them. Moreover, when it is said that it has in it “ the promise of the life that now is,” we are not to narrowly interpret it. A man with a clumsy hand, without skill and without inventive thought, is not justified in attempting to be an inventor simply on the general ground of godliness. We are not to suppose that a man who has no commercial training is to plunge into business and make this plea: “ I live in conformity to the laws of my being, and shall be prospered in my pursuits.” We are to have a larger idea of prosperity than is seen in any of these special things. That which, on the whole, promotes their greatest happiness must be considered. Their prosperity now means their welfare. It does not consist in the development of any one part of their nature, but the whole of it. Godliness has an immediate relation to that which is the foundation of all enjoyment--a good, sound bodily condition. The condition of enjoyment in this life is that one is in a sound state of bodily health. Godliness, or a conformity to the great laws of our condition, includes physical health--works toward it. Moderation of appetite; restraint of undue desires; that quietness of spirit which comes from the belief in an overruling Providence; that undisturbed equilibrium which comes from faith in God--all these are, looking at them in their very lowest relations, elements of health--of a sound physical condition. Next consider how much a man’ s happiness in this life depends upon his disposition--both with reference to himself and with reference to his social surrounding. It is not what you have about you, but what you are, that determines how happy you shall be. Excessive pride takes away from the power of enjoyment. Godliness, by its very nature, reduces a man to a certain conformity with the laws of his condition, and makes him content therein, and so works upon his disposition that it becomes amenable to the law of happiness. It is made to be more childlike and simple. It is brought into conditions in which happiness may distil upon it from ten thousand little things. A man who wishes to see beauty in nature must not watch for it in gorgeous sunsets always--though they will come once in a while. Let him watch for it in ten million little facets which glisten in the light of the sum by the roadside as well as in the rich man’ s adorned grounds. We must see it in the motes and bugs, in the minutest insects, everywhere. So, then, we are to reap happiness and satisfaction, not so much from great cataclysms and paroxysms as in little things, that have the power to make us supremely happy. Another thing. Men’ s happiness depends more upon their relations to society than we are apt to think. Where men have the art of fitting themselves to their circumstances and their companions there is great satisfaction in these also. There is a true sympathy, a true benevolence, which is godly. If you go among men with a mean, selfish spirit, how little happiness will you find in your social intercourse[ But if in the child and in its sports you see something to make you smile; if toward the labouring man you have a kindly good will, and if you find companionship with all who are virtuous in the various walks of life--with those who are high for certain reasons, and those who are low for certain other reasons; if you feel a generous brotherhood and sympathy of men, then there is a vast deal of enjoyment for you in this life, which comes simply from your aptitudes for fellowship and friendship. Now it is the peculiar office of a true godliness to subdue the heart to this universal amnesty and sympathy, so that they who are godly, who live in conformity to the will of God, in all their circumstances, shall reap more or less enjoyment. Godliness, by changing men’ s condition, prepares them to be happy; and by giving them affinities for things about them produces conditions of happiness. There are also other ways in which godliness works towards happiness. It gives to men a motive in this life without concentrating on their worldly endeavours the utmost of their powers. The outgoing of a man’ s own self, legitimately and industriously, with the constant expectation of success--there is great enjoyment in this. At the same time, let this enjoyment be coupled with the moderating, restraining feeling that if earthly enterprises fail and come short, this world is not the only refuge, and worldly affairs are not the only things of value--that though the house perish, and the garments be wasted, and the gold and silver take wings and fly away, and all things perish, yet there is a God, there is a providence, there is hope, there is a home, and there is immortality; then the happiness is greatly increased. Then there is the consideration of those qualities which go to make success in business. Men do not believe you are as honest or as faithful and prompt as you believe yourself to be. But where all the parts of a man are morally sound; where he is free from vices of every sort; where he has fidelity, conscientiousness, industry, good judgment, and intelligence; where he is so trustworthy that you can bring the screw to bear upon him, and, though you turn it never so many times, not be able to break him until you crush him to death--he is invaluable. And I say that just in proportion as men approach to that, they are more and more important in a commercial age, and in a great commercial community. Now, it is the tendency of the ethics of Christianity to produce just such men. If religion does not produce them, it is so far spuriously or imperfectly administered. There is a difference between ethical religion and ecclesiastical and doctrinal religion. But where a man has Christian ethics; where a man is truth-speaking and reliable; where a man is founded upon the rock Christ Jesus, and cannot be moved from it, I say that godliness tends to success in commercial affairs. If you take the different classes of religionists, where shall you find more Christian ethics than among the Quakers? Where shall you find more carefulness in daily life? And among what class will you find more worldly prosperity, and more enjoyment in it, than among them? When I lived in the West, a merchant told me that during twenty years he never suffered the loss of a quarter of a dollar from a whole Quaker neighbourhood. You might take whole settlements, and say that they were exemplifications of the fact that “ godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” Many a poor man goes along the street whose name would not be worth a snap on a note. He could not get a bank in New York to lend him a hundred dollars for a month. He is of no market value whatever. But if your dear child was dying, and you did not know how to pray, he is the very man that you would send for. You would say to him when you were in distress, “ Come to our house.” Ah! a man may not have outward prosperity, and yet prosper. He may have that which money cannot buy--peace, happiness, joy. The power of making joy he has; and is he not prospered? Is he not well off? Finally, taking society at large, those who get the furthest from the rules of morality; those who have the most doubt and distrust in regard to the overruling providence of God; those who have s leaning to their own wisdom; those who are proud and selfish, and do what they have a mind to regardless of the welfare of others--they are not pre-eminently prosperous, even in material and commercial things. (H. W. Beecher.) The profit of godliness in this life With regard to this life, let it be remarked that the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ neither undervalues nor overvalues this present life. It does not sneer at this life as though it were nothing; on the contrary, it ennobles it, and shows the relation which it has to the higher and eternal life. There are many who undervalue this life; let me mention some of them to you. Those undervalue it who sacrifice it to indulge their passions or to gratify their appetites. Too many for the sake of momentary gratifications have shortened their lives, and rendered their latter end bitterly painful to themselves. Some evidently undervalue their lives, because they make them wretched through envy. Others are richer than they are, and they think it a miserable thing to be alive at all while others possess more of this world’ s goods than they. Oh poison not life by envy of others, for if you do so you miserably undervalue it! The slaves of avarice undervalue their lives, for they do not care to make life happy, but pinch themselves in order to accumulate wealth. The miser who starves himself in order that he may fill his bags may well be reasons with in this way: “ Is not the life more than the meat, and the body than raiment? So also do they undervalue it who in foolhardiness are ready to throw it away on the slightest pretext. He that for his country’ s sake, or for the love of his fellow-creatures, risks life and loses it, truly deserves to be called a hero; but he who, to provoke laughter and to win the applause of fools, will venture limb and life without need is but a fool himself, and deserves no praise whatever. Yet there can be such a thing as overvaluing this life, and multitudes have fallen into that error. Those overvalue it who prefer it to eternal life. Why, it is but as a drop compared with the ocean, if you measure time with eternity. They overvalue this life who consider it to be a better thing than Divine love, for the love of God is better than life. Some would give anything for their lives, but they would give nothing for God’ s love. It appears from the text that godliness influences this present life, puts it in its true position, and becomes profitable to it. I. First, let me observe that godliness changes the tenure of the life that now is. It hath “ the promise of the life that now is.” I want you to mark the word--“ it hath the promise of the life that now is.” An ungodly man lives, but; how? He lives in a very different respect from a godly man. Sit down in the cell of Newgate with a man condemned to die. That man lives, but he is reckoned dead in law. He has been condemned. If he is now enjoying a reprieve, yet he holds his life at another’ s pleasure, and soon he must surrender it to the demands of justice. I, sitting by the side of him, breathing the same air, and enjoying what in many respects is only the selfsame life, yet live in a totally different sense. I have not forfeited my life to the law, I enjoy it, as far as the law is concerned, as my own proper right: the law protects my life, though it destroys his life. The ungodly man is condemned already, condemned to die, for the wages of sin is death; and his whole life here is nothing but a reprieve granted by the longsuffering of God. But a Christian man is pardoned and absolved; he owes not his life now to penal justice; when death comes to him it will not be at all in the sense of an infliction of a punishment; it will not be death, it will be the transfer of his spirit to a better state, the slumbering of his body for a little while in its proper couch to be awakened in a nobler likeness by the trump of the archangel. Now, is not life itself changed when held on so different a tenure? “ Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is.” That word changes the tenure of our present life in this respect, that it removes in a sense the uncertainty of it. God hath given to none of you unconverted ones any promise of the life that now is. You are like squatters on a common, who pitch their tents, and by the sufferance of the lord of the manor may remain there for awhile, but at a moment’ s notice you must up tents and away. But the Christian hath the promise of the life that now is; that is to say, he has the freehold of it; it is life given to him of God, and he really enjoys it, and has an absolute certainty about it; in fact, the life that now is has become to the Christian a foretaste of the life to come. The tenure is very different between the uncertainty of the ungodly who has no rights and no legal titles, and the blessed certainty of the child of God who lives by promise. Let me add that this word seems to me to sweeten the whole of human life to the man that hath it. Godliness hath the promise of life that now is; that is to say, everything that comes to a godly man comes to him by promise, whereas if the ungodly man hath any blessing apparent, it does not come by promise, it comes overshadowed by a terrible guilt which curses his very blessings, and makes the responsibilities of his wealth and of his health and position redound to his own destruction, working as a savour of death unto death through his wilful disobedience. There is a vast difference between having the life that now is and having the promise of the life that now is--having God’ s promise about it to make it all gracious, to make it all certain, and to make it all blessed as a token of love from God. II. The benefit which godliness bestows in this life. Perhaps the fulness of the text is the fact that the highest blessedness of life, is secured to us by godliness. Under ordinary circumstances it is true that godliness wears a propitious face both towards health and wealth and name, and he who has respect to these things shall not find himself, as a rule, injured in the pursuit of them by his godliness; but still I disdain altogether the idea that all these three things together, are or even make up a part of the promise of the life that now is. I believe some persons have the life that now is in its fulness, and the promise of it in its richest fulfilment, who have neither wealth, health, nor fame; for being blessed with the suffering Master’ s smile and presence, they are happier far than those who roll in wealth, who luxuriate in fame, and have all the rich blessings which health includes. Let me now show you what I think is the promise of the life that now is. I believe it to be an inward happiness, which is altogether independent of outward circumstances, which is something richer than wealth, fairer than health, and more substantial than fame. This secret of the Lord, this deep delight, this calm repose, godliness always brings in proportion as it reigns in the heart. Let us try and show that this is even so. A godly man, is one who is at one with his Maker.1. It must always be right with the creature when it is at one with the Creator. But when godliness puts our will into conformity with the Divine will, the more fully it does so, the more certainly it secures to us happiness even in the life that now is. I am not happy necessarily because I am in health, but I am happy if I am content to be out of health when God wills it. I am not happy because I am wealthy, but I am happy if it pleases me to be poor because it pleases God I should be. 2. The Christian man starting in life as such is best accoutred for this life. He is like a vessel fittingly stored for all the storms and contrary currents that may await it. The Christian is like a soldier, who must fain go to battle, but he is protected by the best armour that can be procured. 3. With a Christian all things that happen to him work for good. Is not this a rich part of the promise of the life that now is? What if the waves roar against him, they speed his bark towards the haven? 4. The Christian enjoys his God under all circumstances. That, again, is the promise of the life that now is. 5. I am sure you will agree with me that the genuine possessor of godliness has the promise of the life that now is in his freedom from many of those cares and fears which rob life of all its lustre. The man without godliness is weighted with the care of every day, and of all the days that are to come, the dread remembrance of the past, and the terror of the future as well. 6. And as he is thus free from care, so is he free from the fear of men. 7. Moreover, the fear of death has gone from the Christian. This with many deprives the life that now is of everything that is happy and consoling. Another application of the text is this. There is a bearing of it upon the sinner. It is quite certain, O ungodly man, that the promise of the life that now is belongs only to those who are godly. Are you content to miss the cream of this life? I pray you, if you will not think of the life to come, at least think of this. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Happiness of godliness Christianity a gloomy system! The world and devils may say so; but a thousand eyes that sparkle with a hope that maketh not ashamed, and a thousand hearts that beat happily with the full pulse of spiritual life, can tell thee thou liest. Christianity a gloomy system! Why, it is the Christian only that can thoroughly enjoy the world. To him, to his grateful vision, earth is garlanded with fairer beauty, heaven sparkles with serener smiles; to him the landscape is the more lovely, because it reminds him of the paradise of his hope in prospect which his father once lost, but which his Saviour has brought back again, as a family inheritance for ever; to him the ocean rolls the more grandly, because it figures out the duration of his promised life; to him the birds in their forest minstrelsy warble the more sweetly, because their woodland music takes him upwards to the harpers harping with their harps in heaven; to him the mountains tower the more sublimely, because their heaven-pointing summits are the emblems of his own majestic hopes. (W. M. Punshon.) Secret of happiness A thoroughly loyal subject of God’ s kingdom is qualified to dwell happily in any world to which God may call him. Because he is what he is, it matters less where he chances to be. The star which shines by its own light may traverse the infinite space of the heavens, but it can never know eclipse. On the other hand, a peevish, uneasy, and wilful spirit is not much helped by outward condition. King Ahab, in his palace, turns his face to the wall and will eat no bread, because he cannot have Naboth’ s vineyard. How many a proud man is so unweaned and pulpy that he cannot bear a cloudy day, an east wind, the loss of a dinner, the creaking of a shutter by night, or a plain word! You will meet travellers who take their care with them as they do their luggage, and grasp it tightly wherever they go, or check it forward from place to place, although, unlike their luggage, it never gets lost. You may carry an instrument out of tune all over the world, and every breath of heaven and every hand of man that sweeps over its strings shall produce only discord. Such a man’ s trouble is in his temper, not in his place. You can hardly call it “ borrowed” trouble either, for it is mostly made, and so is his own by the clearest of all titles. (Win. Crawford.) The blessedness of religion Religion makes a man happier all the way through. You may have to work hard for your daily bread, but you hear reports of a land where they neither hunger nor thirst. You may have a great many physical distresses and pangs of pain, but you hear of the land where the head never aches, and where the respiration is not painful, and where the pulse throbs with the life of God! You may have to weep among the graves of the dead, but against the tombstone leans the Risen One pointing you up to that sphere where God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes. Ask those who are before the throne, ask those who have plucked the fruit of the tree of life, ask those who are waving the palms in glory whether this is the happy side or not. I knew a minister in Philadelphia (he was not poetic, he was not romantic--they called him a very plain man), who, in his last moment, as he passed out of life, looked up and said, “ I move into the light.” Oh! it is the happy side--happy here--it is happy for ever. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Happiness is attainable in this life-- Is happiness attainable? First, there is something in our condition as sinners against God, that militates against our happiness. God “ made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.” I. In order to show that happiness is attainable, I shall first appeal to the infallible assurances of God’ s inspired word (2 Chronicles 20:20; 2 Chronicles 26:5; Job 36:11). In the first Psalm there is an encomium upon the happiness of the godly (Matthew 6:33). II. The manifest and unquestionable tendency of true godliness to impart and insure happiness. Health is by universal consent considered an essential ingredient to happiness. Cheerfulness is a part of happiness. And who can pretend to cheerfulness on such just grounds as the real Christian, the man of genuine godliness? His principles make him happy. Look at the influence of those principles on friendship; which is essential to happiness. Mark how the principles of godliness bear upon a man’ s usefulness. How can I be happy unless I am useful? III. The experience of the power of the God whom we serve. If I can show you that happiness has been actually attained, it will be quite clear that it is attainable. Look, therefore, at the history and experience of the servants of God. I will grant the straitness of their circumstances, for they are often a poor and an afflicted people. Let me call your attention to the case of the prophet Habbakuk. “ Although the fig tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no meat, the flocks shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Look at Paul and Silas--their backs lacerated with the Roman scourge, their feet made fast in the stocks, condemned to spend the night in a prison; “ at midnight they prayed and sang praises to God; and the prisoners heard them.” Now either these persons must be grossly deceived, or happiness is attainable. IV. In the fourth place, I must make an appeal to the fact of the existence of hypocrites in the Church. The counterfeit itself proves the value and the existence of the genuine coin. V. Finally, I make my appeal to the confessions and lamentations of the ungodly themselves; who, having discarded religion, both in principle and in practice, have been left to rue their own folly, and to admit that their happiness was indeed illusory and vain, ending in bitter disappointment. Some have been honest enough to confess this; that they have “ forsaken the fountain of living waters,” and they have heaped to themselves immeasurable bitterness and sorrow of heart.1. In conclusion, then, let this subject, in the first place, rectify our judgments. 2. In the next place, let this subject decide our choice. The consideration of it will do us good, if the decisions of the will should follow the enlightenment of the understanding. 3. Let this subject, thirdly, awaken our gratitude. 4. Finally, let this subject serve to stimulate our desire for a more full and complete and final happiness beyond the grave. (G. Clayton.) The profit of godliness in the life to come There is another life beyond this fleeting existence. This fact was dimly guessed by heathens. What was thus surmised by the great thinkers of antiquity, has been brought to light in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I. Godliness concerning the life to come possesses a promise unique and unrivalled.1. I say a unique promise, for, observe, infidelity makes no promise of a life to come. It is the express business of infidelity to deny that there is such a life, and to blot out all the comfort which can be promised concerning it. Man is like a prisoner shut up in his cell, a cell all dark and cheerless save that there is a window through which he can gaze upon a glorious landscape. 2. No system based upon human merit ever gives its votaries a promise of the life to come, which they can really grasp and be assured of. No self-righteous man will venture to speak of the assurance of faith; in fact, he denounces it as presumption. Godliness hath a monopoly of heavenly promise as to the blessed future. There is nothing else beneath high heaven to which any such promise has ever been given by God, or of which any such promise can be supposed. Look at vice, for instance, with its pretended pleasures--what does it offer you? And it is equally certain that no promise of the life that is to come is given to wealth. Nay, ye may grasp the Indies if ye will; ye may seek to compass within your estates all the lands that ye can see far and wide, but ye shall be none the nearer to heaven when ye have reached the climax of your avarice. There is no promise of the life that is to come in the pursuits of usury and covetousness. Nor is there any such promise to personal accomplishments and beauty. How many live for that poor bodily form of theirs which so soon must moulder back to the dust! Nor even to higher accomplishments than these is there given any promise of the life to come. For instance, the attainment of learning, or the possession of that which often stands men in as good stead as learning, namely, cleverness, brings therewith no promise of future bliss. “ Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come,” but to nothing else anywhere, search for it high or low, on earth or sea, to nothing else is the promise given save to godliness alone. II. I pass on to notice, in the second place, that the promise given to godliness is as comprehensive as it is unique. In the moment of death the Christian will begin to enjoy this eternal life in the form of wonderful felicity in the company of Christ, in the presence of God, in the society of disembodied spirits and holy angels. III. I have shown you that the promise appended to godliness is unique and comprehensive, and now observe that it is sure. “ Godliness hath promise” ; that is to say, it hath God’ s promise. Now, God’ s promise is firmer than the hills. He is God, and cannot lie. He will never retract the promise, nor will He leave it unfulfilled. He was too wise to give a rash promise: he is too powerful to be unable to fulfil it. IV. This promise is a present promise. You should notice the participle, “ having promise.” It does not say that godliness after awhile will get the promise, but godliness has promise now at this very moment. When we get a man’ s promise in whom we trust, we feel quite easy about the matter under concern. A note of hand from many a firm in the city of London would pass current for gold any day in the week; and surely when God gives the promise, it is safe and right for us to accept it as if it were the fulfilment itself, for it is quite as sure. You cannot enjoy heaven, for you are not there, but you can enjoy the promise of it. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 4:10 We both labour and suffer reproach.Trust in God the support of Christians in their labours and sufferings I. The course pursued by the apostle and his brethren was one of labors and sufferings. If we must be reproached, let us not be reproached for evil-doing, but for well-doing: let us not have conscience against us, exasperating our sufferings; but secure in our conscious integrity and adamantine guard. II. What it was that sustained the apostle and his brethren in the course which they pursued: it was the principle of confidence in God. “ We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe.”1. God is here regarded as “ the living God” ; that is, the true God, as distinguished from dumb and lifeless idols, described by the Psalmist as “ having eyes that see not, ears that hear not, mouths that speak not, feet that walk not.” God appeals to this distinction, when He says, “ As I live.” This suggests the idea of the infinite perfection of the Deity, and consequently His ability to protect His servants. 2. As “ the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.” (1) “ The Saviour of all men.” His mercies are over all His creatures.(2) But in a far higher sense He is “ the Saviour of those that believe.” He saves them from consequences far more awful than any temporal calamities. Now, from the first of these views we infer that the power of God is pledged to assist His servants to do His will, and execute His commission: and, in whatever we do in obedience to God’ s will, we have reason to depend on the support of Him who has ordered it to be done. And, in the next place, this may be especially applied to that part of God’ s will, in which His glory is most concerned. In the gospel the honour of God is most of all concerned: men are to be saved by believing the gospel: therefore we may be confident that God will help them in all that relates to the success of the gospel: “ He is the Saviour especially of them that believe.” III. As improvements of this subject, observe--1. How highly we should value that gospel, which the apostles preached amidst so much labour and suffering! 2. Imitate the apostles in their course of labours and sufferings. Be “ fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” 3. And, lastly, as the apostles were supported by trusting in the living God; so shall we also be, if we follow their example. If we trust in God, His favour will be our joy; if not, His comforts will fail us. (R. Hall, M. A.) We trust in the living God.--Trust in the living God Trust--confidence--is an essential element of human nature. We begin life in a spirit of trust, and cling with confidence to our parents and the guardians of our infancy. As we advance in years, though deceived and betrayed, we still must anchor our trust somewhere. We cannot live without some being to lean on as a friend. Universal distrust would turn social existence into torture. We were born for confidence in other beings; and woe to him that cannot trust! Still confidence brings with it suffering; for all are imperfect and too many are false. Observe what a harmony there is between our nature and God. The principle of trust, as we have seen, enters into the very essence of the human soul. Trust seeks perfect goodness, Its natural tendency is toward an infinite and immutable being. In Him alone can it find rest. Our nature was made for God, as truly as the eye was made for the light of God’ s glorious image, the sun. I. What is the principle of religious trust? I would observe, that religious confidence rests on God’ s parental interest in in individual persons. To apprehend and believe this truth is to plant the germ of trust in God. This truth is not easily brought home to the heart as a reality. The first impression given to a superficial observer of the world is, that the individual is of no great worth in the sight of the Creator. The race of man is upheld, and seems to be destined to perpetual existence. But the individuals, of whom it is composed, appear to have nothing enduring in their nature. They pass over the earth like shadows cast by a flying cloud, leaving for the most part as slight a trace behind. They break like meteors from the abyss, and are then swallowed up in darkness. According to this view, God is the Author of fugitive, mutable existences, from love of variety, multiplicity and development, however transitory these several existences may be. If we rest in such views of God, our confidence must be faint. Can we believe that human nature was framed by such a Being for no higher spiritual development than we now witness on this planet? Is there not, in the very incompleteness and mysteriousness of man’ s present existence, a proof that we do not as yet behold the end for which he is destined; that the infinite Father has revealed but a minute portion of His scheme of boundless mercy; that we may trust for infinitely richer manifestations than we have experienced of His exhaustless grace? But there is another reply to the sceptic, and to this I invite your particular attention. Our trust, you say, must be measured by what we see. Be it so. But take heed to see truly, and to understand what you do see. How rare is such exact and comprehensive perception. And yet without it, what presumption it is for us to undertake to judge the purpose of an infinite and ever-living God. Whatever creature we regard has actually infinite connections with the universe. It represents the everlasting past of which it is the effect. He then, who does not discern in the present the past and the future, who does not detect behind the seen the unseen, does not rightly understand it, and cannot pass judgment upon it. The surface of things, upon which your eye may fall, covers an infinite abyss. Are you sure, then, that you comprehend the human being, when you speak of him as subjected to the same law of change and dissolution, which all other earthly existences obey? Is there nothing profounder in his nature than that which you catch sight of by a casual glance? Are there within him no elements which betoken a permanent and enduring existence? Consider one fact only. Among all outward changes, is not every man conscious of his own identity, of his continuing to be the same, single, individual person? Is there not a unity in the soul, that distinguishes it from the dissoluble compounds of material nature? And further, is this person made up of mutable and transitory elements? On the contrary, who does not know that he has faculties to seize upon everlasting truth, and affections which aspire to reach an everlasting good? Have we not all of us the idea of right, of a Divine law older than time, and which can never be repealed? Has such a being as man then no signs in his nature of permanent existence? Is he to be commingled with the fugitive forms of the material world? Seeing, you see not. What is most worth seeing in man is hidden from your view. You know nothing of man truly, till you discern in him traces of an immutable and immortal nature, till you recognize somewhat allied to God in his reason, conscience, love and will. Talk not of your knowledge of men, picked up from the transient aspects of social life! It is not then to be inferred, from what we see, that God does not take an interest in the individual, and that He may not be trusted as designing great good for each particular person. In every human mind He sees powers kindred to His own--the elements of angelic glory and happiness. These bind the heavenly Father’ s love indissolubly to every single soul. And these Divine elements authorize a trust utterly unlike that which springs from superficial views of man’ s transitory existence. II. What is the good for which, as individual persons, we may trust in God? One reply immediately offers itself. We may not, must not trust in Him for whatever good we may arbitrarily choose. Experience gives us no warrant to plan such a future for ourselves, as mere natural affections and passions may crave, and to confide in God’ s parental love as pledged to indulge such desires. Human life is made up of blighted hopes and disappointed efforts, caused by such delusive confidence. We cannot look to God even for escape from severest suffering. The laws of the universe, though in general so beneficent in their operation, still bring fearful evil to the individual. For what then may we trust in God? I reply, that we may trust unhesitatingly, and without a moment’ s wavering, that God desires the perfection of our nature, and that He will always afford such ways and means to this great end, as to His omniscience seem most in harmony with man’ s moral freedom. There is but one true good for a spiritual being, and this is found in its perfection. Men are slow to see this truth; and yet it is the key to God’ s providence, and to the mysteries of life. Now how can man be happy but according to the same law of growth in all his characteristic powers? Thus the enjoyment of the body is found to be dependent on and involved with the free, healthy and harmonious development--that is the perfection--of its organization. Impair, or derange any organ, and existence becomes agony. Much more does the happiness of the soul depend upon the free, healthy and harmonious unfolding of all its faculties. Now for this good we may trust in God with utter confidence. We may be assured that He is ready, willing, and anxious to confer it upon us; that He is always inviting and leading us towards it by His Providence, and by His Spirit, through all trials and vicissitudes, through all triumphs and blessings; and that unless our own will is utterly perverse, no power in the universe can deprive us of it. Such I say is the good for which we may confide in God, the only good for which we are authorized to trust in Him. The perfection of our nature--God promises nothing else or less. We cannot confide in Him for prosperity, do what we will for success; for often He disappoints the most strenuous labours, and suddenly prostrates the proudest power. We cannot confide in Him for health, friends, honour, outward repose. Not a single worldly blessing is pledged to us. And this is well. God’ s outward gifts--mere shadows as they are of happiness--soon pass away; and their transitoriness reveals, by contrast the only true good. Reason and conscience, if we will but hear their voice, assure us that all outward elevation, separate from inward nobleness, is a vain show; that the most prosperous career, without growing health of soul, is but a prolonged disease, a fitful fever of desire and passion, and rather death than life; that there is no stability of power, no steadfast peace, but in immovable principles of right; that there is no true royalty but in the rule of our own spirits; no real freedom but in unbounded disinterested love; and no fulness of joy but in being alive to that infinite presence, majesty, goodness, in which we live and move and have our being. This good of perfection, if we will seek it, is as sure as God’ s own being, Here I fix my confidence. When I look round me, I see nothing to trust in. On all sides are the surges of a restless ocean, and everywhere the traces of decay. But amidst this world of fugitive existences, abides one immortal nature. Let not the sceptic point me to the present low development of human nature, and ask me what promise I see there of that higher condition of the soul, for which I trust. Even were there no sufficient answer to this question, I should still trust. I must still believe that surely as there is a perfect God, perfection must be His end; and that, sooner or later, it must be impressed upon His highest work, the spirit of man. Then I must believe, that where He has given truly Divine powers, He must have given them for development. Human nature is indeed at present in a very imperfect stage of its development. But I do not, therefore, distrust that perfection is its end. We cannot begin with the end. We cannot argue that a being is not destined for a good, because he does not instantly reach it. The philosopher, whose discoveries now dazzle us, could not once discern between his right hand and his left. To him who has entered an interminable path, with impulses which are carrying him onward to perfection, of what importance is it where he first plants his step? The future is all his own. But you will point me to those who seem to be wanting in this spirit of progress, this impulse towards perfection, and who are sunk in sloth or guilt. And you will ask whether God’ s purposes towards these are yet loving. I answer: Yes! They fail through no want of the kind designs of God. From the very nature of goodness, it cannot be forced upon any creature by the Creator; nor can it be passively received. What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on! Thus have I spoken of religious trust, in its principle and its end. I have time to suggest but one motive for holding fast this confidence as a fountain of spiritual strength. We talk of our weakness. We lack energy, we say, to be in life what in hope we desire. But this very weakness comes from want of trust. What invigorates you to seek other forms of good? You believe them to be really within your reach. What is the soul of all great enterprises? It is the confidence that they may be achieved. To confide in a high power is to partake of that power. It has often been observed, that the strength of an army is more than doubled by confidence in its chief. Confide, only confide, and you will be strong. (W. E. Channing.) Christly trust First: Man is a trusting being. Trusting is at once the grand necessity and leading tendency of his existence. Secondly: His trust determines the character and destiny of his being. Trusting wrong objects or right objects for wrong purposes, is at once sinful and ruinous. On the other hand, trusting rightly in the living God is at once a holy and a happy state of being. Two remarks are suggested in relation to this Christly trust. I. It forms a distinct community amongst men. The apostle speaks here as” those that believe.” All men believe. Men are naturally credulous.1. There are some who believe in a dead God--an idol, a substance, a force, an abstraction. Most men have a dead God--a God whose presence, whose inspection, whose claims they do not recognize or feel. 2. There are others who believe in a “ living God.” To them He is the life of all lives, the force of all forces, the spirit of all beauty, the fountain of all joy. With these the apostle includes himself, and to these he refers when he says, “ Those that believe.” II. It secures the special salvation of the good. The living God is the Saviour, or Preserver of all. He saves all from diseases, trials, death, damnation, up to a certain time in their history. All that they have on earth which go to make their existence tolerable and pleasant He has saved for them. But of those that believe He is specially a Saviour, He saves them--1. From the dominion of moral evil 2. From the torments of sinful passions--remorse, malice, jealousy, envy, fear. 3. From the curse of a wicked life. What a salvation is this! Christly trust gives to the human race a community of morally saved men. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Who Is the Saviour of all men.--The first Sunday after Epiphany Whether, then, we take the words “ the living God” in our text to apply to Christ Himself, or to the Father acting by Christ, it is equally asserted that Christ is the Saviour of all men: that the salvation which He wrought is, in and of itself, co-extensive with the race of man. What He did, He did for, and in the stead of, all men. If we wish to corroborate this by further Scripture proof, we have it in abundance. I will take but three of the plainest passages. St. John in his first Epistle, 1 John 2:1-2. St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:14. In Romans 5:10 he goes further into the same truth. See also 1 Corinthians 15:22. Adam, when he came fresh from the hands of God, was the head and root of man kind. He was mankind. She who was to be a helpmeet for him was not created a separate being, but was taken out of him. The words spoken of him apply to the whole human race. The responsibility of the whole race rested upon him. When he became disobedient, all fell. Figure to yourselves--and it is very easy to do so, from the many analogies which nature furnishes--this constitution of all mankind in Adam: for it is the very best of all exponents of the nature of Christ’ s standing in our flesh, and Christ’ s work in our flesh: with this great difference indeed, inherent in the very nature of the case, that the one work in its process and result is purely physical, the other spiritual as well. The race, in its natural constitution in Adam, i.e., as each member of it is born into the world and lives in the world naturally, is alien from and guilty before God: has lost the power of pleasing God: cannot work out its own salvation in or by any one of its members; all being involved in the same universal ruin. “ In Adam all die.” Now that rescue must not, cannot in God’ s arrangements, come from without. It must come upon mankind from within. God’ s law respecting us is, that all amendment, all purifying, all renewal, should spring from among, and take into itself and penetrate by its influence, the inner faculties and powers wherewith He has endowed our nature. We know that our redemption was effected by the eternal Son of God becoming incarnate in our flesh. Now suppose for a moment that He, the Son of God, had become an individual personal man, bounded by His own responsibilities, His own capacities, His own past, and present, and future. If He had thus become a personal man, not one of His acts would have had any more reference to you or me than the acts of Abraham, or David, or St. Paul, or St. Peter have. He might have set us an example ever so bright; might have undergone sufferings ever so bitter; might have won a triumph ever so glorious; and we should merely have stood and looked on from without. No redemption, no renovation of our nature could by any possibility have been made. And He, thus being the Divine Son of God, and having become the Son of man, was no longer an individual man, bounded by the narrow lines and limits of His own personality, but was and is God manifest in the flesh; a sound and righteous Head of our whole nature, just as Adam was its first and sinful head. Hence it is, that whatever He does, has so large a significance. Hence, that when He fulfils the law, His righteousness is accepted as ours. He did nothing, if He did not the whole. He redeemed none, if He redeemed not all. If there existed on earth one son or daughter of Adam not redeemed by Christ, then He, who had taken it upon Him to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, had not accomplished His work, and had died in vain. And let us see what this universality of redemption implies, as regards the sons of men themselves. It enables the preacher of good tidings to come to every son and daughter of Adam, every out cast and degraded one of our race, and at once to lay before them Christ as theirs, if they will believe on Him. It is the key, and the only key, to the fact of justification by faith. “ Believe, and thou shalt be saved.” Why? Believe in a Man who died and rose again, and thou shalt be saved? Now this at once brings us to the second part of our text. In the broad sense on which we have hitherto been insisting, Christ is the Saviour of all men: of the whole of mankind. All have an equal part and right in Christ. And on this foundation fact, the whole mission work of the gospel is founded. We are to go into all the world, and we are to pro claim the glad tidings to every creature. That redemption by Christ, which is as wide as the earth, as free as the air, as universal as humanity, is no mere physical amendment which has passed on our whole race unconsciously: but it is a glorious provision for spiritual amendment, able to take up and to bless and to change and to renovate man’ s spiritual part, his highest thoughts, his noblest aspirings, his best affections. And these are not taken up, are not blest, are not renovated, except by the power of persuasion, and the bending of the human will, and the soft promptings of love, and the living drawings of desire. (Dean Alford.) The Christ-likeness of God In several texts God is called our Saviour. God, then, is to us what Christ is. God Himself, then, is essentially Christlike. He must have in Himself some Christ-likeness, for He is, as Christ, our Saviour. Let the energy of these two truths once enter into a man’ s heart--the truth that in everything we have to do with the living God, and the truth that our God is the Christlike One, and they are enough to revolutionize a man’ s life. I. Our hope is set on the living God. This is a familiar Biblical phrase. This word, the living God, had not become an echo of a vanishing faith to the Psalmist, longing for the communion of the temple, who uttered Israel’ s national consciousness in this prayer: “ My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.” It was a word intense with faith. A professor of chemistry, with whom sometime since I was talking about nature, and what it really is, said to me, thoughtfully: “ The order of nature is God’ s personal conduct of His universe.” It is not with a dead nature, or an impersonal order of laws, but with the living God in His personal and most Christian conduct of the universe, that we living souls have to do here and hereafter. I. Our hope is set on the living God, our Saviour. It is a principle of far-reaching sweep and reconstructive power in theology, to think of our God above all as most Christlike in His inmost being and nature. I once saw in the city of Nurnberg, I think it was, a religious picture, in which God the Father was represented in heaven as shooting down arrows upon the ungodly, and midway between heaven and earth Christ, the Mediator, was depicted as reaching forth and catching those arrows, and breaking them as they fell. The painting was true to methods of conceiving Christ’ s work of atonement into which faith had fallen from the simplicity of the Bible; but it should not be called a Christian picture. “ God, our Saviour,” said apostles who had seen God revealed in Christ; and Jesus Himself once said: “ He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” It is one thing to obtain from the Scriptures some adequate doctrine of the divinity of Christ. But it is another thing to have God through Christ brought as a living and inspiring presence into direct contact with all our plans and work and happiness in life. In sincere acceptance of Jesus’ word that He knew the Father, and came from God, let us read the gospels for the purpose of learning what God Himself is towards us in our daily lives; how our world appears in the pure eye of God; how He thinks of us, and is interested in what we may be doing, suffering, or achieving. And He who opens His mouth, and teaches the multitude, utters God’ s heart to us upon that mountain-side. This is God’ s own blessedness showing itself to the world. Such is God, blessing with His own blessedness the virtue which is like His own goodness. Yes, but as Jesus, in His own speech and person, realizes God before us, how can we help becoming conscious of our distance of soul from perfection so Divine? He speaks for God. So God is towards man; this word is from the bosom of the Father; there is on earth Divine forgiveness of sin. But the fear of death is here in this world of sepulchres. We might love to love were it not for death. The worst thing about our life here is, that the more we fit our hearts for the highest happiness of friendships, the more we fit ourselves, also, for sorrow: love is itself the short prelude so often to a long mourning. What does God think of this? What can God in heaven think of us in our bitter mortality? Follow again this Jesus who says He knows--what will He show God’ s heart to be towards human suffering and death? Lord, show us in this respect the Father, and it sufficeth us. There, coming slowly out of the gate of the city, is a procession of much people. We do not need to be told their errand; often we have followed with those who go to the grave. The Christ who says He knows what God our Father is and thinks, meets them who are carrying to his burial the only son of a widow. It is all there, the whole story of man and woman’ s grief. The Christ sees it all; and more than all which disciples see;--He looks on through the years, and beholds death’ s broad harvests, and the generations of men passing each from earth in pain and tears; the whole history of death through the ages He bears upon the knowledge of His heart. What will God do with death? “ And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And He came nigh and touched the bier: and the bearers stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” It was not a miracle, but only an illustration beforehand of the larger law of life. While the widow wept, while the sisters of His friend Lazarus could not be comforted, Jesus knew that life is the rule in God’ s great universe, and death the exception. Yes, this is a glad gospel from the bosom of the Eternal. This earth is full of human cruelty and oppressions. Let us go, then, once more with this Jesus into the city, and see what He will do with the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. In the world from which He says He came, and into which He declares He is going soon--for a little while to be unseen by His own friends--in that world will He suffer these men to be? “ Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;--How shall ye escape the judgment of Gehenna?” It is the same Christ who is speaking--He whom we heard saying, Blessed, and in words which seemed to be a song from the heart of His own life--He who went weeping with the sisters at Bethany--who once sent that procession of mourners back in triumph and joy to the city. It is He who now stands before those extortioners and hypocrites, and says in God’ s name: “ Woe unto you!” It is enough. The face of God is set against them that do evil. No lie shall enter the gates of that city of the many homes. Yes--but again our human thoughts turn this bright hope into anxiety. These men may not have known. We would go into the city and save all. We would let none go until we had done all that love could do; we would not suffer any man to be lost if love could ever find him? How, then, does Jesus show us what God is towards these lost ones? Listen; He sees a shepherd going forth in the storm over the bleak mountain-side, seeking for the one lost sheep; and this Wonder of divinity with man--He who came from God and knows--says, Such is God; “ Even so it is not the will of your Father in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” This is the picture of the heart of God drawn by Christ’ s own hand--the shepherd seeking the one lost sheep. Two consequences of these truths remain to be urged. God Himself is to be seen through Christ, and Christ is to be studied through all that is best and worthiest in the disciples’ lives. Therefore through human hearts also which reflect in any wise Christ’ s spirit, we may seek to realize what God is. God is what they would be, only infinitely better; His perfection is like man’ s, only infinitely transcending it. Let us be very bold in this living way of access to God. (Newman Smyth, D. D.) Jesus the Saviour of all men St. Paul calls Him “ the Saviour of all men” ! Are all men, then, His people? Are not multitudes His enemies? Which witness shall I believe--the apostle, or the angel? Both of them! They do not gainsay each other. When you tell me that Dr. D. is the physician of this Poor-law District, you do not mean that he heals all the poor residing within his district, but only that he is appointed to heal them. His commission includes them all. Some may neglect to come to him, and others may prefer another doctor; but, if they will, they all may come to him, and have the benefit of his skill. In the same sense “ Jesus is the Saviour of all men.” He is appointed to save all men--“ Neither is there salvation in any other” ! (J. J. Wray.) Trusting in God During the burning of a mill in our town there was a strong threatening of a large conflagration. People even two blocks off began to pack their household treasures. From many blocks around the coals from the flaming building were scattered over the white snow. From my window the scene was truly magnificent. The wild, hot flames soaring aloft, the burning elevator looking as if suspended in the heavens, the countless millions of sparks ascending, the sway and surge of this terrible power of fire. It seemed to me that a row of cottages within my sight must soon be swallowed up too, and as I thought of an elderly friend-helpless in her bed--I wrapped myself up warmly, and went out in the night to her. She was white and trembling with excitement, for the fire was only two buildings distant, and her room was light as day, illumined by the flames. “ I was just wondering whether it was best to get her up upon her chair,” said the girl to me. “ No, don’ t,” I said, “ I do not believe there is any danger, and if there is, she shall not suffer.” “ Don’ t you believe there is any danger?” asked the invalid as I reached her bedside. “ No, I do not, unless the wind should change. Just lie still and don’ t worry. If the next house should catch fire we will come for you the first thing.” She accepted our word and kept her bed, thus escaping a cold; and morning found her all right. I wonder, then, why we could not accept our loving, helpful Father’ s word as unquestioningly as she did the word of a mortal. Why will we persist in borrowing trouble, when He has promised “ As thy day so shall thy strength be” ? Why do we always assert proudly, yet humbly, “ I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in Him will I trust” ? (E. Gilmore.) 1 Timothy 4:11-16 These things command and teach.Characteristics of the Christian teacher With true affection, and with heavenly wisdom, Paul exhorts his son in the faith to be mindful of his conduct and character. Here, as well as elsewhere, the apostle exhorts to-- I. The maintenance of moral dignity.1. The tendency of Timothy was to yield rather than to command, to sacrifice truth for the sake of peace, and to lessen his own authority by morbid self-depreciation. Probably this is not so common amongst us as self-confidence; but it is a serious fault, and may be a grievous hindrance to usefulness. Unless you believe yourself to be capable of doing something better than you are now doing you will hesitate to attempt it. If you cannot trust God to help you through an onerous duty, you will be in danger of evading it. Much noble service has been lost to the Church and to the world by a foolish self-depreciation. I remember one who became a very successful man telling me that his early youth was blighted by this morbid tendency, and that he owed all his prosperity to a wise-hearted, loving, motherly woman, who took pity on the sensitive, shrinking lad, and made him believe in himself as one gifted by God to do something in the world. “ Let no man despise thy youth.” Be manly, and brave, and firm, lest you sacrifice interests which God has entrusted to your charge. 2. But the way to overcome the disadvantage of youth in the opinion of others, and to gain influence over them, is clearly suggested here. It is not to be done by noisy self-assertion, by the evident desire to be prominent, but by becoming, through Divine grace, an exemplar of real Christian worth. “ Be thou an example of the believer, in word, in conversation (or behaviour), in charity, in faith, in purity.” (The phrase “ in spirit” is properly omitted from the revised Version.) (1) It is through our “ word” that we chiefly manifest to others the nature of our tuner life, and the tone and temper thus exhibited either weakens or strengthens our influence for good. (2) But words must be in harmony with conduct, and he would be a poor maintainer of Christ’ s cause whose words were admirable while his general behaviour was frivolous or faulty. (3) Nor is it enough to watch over our words and behaviour, but we must pay regard to motive and impulse, because we have to do with and to bear witness for the great Searcher of hearts, and should see that love and faith are the twin motive powers of Our life--love which really cares for the interests of others, faith which lays hold upon the strength and wisdom of an unseen yet everpresent God. (4) And added to all these must be unquestioned purity, which will make us so scrupulous about moral improprieties that the breath of slander will fade away instantly from the polished shield of our reputation, and will keep the inner life clear and chaste, while it gives us the fulfilment of the Lord’ s words, “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” II. Again, preparation for Christian work is inculcated here as well as maintenance of moral dignity. The apostle appears to have expected an early return to Ephesus, and hence writes.1. “ Till I come give attention to the reading, to the exhortation, to the teaching.” The reference is primarily to the public duties of the Christian teacher. The “ reading” of Holy Scripture in religious assemblies, which had been transferred from the synagogue, formed no inconsiderable part of the public worship of those days, as any one can imagine who reflects on the cost and rarity of manuscripts. “ Exhortation” was often heard--appeals to affection and to enthusiasm, which led many a believer to give himself up entirely to the service of the Lord. And coincident with this was steady consecutive “ teaching,” by means of which God’ s Word was expounded, applied, and illustrated. 2. But the work to which Timothy was called required in the first place “ a gift,” which the apostle says was given him instrumentally--“ by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” The word used for “ gift” denotes that it came from the Holy Spirit, with whom it is always associated in Paul’ s writings. These two--the gift of God and the recognition of it by the Church--should ever be combined in the pastor who is working for Christ. 3. But he is foolish and sinful who relies on the possession of a gift or the recognition of it by others. Neglected, the gift will perish, and the life of promise will end in miserable failure. The phrase rendered “ give thyself wholly to them” might be more literally translated “ be in them” --have your life in such thoughts and truths; let them constitute the atmosphere you breathe, and then your religious work will not be a something artificial and foreign to your nature, hut the necessary outcome of your inward life. 4. Give heed, then, unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Cultivate such gifts as you have, and use them without stint in your Master’ s service; and see to it that the teaching you give is not the chance utterance of a thoughtless mind, but the product of earnest thinking and of believing prayer. III. Finally, Paul looked to see in Timothy (and God looks to see in us) readliness for the promised reward.1. It is no small blessing which is promised in the 15th verse, “ that thy profiting” (or rather thy progress) “ may appear unto all.” You should be a living epistle, known and read of all men. 2. Nay, more than this, “ Thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” A traveller who was sinking from exhaustion in a snowstorm on the mountain saw his companion suddenly drop helpless at his side; straightway his own peril was forgotten, and, flinging himself beside him, he chafed his hands and rubbed his chest; and by the effort which brought life back to the dying he kept himself alive--he saved both himself and the friend beside him. For your own sake, and for the sake of others, spend and be spent in this glorious service, and not only will your own life be the fuller here, but heaven itself will be made incomparably more full of joy. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Let no man despise thy youth.-- On the duties of youth 1. Among the good qualities of the young which first discover themselves, and which we regard as the sure indications of everything excellent in morals, is a nice sense of what is good and what is evil, what is truly praiseworthy and what is not, with an early and earnest attention to the forming of their principles. When embarked on the ocean of life innumerable dangers will surround them, and various temptations, under the specious forms of pleasure, will assail their hearts. To rush blindly on in a course so perilous, without either the benefits of experience or the guidance of wisdom, must quickly lead to inextricable difficulties perhaps, if not to misery and ruin. But, to descend from general reflections to the discussion of a few particular subjects, permit me to observe that too great confidence in our own strength is always dangerous, and sometimes fatal. But modesty in youth should be a natural virtue; it should be derived from other, more abundant sources than mere reflection, a feeling of comparative ignorance, or a sense of common propriety; it should spring spontaneously from sensibility--from a heart alive to every sentiment of shame, before it has been hackneyed in the ways of men or rendered callous by a long intercourse with the world. Among the more innocent excesses of youthful passions and the less dangerous delusions of the mind may be ranked the extravagancies of hope and expectation. But the loss of some distant good, however heightened by the powers of imagination or overrated by the blind partiality of our hearts, is by no means the only, or most important evil, that springs from this vain exaltation of the mind. From being so long conversant with imaginary happiness we lose our relish for that which is real. The mind also, soured with disappointments and irritated by frequent vexations, becomes, at a more advanced period, incapable of sharing in the social intercourses of life. At the same time that they should take particular care to avoid the many false and artificial notions of life, which we are but too eager to embrace with blind credulity (and which, for that reason, indeed, the fanciful writers of romance are but too apt to communicate), they ought to acquire those enlarged ideas of men and things which have their foundation in truth, and, in some measure, supply the want of experience by habits of thought and reflection. Above all, they should have recourse to the blessed gospel of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and deeply impress their hearts with those Divine truths which illumine the natural mind of man, as the rays of the sun enlighten the globe. What I would next warn young persons against is an inordinate love of pleasure. Suffer me to conclude by observing that every age and condition brings with it, beside the ordinary obligations of virtue and religion, certain peculiar and appropriate duties--duties to which young persons must diligently attend if they wish that “ no man should despise their youth,” and which the aged must duly cultivate and regularly practise if they would have “ the hoary head found in the way of righteousness” and reverenced as “ a crown of glory.” There are also a thousand secondary graces of character, which must be studied, and a thousand indirect modes of temptation to be guarded against, if we wish to make any considerable advances towards perfection and to lead “ a godly, righteous, and sober life.” (J. Hewlett, M. A.) The least man in the ministry not to be contemned As in a building, some bring stones, some timber, others mortar, and some perhaps bring only nails--yet these are useful; these serve to fasten the work in the building: thus the Church of God is a spiritual building. Some ministers bring stones--are more eminent and useful; others, timber; others, less--they have but a nail in the work; yet all serve for the good of the building. The least star gives light, the least drop moistens, the least minister is no less than an angel, the least nail in the ministry serves for the fastening of souls unto Christ. There is some use to be made even of the lowest parts of men; the weakest minister may help to strengthen one’ s faith. Though all are not apostles, all are not evangelists, all have not the same dexterous abilities in the work, yet all edify; and oftentimes so it cometh to pass that God crowns his labours, and sends most fish into his net, who, though he may be less skilful, is more faithful, and though he have less of the brain, yet he may have more of the heart, and therefore not to be contemned. (J. Spencer.) Achievements of youth It is often late ere genius shows itself; just as often, however, does distinction come early. Thus at twenty-two Gladstone was a member of Parliament, and at twenty-four Lord of the Treasury. Bright never went to school after he was fifteen. Sir Robert Peel entered Parliament at twenty-one, and was Lord of the Admiralty at twenty-three. Charles James Fox became a legislator at nineteen--an age when young men are given to breaking rather than to making laws. Bacon graduated at Cambridge when he was sixteen, and was called to the bar at twenty-four. Washington was a distinguished colonel at twenty-two. Napoleon commanded the army of Italy at twenty-five. Before he was seventeen Shelley was already an author--had translated the half of Pliny’ s “ Natural History,” and had written a number of wild romances. (Palace Journal.) Youth not to be despised Mr. Spurgeon began his remarkable career early enough to preach with a juvenile face many astonishingly effective sermons. His fiftieth anniversary, just celebrated, recalls an anecdote worth repetition. Mr. Spurgeon was asked, in what to most preachers would have been salad days, to deliver a discourse in a near village. Accordingly he went. On meeting the pastor, whose name was Brown, that good old gentleman was sadly disconcerted at his supply’ s youthful appearance. “ Well, well,” said he to Mr. Spurgeon, “ I really did not dream that you were only a boy. I would not have asked you to preach for me if I had thought so.” “ Oh! well,” said Mr. Spurgeon, laughing, “ I can go back.” But Mr. Brown would not permit this, and into the pulpit his boyish guest ascended. How he comported himself is thus narrated: “ Mr. Brown planted himself on the pulpit stairs. Mr. Spurgeon read a lesson from the Proverbs, and upon coming to the passage, ‘ Grey hairs are a crown of glory to a man,’ he said he doubted that, for he knew a man with a grey head who could hardly be civil. But the passage went on to say: ‘ If it be found in the way of righteousness,’ and that, he said, was a different thing. When he came down from the pulpit Mr. Brown said to him: ‘ Bless your heart, I have been thirty years a minister, and I was never better pleased with a sermon; but you are the sauciest dog that ever barked in a pulpit’ ; and they were always good friends afterwards.” 1 Timothy 4:13 Give attendance to reading.Lecture on reading I. First, the choice of books. In this there is a great need of caution; particularly in the spring season of life, while the mental and moral habits are yet in a process of formation. A person may be ruined by reading a single volume. It is a maxim, then, ever to be borne in mind, take heed what you read. To acquire useful information; to improve the mind in knowledge, and the heart in goodness; to become qualified to perform with honour and usefulness the duties of life, and prepared for a happy immortality beyond the grave--these are the great objects which ought ever to be kept in view in reading. And all books are to be accounted good or bad in their effects just as they tend to promote or hinder the attainment of these objects. Taking this as the criterion by which to regulate your choice of books, you will, I think, be led to give an important place to historical reading, especially to that which relates to our own country. History is the mirror of the world. In addition to a knowledge of our own history, some acquaintance with the government and laws of the society in which we live would seem an almost indispensable qualification of a good citizen. Nearly related to history, and not less important, is biography. This is a kind of reading most happily adapted to minds of every capacity and degree of improvement. Few authors can be read with more profit than those that illustrate the natural sciences, and show their application to the practical arts of life. Authors of this character teach us to read and understand the sublime volume of creation. Not less valuable are those writers that make us acquainted with our own minds and hearts; that analyse and lay open the secret springs of action; unfold the principles of political and moral science; illustrate the duties which we owe to our fellow-men, to society, and to God; and by teaching us the nature, dignity, and end of our existence, aim to elevate our views and hopes, and lead us to aspire after the true glory and happiness of rational and immortal beings. Especially must this be said of the Bible. One of the greatest and best of men, I refer to Sir William Jones, a judge of the supreme court of judicature, in Bengal, has said of the Bible, “ I have carefully and regularly perused the Scriptures, and am of opinion that this volume, independent of its Divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.” Were I now to give you one rule for all, for regulating your choice of books, it should be this--“ Books are good or bad in their tendency as they make you relish the Word of God the more or the less after you have read them.” Having made these remarks to assist you in a proper choice of books, I will-- II. Suggest a few rules in regard to the best manner of reading them. “ There are many who read a great deal, and yet derive very little advantage from what they read. They make an injudicious choice of books; they read without method and without object, and often without attention and reflection. As a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion receive no nourishment; so these endless readers may cram themselves with intellectual food, and without real improvement of their minds, for want of digesting it by reflection.” It is of great importance, then, not only that we take heed what we read, but how we read.1. In the first place, then, read with discrimination. The world is full of books; no small portion of which are either worthless or decidedly hurtful in their tendency. 2. Read with attention. Never take up a book merely for amusement, or for the sake of whiling away time. Time thus spent is worse than lost. 3. Read with reflection. 4. Read with confidence. It is often said man does not know his weakness. It is quite as true, he does not know his strength. Multitudes fail to accomplish what they might because they have not due confidence in their powers, and do not know what they are capable of accomplishing. Hence they yield their understandings to the dictation of others, and never think or act for themselves. The only use they make of reading is to remember and repeat the sentiments of their author. This is an error. When you sit down to the reading of a book believe that you are able to understand the subject on which it treats, and resolve that you will understand it. If it calls you to a severe effort, so much the better. Call no man master. Yield not your minds to the passive impressions which others may please to make upon them. 5. At the same time, read with humility and candour. We know so little, in comparison with what is to be known, that we have always much more reason to be humbled by our ignorance than puffed up by our knowledge. Real science is ever humble and docile; but pedantry is proud and self-conceited. 6. It is a happy method to improve by reading, when several persons unite in reading the same book, or on the same subject, and meet occasionally to interchange their thoughts and compare their opinions respecting the authors they have been studying. 7. Read for improvement, and not for show. Recollect that the great object of reading is not to be able to tell what others have thought and said; but to improve your minds in useful knowledge, establish your hearts in virtue, and prepare yourselves for a right performance of the duties of life, and for a joyful acceptance with God on the great day of account. III. In conclusion, let me call your attention to the importance of making a diligent use of this means of intellectual and moral improvement.1. In the first place, then, reading is a most interesting and pleasant method of occupying your leisure hours. 2. It is a consideration of no small weight that reading furnishes materials for interesting and useful conversation. Those who are ignorant of books must of course have their thoughts confined to very narrow limits. (Joel Hawes, D. D.) Good literature--its pleasure and profit And here we come to the first reason why we should give attention to reading. Because--1. There is so much to be had for so little. This too is true, that truth is cheaper than error, as found in the types to-day. The father of lies knows the appetite for a certain kind of reading which is upon the age. But, ministering to the lower tastes, he makes us pay his printers. He is up to every device, but always with an open eye to profit. 2. Reading is made more and more readable, and especially reading of the best kind. Those who had a taste for philosophy in the days of Plato, for poetry in the days of Chaucer, for history in the days of Gibbon, for natural science in the days of Richelieu, for metaphysics in the time of Locke, for sacred learning in the ages when monasteries had all the books and students--at what trouble every learner of old time was put to obtain intelligence. But, by contrast, how accessible is every sort of knowledge now. (1) One should read no more than he takes time to reflect upon. A paragraph or a page mentally masticated and digested is of more service than a whole volume swallowed whole. To get a single truth so at one’ s service as to handle it as skilfully as David did his sling and stone is more effective than the apparel of Saul’ s armour. Many a great ease at law, involving precious life and costly property, has been lost or won through the happy knowledge of a single fact. (2) Read chiefly on the side of ascertained truths. Let us plant ourselves upon the rock, that some things have been settled. There are some facts of religion which can no more be made flux by the slow or the fierce fires of the crucible of criticism, than gold can be melted by the flicker of a fire-fly. It seems no less than an unpardonable concession to admit that everything in this world is uncertain and unstable, and that the least stability and certainty are found in the realm of religion and requirements of faith. (3) Read for the sake of final character as well as, or even more than, for present culture or professional calling. Is family government becoming feeble? Is the French disease of domestic corruption sickening our most sacred fane, the family? Then it will do it still more unless there shall come on us a holy purpose to purify our homes by raising the quality of the reading there allowed above the merely professional, above the evanescently fashionable, above the utterly ephemeral, up to that high order in which what is read shall sweetly allure to brighter worlds, by making sin of every gilded and grosser sort abominable in this. (J. L. Withrow, D. D.) Reading: a talk with young folk I. And, first, remember what a great and good book is, and especially what the Holy Book is. I want you to read the best books. Never waste your time and money over a poor, worthless, bad book. A bad book is a poison; a good book, the product of a wise soul, is health and strength and joy to mind and heart. II. Then, consider what a great and good book may do for you, especially what the Bible may do for you. A bad book may pollute your moral life with foul and hideous stains; a weak and worthless book will waste your time, and destroy the force of your mind, but a wise strong book will ennoble and enrich you for ever. III. Then, consider how a great and good book may help you, especially how the Bible will help you. We need the sympathy and strength of greater men than ourselves. No mind should feed upon itself. It should commune with other minds, with the golden words of men whose hearts God hath touched. IV. Then, do not let us forget how a great and good book may teach you, especially how the Bible can teach you. It can teach you secular wisdom. The best business precepts are to be found in the Bible. (G. W. McCree.) Reading The art of writing is an old as well as an invaluable art, though printing is a comparatively modern invention. Paul was a reader (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12), and he exhorts Timothy, his son, to read. Right attendance to reading means-- I. Read the best books. The world abounds with books, most of which are rubbish, many of which are pestilent, few only are good. A good book should be--1. Enlightening. It should brighten the firmament and widen the horizon of the soul. 2. Truthful. Whether in the form of fiction, history, or discussion, it should be true to the great realities of existence. 3. Suggestive. Every page of a good book should involve much more than it expresses, and charm the reader into fresh fields of inquiry. 4. Disciplinary. A good book is a book that aims at disciplining both the intellect and the heart. To aid the intellect to think with freedom, force, and precision, and the heart to flow with pure loves and high aspirations. II. Read the best books in a right way.1. Thoughtfully.2. Earnestly.3. Practically. If men would “ give attendance to such reading” a glorious change would come over the world, a new order of things would spring up in every department of social life. (D. Thomas.) Experimental knowledge must be added to book knowledge It is well known that the great doctors of the world, by much reading and speculation, attain unto a great height of knowledge, but seldom to sound wisdom; which hath given way to that common proverb, “ The greatest clerks are not always the wisest men.” It is not studying of politics that will make a man a wise councillor of state till his knowledge is joined with experience, which teacheth where the rules of state hold and where they fail. It is not book knowledge that will make a good general, a skilful pilot--no, not so much as a cunning artizan--till that knowledge is perfected by practice and experience. And so, surely, though a man abound never so much in literal knowledge, it will be far from making him a good Christian, unless he bring precepts into practice, and, by feeling experience, apply that he knows to his own use and spiritual advantage. (J. Spencer.) How to read with profit As it is not the best way for any that intendeth to make himself a good statesman to ramble and run over in his travels many countries, seeing much and making use of little for the improving of his knowledge and experience in state policy, but rather stay so long in each place till he have noted those things which are best worthy his observation: so is it also in the travels and studies of the mind, by which, if we would be bettered in our judgments and affections, it is not our best course to run over many things slightly, taking only such a general view of them as somewhat increaseth our speculative knowledge, but to rest upon the points we read, that we may imprint them in our memories, and work them into our hearts and affections, for the increasing of saving knowledge; then shall we find that one good book, often read and thoroughly pondered, will more profit than by running over a hundred in a superficial manner. (J. Spencer.) The taste for reading If I were to pray for a taste which should stand by me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it, of course, only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree derogating from the higher office and sure and stronger panoply of religious principles--but as a taste, an instrument, and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations--a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity. It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having constantly before our eyes the way in which the best-bred and best-informed men have talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading, well directed, over the whole tenour of a man’ s character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It cannot be better summed up than in the words of the Latin poet, “ Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.” It civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarous. (Sir J. Herschel.) 1 Timothy 4:14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee.An ordination charge If the supernatural gifts with which Timothy was endowed were in danger of suffering injury from the neglect of the zealous, ardent, devoted evangelist, how much greater is your danger of neglecting the gift that is in you, and of suffering injury from its neglect? I have seen the desolation of a negligent ministry, if you have not. By neglect his gift seems to have decayed and died out of him. He preaches, but not as he once preached. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that every unsuccessful minister has neglected the gift that is in him. I am very far from saying so. Some have small ministerial gifts, little preaching power. Paul, in his younger days, made full proof of his ministry. He neglected not the gift that was in him. What gift have you? What qualification for the ministry which all true ministers have? You have the one great gift of the Holy Ghost, a renewed heart. Is this your gift? Do not neglect it. Strive to attain more of this blessed, living experience of the great truths you have to preach. I once heard a good man and a good preacher well known and greatly honoured in this town, say, in the retrospect of a long and prosperous ministry, I have nothing to boast of, for my voice has done more for my success than my intellectual power.” I admired the modesty of the preacher, who, though favoured by a musical voice, had no reason to speak disparagingly of his intellectual powers. But he was wise enough to form a right estimate of the adventitious gifts of which, without being vain, he knew how to make a good use. To be vain of such things would be indeed a little, pitiable vanity. Yet, like John Angell James, “ Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” “ Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” The words seem to say, Cultivate your own gifts; those which are natural to you. Do not be solicitous about gifts which God has not given you. (R. Halley, D. D.) Benefit of using personal gifts Think, too, of the benefits to be derived in our own souls by personal service. God will never let a man be a loser by serving Him. The dense vapours that rise from earth to heaven return in pure water; so he who gives to God such as he has, shall receive from Him a good return. The spear that is used contracts no rust; the sword that is continually wielded remains untarnished; the arm in constant use becomes occasionally weary, but increasingly strong; so the child of God who labours for his master, though often wearied, gains great strength through that which he expends. The placid lake is sealed up in winter’ s frost from shore to shore, but the running rivulet escapes its power. The bewildered traveller on the Alps, half benumbed with cold, gets fresh circulation and warmth by his exertions to restore animation to the body of another. The reason why we have so many benumbed and frozen Christians in the present day is, that there are few personally employed in the work. We long for the time when every believer like the little waterfall and the alpine traveller shall be too active to freeze. Personal service brings its own reward; watering others, we are watered ourselves; warming others, we are ourselves warmed; blessing others, we ourselves are blessed. Do you say, what can God do by one? I reply, very much! By one He brought forth His chosen people from Egypt’ s thraldom; by one (and that a youth) Goliath was slain while the whole army of Israel trembled before him; by one the assembled Israelites were convinced that “ The Lord He is God,” and the prophets of Baal were slain; by one sermon, and that a simple one, three thousand hearts were opened. Time would fail to tell of what God has done by such men as Wickliffe, Luther, Calvin, Huss, Whitfield, Wesley, Pounds, Harlan Page, and why not you? (G. Brown.) 1 Timothy 4:15 Give thyself wholly to them.Ministers wholly given to their work I. That ministers must give themselves wholly to their work by giving their hearts to it. NO man over gives himself wholly to any business to which his heart is opposed. Paul gave his heart so much to the ministry, as to esteem it a great and distinguishing privilege. “ I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,” says he, “ who hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.” His life was bound up in his work. Their hearts are so absorbed in their work that it becomes the source of their highest joys and deepest sorrows. II. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by giving their thoughts to it. Men always meditate upon their supreme object of pursuit. III. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by giving their studies to it. The apostle exhorts Timothy to “ give attendance to reading.” This includes study and thinking, and every mode of intellectual improvement. IV. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by devoting all their time to it. They may employ their whole time in their work; because it is a work which may be done, not only on the first and the last, but on every day of the week. Ministers, indeed, should be frugal of time. They should divide it properly, and devote each part to some particular part of their duty. They should live by rule. V. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by giving all their interests to it. The apostles were obliged to do this literally. They would not have been the ministers of Christ, without literally following his injunction, to forsake all that they had. Not to insist, however, on such extraordinary cases, I would go on to observe that every minister is called, at least, to make all his worldly interests subservient to his holy and Divine employment. VI. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by making their secret devotions subservient to it. They should give themselves to reading, meditation, prayer and self examination; and in all these secret devotions have a particular reference to their public office. VII. That ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, by living agreeably to it. Their lives should resemble their sacred character, and be worthy of the imitation of the best of Christians. Having shown, in various respects, how ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, I now proceed to suggest several reasons why they must give themselves wholly to it. I. And here the first reason that occurs is, that by giving themselves wholly to the ministry they will make the duties of it more easy and pleasant. Their work is truly great and laborious, which needs to be made as light and easy as possible. And though by giving themselves wholly to it, they will neither omit nor curtail any of its duties and labours, yet they will render these very duties and labours more pleasant and delightful, II. Ministers should devote themselves wholly to the service of their people, because this is the wisest and best way to secure their love and respect. We love to see a person heartily and zealously engaged for our good. This is human nature. The sick man esteems and values the physician who devotes himself to his service, and stands by him day and night, to watch his every motion, and to extend his healing hand at every call. III. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, because this will be the best security against the snares and temptations to which they are exposed. IV. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, because this is the best way to become extensively useful. Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. Industry makes the useful farmer, the useful mechanic, the useful physician, and the useful magistrate. V. Ministers must give themselves wholly to their work, because they actually engage to do it. VI. That the importance of the ministry requires those who undertake it to give themselves wholly to their office. I have now finished what I have to say upon the nature and obligation of ministers giving themselves wholly to their work, and proceed to improve the subject.1. We learn, that if ministers do give themselves wholly to their work, they will make it appear. 2. We learn, that if ministers do not give themselves wholly to their work, they will also make it appear. 3. We learn, why the vineyard of Christ bears, at this day, such a disagreeable and melancholy appearance. 4. We learn, the great criminality of those who sustain the sacred office, but do not give themselves wholly to their work. (N. Emmons, D. D.) Meditation Meditation chews the cud, and gets the sweetness and nutritive virtue of the Word into the heart and life: this is the way the godly bring forth much fruit. (Ashworth.) The naturalists observe that to uphold and accommodate bodily life, there are divers sorts of faculties communicated, and these among the rest--1. An attractive faculty, to assume and draw in the food.2. A retentive faculty, to retain it when taken in.3. An assimilating faculty, to concoct the nourishment.4. An augmenting faculty, for drawing to perfection. Meditation is all these. It helps judgment, wisdom and faith to ponder, discern, and credit the things which reading and hearing supply and furnish. It assists the memory to lock up the jewels of Divine truth in her sure treasury; It has a digesting power, and turns spiritual truth into spiritual nourishment; and lastly, it helps the renewed heart to grow upward and increase its power to know the things which are freely given to us of God. (J. Ranew.) The secret of success A man who commenced life as an errand boy rose rapidly, through his untiring industry and earnestness, to the head of an extensive business, which he conducted very successfully. Meeting an old friend one day, he spared a few moments to describe to him briefly the extent of his prosperity and of his prospects. His friend inquired the secret of his success. “ I put my soul into it,” replied the prosperous shopkeeper. “ It is only by throwing my soul into my business, that I made it succeed.” So must the teacher do. That thy profiting may appear to all--Growth in grace Nothing but an evident progress in knowledge and holiness should satisfy the Christian. God expects from him a constant ripening towards perfection. But the duty is plain enough. And the subject of inquiry to which I would rather direct attention is, whether in our long continued enjoyment of religious privileges, there has been any apparent profiting. I. And the first test by which we may judge that we have grown in grace will be found in an increasing conviction of our sinfulness and weakness by nature. The young convert’ s views of sin may be more startling, because new; but that which flashes before his eyes works its way down into the very heart of the more mature Christian, and assumes there the shape of an abiding, humbling assurance of utter sinfulness and helplessness in himself. Here, then, Christians, is a mark by which to measure whether we have grown in grace. Have years of acquaintance with ourselves made us feel our depravity more deeply? When we hear any boasting of the goodness of human nature, do we listen as a sick man does, who knows death is at his vitals, to one complimenting him upon his good looks? If we realize our sinfulness more and more the longer we live, then we may be sure that there “ our profiting appears.” II. Another point of contrast between our present and our former state, our early and our mature experience, will be found in our views of christ and dependence upon him. A young Christian rests indeed upon Christ, but it is as the newly laid wall rests upon the foundation, while the cement is fresh, and when a little blow will cause it to totter; but the mature Christian is like that wall when it settles down, and the uniting medium hardens, so that wall and foundation seem but one solid structure. In our early experience we said much of our dependence on the Saviour, now we feel it. III. If there be any profiting to appear, it will seem again in our increased charity. A young Christian is often a young bigot, filled with self-conceit and pride, and disposed to severity of censure and condemnation. Like a young watch-dog, he means well for his master’ s interests, but will often snarl at his master’ s friends, and upon such as an elder guardian would recognize and welcome. An advanced Christian will grieve more over the dissensions of Christians, and pray earnestly for the time when all shall be one. IV. And there are various other points in which “ our profiting will appear,” if we have grown in grace. A young Christian is much troubled by the remembrance of particular acts of sin. A young Christian, again, sets a very high value on religious sensibility, on excited feeling, on gifts, and estimates his own religious character by his fervours in devotion, his tears for sin. The piety of the young believer, again, depends very much on external aid. It must be fed by constant converse with fellow-Christians, and its warmth must be sustained by frequent attendance on religious meetings. But our “ profiting will appear,” if we have learned to delight more in our own private meditations on God’ s Word, and in communion with Him, and to be less dependent on our Christian ministers and our Christian brethren. “ The mature Christian, like the sack well filled, can stand alone, while the young convert must be held up in his emptiness.” The young Christian lives much upon the opinion of others. To the young Christian, one or two doctrines of God’ s Word seem exclusively important, and he would he glad if every sermon were upon conversion and faith in Christ, and is apt to regard a preacher as not evangelical who dwells upon the moral duties of life; but our “ profiting will appear,” if we have learned to magnify all God’ s Word, to feel that all should be unfolded, and to love it as a whole. And there will be, if our profiting is apparent, an increased dependence on prayer and all the means of grace. But of all other points an increasing heavenly-mindedness will appear as the most striking evidence of a growing Christian. So small is our improvement, however, that most of us are obliged to say, we hardly know at times whether we are any better than we were years ago. When a ship is moving slowly into port, so that we can scarcely perceive that she advances at all, it is pleasant to fix our eye upon some landmark, and watch it till we can exclaim, Oh, yes, I do see now that we move a little; and these marks which I have given may help us to know whether we are progressing at all towards the haven of peace. Happy are they who can thus perceive an advance in the Divine life. It is a comfort in itself, because every degree of progress in holiness is like every step in recovery from sickness, attended with positive and present pleasure. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.) 1 Timothy 4:16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine.The comparative influence of character and doctrine In counselling his friend and follower as to the best method of doing good in the sphere of duty allotted to him, the apostle seems here to lay the chief stress, not on doctrine or teaching, but on life or conduct. “ Take heed,” is his admonition, not first to what you teach, and then to what you are; not primarily to your verbal instructions, and then to the spirit of your own character and life, but first “ to thyself” and then “ to the doctrine.” For it is nothing less than the broad principle that, in order to do good, the first and great effort must be to be good,--that extent and accuracy of religious knowledge, however important, are secondary, as a means of influence, to the moral discipline and culture of our own heart and life. Both reason and experience are against the notion that it needs great personal piety to be an accurate expositor of the theory of Divine truth, or that none but men of very holy lives can be profound theologians or able preachers. To be versant in a science does not of necessity imply that we must be skilled in the correlative art. Theory and practice, science and art, the knowledge of principles and the power to apply them, are attainments which depend on totally different faculties, and which may be, and in actual experience very commonly are, dissociated from each other. The able or eloquent writer on the principles of government would not always make the best practical statesman, or the acute expounder of theories in political economy the most sagacious financier. It is possible to know scientifically the principles of music without being able to sing a note,--to discuss and enforce the principles of grammar and rhetoric, and yet be a feeble speaker or inelegant writer. And the same remark is borne out in the sphere of man’ s spiritual life. The facts and data being given, a man may play with the terms of theology as with the terms of algebra. The experience of mankind in all ages has shown how possible it is for a man to draw fine fancy-pictures of the beauty of virtue amidst a life that is sadly unfamiliar with her presence, to utter pathetic harangues on charity with a heart of utter selfishness, and to declaim on purity and self-denial, whilst living in sloth and luxurious self-indulgence. The truth of God may thus be studied as a mere intellectual exercise, and preached as a feat of rhetorical address, whilst yet the premises of the preacher’ s high argument are utterly foreign to his own godless experience. Like a sick physician, the preacher may prescribe, perhaps successfully, to others for the disease of which himself is dying. We fall back with not less confidence on the assertion, that an experimental acquaintance with Divine truth--deep religious earnestness, is the first and grand qualification in the teacher, incomparably the most powerful means of usefulness, and the surest pledge of success. To be duly effective, truth must not merely fall from the lip, but breathe forth from the life; it must come, not like incense from the censer that only holds it, but like fragrance, from a flower, exhaling from a nature suffused with it throughout. In one word--and this is the principle which I wish now to illustrate--the first qualification of the religious instructor is, not knowledge, but piety. I. That life is in some respects of prior importance to doctrine may be perceived by reflecting that life tends very greatly to modify a man’ s own views of doctrine; in other words, that personal character tinges a man’ s perceptions of truth. Whether it be things material or moral, objects of sense or objects of thought, in most cases we perceive according as we are. The same objects may be externally present to a hundred spectators, and yet be practically different to each of them. Every one knows, for example, that the varied colours wherewith the face of the visible earth seems to be clothed, exist not literally in the objects themselves, but owe their splendour to the eye that surveys them. It is only the unknown or occult causes of colour that exist in nature; colour itself is in the organism and mind of the observer; and through physical disease or organic defect our perceptions of colour may be marred or destroyed. The jaundiced eye blanches nature. Or if we pass from the mere organism through which man’ s spirit converses with the outward world to that spirit itself, still more obvious illustration have we of the principle before us. It is the state of the inner eye, the condition of that spirit within us which looks out on nature through the loopholes of sense, that makes the world’ s aspect to be to us what it is. It is the same world which is beheld by the man of deep thoughtfulness and sensibility, and by the dull observer in whom the sense of beauty has never been evoked, and yet how different that world to each! Now the same law attains in that higher province to which the text relates. As our perceptions of beauty, so our perceptions of moral and spiritual truth are modified by the inner spirit and character of the percipient. Self conditions doctrine. A man’ s own moral state is very much the measure of his moral convictions. The highest spiritual truths lie beyond the range of a soul that is not in harmony with them, and the glimmerings of truth which a defective nature gains, take their complexion from its moral tone and spirit. The glorious discoveries of Divine things on the page of inspiration are lost to the soul in which the moral sense, the vision and faculty divine, is dull or dormant. God is but a name to the mind in which no Divine instinct, no godly sympathies and aspirations, have begun to stir. Moreover, consider how notoriously our opinions in secular matters are affected by our prejudices and passions. Who of us, where personal interest is at stake, can trust with unerring certainty to the conclusions of his own judgment? Experience proves that agreeable falsehoods are at least as likely to be believed as disagreeable truths. Endeavour to introduce new opinions, uncongenial to educational or class convictions, and often all the force of truth will in vain be exerted to obtain for them a place in the rugged and reluctant mind. Thus even on the lower ground of secular truth it needs, in the formation of opinion, the rarest candour and self-watchfulness to conduct the process aright. But this discipline is still more indispensable to the religious inquirer. For there are no interests so tremendous as those which are involved in our religious beliefs. In no other province of inquiry are deeper passions stirred, or prejudices, associations, habits, more numerous and inveterate, called into play. As the chemist seeks to render his balances exquisitely sensitive, and carefully eliminates from his results all variations of temperature or other disturbing elements; so should the student of Divine things strive by God’ s grace to attain the acuteness and delicacy of a judgment freed from all deflecting influences, and poised with an exquisite nicety of discrimination on which not the slightest grain of truth is lost. He should cultivate, in one word, by the discipline of a holy life, a truer and philosophic calmness and candour--the calmness of a spirit that dwells in habitual communion with God, the candour of a mind that has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by truth. II. In further illustration of the principle that life or character comes, in order of importance, before “ doctrine,” it is to be considered that life or character affects not only a man’ s own views of truth, but also his power of expressing or communicating truth to others. For if, from any cause, the organ of spiritual perception be impaired or undeveloped in a man’ s mind, of course he can communicate to others no clearer views than he himself has received. The stream can rise no higher than its source. The medium lends its own defects to the light which passes through it. To exert real power over men’ s minds and hearts, what you speak must be not only true, but true to you. For the conveyance of thought and feeling from mind to mind is not a process which depends on mere verbal accuracy. Language is not the only medium through which moral convictions and impressions are transmitted from speaker to hearer. There is another and more subtle mode of communication, a mysterious moral contagion, by means of which, irrespective of the mere intellectual apparatus employed, the instructor’ s beliefs and emotions are passed over into the minds of his auditory. Strong conviction has a force of persuasion irrespective of the mere oral instrument by which it works. The magnetic force must saturate his own spirit ere it flow out to others in contact with him. No stereotyped orthodoxy, no simulated fervours, however close or clever the imitation, will achieve the magic effects of reality. Bring your own spirit to the fount of inspiration, live inhabitual communion with the infinite truth and life, and the words you speak to men, whether rude or refined, will possess a charm, a force, a power to touch their hearts and mould their secret souls, which no words of eloquent conventionality can ever attain. There will be an intuitive recognition of the Divine fire which has touched your lips. III. The only other consideration I shall adduce in support of the principle involved in the text is--that life or character has in many respects an influence which direct teaching or doctrine cannot exert. Actions, in many ways, teach better than words, and even the most persuasive oral instruction is greatly vivified when supplemented by the silent teaching of the life.1. Consider, for one thing, that actions are more intelligible than words. Ideas, reflections, deductions, distinctions, when presented in words, are liable to misapprehension; their power is often modified or lost by the obscurity of the medium through which they are conveyed, and the impression produced by them is apt very speedily to vanish from the mind. But whatever the difficulty of understanding words, deeds are almost always intelligible. Let a man net merely speak but act the truth; let him reveal his soul in the articulate speech of an earnest, pure, and truthful life, and this will be a language which the profoundest must admire, while the simplest can appreciate. The most elaborate discourse on sanctification will prove tame and ineffective in comparison with the eloquence of a humble, holy walk with God. In the spectacle of a penitent soul pouring forth the broken utterance of its contrition at the Saviour’ s feet, there is a nobler sermon on repentance than eloquent lips ever spoke. The living epistle needs no translation to be understood in every country and clime; a noble act of heroism or self-sacrifice speaks to the common heart of humanity; a humble, gentle, holy, Christlike life preaches to the common ear all the world over. 2. Consider, again, that the language of the life is more convincing than the language of the lip. It is not ideal or theoretical, it is real and practical; and whilst theories and doctrines may be disputed, and only involve the learner in inextricable confusion, a single unmistakable fact, if you can appeal to it, cuts the knot, and sets discussion at rest. The theory is a fine one, they admit, but constituted as poor human nature is, there is this inseparable objection to it, that it will not work. But in this, as in many other cases, experiment will be the test of truth. Men may dispute your theory of agriculture, and explanation or discussion might only serve to confirm them in their error; but show them, rugged though be the soil and ungenial the climate, your fair and abundant crops, and objection is silenced. 3. Consider, finally, that the teaching of the life is available in many cases in which the teaching of the lip cannot, or ought not, to be attempted. But in all cases in which formal instruction or advice is precluded, how invaluable that other mode of access to the minds of men on which we are now insisting--the silent, unobtrusive, inoffensive, yet most potent and persuasive teaching of the life. The counsel you may not speak you may yet embody in action. To the faults and sins you cannot notice in words, you may hold up the mirror of a life bright with purity and goodness and grace. The mind which no force of rebuke could drive from sin, may yet be insensibly drawn from it by the attractive power of holiness ever acting in its presence. Let your daily life be an unuttered yet perpetual pleading with man for God. Let men feel, in contact with you, the grandeur of that religion to whose claims they will not listen, and the glory of that Saviour whose name you may not name. Let the sacredness of God’ s slighted law be proclaimed by your uniform sacrifice of inclination to duty, by your repression of every unkind word, your scorn of every undue or base advantage, your stern and uncompromising resistance to the temptations of appetite and sense. Preach the preciousness of time by your husbanding of its rapid hours, and your crowding of its days with duties. And, be assured, the moral influence of such a life cannot be rest. Like the seed which the wind wafts into hidden glades and forest depths, where no sewer’ s hand could reach to scatter it, the subtle germ of Christ’ s truth will be borne on the secret atmosphere of a holy life, into hearts which no preacher’ s voice could penetrate. Where the tongue of men and of angels would fail, there is an eloquence of living goodness which will often prove persuasive. (J. Caird, D. D.) The teacher and the taught 1. Let your teaching be Scriptural. You are students of God’ s revealed Word. Let me, then, earnestly entreat you to lay the basis of all that you have to say upon the clearly ascertained revelations of Holy Scripture. Do not suppose that you can find within yourself better moral illustrations, or more comprehensive principles of action, than you will find within the sacred volume. 2. Take heed to your doctrine, that it be not only Scriptural, but comprehensive. Do not rest satisfied with a truth because it is found in Holy Scripture, but discover for yourself whether there be not other truths, closely-related truths, in God’ s revelation, without which the truth in question cannot be understood. Do not be satisfied with the truth that merely meets your own views and fancy. Believe me, nearly all the errors which have desolated the Church of God have arisen from this want of comprehensiveness, this exaggeration of some truths, this conference upon them of unwonted importance. There are those who have so exclusively dwelt on the Divine sovereignty and counsels, that they have lost sight of the responsibility and defiled the conscience of man. There are those who are so overpowered by His divinity, that they have lost the practical force of His brotherhood, and conferred His humanity on His mother, His sisters, and brethren. 3. Take heed to the manner of the doctrine, that it be connected and ordered upon some plan, some prayerfully-considered purpose. Do not treat the Scriptures as a conjuring-book, nor open it at random, nor read it with carelessness; but endeavour to get at a meaning of a period, of a stage, of an epoch, of a division of God’ s revelations; or, if you will, pursue the Scriptural teaching, on some great thrilling themes, from the beginning of the Bible to its close. 4. Take heed to your doctrine, that it is appropriate to the class of minds with which you have to deal. Paul spoke in Hebrew to the Jews, and in Greek to the philosophers of Athens. He adopted one style when addressing the Orientalists of Ephesus, and another when reasoning with the prejudices of Roman Jews. “ Take heed,” said the venerable apostle to his son in the faith, “ take heed unto thyself.” We who are workers for God, students of truth, servants of the Church, teachers and pastors, watchers for souls, have a great work to do with ourselves--we have great temptations to resist, yet we are to be “ patterns even to believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” Take heed to thyself, O man of God! Thou mayest deal with heavenly realities and Divine truths until they are mere chess-men that thou art shifting over the board and fighting imaginary battles with. Thou mayest substitute the intellectual appreciation of the truth which thou hast discovered, for the spiritual reception of it into thy own heart. The inducements by which the apostle urges this stirring appeal are comprehensive and inspiring: “ in so doing thou shalt both save thyself and those that hear thee.” My fellow-workers, there is one salvation for our hearers and for ourselves. The most powerful preacher, the most devoted teacher, the most distinguished apostle, the holiest martyr, must be saved by the same means as the most ignorant and guilty sinner to whom he speaks. There are no special passports to heaven, no shortcuts, no sideways, no reserved seats, no privileged admissions there; a spiritual reputation on earth is no watchword at the gates of heaven. However, patient perseverance in such godlike work is a way not only of securing the salvation of others, but our own salvation too. Our own salvation, without the salvation of those that hear us, is a thought we can scarcely endure. (H. R. Reynolds, B. A.) Self-improvement “ Genius,” says a modern writer, “ is the passion for self-improvement.” It has been assumed that if a man has genius he does not need to be careful of himself, he does not need to aim at self-improvement. The very opposite is the true state of the case. It is the blood horse that needs the most careful training. “ Take heed to thyself” is a word necessary for us all, but it is especially necessary for those of full vitality: for those in whose veins the hot blood seems to course rapidly; for those of highly-strung nervous organization; for those whose impulses are fiery; whose temperament is ardent; whose souls have in them a craving that seems insatiable. If these do not take heed to themselves, there will be disaster. A well-balanced nature, in which the physical, mental, and moral seem to be in happy equilibrium, is not always found, perhaps seldom. Some one department of our organism seems to predominate. The tendency is to cultivate that which it is most easy to cultivate, to the neglect of the other. Consequently, the whole nature is thrown out of balance and a condition of chronic unhappiness is the result. I would ask you to remark upon the advice which the great apostle gives to Timothy, one of the earliest presbyters of the Christian Church. Though this man must have had special qualifications for his work, yet these special qualifications did not preclude the necessity for diligent improvement of his mental powers. He is urged to do everything he can towards self-improvement. On that must depend his usefulness. There is no recognition here of any supernatural grace which would relieve him from the use of those means whereby ordinary men bring their minds into an ability of perceiving what is, truth and what error. He must take heed to himself first, or his teaching will not be as full of light and of force as it ought to be. “ Take heed unto thyself.” Every man of us is a trinity in unity, body, soul, spirit. We have physical, mental and spiritual needs; physical, mental and spiritual abilities--these constitutionally. They are included in the word “ manhood.” . The physical is the pediment on which the mental and spiritual stand. It is that which confines them to this earth. It limits and modifies their use. There is something that we have to learn within these present limitations, which will be useful to us always. We soon come to the end of our physical growth; and strange though it seems, very many seem soon to come to the end of their mental growth, although it must be only in seeming. But no one ever comes to the limit of spiritual growth so long as he is on this earth. Now, we have to recognize distinctly and clearly that the lower is for the sake of the higher. It is in service to it. The physical is for the sake of the mental, the mental for the sake of the emotional, and all for the sake of the spiritual. Nor is there any possibility of improvement until that which is uppermost in man constitutionally becomes uppermost in thought. Inadequate views of human nature are at the root of personal miseries and social perplexities. Man’ s view of himself as to what he is and what destined for must affect him beneficially or otherwise in all relations of life and in all that he does. Supposing a man has this view of life, “ I am here to be as happy as I can make myself, here to enjoy myself, here simply to have a good time.” That is the dominating idea. You see at a glance its limitations. No heroism can ever come out of it; nothing really good or great or sublime. No man moving under the influence of that idea has ever done anything of worth or value. Take another view of life, that in which a man sees something to be done out of which comes a material reward. The idea of duty dawns upon him, eventually takes possession of him, masters him, and under its influence he denies himself much to which other men are inclined, and becomes the world’ s successful man in that region concerning which we cannot use any other words than those which convey respect--the commercial. This man becomes stoical. He uses one department of his nature only. We might bring other types of men forward in illustration, but these two will suffice. In both cases the nature is depreciated below that for which it was predestinated. Neither man will ever be good or noble. There is no possibility of it. The idea which these men have of manhood and its meaning and purpose is very much lower than God’ s idea written in the constitution of man. The first man never could be happy and the second man never can be satisfied. Why? Because, in both cases, the nature is larger than the idea which controls and dominates it. The spiritual part of man is clamorous. It wants its dues, or its wine turns to vinegar; its milk of human kindness to gall. The physical is not here for itself, but for the sake of the mental, the mental is not here for itself, but for the sake of the emotional and the affectional; and the emotional and the affectional are here for the sake of that which is permanent and indestructible in man’ s nature--the spiritual. As a child cries for its mother so the spiritual in man cries out for its Father, God. We see, then, that there is a limit soon reached to physical self-improvement, and a limit also soon reached to improvement arising out of any type or style of life which is dominated by the idea of pleasing oneself simply, or of doing duty which has relation only to that which is seen and temporal. Every man, even the smallest and meanest, is larger constitutionally than his business and larger than his pleasures--using that word as it is ordinarily used. Man’ s self, what the philosophers would call “ the ego,” is that which needs to be continuously improved. And with its improvement everything else belonging to the man will be raised, will be expanded, will be developed into a higher power. If a man be an artist, he is a better artist when his spiritual nature is awakened. The costliest pictures in all Europe are those in which the artists have aimed at bodying forth spiritual themes. No man is really himself until the Spirit within him is awake. The New Testament calls him “ dead” till then. It is all but literally true that a man is never alive until that which is characteristic of him, as man, is alive. A type of religious life has been prevalent, we might say dominant, in the past which has almost lost sight of three-fourths of the Pauline theology, anyway of the Pauline ethics. To get a man converted according to the Calvinistic idea of conversion, and then pretty much to leave him as necessarily in a condition of safety, this has been dominant. Conversion means turning the life Christwards instead of turning the back upon Christ and His salvation. But to turn round and stand still is not the apostolic idea of being a Christian. Any new truth entering the mind brings light, mid light means life, and life means activity. We are at school--learning how to be men and women according to God’ s idea of men and women. How is our spiritual nature to be developed into more and yet more until it becomes the undisputed sovereign of our constitution? It is impossible to compel any man to be a Christian because it is impossible to compel love. The heart of man must feel drawn to the object set before it. And so we fail to do any justice to the Christian religion unless its relation to the heart of man be presented so as to wake that heart into response. Along this line all self-improvement must proceed. We must take heed to ourselves. I venture to add that there is no spiritual self improvement that is worth anything apart from plan and purpose. A spasmodic religiousness will do little. If a young man at college should study only when he feels in the humour he would be disgraced. If a man of business should go to his store or office only when the fit takes him he would be bankrupt. (R. Thomas, D. D.) The principles of the ministerial character We shall note some of those features of character, which were probably intended when the apostle urged Timothy--and in him all who should come after him--to “ take heed unto himself.” I. We may suppose him, in the first instance, to mean, Take heed that thou art faithful. NO qualification is more commonly associated with the gospel ministry than this. “ Moreover,” says this apostle to the Corinthians, “ it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” ; “ I have obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful” : whilst to Epaphras and Tychicus he assigns the distinction of “ faithful ministers of Christ and his fellow-servants in the Lord.” II. But again: in warning Timothy to “ take heed to himself,” the apostle would have him be fearless. He says to him in another epistle, “ God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” It is remarkable to observe how prophets, evangelists and apostles concur in warning us against the fear of man. III. Another ministerial quality, which we may well consider as included in the apostle’ s caution, “ Take heed unto thyself,” is that of a prudent regard to external circumstances. A Christian, a real Christian, we ought to remember, is a public man--an instrument in the world’ s renovation--taken up into a system of agencies, which are to issue in the regeneration of a new and righteous universe: so that “ whether he lives, he lives unto the Lord; or whether he dies, he dies unto the Lord.” Neither is it less a part of this ministerial prudence, to take heed to the intellectual signs of the times in which we live. (D. Moore, M. A.) The principles of ministerial doctrine I. We inquire, then, what authority is to be consulted in deciding upon the truth of doctrine. One pervading fault of all the religious systems of antiquity was the absence of any universal and accredited standard, either of faith or of practice. Men did not know what they were to believe. Their mysteries were locked up among human deposits; their precepts proceeded from human oracles; and as there were no means of securing uniformity among the teachers’ thoughts, that which was set down as truth to-day, might cease to be truth to-morrow. Why, his security is, that all essential and saving truth is lodged, confined, inseparably bound up in a volume, whose pages were penned by the finger of the living God; so that a curse would light on him, be he seraph from the throne of light or ambassador from the realms of darkness, who should knowingly preach as an essential doctrine of the gospel, that which could neither be found therein, nor yet be proved thereby. Now, it must be owned, that even if there be nothing else to recommend the recognition of this principle, it has at least the advantage of great simplicity; that it would preserve us from all those fluctuations of doctrine and of practice, which would be sure to result, so long as men’ s cameleon views were permitted to determine what should be truth and what should not. But here it may be asked, does the fact of this system being locked up in a single book secure this much-desired uniformity? The Almighty has made the way of holiness plain as a sunbeam to him that on his knees will seek for it; but He certainly has made no provision for the blindness that will not see. II. We come now to the claims of human reason in reference to the mode of inculcating doctrine. Born as man is, in common with myriads of other creatures, subject to appetite, passion, disease and death, he has one faculty which distinguishes him from the whole intelligent universe--the faculty of reason; that power by which he thinks and forms his conclusions. In this respect, man stands alone. It is plain, therefore, that no system of instruction would be complete, which disregarded the claims of this noble faculty. And yet it has been, from ill-advised endeavours to satisfy these claims, that the unity of the Church has suffered some of its severest shocks, and the cause of truth its deepest injuries. Teachers and taught have too often lacked the courage to acknowledge that the line of their puny intellect could never fathom “ the deep things of God” --that there were doctrines in their system, which could never be comprehended by finite beings. Now, we have no hesitation in telling you, that we have no desire to see these lofty subjects pared down and refined to the presumed level of human reason. “ Without controversy,” such a doctrine as that of “ God manifest in the flesh,” is a mystery. Neither, as we shall hope to show you, whenever any of these sublime doctrines are brought under your notice, are any demands made upon your faith, which it is not the duty of an intelligent creature to concede. III. We proceed now to the use and efficacy of external ordinances towards strengthening our faith. IV. The leading truths to be insisted upon as essential points of doctrine. (D. Moore, M. A.) Improvement of religious anniversaries I. I shall explain the admonition, “ Take heed to thyself.”1. The object of your solicitude, this will be yourself. It is your soul--a man’ s soul is himself. What is the garment to the body which it clothes? What is the body to the soul which inhabits it? 2. The manner in which this solicitude for the soul is expressed--“ Take heed.” How often is that admonition repeated in Scripture; and generally to some subject connected with man’ s spiritual and eternal interests I Man is heedful enough in reference to his worldly concerns, but he is the most heedless being in reference to his spiritual interests. Salvation is not a trifling work; religion is not an insignificant matter;--it requires that we “ take heed.” II. I am to enforce this admonition. And here the motives are so numerous that selection is more difficult than enumeration.1. But, in the first place, I would remind you of the inconceivable value and infinite importance of that for which your solicitude is demanded. 2. Take heed to the soul, for the soul’ s salvation is the most rational, the most befitting exercise of that self-love which our Creator has implanted in our nature as our impetus to happiness. There is a great difference between selfishness and self-love. It cannot be vicious for a man to desire to be happy, nor is there any virtue in it. It is only an instinct of nature, but then it is a most important one; and the man that is not taking heed to his soul is acting in opposition to this self-love--this instinct of his nature after happiness. 3. But I observe there is another motive to take heed to thyself--it is the command of God. If it were only advice on the part of the Creator--since He knows the whole of the case, since His eye looks onward to eternity, since He comprehends the whole range of being, since He knows what is destined for the righteous and the wicked in another world--the creature must be under the influence of a total disregard to his own happiness, who refuses the counsel of the Almighty. 4. I remark, that if we do not take heed to ourselves, all the solicitudes which others may have cherished, or may still feel for us, will be all in vain. 5. I urge this admonition to take heed to yourselves by the consideration that it is indispensably necessary--you cannot be saved without it. There are difficulties connected with salvation. If you are saved, there must be striving, watching, and praying. Can all this be done without taking heed to your souls? 6. I admonish you to take heed to yourselves, by showing you that all the solicitude you may feel, or profess to feel for others, cannot be accepted in you for solicitude for yourselves. 7. I urge this on you from the consideration, that so far from interfering with or injuring your doings for the benefit of others, the more heed you take to yourselves, the better qualified will you be to take heed to others. There is nothing in a strict attention to your own personal salvation, incompatible with the salvation of others. And now permit me, in conclusion, to take up the subject--1. By way of examination.2. Let me take up the subject by way of expostulation, what have you taken heed to if you have not taken heed to yourselves? How has your time been occupied? How have your faculties been employed? What have you found more valuable than your soul, more important than salvation, more endurable than eternity, more desirable than heaven? (J A. James.) Thyself and thy teaching The text consists of three parts. It presents--1. An object of watchful care.2. An admonition to persistency in watchfulness.3. A reason for this care in its happy results. I. The object of watchfulness and caution is apparently twofold. Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching; but as we shall examine the admonition a little more carefully, we shall discover that the two parts are of one piece and made up of one thought. For the present, however, let us consider them separately. Take heed then, first, to thyself; or literally, hold thy attention fixed upon thyself. The gospel gives us two classes of admonition which, while apparently pointing in different ways, are nevertheless quite consistent, On the one hand, it is constantly directing our thoughts away from self; its very key-note is deny self; treat it as if it were not. On the other hand, it is most intensely personal. While it tells us that no man liveth unto himself, it also tells us that every man shall give account of himself to God. In one and the same breath we hear “ Bear ye one another’ s burdens,” and “ Every man shall bear his own burden.” In one place we find Paul insisting on the independent right of the individual conscience, asserting that every man stands or falls to his own master; and in another saying, “ If meat make my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat while the world standeth.” In our text we find the same thing. Timothy is exhorted to take heed to himself; but the last clause of the verse shows that not only himself but all his hearers are to be in his mind; that his very heedfulness of himself is to be for their sake quite as much as for his own. Hence our text, carefully studied, may show us how these two classes of admonition may be reconciled. “ Bend thine attention on thyself.” The fair inference is that self needs careful watching; that a man who undertakes to look after himself has a great piece of work upon his hands, and one which admits of no negligence. In a worldly sense most men find taking care of themselves a very serious business; it is an infinitely more serious business in a moral sense; it is transcendently serious in a Christian sense; at least our Lord seemed to think so when He asked, “ What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit his own self.” The difference between taking care of self in the ordinary sense and in the Christian sense, is very radical and lies in this; that the ordinary sense implies taking care of the natural self; gratifying its desires, encouraging its tendencies, assisting its proclivities, trying to make it by culture, on a larger scale, essentially what it is by nature; while the Christian sense implies making self something which it is not by nature; the development of a renewed, Christ-like self, the ideal self of the Gospel; the training of a new creature in Christ Jesus. We often hear people exhorted to be true to themselves, as if all virtue were summed up in that. There are not a few men who, if they were true to themselves would be false to every man. Certain people talk as though if a man only acts out that which he really is at heart, he is thereby shown to be virtuous. On the contrary, he may be shown to be essentially vicious. A serpent is true to himself when he stings you; a tiger when he rends you; a traitor when he betrays you. The burglar, the pickpocket, the assassin, the more false they are to themselves the better for us. The gospel, therefore, challenges this fine moral sentiment, and admits it only under conditions. Be true to yourself, yes; but to what self? There is something before being true to yourself, and that is, “ Take heed to yourself.” Look well what that is to which you propose to be true. Christian training has not only to bring us to a certain point of attainment, it has also to detach us from very much; and it is to the work of detachment as well as to that of attainment that our taking heed to ourselves is directed. When a boy goes to West Point and is enrolled as a cadet, perhaps the most exasperating thing about his new life is that he is constantly being checked in doing the things which it is natural for him to do. The soldier self he finds out is something quite different from the schoolboy self, and the transition from one to the other is neither easy nor pleasant. “ Look out for yourself. That is no way for a soldier to stand.” His head or feet fall into their natural positions. “ Take care! Eyes right!” And so at every point where the natural habits assert themselves, the boy is corrected and reproved. His natural self is the very thing he has to take heed to and guard against while he is cultivating the new soldierly self until it becomes a second nature. Just so, when a man sets out to become a good soldier of Christ, a great part of the hardness he has to endure grows out of the struggle with himself in the effort to develop the new and better self. Hence the emphasis is laid by the apostle justly upon this point. The first thing is that you yourself be right; that you yourself be under Christ’ s new law, pervaded by Christ’ s new life, guided by Christ’ s new unselfish principle of action; that you be such a self as Paul describes in the words, “ Not I live but Christ liveth in me.” Therefore, take heed unto thyself. Take heed too unto thy teaching. Christianity, such is our Lord’ s general principle, wherever it informs a life and a character, carries a power of instruction. Ye are the light of the world. The very quality of Christian life is that something should go out from it to enlighten and purify. Here, therefore, is the point of connection with the former charge. Take heed to thyself, because that self teaches; because no man liveth unto himself; because you cannot be a Christian and not give men some impression about Christ and Christianity. You must teach. You cannot help it. Men will learn something from you whether you will or not, Thus, then, all that has been said thus far is easily summed up. Clergy and people alike are admonished simply on the ground of their discipleship. Discipleship in every case carries with it a power of teaching. That power resides first of all in the disciple’ s Christian personality; in what he himself is as a Christian. I repeat it--you all teach. Every one of you who professes faith in Christ is a teacher in virtue of that fact. You teach by your spirit. This is a thing hard to define or explain. If one should ask you to explain the odour which fills your room from that beautiful climbing honeysuckle, you could not do it; but you are conscious of the fragrance none the less. II. We come now to the second element of the text--persistency. Continue in these things; that is, in care for yourself and for your teaching. Christian self-culture requires continuous care. The old self is like the treacherous ocean lapping at the dykes and assailing the smallest break, and must be constantly watched. The new self is a growth, not a complete creation, and like all growths must be tended. And this persistency is related also to the teaching power of the Christian self. It is behind all the good and lasting impressions which holy character makes. When a man strikes a blow which stuns his adversary the effect is sudden; but behind that lightning-like stroke are years of slow muscular compacting and gymnastic training. When intellectual power goes out of another man to you, and you instinctively recognize, in your first contact with him, an intellectual king, behind that impression are years of mental discipline and laborious study. Just so spiritual character often makes itself felt at once. It takes no time nor reasoning to convince you that you are talking with one who has walked with God: but crude character, shallow character, half-way character does not and cannot affect you thus. Such impression is made by the man who has long taken heed to himself, who has been scarred in many a fight with the old self, and has watched and tended with prayer and tears the growth of the new man in him. Then again, even when character is not ripened there is a lesson in steady, persistent growth. A double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, ceases to be a lesson except of warning. When a man’ s whole life is seen to be concentrated upon the service of God and the attainment of a heavenly recompense, that life is a lesson. Many a time, as you have been walking the street, you have seen a man stop at a corner, and look fixedly upward at something or other. Your first impulse is to look up too. There is always a peculiar interest in anything that is above this earth, though it may be only a little way above. Then you stop, and still look up. Perhaps you ask, “ What is it?” The next man that comes along and sees you two looking up, stops also, and the next, until a crowd is gathered, for no other reason than that one man in the hurrying throng stood steadfastly looking upward. And this familiar incident is a type of something better. When a man is seen living for heaven; when every day’ s life says to men, “ One thing have I desired of the Lord: that will I seek after,” there is a power and a lesson in that fact. Men ask, “ What is it he sees which we do not see? What is he after which thus concentrates his energy, and makes him live in this world as if his home were elsewhere?” III. And now the third element of the text--the result of this careful and persistent self-culture. “ Thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” In the economy of this world for a man to take heed to himself means to let other people go; not to save them, but to let them be lost if they will. In the Christian economy, to take heed to oneself is to save not only the self, but others. Thou shalt save thyself. It is very clearly implied that salvation is not an easy matter. Salvation is not a thing which God works out for us while we take our ease. But this promise, “ thou shalt save thyself,” is bound up with our influence upon others. You know very well that in teaching another any branch of knowledge, you broaden your own knowledge. You know how the labourer who toils for the sake of wife and little ones, strengthens his own arm; and in like manner, the exertion of spiritual energy for the sake of others, reacts to make the man who puts it forth spiritually stronger. The man who feels that he must take heed to himself because his life affects other lives, and who watches and disciplines himself, not only for his own salvation, but to save others--himself grows apace in spiritual power. So, too, you shall save them that hear you. There is a saving power in a life which is watchful over itself as in God’ s sight. Here we strike, I think, the true idea of the Church of Christ. The Church is ordained of Christ to save. Men talk of revival. For one I want a revival on a larger scale than is popularly conceived. A means of saving men--a mightier means than any temporary or spasmodic efforts. I long to see whole Churches, as bodies of Christ, glowing with the radiance of concentrated character. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Conduct and doctrine Let us look first at that member of the pair which is least popular--doctrine. What does the word mean? It means simply “ teaching,” or “ what is taught.” St. Paul, writing to Timothy, who was by office a teacher, says “ take heed unto the doctrine, to what you teach” ; and of course writing to the people he would have said “ take heed unto the doctrine, unto what you are taught.” We are all being taught constantly; persons and things and events are constantly giving us lessons; the process of doctrine-making is for ever going on within us, and we cannot help it, as long as we are receptive and reasoning beings. And very often me hear some man give expression to a doctrine under the influence of a sudden event, which only puts in shape and brings to light what has been forming in his life for years. Since then the warning is about teaching, it must mean that we are to be careful of our subject and our teacher; for those are the important things in all teaching, and it is just those that give the characteristics to Christian doctrine. The subject is God and the teacher is Christ. It exalts God to His place as the very centre of all our life; it says that under Christ alone can we really learn about God worthily, although there will be many subordinate teachers, to whose word He will give the right place and due importance. This is the essence of Christian doctrine. Look at it thus as regulating, systematizing, correcting all the teaching that is for ever poured into our minds, and there is nothing so terrible in its aspect. It is not dry or unimportant; it is a matter of vital interest; it does not consist of things that cannot be understood, but has its beginnings in the simplest facts that all can comprehend. II. And so doctrine is put before us as a necessity of all life. And now we can turn to the other side which men appreciate so much more readily--to conduct, which is contained in those words, “ take heed to thyself.” Care of our conduct, which we all willingly grant to be three-fourths of man’ s evident life, everybody feels the need of in this world.1. In the first place we can see how conduct serves doctrine. This process of learning is not an easy one; the best side of a lesson is easily passed over, because some other side appeals to us more. We have been accustomed to think only of ourselves; sin has turned us away from God and He is a hard, dry subject to us; we are not what God made us to be, and so we are not able to appreciate what our God’ s word is to us. But diligent care of oneself tones up the mind. The man is, used to being rigid with himself, to looking away from his own immediate comfort to higher and better. Doctrine is the learning in God’ s school: and just as it makes a great difference from what kind of a home a child goes to the school, as to how much he learns when he arrives there, so to learn in God’ s school we need to go there with lives that have appreciated the vileness of all sin and the value of all struggle against it. 2. This is the value of conduct, then, as a preparative for doctrine: look at it next as the interpreter of doctrine. God’ s teaching must be very great, and often beyond us; and we never shall know it, until we have tried it at point after point and found how powerful it is. Human conduct creates strange emergencies; and we, in our cowardice, are often afraid that we shall not be able to meet them, and so we are almost afraid to take heed unto ourselves. We think that we had better close our eyes to many things in our lives for fear that we shall not know how to deal with them. We do not know what we shall find in ourselves if we look too closely. But put conduct and the study of God’ s teaching together, and we find that all the emergencies of one answer to the possibilities of the other. The care of our conduct becomes like an experimental lecture on God’ s teaching; it supplies the illustrations for God’ s book of doctrine, which can help all poor ignorant scholars who say that their cannot understand God’ s teaching here. God’ s doctrine of mechanics is to be found in no text-book; it is written in the formation of our bodies, in the movements of the heavenly bodies, in the connection of all substances of this earth here. Men, like children, are led by these illustrations; they read page after page, they learn the doctrine, they go on and spread it in inventions of their own embodying those same principles, and so the world is furnished with what it needs. God’ s laws of morals and doctrine of salvation ask the same illustration; they are not all plain; they have obscure points as all God’ s thoughts must have to us. How shall the world get at them and use them? Only by their being embodied, so that men can study them in human lives and then use the principles in forming those new lives which the world so sadly wants. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Find out your own wants and infirmities and go to the doctrine for their supply; take the doctrine and write it in your own life. And there is something more that conduct gives to doctrine besides illustration: it is life and warmth. No wonder that doctrine is often declared to be dry and hard. It is teaching about God coming to many men who know nothing about God Himself; He is a mere name to them; they do not appreciate His existence or His being at all. What shall give this same strange living power to doctrine? The man hears of God, but He is far away. But his own life he does appreciate; let him value that it is a precious thing; it can live on nothing that the world furnishes; it calls out for the living God: take heed unto thyself, says the apostle. In thee is a voice which does tell of the nearness of another world, which demands the knowledge of a higher being. Living men make living doctrines. By those the world is saved. The doctrine received into men’ s lives is the power of God. And so when God would save the world He sent Christ to it. There was the complete union of doctrine and life. All the teaching of God was there; He was the Son of God direct from the Father. And in the last place, look how great the work is that such care of the doctrine and of conduct accomplishes. “ Thou shalt both save thyself and those that hear thee.” We do not save ourselves by our conduct and our neighbour by our doctrine. The two together save both of us. The two paths are one, the two goals are one. (A. Brooks.) Man’ s highest work, and the way to achieve it These words of Paul to Timothy should not be confined to ministers. They have an application to all men. I. Man’ s highest work.1. The moral salvation of self. “ Save thyself.” What is salvation? Not mere deliverance from an outward hell, or introduction to an outward heaven, but it is restoration to the soul itself of what it has lost through depravity--the restoration of lost love, lost purity, lost harmony, lost usefulness. 2. The salvation of others. “ And them that hear thee.” All men, besides ministers, have hearers; and it is the duty of all men to preach, to speak that which will tend to the moral salvation of men, to raise them from ignorance to knowledge, from selfishness to benevolence, from materialism to spirituality, from Satan to God. II. Man’ s qualifications for the highest work.1. Self-heedfulness. “ Take heed unto thyself.” See that self is all right, rectify thy own mistakes, train thy own faculties, purify thy own affections, discipline thy own character. This is the first step. You must be good, in order to do good. 2. Genuine teaching. “ Unto the doctrine.” The word doctrine here includes the whole matter of teaching. See that the teaching is true--true in its doctrine, in its spirit, in its aim. There is no teaching work where there is not a teaching life. He alone knows the Divine doctrine that does the Divine will. 3. Perseverance in goodness. “ Continue in them.” Continue in the work of self-culture and in genuine teaching. Do not let your efforts be capricious, but systematic; not occasional, but persistent. “ Be instant, in season and out of season.” (D. Thomas, D. D.) Heed to life and doctrine Two outstanding things are to be noted in the text; first of all, the connection between our doctrine and ourself: “ Take heed unto thyself and unto thy doctrine” ; and, secondly, the connection between two great results: “ So shalt thou save thyself and them that hear thee.” Take heed to save yourself. That is the best way to save them. “ Take heed to thy doctrine.” Yes, take heed to thyself, and thy doctrine will take heed of itself. Now, let me just run over that chain of thought. I am going to take the things the reverse way. “ Take heed unto thy doctrine.” There is a deal of talk about doctrine at the present day, with some wisdom in it and a great deal of folly. Downright good people are going about saying, “ Doctrine does not matter; life is everything.” Now, if that merely means that doctrines unpractised and which are hypocrisy are worthless, it does not say enough; they are accursed. But that is not just what is meant. I think that it is often taken to mean this--that it does not matter at all what a man believes; it does not matter at all what a man teaches about God, about the human soul, about salvation, about faith and duty, if only the man’ s heart be right, and if he means well. Now, to a certain extent, that is true. There are doctrines and there are doctrines; and I wish we had two very distinct names to indicate those utterly diverse classes of beliefs. If a man eats bread and meat every day, as much as he wants, it really matters very little if that man’ s doctrines about the chemistry of meat and bread are nonsense. He may be under utter delusions as to the way the meat and bread feed his body. If the man cats wholesome meat and wholesome bread, that is everything. If another man holds the most orthodox theories of chemistry and of physiology and of nutrition, and is not eating the actual meat and bread, then he dies. The other man lives in spite of his false doctrine. Now, that is true to a certain extent of theological beliefs. There are elaborate and subtle and noble theories about the inner, mysterious nature of God, the construction of Christ’ s person, the ultimate decrees of God, the precise explanation of how the dying love and obedience of Jesus Christ cleanses us actually from sin--theories and explanations of how these things are and are done; and I am bound to own frankly that it does not matter very much what a man thinks about this. If that man with his whole full heart lives on the Lord Jesus Christ, and takes Him to be his real Saviour from real sin, and has His Holy Spirit dwelling in him--ah, he is feeding on the bread of life; and even if his theories of how that bread of life is life to us are not quite correct it is a small matter; at least, it is a small matter by comparison with a man who is for ever teaching and working and battling about the theories and the explanations, while his heart is a desolate howling wilderness, with no love of God, no love of man, in it. But now let me say this. It is a pity that such questions should be raised. You cannot answer them quite rightly. You must give replies that may be misused and misinterpreted. There ought to be no such antagonism. Still, if the question comes up let us speak the truth. But now there is another class of doctrines--beliefs which are things not of the mere intellect, not of speculation, but which are convictions of the heart, which throw a man into a certain attitude towards God, and towards duty, and towards sin, and towards holiness. And it matters a great deal to a man what he believes about these. It counts for everything. But mark you, now, I mean what he believes not with his head, but with his heart, with his very being; and the only faith that the Bible deals with and speaks of as saving faith, is not the faith of the correctest theological intellect, but it is a faith which is the outgoing of a man’ s soul, of his whole being. The poor dying thief on the cross believes with the despairing outgoing of his heart to Christ to make him a good man. Yes, and it saves him. If a man believes that fire will not burn him, he will pay for that heresy. If a man has a mistaken notion how it is that fire has got heat in it, and how it warms and serves man, that does not so much matter, so long as he makes a rightful use of the fire; but if he has delusions about the relations of fire to himself, he pays for it. Now, I want to say something about doctrines. I want to say it with a little personal feeling, because if doctrines are so trivial (doctrines meaning teaching), then preaching is hardly worth doing. But I believe in preaching, not as we ignorant, half-hearted men do it, but as the great saints and heroes of Christendom have done it. It will be done by teaching--the teaching that comes with the very power of God in it. Doctrines? Why, the greatest thing within these last centuries this world has seen--the reformation in Europe--all grew out of one new thought about God, or, rather, the recovering of a lost thought about God--a new grand conviction that God is the living, loving, warm-hearted God, a Spirit whom men worship in spirit and in truth; not the horrible, mechanical, materialized God of priestcraft and superstition. And it all grew out of a doctrine; but, mark you, not a theory of the intellect spun out of things we knew nothing about and should not try to understand, but a great heart-belief about the living God. Therefore, “ Take heed unto thy doctrine,” surely is addressed to men that are not orthodox? No, Paul addressed it to the orthodox Timothy, “ Take heed to thy teaching.” But if a man has once learnt a form of sound words, surely he does not need to be guarding, and watching, and studying, and examining his preaching and his teaching? Does he not? Do you think that, having once seen the truth, having once learnt it, will guard a man from perverting it? No, try that with any secular accomplishment. Learn a language, and then give over practising it. Give over pains to keep up your accuracy and your fluency; and how long will you retain it? How soon will errors creep in? Ah! I tell you that a great many men think that they are preaching the orthodox doctrines which they were taught, and through indulgence or slothfulness, or through the unconscious pressure of one-sidedness and error, which the mis-shapen make of every common, frail, erring man’ s soul and intellect imposes upon his thinking and teaching, they have gone far astray. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Timothy 5:1-2 Rebuke not an elder.Christian reproofs I. The necessity and the nature of Christian reproof are both suggested. Though age was always to be reverenced, even those in advanced life were to be rebuked when their conduct was inconsistent with their Christian profession. This requires not only a sincere regard for our brother’ s welfare, but also at times considerable moral courage. Some find it by no means easy to point out faults even to their own children; but they fairly tremble at the idea of being faithful to those who are in a better social position than themselves, or to those whose age, experience, or learning give them in other departments of life influence and authority. All who have sought to do this are conscious of its difficulty. Speak as you may, you will not improbably offend; for your brother needs as much grace to listen as you need to speak. II. The mode and spirit in which Christian reproof should be given in specified cases is suggested by the apostle here: “ Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters; with all purity.” The word translated “ rebuke” means to reprimand sharply, to chide in a rough or arrogant manner, or in a domineering temper; and this is condemned by all the teaching of our Lord about humility and charity. In pointing out faults, we are to be reverent and cautious, as well as earnest and manly; and in discharging this duty of the Christian life we are called upon in the first place to be--1. Reverent towards age. “ Rebuke not an elder” should be, “ Rebuke not an elderly person.” The apostle makes no reference here to official standing, but to age. This is obvious from the fact that he speaks first of older and younger men, and then of older and younger women. Ours should be the spirit of Samuel, who, even when he had to convey a message from God, modestly hesitated, waiting for a good opportunity to deliver it, and then spoke with the reverence due to Eli’ s age. 2. Love towards the brethren should be conspicuous in every word of reproof. Not anger, nor hatred, nor suspicion, but love--for they are our brothers in Christ. 3. Purity towards women, in thought, as well as in word and act. Nowhere was the exhortation more necessary than in Ephesus, and no one needed it more than Timothy, whose interviews with them were of necessity frequent. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Brotherly rebuke Mr. Rothwell, surnamed by the godly of his day the Rough Hewer, from the solemn and powerful manner in which he opened up the corruptions of the human heart, and delivered the judgments of God against all iniquity, was, in his early days, a clergyman without any true sense of religion: he was brought to know the power of Divine things through an admonition given to him by a godly Puritan. Clarke, in his “ Lives,” says, “ He was playing at bowls among some Papists and vain gentlemen, upon a Saturday, somewhere about Rochdale, in Lancashire. There came into the green to him one Mr. Midgley, a grave and godly minister of Rochdale, whose praise is great in the gospel, though far inferior to Rothwell in points and learning, He took him aside, and fell into a large commendation of him; at length told him what a pity it was that such a man as he should be companion to Papists, and that upon a Saturday, when he should be preparing for the Sabbath. Mr. Rothwell slighted his words, and Checked him for his meddling. The good old man left him, went home, and prayed privately for him. Mr. Rothwell, when he was retired from that company, could not rest, Mr. Midgley’ s words stuck so deep in his thoughts. The next day he went to Rochdale Church to hear Mr. Midgley, where it pleased God so to bless the Word that he was, by that sermon, brought home to Christ.” The earnest man who was sent by his Master upon this errand of rebuke, must have felt that he was well rewarded for his holy courage in the after usefulness of Mr. Rothwell; but even had the message failed to bless the person to whom it was delivered, it would not have lacked a recompense from the Great Taskmaster. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 5:4; 1 Timothy 5:8; 1 Timothy 5:16 But if any widow have children or nephews.-- Home responsibilities We are reminded here-- I. That home responsibilities are to be accepted as the appointment of God. The sacredness of family relationship is constantly insisted upon both in the Old Testament and the New. All transgressions against it were severely punished under the Mosaic economy, and were condemned still more solemnly by our Lord. A word of exposition on the first clause in the fourth verse is desirable, “ If any widows have children or nephews, let them (i.e., not the widows, but the children or nephews) learn first to show piety (filial love) at home.” The word “ nephews” is used by our translators in its old English sense, and is rendered in the Revised Version by its nearest modern equivalent, “ grand children,” for in the writings of Chaucer, Sir Thomas More, and John Locke, “ nephews” is used to denote grandchildren. And similarly, when it is said they are to requite their “ parents,” more is included than fathers or mothers, for the apostle’ s word is equivalent to the Scotch “ forbears,” for which the English language has no exact synonym. The idea is that we owe a debt of gratitude to those from whom we have derived existence, and to whom we owe the support, care, and education we have received. We are bound to see that to the utmost of our ability their wants in old age are met. II. That among our God-given responsibilities is the duty of labouring for the support of the weak. Among the blessings of our human relationships is this: that honest work is necessitated. We have seen instances in which a young fellow who has spent all his salary on cigars, dress, and amusements, has after his marriage buckled to work, and displayed an energy and ability for which none had given him credit before. Many a brave young wife and self-sacrificing mother has been ennobled through her home duties, having completely abandoned the foolish and trivial pursuits to which she was once addicted. And what numberless instances there are of men, whose diligence and self-abnegation are beyond praise, who have become what they are by first feeling the responsibility of caring and working for a widowed mother! III. Paul emphatically declares that those who fail in these responsibilities have denied the faith and are worse than infidels. Stern as the words are, they are true! Even the heathen, certainly the better class of them, were wont to acknowledge filial duties, and would have condemned cynical disregard of parents and refusal to fulfil natural duties towards them. This is an offence against humanity, and therefore, in the deepest sense, an offence against Christ. But a Christian professes to have higher motives in duty than others. Let us never for get that the test of character is to be found in family relationships rather than in those which are ecclesiastical; and that it is in the home first and chiefest of all that Christ’ s disciples are to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Piety at home.--Life at home A church within a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world, is spelled by four letters--Hornet If things go right there, they go right everywhere; if things go wrong there, they go wrong everywhere. The door-sill of the dwelling-house is the foundation of Church and State. A man never gets higher than his own garret or lower than his own cellar. In other words, domestic life overarches and underguides all other life. George Washington commanded the forces of the United States, but Mary Washington commanded George. Chrysostom’ s mother made his pen for him. As individuals, we are fragments. God makes the races in parts, and then He gradually puts us together. What I lack, you make up; what you lack, I make up; our deficits and surpluses of character being the wheels in the great social mechanism. One person has the patience, another has the courage, another has the placidity, another has the enthusiasm; that which is lacking in one is made up by another, or made up by all. Buffaloes in herds; grouse in broods; quails in flocks; the human race in circles. Our usefulness, and the welfare of society, depend upon our staying in just the place that God has put us, or intended we should occupy. For more compactness, and that we may be more useful, we are gathered in still smaller circles in the home group. And there you have the same varieties again; brothers, sisters, husband, and wife; all different in temperaments and tastes. It is fortunate that it should be so. If the husband be all impulse, the wife must be all prudence. If one sister be sanguine in her temperament, the other must be lymphatic. Mary and Martha are necessities. Then there are those who will, after awhile, set up for themselves a home, and it is right that I should speak out upon these themes.1. My first counsel to you is, have Jesus in your new home, if it is a new home; and let Him who was a guest at Bethany be in your new household; let the Divine blessing drop upon your every hope, and plan, and expectation. Those young people who begin with God end with heaven. 2. My second advice to you in your home is, to exercise to the very last possibility of your nature the law of forbearance. Prayers in the household will not make up for everything. Some of the best people in the world are the hardest to get along with. Sometimes it will be the duty of the husband and sometimes of the wife to yield; but both stand punctiliously on your rights, and you will have a Waterloo with no Blucher coming up at nightfall to decide the conflict. The best thing I ever heard of my grandfather, whom I never saw, was this: that once, having unrighteously rebuked one of his children, he himself--having lost his patience, and, perhaps, having been misinformed of the child’ s doings--found out his mistake, and in the evening of the same day gathered all his family together, and said: “ Now, I have one explanation to make, and one thing to say. Thomas, this morning I rebuked you very unfairly. I am very sorry for it. I rebuked you in the presence of the whole family, and now I ask your forgiveness in their presence.” It must have taken some courage to do that. 3. I advise, also, that you make your chief pleasure circle around about that home. It is unfortunate when it is otherwise. If the husband spend the most of his nights away from home, of choice and not of necessity, he is not the head of the household; he is only the cashier. If the wife throw the cares of the household into the servant’ s lap, and then spend five nights of the week at the opera or theatre, she may clothe her children with satins, and laces, and ribbons that would confound a French milliner, but they are orphans. 4. I advise you also to cultivate sympathy of occupation. Sir James McIntosh, one of the most eminent and elegant men that ever lived, while standing at the very height of his eminence, said to a great company of scholars: “ My wife made me.” The wife ought to be the advising partner in every firm. She ought to be interested in all the losses and gains of shop and store. She ought to have a right--she has a right--to know everything. Your gains are one, your interests are one, your losses are one; lay hold of the work of life with both hands. Four hands to fight the battles. Four eyes to watch for the danger. Four shoulders on which to carry the trials. It is a very sad thing when the painter has a wife who does not like pictures. It is a very sad thing for a pianist when she has a husband who does not like music. 5. I have one more word of advice to give to those who would have a happy home, and that is: let love preside in it. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Home, sweet home How many are longing for grand spheres in which to serve God. They admire Luther at the Diet of Worms, and wish they had some such daring opportunity in which to exhibit Christian character. Now, the apostle comes to such persons, in my text, and says: “ I will show you a place where you can exhibit all that is grand, and beautiful, and glorious in the Christian character, and that place is the domestic circle.” “ Let them learn first to show piety at home.” Indeed, if a man does not serve God on a small scale, he never will serve Him on a large scale. I propose to speak to you of home as a test, of home as a refuge, of home as a political safeguard, of home as a school, of home as a type of heaven. I. The home, in the first place, is the most powerful test of one’ s character. A man’ s disposition in public may be in gay costume, while in private it is in deshabille. The play actor does differently on the platform from the way he does behind the scenes; and public life is often a very different thing from private life. A man will receive you in his parlour with so much gracefulness that he seems to be the distillation of smiles, while in his heart there is a swamp of nettles. Private life is often public life turned wrong side out. The lips that drop with myrrh and cassia--the disposition that seems to be warm and bright as a sheaf of sunbeams, may only be a magnificent show-window to a wretched stock of goods. The harp that all day sang like an angel, may at night grate like a saw. There are those who are philanthropists in public life, who in home life are the Nero with respect to their slippers and their gown. The great Newton, after he had spent half of his life on one manuscript, came into his study one day and found that his dog had torn the manuscript to pieces. All he said was: “ Little Diamond, you know not how much trouble you have given your master.” Audubon, the great ornithologist, with gun and pencil, went all through the forests of this country for the purpose of bringing down and sketching the birds of the land; then went home, put the valuable documents in a trunk, and, after an absence, found that the rats had completely devoured the manuscripts, so that again he took gun and pencil, and again went through the forests of the land, reproducing that which was destroyed; while there are many in private life who, at the loss of a pencil or an article of clothing, will act as though they had met with a severe and irreparable loss, and will blow sharp, and loud, and long as a north-east storm. Let us learn to show piety at home. II. Again: I remark that home is a refuge. The home is the tent we pitch to rest in, our bayonets stacked, our war caps hung up, our heads resting on the knapsack until the morning bugle sounds, warning us to strike tent and prepare for marching and action. Oh, what a pleasant place it is to talk over the day’ s victories, and surprises, and attacks, seated by the still camp-fires of the domestic circle. Life is a stormy sea. With shivered mast, and torn sail, and hulk aleak, we put into the harbour of home. Into this dry-dock we come for repair. Blessed harbour! The candle in the window is to the labouring man the lighthouse guiding him into port. May God pity the poor miserable wretch who has not any home. III. Again: I remark that the home is a political safeguard. The safety of the State depends upon the character of the home. The Christian hearthstone is the only foundation for a Republic. In the family virtues are cultured which are a necessity for the State; and if there be not enough moral principle to make the family adhere, there cannot be enough political principle to make the State adhere. No home, no free institution. No home makes a nation of Goths and Vandals; makes the Nomads of Central Asia; makes the Numidians of Africa, changing from month to month, and from place to place, as the pasture happens to change. IV. I go further, and speak of home as a school. Old ground must be upturned by a subsoil plough, and harrowed and re-harrowed, and then it will not yield as good a crop as new ground with less culture. Now, infancy and childhood are new ground, and all that is scattered over that ground will yield luxuriantly. Make your home the brightest place on earth if you would charm your children into the high path of rectitude and religion. Do not always have the blinds turned the wrong way. Let God’ s light, that puts gold on the gentian and spots the pansy, stream into your windows. Do not expect your children to keep step to a dead march. A dark home makes bad boys and bad girls to be bad men and bad women. Above all, take into your homes thorough Christian principle. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Home piety I. Our first endeavour will be to show what piety is. This is all the more needful, as mistakes, numerous and fatal, exist on this vital subject, not only in the world, but also in the Church. It is “ the mind that was in Christ, leading us to walk as He also walked.”1. Piety has its principles. It is not like a tree without a root; or a stream without a spring. It is originated, sustained, and cherished by an experimental acquaintance with God in Christ; for “ this is life eternal, to know Thee, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent.” Here, then, we have the principles of piety--knowledge, faith, love, submission, and holy fear. A cluster of good things; the soul and spirit of true religion; the gift of the Divine hand; the fruit of the Spirit; the purchase of Messiah’ s blood; and the earnest of everlasting life. 2. Piety has its enjoyments. “ Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” The forgiveness of sins, access to God as a Father, the communion of Saints, the hope of everlasting life, the possession of a new nature, constitute a well-spring of blessedness to the humble, believing, obedient soul. 3. Piety has its duties. “ If ye love Me, said the Saviour, keep My commandments; not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.” With what frequency and earnestness has practical piety been enforced in the law and the prophets, as also by our Lord and His apostles! II. We proceed to show where piety is to be made manifest. If the principles and rootlets of piety be out of sight, their existence and power may easily be made apparent. Vegetable life in this sweet jessamine, or in yonder blushing rose, is far beyond our ken; but the effects of life are plain enough to be seen--the rind, the bud, the leaf, the flower, tell us that life is there. As to animal life--the sparkling eye, the ruddy countenance, the cheerful voice, the active limb, show us that life is there; but it is as much a mystery as ever; as far out of sight as ever. Steam, as it lies in the bosom of the boiler, is invisible; but the stroke of the piston, the sweep of the u heel, and the speed of the train, as well as the condensing power of the atmosphere, tell us that it is there. So of piety: much of it is hidden from the public gaze--its depths are not seen. Christian life is hid with Christ in God. Yet if spiritual life exists, it will give proof of its existence and power. Hence at Antioch, when Barnabas “ had seen the grace of God, he was glad.” And exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Fire must burn, a fountain must flow, a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit--Therefore show piety.1. In general, wherever the providence of God may place you. The shop, the ship, the market, the farm, the factory, the counting-house, will afford you opportunities for confessing your Lord. 2. In particular, let your piety appear at home. Show to those around you, that the fear and love of God control your desires, purposes, words, and deeds; whatever your relation to the family circle--in whatever department your duty lies, act your part with cheerfulness, fidelity, and to the extent of your ability. See, that your piety is such as never can be reasonably questioned. (1) Shows its reality; let “ the root of the matter” spring up and bring forth good fruit. (2) Maintain its spirit, humble, gentle, kind, forgiving: “ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (3) Manifest its power, to restrain you from evil, to sustain and comfort and bless you, amid the ills of life; and to enable you by a patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life. Mind that your piety be uniform; let no child be forgotten, no aged parent neglected, no poor widowed relative forsaken, no duty omitted. One word more: let your home religion be steady and growing; and as a general rule, rather seen, and felt, than heard. 3. The considerations by which this important duty may be enforced are numerous and weighty. Would to God we could rightly see and feel them. God, our Saviour, has made Christian believers “ a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of Him who has called them out of darkness into His marvellous light.” And shall they not do His pleasure? Shall not Christian people acknowledge their Owner--and the claims of Him who hath made, redeemed, and saved them--by giving up themselves to His service, by glorifying Him, both at home and abroad, in their body and spirit, which are His? Besides, as members of the family circle, are we not bound to promote its comfort, safety, and welfare to the extent of our ability? If you feel any interest in the prosperity of the Church, the conversion of poor sinners, the general good of society, show piety at home. Be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Tread in the steps of faithful Abraham, the pattern of believers, and the friend of God, who commanded his children and household after him to keep the way of the Lord. Drink into the spirit of Joshua, who served the Lord himself, and put forth all his strength to lead his family to do likewise. (J. J. Topham.) The Christian at home Some characteristics of home piety.1. A careful respect for the rights of each member of the family. It is our first duty to be just towards each other, and a duty which is obligatory all round, as between husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, families and their relatives, employers and servants. It is not always easy to be just. It requires thoughtful consideration and some power of imaginative sympathy even on the part of those who desire to do as they would be done by. A great deal of the wrong that is suffered in the world arises out of unwitting injustice. Some persons are grossly and habitually unjust to those about them, misrepresenting their opinions, and imposing upon them sacrifices of feeling and trouble, while in other respects they are singularly generous. Another frequent cause of unhappiness in families is the partiality shown to a favourite child. This also justice forbids. 2. Next to careful respect for the rights of others I may mention great forbearance in asserting our own. A small thing in family life, but most significant as an index to character, is the self-pleasing with which some persons secure their own preferences at table. Even if they make a show of giving up what others like, they do it so ostentatiously that their generosity is generally declined. But real self-denial, that can find pleasure in the gratification of others, will conceal its preferences so that they may enjoy what they like without knowing that it is at the expense of any one else. 3. A third characteristic of home piety is the endeavour to please those about us for their good. A cheerful manner, a flow of wise and genial conversation, sparkling here and there with some bright coruscation of wit, flavoured always with the salt of cultured taste, and sometimes suggestive of serious thoughts, is a fine means of pleasing and benefiting others. Show piety at home by learning to talk well and wisely. 4. Lastly, piety should be shown at home in a devout regard for the honour of God. At the principal meals of the day, and morning or evening, if not both morning and evening, reverence should find suitable expression in acts of worship. You must be guided by your own sense of fitness as to what arrangements you shall make for this purpose. Let us systematically choose the good part, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, endeavour to catch the spirit of our Master, and let its influence be diffused throughout our whole life. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.) Piety at home The radiance of a Christian character is to shine around the family hearth. In most minds the word home awakens emotions both sweet and solemn. Our tenderest relations, our strongest affections, our highest joys, our deepest sorrows, all are touched by the thought of home. The great duty which our text enjoins is the cultivation of piety at home. I. Home is the place where character is most tested; and if piety be not shown there, it cannot be shown anywhere. Our real character is not so much shown in what we do intentionally and with a purpose, as in what we do impulsively and without reflection. Abroad in the world men may wear a cloak--they may deceive others, they may deceive themselves as to their true character; but at home the cloak generally slips aside, the true character comes out, and those who see them in their unguarded hours know them as they really are. Often a word, a look, or even a gesture in the family will give more insight into a man’ s heart than years of observation of his public life. The close intercourse of home life tries as well as reveals the real character. That which tries character also helps to form it. Home not only shows what we are, it helps to make us what we shall be for ever. The education which is deepest and most enduring is that of the home school. II. Home is sometimes the scene of our deepest sorrows: and piety is the best help to enable us to bear these. The causes which disturb the happiness of home are manifold. Unwise marriage unions are the cause of much family misery. Bad habits are a frequent occasion of home sorrow, Evil tempers sometimes ruin the happiness of home. A practical carrying out of our text would speedily correct the evils to which we have referred, and change the character of the home-life where they have been endured. Were all the members of a family to “ learn to show piety at home,” what a scene of blessedness that would be! But there are other trials which sometimes convert the home into a “ house of mourning,” and which piety alone can enable us to meet. There are homes in which the pinching of poverty has to be endured. There are homes where disease presses with his heavy hand; and homes over which death spreads his black and chilly wing. But if there be only one pious member of the family, how the others will look to him and lean upon him in their hour of bereavement and sorrow! The influence acquired by consistency of character now operates for the good of his afflicted friends. III. Home ought to be the scene of our highest joy; and piety is the only means to make it so, The mutual love and confidence so essential to family happiness, can be produced and secured by nothing so certainly as by a common affection for the Saviour. How blessed are the ties of nature when they are sanctified and strengthened by grace! (G. D. Macgregor.) Selfish children An old Virginia minister said lately, “ Men of my profession see much of the tragic side of life. I have seen men die in battle, have seen children die, but no death ever seemed so pathetic to me as the death of an aged mother in my church. I knew her first as a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of joy and hope. She married and had four children. Her husband died and left her penniless. She sewed, she made drawings, she taught, she gave herself scarcely time to eat or sleep. Every thought was for her children, to educate them, to give them the advantages their father would have given them had he lived. She succeeded. She sent her boys to college and her girls to school. When all came home they gave themselves up to their own selfish pursuits. She lingered among them some three years, and then was stricken with mortal illness brought on by overwork. The children gathered around her bedside. The oldest son took her in his arms. He said, ‘ You have been a good mother to us.’ That was not much to say, was it? It was much to her, who had never heard anything like it. A flush came over her pallid face, and with faint voice she whispered, ‘ My son, you never said so before!’” (Dr. Hoge.) John Gough and his mother I remember, when my father was away in the Peninsular war, my mother, who used to work lace very nicely (and she grew very nearly blind by it), went one day from Sandgate to Dover, eight and a half miles, to sell it. I went out to play, having the whole day to myself till she came back. I was a famous reader when I was a little bit of a thing, and I never remember the time when I learned to read, and I can’ t remember when I could not read with the book the wrong side up. As I was playing, a boy came up to me and said, “ Johnny Gough, Mr. Purday wants you in the library.” Well, I ran into the library, and I remember being taken into a little room, and a girl dipped her hands in water and rubbed my face, and brushed my hair back, to make me look decent, and then took me into the reading-room, where there was a venerable looking gentleman, whom I distinctly remember they called “ my lord.” Mr. Purday said, “ This is the boy I was speaking of” ; and he then put a newspaper into my hands, and asked me to read a certain column to him, which I did. He gave me a five-shilling piece; another gentleman gave me sixpence; and the proprietor of the library gave me two pennies. Oh I how rich I was! I went out to play with the boys; I put my hands in my pockets now and then, and jingled my money, and then went on playing again. After a while a boy came to me and said, “ Johnny, your mother has got home.” I ran into the house, and there sat my poor mother upon a stool, faint and weary, with her basket of lace at her side. Her face was buried in her hands; I heard her sob, and I never could bear to hear my mother cry. “ Mother, mother,” said I, “ what is the matter?” “ My poor child,” she said, “ I have not sold a farthings-worth to-day, and what we shall do God only knows!” Said I, “ Mother, just look at this!” and she did look at it; and she said, “ Why John, where did you get that?” “ I have been into the library; one gentleman gave me that, another gave me that, and Mr. Purday gave me these two pennies. My mother went upon her knees, clasped me around the neck, lifted up her eyes, thanked God, and then gave me a halfpenny all to myself! And what do you suppose I did with it? I went out and changed it into two farthings, and I never enjoyed money as much as that all the days of my life. (J. B. Gough.) A widow’ s trust in God M. Poinsot, the devoted Protestant Scripture-reader at Charleroi, has been much blessed in his arduous and heroic work for Christ. He says in his journal--“ I visited a poor woman of seventy-six years of age, alone, poor, and ill. I said to her, ‘ The nights must seem very long to you, being always alone?’ ‘ If I were alone,’ she replied, ‘ I should have been dead long ago, but I have a Friend who never leaves me day nor night; I commune always with Him, and His Word comforts me.’ ‘ But,’ I said, ‘ if you became worse in the night?’ ‘ He would take care of me,’ was the reply; ‘ He is the best Doctor in Belgium.’” 1 Timothy 5:6 But she that liveth in pleasure.A life of pleasure a life of death If this be true--and, being part of the Word of God, it must be true--then the world of pleasure is a region of death, and a life of pleasure is a living death. These are strange tidings for those who live only for pleasure, and who boast that they alone, of all mankind, enjoy life. I. Who is meant by the person that liveth in pleasure? And this point does require explanation; for the word “ pleasure,” is one strangely abused; it has quite a different meaning in different companies, and among different men. There are pleasures in science, pleasures in sin; pleasures in holiness here, and in heaven, we know, there are pleasures for evermore. “ Now, she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” Now this is evidently a character just the reverse; that of one who trusteth not in God, who neglects supplication and prayers. The same character is further described more at length in the eleventh and the thirteenth verses: wantonness, idleness, wandering about from house to house, tattling, the spirit of busy-bodies, speaking things which they ought not--are given as characteristics of her that liveth in pleasure. The original word, “ liveth in pleasure,” is very peculiar, and is used in only one other place in the New Testament, namely, in James 5:5. Now, in that passage of St. James, he is addressing the wealthy, and the luxurious: “ Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that; shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.” Then, in the fifth verse, “ Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter” : where the word that is translated “ ye have been wanton,” is the very same word with that which, in our text, is rendered “ liveth in pleasure” : and the whole passage strikingly describes what kind of character is intended. Thus it is plain already, that to live in pleasure, is to live without trust or faith in God, without constant prayer; in wantonness, idleness, trifling, the pride of wealth; in luxury, sensuality, and self-indulgence. This is the life of worldly pleasure. But there are yet many other Scriptures which describe the life of pleasure; and I am anxious you should feel the Scriptural force of the subject. Thus, in the prophet Ames, in the sixth chapter: “ Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of nations, to whom the house of Israel came,” etc. Again you see the spirit of the child of pleasure, he makes himself “ at ease,” he “ puts far away the evil day” : he is self-indulgent, luxurious, gay, and jovial; he feels not for the affliction of God’ s afflicted people. In the book of Job, we have another description of men living in worldly pleasure--in his twenty-first chapter: “ Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their seed:is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.” Here, again, you see the life of pleasure to be a life of unsanctified prosperity, festivity, mirth, wealth; with the spirit of infidelity mocking at religion, asking, what good in prayer--what end to serve God? Oh, ye that have lived in pleasure, does not your conscience feel, “ My life is detected; my character has been described” ? So in our Lord’ s parable; the rich man, who fared sumptuously every day, and was clothed in purple and fine linen, was evidently a man of pleasure--luxurious, self-indulgent, fond of dress. The city of Sodom was a city of pleasure. Then think of Babylon, once filled with the gayest of the gay; see that city of pleasure described in the prophet Isaiah: “ Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the mill-stones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers,” etc. And let none think that the Scriptural description of one that liveth in pleasure applies only to the rich and the great of this world. But the temptation is common to all ranks, persons in middle life, and persons in the lowest walks of life, may be found to live continually in pleasure. This do all the intemperate. Oh, what sums the poor and labouring classes spend in the present day on needless, noxious, inflammatory drink! II. Then this is God’ s judgment of the state of such “She that liveth in pleasure” --whoever liveth in pleasure--“ is dead while alive.” Now that is the sentiment, or rather the sentence, of God Himself. “‘ What does it mean?’ She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth’ :--how can one be dead while alive?” Think of that serious, pious Christian, once in the circle of your acquaintance, once a friend, and even a brother; but now he seems as one dead to all your pleasures, dead to the world, dead indeed unto sin. You say in scorn, that you might as well ask a dead man as ask him to join your worldly pleasure, he has become what you term a poor lifeless creature; he is buried alive. How true, how just, how striking that description! The dead neither move, nor see, nor hear, nor smell, nor feel. Your heart moves not in love to God; your mind’ s eye sees no suitableness in the Saviour; you hear not His voice, you perceive no fragrance in His name, like that of ointment poured forth; you feel not the constraining force of His dying love. Then death is, further, a state of insensibility and helplessness. But further still, “ She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth,” because under sentence of death. If a criminal were convicted of murder, or some capital crime, and sentenced to death, in the interval between his sentence and his execution he is considered as dead in the eye of the law. But are you afraid that you shall now lose all pleasure? You will lose the phantom, and gain the substance; you will throw away the counterfeit, and receive genuine gold; you will drop worldly pleasure, which is connected with death, which has death inseparably tied to it, and enjoy spiritual pleasure, which is connected with eternal life. But I had not meant to say much more which might seem harsh to those who will still be of the world; I was endeavouring to lead those who are desirous of coming out of the world to come into new life. “ Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Then how noble, sublime, and glorious, are the objects with which religion is conversant. I add but another thought. Religious pleasures are the best, for they have the approving smile of God on them now, and they can be carried with the soul into another world, and there be ripened into perfection. (J. Hambleton, M. A.) The woman of pleasure It is a strong way of putting the truth, that a woman who seeks in worldly advantage her chief enjoyment, will come to disappointment and death. My friends, you all want to be happy. You have had a great many recipes by which it is proposed to give you satisfaction--solid satisfaction.1. And, in the first place, I advise you not to build your happiness upon mere social position. 2. I go further, and advise you not to depend for enjoyment upon mere personal attractions. 3. Again, I advise you not to depend for happiness upon the flatteries of men. 4. Again, I charge you not to depend for happiness upon the discipleship of fashion. (T. De Witt Talmage.) True living A Persian monarch asked an aged man, “ How many of the sun’ s revolutions hast thou counted?” “ Sire,” said the old man, “ I am but four years of age.” “ What!” interrupted the king, “ fearest thou not to answer me falsely, or dost thou jest on the very brink of the tomb?” “ I speak not falsely,” replied the aged man; “ eighty long years have I wasted in folly and sinful pleasures and in amassing wealth, none of which I can take with me when I leave this world. Four only have I spent in doing good to my fellow-men, and shall I count those years which have been utterly wasted?” A living death Alas! many a man is dead while he liveth; yea, all are dead who live in impenitence and presumptuous sins. God is the soul of our soul, and the life of our life; and Christ must dwell in our heart by faith, and be the heart of our heart, to enable us to say with St. Paul, “ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Just as the heart is the workshop of the soul, from which it distributes natural heat and vital energy into all the veins and members, even so must the Lord Jesus generate in us spiritual life, and diffuse His spirit into all our powers, senses, desires, thoughts, and motions. The ungodly man is a living corpse; the worm of sinful desire consumes his conscience; he is an abomination in the eyes of the Saviour, and offensive to God and the holy angels. (J. Gotthold.) 1 Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own.The necessity and excellence of family religion I. I shall prove that family religion is a duty, from the light of nature and of scripture.1. If family religion be a just debt to the supreme Being, upon account of His perfections and the relation He sustains to us as families, then it must be our duty to maintain it according to the law of nature. Now this is the case in fact. God is the most excellent of beings, and therefore worthy of homage in every capacity, from His reasonable creatures. Again, God is the author of our sociable natures, and as such claims social worship from us. Again, God is the proprietor, supporter, and benefactor of our families, as well as of our persons, and therefore our families as such should pay Him homage. He is the owner of your families, and where is the man that dares deny it? 2. If family religion was the principal design of the institution of families, then is family religion our indispensable duty. And that family religion was the principal end of the institution is evident; for can you think that God would unite a member of immortals, heirs of the eternal world, together in the most intimate bonds, in this state of trial, without any reference to their future state? Were your families made for this world only, or for the next? 3. If family religion tends to the greatest advantage of our families, then it is our duty; and to neglect it is wickedly to rob ourselves and ours of the greatest advantage. 4. You are to consider family religion not merely as a duty imposed by authority, but as your greatest privilege granted by Divine grace. I now proceed to some arguments more purely Scriptural, which prove the necessity of family religion in general, or of some particular branch of it. (1) We may argue from the examples of the saints, recorded and commended in Scripture (Genesis 18:16; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 25:1; Genesis 25:3; Genesis 33:20). (2) We may argue from several Scripture precepts, which either directly or consequentially refer to the whole, or to some branch of family religion. The apostle Paul, having given various directions about relative duties in families, subjoins, “ Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2). Peter exhorts “ husbands to dwell with their wives according to knowledge, etc., that their prayers might not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7), which certainly implies that they should pray together. I proceed-- II. To show in what seasons, or how frequently, family religion should be statedly performed. Now it is more than intimated in Scripture, that it should be performed every day, and particularly morning and evening. Thus the sacrifices under the law, which were attended with prayer, were offered daily, morning and evening. To this the Psalmist alludes: “ Let my prayer be set before Thee as incense” which was offered in the morning, “ and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (Psalms 141:2). He elsewhere resolves, “ Every day will I bless Thee” (Psalms 145:2). Yea, his devotion was so extraordinary, that he resolves, “ Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud” (Psalms 55:17). So Daniel performed family worship thrice a day. III. I shall consider, what particular obligation the heads of families lie under, and what authority they are invested with to maintain religion in their houses. In all societies there must be a subordination, and particularly in families, and it is the place of the head of such societies to rule and direct. Particularly it belongs to the head of a family, when there is no fitter person present, to perform worship in it, to use proper means to cause all his domestics to attend upon it. IV. And lastly, I come to answer the usual objections against this important duty of family religion.1. “ I have no time, and my secular business would suffer by family religion.”2. “ I have no ability to pray; I am too ignorant.”3. “ I am ashamed.”4. “ But, alas! I know not how to begin it.”5. “ But my family will not join with me.”6. “ But I shall be ridiculed and laughed at.” (S. Davies, M. A.) Home claims If any one provide not for his own kindred, and for those of his own house, as parents or children, he lives in a manner so contrary to the Christian faith, that he, in fact, denies it, and is worse than an infidel. “ Indeed,” says Archbishop Seeker, “ Nature as well as Christianity enjoins this domestic duty so strongly, that the whole world cries out shame where it is neglected.” That man, therefore, deserves censure, who, intent on the interests of others, disregards his own. The astrologer who was looking at the stars, and telling the fortunes of his neighbours, did not see the pit which lay at his feet, and into which he fell. It is well to do a good turn to a stranger, or even to an enemy, but “ not to bulge our own vessel in attempting to raise that of our neighbour,” as the following story from AEsop may show. “ A wolf that lay licking his wounds, and extremely faint and ill from the bite of a dog, called out to a sheep passing by, ‘ Hark’ ye, friend, if you would but help me to a sup of water out of yonder brook, I would manage myself to get something to eat.’ ‘ Yes,’ said the sheep, ‘ I make no doubt of it; but when I bring you drink, my carcase shall serve you for meat.’“ 1 Timothy 5:14 The younger women marry, bear children, guide the house.A wife’ s sphere Every mother should occupy in the family the position of commander-in chief. Her spirit should rule through the whole establishment, for in proportion as “ she looks well to the ways of the household,” with intelligence and discretion, the servants and other members of the family will follow in her path. There is nothing which ought to occupy a more prominent position than this power to rule the house diligently and well. Nor are we alone in this opinion. Goldsmith, in his “ Vicar of Wakefield,” says, “ The modest virgin, the prudent wife, the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.” Every wife, therefore, should seek, then, to be worthy of the position she occupies and in this way to become “ a crown to her husband.” (John W. Kitten.) True womanly service Most heartily do we go with Mrs. Fawcett’ s remarks upon the industrial and professional employment of women, in connection with which she said that a woman with a family, which she brought up well, was doing as great a work, economically and socially, as any person was capable of performing. Scores of mothers, whose sphere of activity is bounded by the walls of their home, and who sometimes deplore their inability to engage in outside work, may take heart on being reminded of this most certain truth. To train a family of children in the fear of God, and the best habits of feeling and conduct, is as precious a work as any that is done under the sun, exercises the very highest qualities of love, patience, and self-denial, and will be recognized on high as the truest service of Christ. (S. S. Chronicle.) Homely duties The Princess Alice, the beloved daughter of Queen Victoria, after an ancient custom of royalty, chose the lark as her emblem, because, as she said, while it lived on the ground and obscurely, it taught that in the discharge of homely duties we find the strength, the knowledge, and the inspiration to fill the air with joyous and soul-stirring music. If this woman of noble birth, the Lady Bountiful in the little state over which her husband ruled, the founder of orphanages and schools, could choose such an emblem, it may well be appropriated by those who move in the ordinary circles of influence and experience. It is in everyday life that opportunity comes to do the best things and gains its sweetest reward of happiness. (Christian Age.) A Christian mother Nearly forty years ago in the South of England there was an earnest minister of Christ, whose duties often called him from home. He had a large family, and he feared sometimes he was paying them but little attention because of his many obligations outside. One day he was about to start on a journey, and he stood at the door half-way downstairs, and he heard a voice in prayer. It was the voice of his wife. He listened, and she was praying for the children by name, and when she came to one name, Charles, she said, “ Lord, he has a daring spirit; whether for good or for evil, make it Thine own.” And the minister, as he wiped away a tear said, “ It is all right; I can go and serve the Lord; it is right with the children” ; and that Charles for whom prayer was offered is the beloved brother whom we listened to in St. Andrew’ s Hall yesterday--Charles Spurgeon. Who will say that that mother is not a Christian worker? She toiled in her own home, and laboured for her own children; and if there are mothers here I would say, “ Go, and do likewise.” 1 Timothy 5:16 May relieve them that are widows indeed.Charity ruled by wisdom The first of these main principles of Church charity is-- I. That those received to permanent support should be only such as are aged or weak. In the ninth verse we read, “ Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old” ; or (as the R.V. more correctly has it) “ Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore years old.” A woman over sixty in Asia Minor (though it would be otherwise in our healthier, cooler climate) could no longer work, nor do much for the Church either, except by her prayers and supplications (another proof that officials are not referred to). Widows thus infirm and aged were to receive constant and generous support. But nothing was to be done, even under the sacred name of charity, which would paralyse personal exertion or weaken the sense of responsibility in relatives and friends. Paul’ s second principle is this-- II. That those whose character is Christian have special claims on the support of the Church. He is not referring here to the relief of distress which is the duty of every Christian, hut to the use of the charitable funds given by the Church for distribution among her members. How beautiful is the picture of the true Christian matron, as depicted by the few touches of this masterhand in 1 Timothy 5:5; 1 Timothy 5:10. Think of her motherliness, one who has brought up her children aright. Very beautiful, too, are the thoughts suggested of her lowly, loving ministry. Entertaining strangers, for the Lord’ s sake; not necessarily because she was rich, but because she was kind. III. The last principle which should guide us in the selection of those who may live on the charity of the Church is this, that they should be rejected who would be morally injured by depending on it. At first sight the apostle seems rather hard upon the younger women; although it is evident from the 15th verse that he was not speaking from theory, but from actual and painful experience, and that some in the Church at Ephesus had already fallen into the evils to which he refers, having lost their first simple faith in Jesus Christ, and their former consecration to Him. He implies that ecclesiastical arrangements had aggravated their temptations, and he strongly urges that younger widows who might properly receive special help and solace for a time, ought not to be put on the roll of the Church for perpetual relief. His reason is given plainly enough. “ They learn to be idle,” says he, “ wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.” Right as it was to support the aged and infirm, it would be morally injurious to support by charity these younger women. Idleness is always a fruitful parent of sins, of which gossip, meddlesomeness, and unprofitable talk are not the greatest; and the best preventive of this would be to throw Christian women as far as possible on their own resources, to let them take a good opportunity for settling in life, to exert themselves for their own maintenance, or to care for another household, as the brave and patient servants of Jesus Christ. Any one who knows the pernicious effects produced by ill-regulated charity, any one who reflects on the vices common to the idle classes of society, any one who has noticed the moral deterioration of young people who have nothing to do but to while away their time, will thank God for these wise counsels. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) 1 Timothy 5:17; 1 Timothy 5:22 Let the elders that rule well Duties towards the ministry I. Its faithfulness should be honoured. “ Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour.” II. Its reputation should be cherished.1. We ought to be slow to believe evil. “ Against an elder” (here used in the official sense and not with reference to age) “ receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses,” or (as the Revised Version has it), “ except at the mouth of two or three witnesses.” The reference is obviously to a well-known Mosaic law. Timothy was not to be credulous of evil reports, he was to pay no attention to mere gossip, and still less was he to show any encouragement to slanderers. He was not appointed specially as a judge; but in contentions, such as unhappily arose in the Church, his authority would often be appealed to. Again and again noble reputations have been ruined by slander, and the injustice and wickedness of the charges have only been demonstrated when it was too late to repair the wrong. But while we are to be slow to believe evil-- 2. We ought to be brave in the rebuke of evil. No fear of man, no mincing words to please fastidious ears, no wish to smother up iniquity, should be ours. “ Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.” III. Its aspirants should be approved. “ Lay hands suddenly (or hastily) on no man.” The custom of the laying on of hands dates back to patriarchal times. Jacob laid his hands on Ephraim and Manasseh when he blessed them. It was an appropriate indication of the subject of prayer, a solemn act of designation and of dedication; and in the apostolic days it was used to sanction and ratify the elective act of the Church. In such work we are not to be ruled by caprice, excluding one we dislike; nor by partiality, appointing our personal friends, or those having some claims upon us. “ I charge thee” (says Paul) “ before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality.” What could be a stronger inducement to the keeping of these commands than the realization of the fact that an unseen God and holy angels are near us, and that all our works, and even our purposes, are open and naked before Him with whom we have to do! And there is yet another word here for every Christian, especially for those who work for the Master, namely this: “ Be not partaker of other men’ s sins; keep thyself pure,” for the emphasis in the original is to be laid just there. It is easy enough to see other people’ s faults, and even to rebuke them; but beware lest any have occasion to turn on you and say, “ Physician, heal thyself.” Purity in the sense of chastity is, no doubt, included here, for an impure life is fatal to a Christian and ruinous to his influence for good--nay, even if such evil is only harboured within, it will prove the paralysis of spiritual life. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Gifts to ministers I became an usher in a school at Cambridge, and at the same time, when only sixteen years of age, accepted the pastorate at a Baptist chapel in the neighbourhood. After a while I gave up my post at the school, and was thrown on the generosity of the people, and they gave me a salary of L45 a year; but as I had to pay twelve shillings a week for two rooms which I occupied, the salary was not enough. But the people, though they had not money, had produce, and there was not a pig killed by any one of the congregation that I had not some portion of, and one or other of them would bring me bread, so that I had enough bread and meat to pay my rent with. An old man in that place who was a great miser, one afternoon gave me three half-crowns, and as I was wanting a new hat at the time I got it with the money. The following Sunday the old man came to me again, and asked me to pray for him that he might be saved from the sin of covetousness, and said, “ The Lord told me to give you half-a-sovereign, and I kept half-a-crown back, and I can’ t rest of a night for thinking of it.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Providing for the minister Claude, the Indian preacher, after his conversion a few years ago in Russian America, began to sing hymns and tell gospel truths to his idol-worshipping fellow-countrymen. The old medicine men there wept, cowed by the felt presence of God’ s Holy Spirit. “ Claude,” said his companions, “ it is too bad for you to chop wood. You ought to tell the people these things all the time.” “ I should not have anything to eat if I did not chop wood,” he replied. “ We will chop harder and later and get enough for you to live on too,” said they. So Claude began to preach and teach. His support was salmon. Salmon for his breakfast, dinner, and supper, every day all the year. This was the salary of the first Protestant missionary to Alaska. Soon he had sixty scholars and an audience of from four to five hundred. God’ s Spirit was poured out. There were sixty converted, and hundreds gave up their devil worship. Payment of ministers In one of his conferences with working men Dr. Parker said: Some people sneered at preachers because they accepted pay. He contended that the question of payment ought never to arise in estimating the value of a true ministry. He could order a table to be made and delivered at any time, hut where could he order a character to be made and delivered on such a day? The man who gave them a thought gave them inestimable riches. The man who gave them an inspiration lifted them up above fog and cloud and depression and difficulty and gave them a new start in life. If he were asked to go and speak to the humblest outcasts of London, then the question of payment ought not to arise: they were his brethren and sisters and friends and were in darkness, and he had the light. They should have the light for nothing. But when men came to him and said, “ The well-to-do people of Bath, and Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Bristol want to hear you,” he asked, Were they to escape without remunerating the man who instructed them and ministered to their enjoyment? He was prepared to preach for nothing if the landlord, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker were agreeable, but these showed a brutal disregard for his feelings at quarter-day. A question of payment When addressing a body of working men, Bishop Wilberforce speaking of the nobility of true work, said, “ Though I am addressing an audience of working men, I may claim to be a working man myself, for I work as hard as any man here present.” A voice called out from the middle of the room, “ But how about the pay? “ A burst of general laughter followed, which was, with some little difficulty, hushed down by those who thought that the bishop would be offended. But not a cloud passed across his face. His eye twinkled as he joined himself in the general merriment, and then, when silence was restored, without a moment’ s hesitation, and the smile still playing upon his face, he said, “ My friend asks, how about the pay? I will tell him at once. You see I am paid the same whether I work or whether I don’ t.” His audience saw at once the significance of his words: Work done for its own sake, not for greed or necessity. And the rafters of the roof above us rang again and again with their cheers. (Memoirs of Bp. S. Wilberforce.) Ministers need encouragement I know of a parsonage to which the death-angel came, and took to heaven a faithful and beloved under-shepherd. The kind members of his flock went to that desolate home, and could not say enough in praise of him whom they did truly love. A volume of his sermons was published, and widely circulated. Then the broken-hearted wife said: “ Oh, if they had only said one-half to him which they now say to me, how it would have lightened his labour and rejoiced his heart!” I know of another parsonage to which a pastor returned, after a Sabbath of extreme mental fatigue, and of intensely loving work for his people. The almost agonizing tone with which he said: “ Not one kind word to-day, and I’ ve done my very best,” would have met a kind response from every parishioner’ s heart, could all have heard it. “ Not one kind word to-day.” I know of a pastor to whom a parishioner said one Sunday evening: “ I have been benefited by both sermons to-day.” When his pastor replied: “ It always helps me to hear that,” this warm-hearted man said: “ If I always told you when I feel benefited by your sermons, it would be very often.” I wish you could have heard the prayer of humble thankfulness which went up to heaven from the family altar in that pastor’ s study that night. (Dr. Hoge.) Doing nothing by partiality. Partiality to be avoided A suggestive anecdote comes to us just now from New York. One of the good clergymen of that city lately travelling, was engaged in pleasant conversation with a friend. He presently found himself greatly annoyed by a drunken fellow-passenger on the seat in front, who recognized him, and persisted in trying to take his share in the conversation. At last, losing all patience, our clerical friend arose, and, pushing his annoyer aside rather roughly, exclaimed: “ You are drunk, and I don’ t want to have anything to do with you.” At this his unfortunate interlocutor was for a moment silent, and then, turning and gazing reproachfully at the irritated clergyman, replied, in a tone so loud as to be heard nearly through the entire car: “ Mr.--, ‘ pears to me you don’ t care very much about my soul.” It is one thing, truly, to care about the souls of the intelligent, and the cultivated, and the agreeable and the clean, to say nothing of the temperate, and quite another thing to care about the souls of the ignorant and the ill-mannered and the unclean. And yet it must not be forgotten that the claims of this latter class are just as strong upon the Christian Church and the Christian worker, as the former, and that in our efforts to bring men to God we are not to select those who present themselves agreeably to us, but are to take them as they come. 1 Timothy 5:22 Neither be partaker of other men’ s sins.How must we reprove, that we may not partake of other men’ s sins? I. How a man maybe said to partake of other men’ s sins.1. By contrivance. Thus Jonadab was guilty of Amnon’ s incest, by his subtle contrivance of that wickedness, by being a pander to that villainy (2 Samuel 13:5). When a man shall wittingly and willingly spread a snare in his brother’ s way, and either drive him in by provocation, or decoy him in by allurement, he makes himself a partaker of his sin. For example: to provoke a man to passion, to tempt a person to drunkenness and uncleanness, to put a man upon murder and bloodshed, to draw souls into error, heresy, blasphemy, etc.,--this is to espouse and adopt the sin, and to make it a man’ s own. You know the story there, 2 Samuel 11:1-27.: Uriah was slain with the edge of the sword; David was many miles off when Uriah was slain: “ Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon” (2 Samuel 12:9). The Ammonites slew him, but David murdered him. St. Paul tells us he was a “ blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.” 2. By compliance. By consenting and complying with sin and sinners: so a man makes himself partaker. Though he has no hand in it, yet, if he has a heart in it; though he does not act it, yet if he likes it, and loves it, and approves it. Saul--He had no hand in St. Stephen’ s death, he did not cast one stone at him; but because he looked on with approbation, and stood by with consent--“ Saul was consenting unto his death” (Acts 8:1). You may murder a man with a thought, as they say the basilisk will with a look. 3. By connivance. By a sinful dissembling, flattering, and winking at others in their wickedness and sins, so men become guilty of others’ sins: “ The leaders of this people cause them to err” (Isaiah 9:16): it is in the Hebrew, “ The blessers of this people cause them to err.” Beloved, the blessers of men in wickedness are the leaders of men in wickedness. 4. By sufferance. By permitting the sins of others, so we become guilty, by suffering others to sin, whom we are bound in duty, and may be able by authority, to hinder. 5. By influence of bad example. By setting loose and bad examples for others to imitate. So men are guilty of other’ s sins; as, namely, when children sin by the examples of their parents, those very parents are guilty of their children’ s sins. So it is here: he that sets an evil example sins not alone; he draws hundreds, it may be, into sin after him. He is like a man that sets his own house on fire; if, burns many of his neighbours’ , and he is to be answerable for all the ruins. 6. By inference from a bad example, or by imitation. So a man is guilty of another man’ s sin, not only by pattern, in setting bad examples, but also by practice, in following bad examples; and thus that man that will be drunk because another was drunk, or that breaks the Sabbath because others do the like--he is not only guilty of his own particular sin, but he is guilty also of “ their sins whom he imitates and follows; and the reason is, because bad examples are not land-marks for us to go by, but they are sea-marks for us to avoid. And this is the woful, intricate, perplexed labyrinth into which sin doth precipitate careless and ungodly sinners. If thou committest that sin which none before committed but thee, thou art guilty of all the sins of future generations by thy example--as Adam was in the world, and Jeroboam in Israel. And if thou committest any sin because others have committed it before thee, thou art guilty of all the sins of former generations by thy imitation: and so sin never goes alone; a single sin is as great a solecism in divinity as a single “ thank” is in grammar and morality. 7. By countenance. By delightful society and company with wicked men to countenance them, so we become partakers of their sins. 8. By maintenance. By upholding and encouraging men in their sins, though thou never committest them thyself, yet thou art guilty. “ He that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 1:11). II. Why a Christian must be careful to avoid, and not to partake of, other men’ s sins.1. Out of a principle of charity to our brethren.2. Out of a principle of pity to ourselves.3. Out of a principle of piety to God. III. application:1. Is there such a thing as “ partaking of other men’ s sins” after this manner? (1) Hence you may be informed of the equity and justice of God’ s proceeding in punishment. (2) Hence be informed what piety, and strictness, and watchfulness are more especially required of those that have the care of others. (3) Hence take an account why the wicked of the world do so hate the godly, and reproach and revile them. It is this: They will not be partakers of their sins: they will not commit them, neither will they connive at them; and this is the reason why the world hates them. (4) Here is matter of reproof and humiliation this day for our want of watchfulness in this kind. 2. The second use is of exhortation and caution together. Is it so, that it ought to be every man’ s care not to partake of any man’ s sin?1. To lay down the arguments. (1) Consider: You have sins enough of your own, you have no reason to partake of other men’ s. It is cruel to “ add affliction to your bonds.” (2) Consider: It is a most monstrous sin, it is a most dreadful sin, to partake of other men’ s sins. The apostle speaks of committing iniquity “ with greediness” (Ephesians 4:19). (3) Consider: If you partake of other men’ s sins, you shall certainly partake of other men’ s plagues. “ Come out of her, My people,” says God, namely, from Babylon, “ that you be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). See Proverbs 13:20. 2. What sins we must especially take heed of partaking of. Of all sin whatsoever: “ Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22); but especially of three sorts of sin, which may be called epidemical plagues. (1) Church sins.(2) National sins.(3) Family sins. 3. Now, and in the last place, we come to the antidotes: How we must so carry it and order the business, as not to partake of other men’ s sins. (1) Exercise an holy jealousy over others. Job, sacrificing for his children, said, “ It may be that my sons have sinned” (Job 1:5). (2) Watch against the sins of others. Have your eyes about, you: take heed of contriving, complying, winking at them. (3) Pray against them. (4) Mourn for them. (5) Reprove them (Ezekiel 3:17-19). If we would not partake of the sins of others, we must reprove the sins of others (Leviticus 19:1-37.; Ezekiel 33:7-9). So the apostle saith expressly (Ephesians 5:11). (J. Kitchin, M. A.) Partaking of other men’ s sins It was a frequent petition of the illustrious St.-Augustine, “ Lord, forgive other men’ s sins!” It is a petition which we all should constantly present to God; for we, all of us, in a greater or less degree, have been instrumental in producing that iniquity which deluges the world. I. We are to show you by what means we may partake of other men’ s sins. We partake of other men’ s sins by uttering those sentiments which tend to subvert morality, or diminish our horror for guilt. If we propagate loose doctrines, if we scoff at serious piety, if we persuade men that an holy and heavenly life is not necessary, “ if we call evil good and good evil,” we are murdering souls. II. That we may in future be more guarded, let us attend to some of those motives which enforce the injunction of the apostle. III. Some directions, to enable you to comply with the injunctions of the apostle.1. Be careful that your own heart and life are holy. Sin is infectious; and as long as you are polluted with it, you must communicate its poison to those with whom you associate. Besides, if your own life is unholy, your conscience will prevent you from faithfully reproving sin in others, or your ill example will render your reproofs inefficacious. 2. Cultivate a high value and love for the souls of men. That which we love we shall not readily injure; and if we have a proper regard for immortal souls we shall rather forego many pleasures than give a wound to them. 3. Mourn before God for the sins of your brethren. When God passed through Jerusalem to smite it, He spared none but those who cried and sighed for the abominations that were done within it (Ezekiel 9:4). 4. If we would not partake of the sins of others, we must reprove them. (H. Kollock.) Participation in other men’ s sins I. When do we make ourselves partakers of other men’ s sins?1. Ministers make themselves partakers in the sins of their people, when those sins are occasioned by their own negligence, by their example, or by unfaithfulness in the discharge of their official duties. 2. Parents participate in the sins of their children, when they occasion, and when they might have prevented them. But further, parents partake in the guilt of their children’ s sins when they might and do not prevent them. 3. The remarks, which have been made respecting parents, will apply, though perhaps somewhat less forcibly, to masters and guardians, and all who are concerned in the government and education of youth. 4. Churches become partakers of the sins of an individual member, when these sins are occasioned by a general neglect of brotherly watchfulness and reproof, and when they are tolerated by the Church in consequence of a neglect of Church discipline. 5. We all make ourselves partakers in other men’ s sins, when we either imitate or in any other way countenance and encourage them. 6. Members of civil communities partake of all the sins which they might, but do not prevent. 7. If private citizens partake of all the sins which they might have prevented, much more do rulers and magistrates. Subjects who have the privilege of choosing their own rulers and magistrates, make themselves partakers of all their sins, when they give their votes for vicious or irreligious characters. II. To state some of the reasons which should induce us to guard against partaking of other men’ s sins.1. If we partake of their sins, we shall share in their punishment. 2. It is impossible not to perceive how completely our subject justifies the con duct of those much insulted individuals, who have voluntarily associated for the purpose of assisting in executing the laws, and suppressing vice and immorality among us. (E. Payson, D. D.) Participation in the sins of others I. To specify some of the ways in which we may become partakers in other men’ s sins.1. When, through the influence of custom, we fall in with habits which Scripture and conscience condemn. 2. When we fail to exert the power or influence we may possess, for the prevention or discountenance of sin. 3. When we connive at them, or lend our sanction to their improper concealment. 4. When we fail to manifest our abhorrence, on either witnessing or hearing of their commission. 5. By inconsiderately introducing them to stations, the duties or dangers of which they are utterly incompetent to meet. II. How hardening and injurious will probably be the influence of such conduct on the minds of sinners. III. How adapted such conduct too to weaken in the believer’ s own mind impressions of the evil of sin in himself. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.) Other men’ s sins However hideous and hateful our own sins may be, still, from long familiarity with them, or from the pleasure they afford us, we excuse, or palliate, or forget them. But you look with unaffected and unmitigated horror and disgust on the sins of other men. The rich look with horror on the sins of the poor, and the poor with equal indignation loathe the sins of the rich. Now it is this which gives its horror to the thought expressed in our text. It speaks in a language which all can understand. It says to each man, “ Be not partaker in other men’ s sins.” Let us consider, then, how, or in what way, we may partake in the sins of other men. I. We may become partakers in other men’ s sins by learning to practise them. However alien to our own natural disposition, we are in danger of catching the infection of other men’ s sins--in danger of being corrupted and contaminated, and led to commit them, of learning to do and to delight in doing them. This world is like a hospital crowded with patients afflicted with various diseases. And here in our text the physician warns us to take heed lest in addition to our own disease we catch the infection of other diseases from our fellow-men, and aggravate and complicate our own by introducing their poison into our system. Each man has a sin which more easily besets him--a sin to which he is predisposed, which seems born in his nature. But there is no sin, however alien to our disposition at first, which may not be superinduced on our character, and become a second nature. Perhaps of all sins, acquired sins are the most inveterate. Though we escape the infection of other men’ s diseases, we may be responsible for their diseases and their death--diseases which we loathe and abominate. This is emphatically the lesson of the text. II. We become partakers in other men’ s sins when we wilfully and knowingly entice or encourage them to sin--ay, even though we should scrupulously keep our hands from doing or our own hearts from desiring to do it. This is an acknowledged principle of eternal justice. It is acknowledged and acted on in our courts of law. He who instigates, or encourages, or countenances a theft is held as guilty as the actual thief. He who loosens the stone from the mountain’ s brow is responsible not only for the blade of grass which it crushes in its first tardy movement, but for all the evil that it does in its downward career till it loses the momentum which he gave it, and lies motionless in the plain below. He is responsible for all the ruin it effects though he stands calmly at the top. Even so do we become partakers in all the deepening sins to which our first enticement gave birth. The schoolboy who has whispered in his companion’ s ear a filthy word, or taught him an evil thought; the merchant who has shown his apprentice the tricks and fraudulent dishonesties of trade; the master who has enticed his servant to despise the Sabbath; the giddy youth who has defiled the mind of maiden purity or seduced from the paths of innocence--all these are partakers, not only in the first sin to which they were tempted, but in the long, black, ever-deepening catalogue of sins to which that first sin gave birth. True, indeed, the responsibility of their victims is not lessened by their participation in it. III. We involve ourselves in other men’ s sins when we, through heedlessness and inattention, countenance or give them occasion to commit sin. Observe, I do not now speak of those who allow themselves to be corrupted by other men’ s sins, as under the first head, nor yet of those who intentionally corrupt others, as under the second head, but only of those who, through heedlessness and inattention, are the unwitting and unwilling occasions of countenancing others in sin. The guilt in this case is less than in the former instances, and the consequences are not so fearful to ourselves. This no less than the last is an acknowledged principle of justice. It is acknowledged and acted on in our courts of law. Has any one through heedlessness or want of attention caused the death of a fellow-man, he is acquitted of the crime of murder, but he is brought in as guilty of culpable manslaughter. His guilt is less, but is as clear. His punishment is less, but it is as sure. Does the traveller meet some accident, to the loss of property or the injury of his person, through the heedlessness or inattention of those who conveyed his property or himself, they are held responsible as persons guilty of culpable negligence, and if still persisted in to the frequent injury of others would be liable to severer punishment. But so it is in sober truth, and this for the first time is the point at which I take up the precise lesson of our text. I do not suppose that Paul thought it needful to warn Timothy against being corrupted by other men’ s sins. Nor can I imagine that he thought it necessary to forbid him from intentionally corrupting others. What, then, did he mean, unless it was to warn him that with the best intentions he might inadvertently, through inattention, involve himself in the guilt of other men’ s sins, sins which he hated himself, and which he mourned over in others? And so it was. “ Lay hands suddenly on no man,” said Paul, and as an argument or motive to care and consideration, he added, “ Be not partaker in other men’ s sins.” Having thus endeavoured to illustrate the general principles suggested by or embodied in our text, I might now allude to the encouragement and countenance that is given to drunkenness by the multiplied and unnecessary drinking customs which even good men maintain, but by which they become partakers in the sin of those who are thereby led away to excess. (W. Grant.) Partaking of other men’ s sins There is something which is very striking and very awful in the thought which is suggested to our minds in the words which have just been read. We have often heard it said that it is quite enough for any man in this world to answer for his own doings or misdoings; it is not fair to lay upon him any burden of guilt beyond that which is properly his own; or to attach to him any discredit because he comes, perhaps, of an ill-doing family; or because some one closely related to him has fallen into gross sin and shame. And if, in the nature of things, it is possible for us to help feeling as though a reflected disgrace were cast upon that person whose near kinsman has broken the laws of his country, for instance, and died a felon’ s death, still we are ready at once to confess, when the thing is fairly put to us, that it is not fit or just to hold any human being responsible for that which has been done by another; and that it is quite enough to answer for the wrong which he has done himself. We tremble to think of the heavy load of responsibility and guilt which we have accumulated for ourselves. But can it be that this is not all; can it be that we have all of us more to answer for than we have ourselves done. There is a sense in which it is not possible for any man to be partaker in the sin of another. You cannot transfer responsibility. No man can justly be held responsible for that which he did not do; but then a man may do many things besides those which he does directly. A man may do many things at second-hand, so to speak; and in that case he is quite as responsible for them as if he had done them with his own hand. For instance, you can all understand that if any person hires another to commit a murder for him, both parties in that transaction are equally guilty of the crime of murder. And, indeed, in many cases the accomplice is worse than the actual sinner, for in the case of the accomplice there is all the original guilt, with cowardice and meanness added. But may you not likewise be partaker in sins of which at their commission you did not know, and at whose commission you would shudder? May you not, in the moral world, sometimes set the great stone rolling down the hill, with little thought of the ruin it may deal below? As, for instance, you, a parent, neglect the training of your child, that child grows up into guilt which appals you--guilt which terrifies you; but are you not still partaker in that guilt--answerable for that guilt at the bar of God? Ah, you know you are; you know full well that if that neglected child should end at the gallows, the fault, the sin, the shame will still be in a great measure your own! Ah! you may live after you are dead to do mischief--live in the evil thoughts you instilled, the false doctrines you taught, the perverse character you helped to form. When you stand before the judgment throne, you may find yourself called to answer for myriads of sins besides those which you directly committed; and you will feel that your condemnation for these sins is just and right. Let us, then, look somewhat more closely into this great principle which I have been endeavouring to set before you. Let us look more particularly at some of the ways in which we may become “ partakers of other men’ s sins.” And in thinking, first, of how we may make others to sin by suggesting evil thoughts and feelings, let us take an extreme case by way of example: an extreme case, indeed, but unhappily not an unprecedented one. Let us think of a great genius: of a man to whom God has been pleased to give that rare and wonderful power of excogitating beautiful thoughts which shall come home to the heart and brain of other men, and clothing these beautiful thoughts in words which shall fall like music on the ear. Let us think of such a man applying the noble powers which God gave him for high and pure designs to surround vice with all the fascinations of poetry and romance, to strip it of all its grossness, while leaving all its guilt; let us think of him writing tales and poems, all of the most corrupting tendency; going to undermine the very foundations of all morality and all religion; and wrapping up infidelity and profligacy in thoughts that breathe and words that burn. And in every such case, is not that perverted genius justly chargeable with a share of that sin to which his writings have tempted? You may have done in a lower degree what the bad great man did on a grander scale. Even then, when you allow vice to pass without reproof, for fear of giving offence, are you not thus tacitly encouraging it? Even then, when you soften down the stern requirements of religion, for fear of making some one uncomfortable whom the truth would make uncomfortable, are you not thus practically encouraging him to remain worldly as he is? So far, then, for certain fashions in which by the lip, by speech or by silence, you may become accessory and abetting to other men’ s sins; and next we remark that by your life and example you may do so even more effectually. Example, whether good or bad, is always more efficient than precept; and you know quite well that many a man has taken heart to do a sinful deed because he saw another do it, who but for that would never have done so. The higher a man’ s profession of religion, the more closely will his practice be watched, both by such as have little religion and by such as have none at all; and who does not know how any inconsistency, any lapse, on the part of a professing Christian is laid hold of by ungodly men to countenance their ungodly lives, and to show that all religion is a pretence and a delusion! The evil principle we instilled, the evil example we set, may ripen into bitter fruit in the murderous blow which shall be dealt a century hence upon Australian plains. How strange, yet how inevitable, the tie which may link our uneventful life with the stormy passions of numbers far away! It is but as yesterday that we heard of the success of that marvellous achievement of science which has set the old world in momently communication with the new; and the most sluggish imagination must have been awakened somewhat in the thought of that slender cable which, far beneath the waves of the great Atlantic, lying still in stirless ocean valleys, and scaling trackless ocean cliffs, maintains the subtle current through those thousands of miles; but more wonderful still, surely, is that unseen fibre along which, from other men’ s sins, responsibility may thrill even to our departed souls--a chain whose links are formed, perhaps, of idle words, of forgotten looks, of phrases of double meaning, of bad advice, of cynical sentiment hardly seriously meant; yet carried on through life after life, through soul after soul, till the little seed of evil sown by you has developed into some deed of guilt at which you would shudder, but from some participation in responsibility for which you cannot clear yourself. Yea, the thought widens out beyond anything which I have hitherto suggested; for surely it is nothing more than a legitimate extension of the great principle of the text to say that in some measure we are responsible for the sin which we failed to do our utmost to prevent; and so that even heathen cruelty and heathen idolatry may be in so far chargeable on us, because, though we never bowed to the senseless image, though we never imbrued our hands in a fellow creature’ s blood, we yet failed to give of our means, our efforts, our prayers, to send to those dark lands that gospel light, which might have bidden these things die out for ever. In truth, the only way in which it is possible for us to cease to sin in the person of others, is by ceasing to sin in our own; for every sin may waken its echo, every sin is repudiated and reiterated, in other souls and lives. (A. H. K. Boyd.) Refusing to be a partaker in other men’ s sins Joseph Sturge, the Christian philanthropist, remonstrating one day with a drunken man whom he met, was startled by his reply that he had got drunk at a public-house, adding, “ The beer was made from your barley.” His mind was at once made up, and the next Mark Lane Express announced that under no circumstances would the Messrs. Sturge supply barley for malting purposes. This conscientious decision struck off £8,000 a year from their income. Keep thyself pure.-- A caution to young men In the abstract, the text, brief as it is, contains a precept impossible to be fulfilled. For who does not know that in His judgment “ God looks upon the heart” ? and yet, who can say, “ I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin” ? The solution of the apparent difficulty lies upon the surface: we can do relatively what we cannot do absolutely; we can do in association with the grace of God what we cannot do without it. We then, accordingly, as ambassadors for Christ, say to each young man whom we address, as the apostle said to Timothy, “ Keep thyself pure.” Keep thyself, as one from the beginning separated and set apart for Christ, from everything which is inconsistent with the allegiance which thou must owe to Him; with the attachment which thou oughtest to feel for Him; with the attainment of those blessings which are the purchase of His blood, and which God will bestow on thee through Him alone. “ Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Watch against the beginnings of evil.1. “ Keep thyself pure,” then, young man, as to “ doctrine” (for doctrine is the foundation of duty). 2. And not only let Holy Scripture stand first, but let it stand alone. Let it be received, not as “ the word of man,” but, as to doctrine, the teacher of truth alone. 3. Again, we say to the young man, “ keep thyself pure” from error, by taking Scripture, in all that seems to require “ reproof” or refutation, as a test. Whatever is repugnant to thy inherent and instinctive sense of right, whether to be denied as a principle, or to be deprecated as a practice, try it by its agreement or disagreement with God’ s Word. 4. Next, “ keep thyself pure” in act, by taking the Word of God “ for correction,” or setting upright that which hath fallen down, restoring what hath been damaged or decayed through sin. And here the Word is a supreme, unerring standard of right and wrong; and “ correction “ is but another name for bringing into harmony or accordance with the Word. 5. “ Keep thyself pure,” by looking to the Word “ for instruction in righteousness” ; for instruction, which must extend itself throughout the whole of life, though life were protracted, as of old time, far beyond the narrow limits of threescore years and ten. 6. “ Keep thyself pure,” then, young man, but only by the grace of God in Christ. Once throw aside that buckler, and thou wilt become vulnerable by every weapon of the foe. Writ thou “ keep thyself pure,” or shall that impurity, which is now thy shame, become thy companion and thy curse throughout eternity? Writ thou be refined as the pure gold, or cast away as the “ reprobate silver” ? “ Keep thyself pure,” then, young man! because “ thy breath is in thy nostrils” ; because thy sun of life may go down ere it is yet high noon; and that purity of life is essential to the peace of death. But once more we add, “ keep thyself pure” for the improvement--yes, and even for the true enjoyment of life. But by the observance of this salutary caution everything is gained, and nothing can be lost; time is rightly occupied, and talent profitably improved. Diligence in the practice of business, coupled with uprightness in its principles, rarely fails to prosper, even in a worldly view. (T. Dale, M. A.) Purity in a minister I admire Mr. Whitefield’ s reasons for always having his linen scrupulously clean. “ No, no,” he would say, “ these are not trifles; a minister must be without spot, even in his garments, if he can.” Purity cannot be carried too far in a minister. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A clean record The last words of a man are of comparatively little importance, but surely Mr. Gough could have uttered no sentence which would have pleased him better if he had known he would never speak again than the last words which he ejaculated as he sank unconscious in the Presbyterian church in which he was lecturing, “ Young man, make your record clean!” 1 Timothy 5:23 Drink no longer water.Timothy charged to take care of his health I. The first thought presented is, that a living and deep piety, a Christian activity, extended as far as can be imagined, should neither extinguish in us a certain interest in the things of the earth, nor abate the force of the natural and legitimate ties which unite us to parents and friends. St. Paul is certainly a proof of it. What faith was firmer and more ardent than his! A man who said (and what he said he felt): “ It is no longer I who live, but Christ that liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). A man who affirmed that he had “ a desire to depart, and be with Christ; which was far better” (Philippians 1:23). Well! it is that apostle who, in the midst of a life so filled up, in spite of so many engagements and perplexities of every kind, preserves that freedom of mind necessary to remember the physical infirmities of one of his disciples; it is he who, in a letter of such grave contents and of so serious a tone, in which he discourses on the duties of the evangelical ministry, and where he imparts to him his own personal experiences, finds time, place, and means of reminding him to take care of his health, which, perhaps, he neglected. Does not that attention, so fraternal and so delicate on the part of the apostle, serve to put in the clearest light this truth, which, nevertheless, issues with sufficient clearness from the general contents of the gospel, that a purely contemplative religious life is rather an abuse than the fruit of true Christianity; that faith has by no means the effect of filling our heads with frothy and mystic ideas which are not applicable to every-day life, and that if it elevates us above the world, it is in order to help us over its troubles and free us from its miseries, but not to make us strangers to the various relations which we have to sustain, nor to the duties which we have to practise here? And to speak only of the ties of blood and of friendship, or of those still sweeter and more powerful ones, of Christian brotherhood, does not St. Paul, when exhorting his disciple not to enslave himself to a plan of abstinence which might have become fatal to him, teach us that if we are sincere disciples of the Saviour, His love, which lives in our hearts, should perfect us in that respect and render us capable of sympathizing more and more with the necessities of our suffering and afflicted friends, of understanding their position, of giving us just ideas of their perplexities, of taking part in their burdens. There are Christians who are pre-occupied with the concerns of heaven, to the extent of forgetting a part of the duties which they have to fulfil on this earth, as parents, as friends, as citizens. In their religious rigour the human element is blotted out, rather than freed from the impure alloy of evil. II. If St. Paul, exhorting his disciple Timothy not to impose unnecessary abstinence upon himself, and to take care of his health, presents to us the model of that tender, vigilant, and delicate character which is fully allied with the highest degree of the religious life. Timothy, who on his part seems to have placed himself in the position of needing that lesson--teaches us, by his example, that a lively concern for the interests of our souls ought not to make us neglect the care of our bodies. This would prove, so to speak, by the way that the most pious and sincere men are subject to fall by excess of zeal into exaggerations, which the Word of God is far from approving of; and it ought to make us feel the necessity of enlightening ourselves more and more on the will of God as regards us, by always joining intelligence with piety, the understanding of Divine things with fervour, or, to speak with the apostle St. Peter, by “ adding to faith, knowledge (2 Peter 1:5), lest we should give way to whims and take peculiar paths from which it would be difficult later on to return. No doubt it is better, in the act, to go astray after the manner of Timothy, than to sin after the example of men of the world; and it is beyond all dispute that he who impairs his health through the effect of long and persevering labours, undertaken with the view of advancing the Saviour’ s kingdom, and on account of having listened to nothing but the inspirations of a zeal which knew no limit, and which yielded to no obstacle, is, without comparison, infinitely less culpable before God than the carnal man who, on account of having altogether given way to his senses and slackened the bridle of his passions, has ruined his strength and destroyed his body. But, viewed in connection with God, the body is the work of the Creator, and, although degraded by sin, it still bears certain marks of Divine origin. Estimated with relation to our soul, it serves as its organ; it is intended to be the instrument of its desires, the executor of its volitions. Considered in connection with our fellow-men, it has been given us to be a means of communication with them, and in general with the objects and beings which compose the visible world in which we are placed. “ Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful, in order to your furtherance and joy of faith” (Philippians 1:24-25). And it was that conviction which led him to save himself for the work of God and for the salvation of the Church. Let us live for heaven, but let us never forget the task which we have to fulfil on earth. III. Yet, you will have observed, that whilst putting Timothy on his guard against the dangers of an overstrained abstinence, and recommending him not to deprive himself of a natural drink which God has created for the benefit of man, the apostle gives us in passing a lesson of temperance; for instead of simply recommending his disciple to have recourse to the use of wine as a cordial and as a remedy, he takes the precaution of saying to him, “ use a little wine.” Unquestionably that restriction was scarcely necessary as regards Timothy, since there is no appearance of his having ever abused the liberty which his teacher gave him; but can we doubt that if St. Paul had expressed himself in a manner more general and without employing that moderation of language, libertines would have hastened to seize upon his words, to confirm themselves in their irregularities? Sobriety, indeed, is, however, at all times obedience to a law established by God Himself in creation, and for the benefit and interest of the man who accepts it and who submits to it. God has so ordered things in the world where He has placed us, that the moderate use of the good things which He dispenses to us brings with it blessing; whilst the abuse of the same enjoyments has for its consequence a curse. It is the same with all the gifts of the Creator--intemperance turns them into poisons, the want of sobriety transforms them into means of destruction. Too much sleep, for example, weakens the body; too much pleasure enervates it; too much rest benumbs it; too much food thickens the burnouts; too much drink agitates and consumes it. “ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). Sober in our sufferings as well as in our joys; in our sadness as well as in our pleasures; sober in rest, sober in activity; sober when watching, sober in sleep; sober in body, sober in mind. IV. In fine, the advice addressed by Paul to Timothy to drink no longer only water, but to use a little wine on account of his frequent indispositions, gives occasion to a last question which might appear idle at first sight, but which is certainly not so when viewed in its practical consequences; and that question is this: “How is it that St. Paul, who had received from Christ the gift of working miracles, does not apply that gift in order to heal his disciple?” Would it have cost him much, who, in the town of Lystra, restored to an impotent man the free use of his limbs, formerly paralyzed--him who chased from a poor young woman at Philippi the lying spirit with which she had been possessed for a long time--him who at Troas had only to bend over the body of a young man fallen from the third story of a house into the street, in order to call him back into life; would it have cost him, I say, much to deliver Timothy from a malady slight in itself, although serious enough to have brought him into a state of weakness? To these various questions we believe that we can answer, that it does not appear that the apostles could work miracles every time that they wished; that they were in that respect directed from on high, and that in this particular case it is probable that Paul, after having consulted the Lord by prayer, was turned aside from the idea of freeing Timothy from his physical infirmities by means of a miraculous cure, or, at least, that he did not feel free to do it. Miracles are for those who do not believe, to predispose them to faith; but for those who already believe, of what necessity could they be? Timothy, converted to Jesus Christ and a minister of the gospel, had then no need of the manifestation of the power of Jesus Christ in his body, because he felt that same power work in the regeneration of his soul. But what was more necessary than a miracle for him, more profitable than a supernatural cure, was affliction; and that is, without doubt, the reason why the apostle, taught in that respect by his own experience, did not wish to heal him suddenly, although he employed all the counsels of a wise friendship to bring him over gradually and by natural ways to a state of health which he could wish for him, but which he did not believe himself authorized to procure for him instantaneously. Is there any school so good as that of trial? We have seen that we should not voluntarily and by our own fault create trials for ourselves; we should be satisfied with those which the Lord sends us. But if, on the one hand, it would be culpable to plunge into, or to complain in, afflictions of which we ourselves are the manufacturers, we must not, on the other hand, harden ourselves under the hand of the Saviour when it lies heavy upon us. (J. Grandpierre, D. D.) Paul’ s advice to Timothy I. The speaker, who is undoubtedly the apostle Paul. We have not only to notice his friendship and regard for his son Timothy, but we may learn that it is the duty, and should be the practice, of the ministers of Jesus Christ, to attend to the state of the health of their people. It may be observed, that the apostle recommended the ordinary means; we never find a miracle wrought where common and usual means would answer the purpose. The apostle John could not heal his friend Gaius, and therefore prays heartily for him. Nor could Paul heal Trophimus, and therefore left him sick at Miletus. This proves that the apostles’ power of working miracles, or performing cures, was confined and limited; and it was wise and kind in Providence in confining the prerogative in His own hand, as some, no doubt, would have neglected the use of ordinary means; and in some instances the apostles might have employed their power on improper occasions. II. The person addressed. Timothy, the pious descendant of a pious mother Eunice, and grandmother Lois. But Timothy, with all his piety, has imperfections; and this furnishes us with the idea, that good men are liable to indispositions. It has been often observed, that the last step of a virtue and the first of a vice are nearly contiguous. Frugality is commendable, but how likely is it to lead to covetousness, which is a vice. This should teach us to avoid extremes, as extremes in all cases are dangerous. From Timothy, the person spoken to, we learn that good and useful men are subject to many infirmities. Besides the many instances left us on record in the Scriptures, we may notice those of more modern ones. That great advocate for reformation, Dr. Owen, the pious and heavenly-minded Richard Baxter, the seraphic James Hervey, and the sweet singer in British Israel, Dr. Watts, not forgetting that laborious preacher George Whitfield, are all instances of the truth of this observation, and could all say many years before their death, “ The graves are ready for us.” III. The import of the advice given. “ Take a little wine for thy stomach’ s sake,” etc., which furnishes two observations, namely--1. That it is the duty of Christians to use means, and to take care to restore and preserve the state of their health. Instances may be referred to where this advice, if it had been observed, would have prevented many a fatal sickness. The benefit and blessing of health may be considered in the humble walks of life; in the poor labourer, the support of whose family depends on his labour, and whose labour depends on his health. It may be considered among the higher ranks of life. What is the benefit or enjoyment of a well-spread table, of a well-furnished mansion, of extensive possessions without health? But health is of importance in a religious view. 2. We may observe, that the Christian is not forbid the use and enjoyment of any created good. (W. Jay.) Bodily infirmities I. We believe that the sacred Scriptures would be found far more edify ing and consoling than they are at present by many experienced to be, if we were to endeavour to realize to ourselves the personal habits and circumstances of the saints and martyrs whose acts form the groundwork of the inspired volume. Nay, inasmuch as the life of most men is private and domestic, we may think that it would be most advantageous if we possessed a narrative of the secret life of Christ. In the contemplation of St. Timothy harassed with a sick body, and of St. Paul plying his trade of tent-making, in order to obtain daily bread, and probably to provide the funds for future apostolic journeys, we have a lesson of infinite value. We are all, more or less, accustomed to find excuses for our religious deficiencies in the accidents of our state and condition. But every individual has his own excuse, the trade of one occupies his time; the ill health of another prevents his going about doing good; the poverty of a third incapacitates him. As with the laity so with the clergy, we have each our own plea for not doing all that we might, for labouring less than we know in our hearts it is our bounden duty to do. And a very marked rebuke to all such is the contemplation of the old saints and apostles, as we now present them. They had their own private lets and hindrances, draw backs to their utility, impediments to their efficiency; yet what a work was theirs! To be the reformers and restorers of the world, the regenerators of the universe; to bring about the overthrow of idolatry, and the recognition of the one true God. Timothy was overwhelmed with “ often infirmities.”’ And yet these were the men who changed the religion of the world! Oh, noble triumph of the spirit over matter! Oh, glorious victory of Divine grace! What excuse have we for our carelessness and remissness, our sluggishness and indolence? What hindrances have we, which they had not tenfold? Are we poor, and therefore seemingly unable to help others? St. Paul worked at tent-making. Are we delicately nurtured and weak in health? Timothy was a man of many infirmities. Are we slow of speech, and unused to address our brethren? St. Paul’ s utterance was indistinct. II. What we have hitherto endeavoured to set before you has been simply this, that the first disciples of Christ had to contend not only with extraordinary but ordinary difficulties. Sickness and infirmity was their portion, even as it is ours: yet they did their work; they did not make their personal weaknesses or their poverty any excuse for spiritual idleness. The lesson is easy. If they, in the face not merely of a hostile world, but in spite of all sorts of personal drawbacks, fought so long and well the fight of faith, how utterly inexcusable are we in making our private engagements, or want of means or health, pleas for remaining idle. Yea, this is the account we have to give you of Timothy, as implied in the text. Wonderfully met in him, health and disease, strength and infirmity. Called to severe labour in the vineyard of his Lord, with the charge of an entire Church upon him, how needful we think must it have been that his frame should be strong, and his health firm. Nevertheless, when God sent him sickness, he desired not to be rid of it. (Bp. Woodford.) Wine and health Dr. B. N. Richardson, of London, the noted physician, says he was recently able to convey a considerable amount of conviction to an intelligent scholar by a simple experiment. The scholar was singing the praises of the “ ruddy bumper,” and saying he could not get through the day without it, when Dr. Richardson said to him, “ Will you be good enough to feel my pulse as I stand here?” He did so. I said, “ Count it carefully. What does it say?” “ Your pulse says seventy-four.” I then sat down in a chair, and asked him to count it again. He did so, and said, “ Your pulse has gone down to seventy.” I then lay down on the lounge, and said, “ Will you take it again?” He replied, “ Why, it is only sixty-four! What an extraordinary thing!” I then said, “ When you lie down at night, that is the way nature gives your heart rest. You know nothing about it, but that beating organ is resting to that extent; and if you reckon it up it is a great deal of rest, because in lying down the heart is doing ten strokes less a minute. Multiply that by sixty, it is six hundred; multiply it by eight hours, and within a fraction it is five thousand strokes different, and as the heart is throwing six ounces of blood at every stroke, it makes a difference of thirty thousand ounces of lifting during the night. When I lie down at night without any alcohol that is the rest my heart gets. But when you take your wine or grog you do not allow that rest, for the influence of alcohol is to increase the number of strokes, and instead of getting this rest you put on something like fifteen thousand extra strokes, and the result is that you rise up very seedy, and unfit for the next day’ s work till you have taken a little more of the ‘ ruddy bumper,’ which you say is the soul of man below.” (Naval Brigade News.) Health a duty Health underlies all there is of a man. I think a man ill-bodied cannot think healthily. It would surprise people to see how many things which have shaken the world with controversy, and burdened it with error, bad their origin in indigestion. Health is a duty. If a man would carry his mind aright, and have it work with power, let him seek to be healthy. (H. W. Beecher.) Christians should not encourage wine drinking Some say, “ You must not force your principles on other people. I am a teetotaler myself; I would not touch alcohol, but then I will put it on my table for other people.” They say you must not take the liberty of people away. A man that preached the gospel told me that some time ago. He said that some men had to drink it as a medicine, and that was the reason he placed it on his table. I said to him, “ Then why don’ t you put a dish of pills on the table as well?” We have heard enough about it as a medicine, and it will be a grand day for England when you just sweep the stuff out of the island--the whole of it right out from your tables. Dare to be singular! (D. L. Moody.) Asceticism I. A Christian is called upon to care for his physical health. The body is not to be despised or neglected. It is the temple of the Holy Ghost, to be thought of, and dealt with, reverently. Disordered nerves and deranged functions have much to do with gloomy views of God and hopeless views of men. For the sake, therefore, of one’ s moral and religious life, all that can be done to keep the body and brain in healthy condition and exercise, should be done religiously. II. A Christian is bound to control animal appetite. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) 1 Timothy 5:24-25 Some men’ s sins are open beforehand.The law of moral recompenses Let us proceed to a consideration of this law of recompenses, whether in relation to the bad actions of the sinner, or to the good works of the righteous, I. And first, let us see how the text brings out the principle we have spoken of, as applied to the case of bad men,--that is of hardened and incorrigible offenders: “ Some men’ s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment.”1. Of this one illustration is to be found in the consequences which, even in the present state, follow upon the commission of sin. That principle of our religious philosophy, laid down by Bishop Butler, that the general constitution of this world’ s government is, upon the whole, favourable to virtues and adverse to wrong-doing, is in nothing more manifest, than in the unalterable connection which subsists between sin and misery. Dissipation leads to want, sensuality to enfeebled health, dishonesty drives sleep from the eyelids through the fear of being found out, and it is often literally true that “ bloody and deceitful men scarce live out half their days.” Thus, to the end of their days, sinners are constantly finding out that “ they who plough iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same.” In the spirit of the Psalmist, though often without his hope, they are left to cry out daily, “ My sin is ever before me.” For their first sin haunts them with its consequences to the close of their career. They never escape from its revenges. It tracks their path like a bloodhound. In its initial forebodings the plague of retribution begins here: “ Their sins are gone beforehand to judgment.” 2. Again, it is a part of the penalty of the transgressor in this life, and that which sends his sins before him, as it were a herald, to get his place and portion ready, that the longer he continues in a course of evil, the more violently and inevitably is he urged in the same direction. The thought is not sufficiently realized by us, that, in moral things, like produces like; that each separate act of transgression which a man commits leaves its own seminal deposit of evil in the soul, which, unless eradicated by a higher power than his own, must fructify and gather strength till the time of harvest,--till the end of life, or till the end of the world. The process of moral deterioration may be subtle and unobserved, like the stealthy creeping of a pestilence, but, in the majority of cases, it is sure and uniform. The youth determines what the man shall be. And the man determines what the grey hairs shall be. It is a righteous thing with God to let the wicked be the forger of his own fetters, and to leave him with his own hands to bind them on. Such is a law of our moral nature. Thus, while a man is continuing in sin everything is preparing for the end, and hastening the advent of the end. Each repeated act of disobedience exerts an influence upon character; tends to its consolidation and settlement in evil; helps to bring about that which, as far as can be seen, will be its final and everlasting form,--that of hatred of God, and resistance to all good. Except the final consummation of their misery, they have nothing more to wait for. “ Their sins are gone beforehand to judgment.” 3. But further, in relation to this great law of retribution, attaching itself to sinful actions, it is added, “ some men their sins follow after.” The thought here suggested would seem to be this, that in estimating the penalties due to transgressions we must take into the reckoning the unquestioned fact that the consequences of some men’ s sins follow after them, live to produce their mighty havoc and harvest of evil when the men themselves are gone. This is a law of social influences which altereth not. A bad man cannot restrict the consequences of his misdoing to himself. For the evil follows after, even unto many generations. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, set up two calves, and the consequence was that within a few years two nations fell into the practice of idolatry. Indeed, in its consequences, and, as far as the present economy is concerned, every kind of sin may be regarded as having immortality. Infidelity and falsehood are immortal. The exposed sophistry and the ribald jest will be propagated from mouth to mouth, and from book to book, to the end of time. Thankful should we be to know that there may be an arrest laid upon the mischief, in some cases, or that the grace of God may, and often does, raise up a counteracting influence for good. But too commonly the seed of evil is left to bring forth fruit after its kind: “ With some men their sins follow after.” II. But I proceed to notice, in the second place, the application of this law of recompenses to the good actions of the righteous. “ Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.”1. First, it is said that the good works of some are manifest even in the present life. “ Ye are the light of the world,” said our Lord; “ a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” “ Thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself shall reward thee openly.” 2. Again, his good works are manifest beforehand, because they will be sure to take the form of active benevolence, and of endeavor’ s to promote the moral and spiritual happiness of mankind. 3. “ And they that are otherwise cannot be hid.” What further lesson may we draw from this? why, that no good works of a righteous man can ever be altogether thrown away; can ever fail of producing fruit; can ever, whether in this world or in that which is to come, miss of its fitting and merciful reward. We know that, of vessels chosen for the Master’ s use, some are for greater honour, and some for less. “ Cannot be hid,” first, because of the effect which a course of good works has upon a man’ s own character, and the lasting peace they leave behind, “ The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Faith makes larger discoveries of God, and of the fitness and fulness of the provided atonement. Hid from the world, but not from himself, is his tranquil joy in prayer, his nearness to God in sacraments, his derived strength from Christ, his interchange of thoughts with heaven, as he meditates on the written Word. Hid from the world, but not from himself, are his peace in conflict, his supports in temptation, his thankfulness after a gained victory over the powers of evil, as to God, and to God alone, he gives the praise. Furthermore, a man’ s good works “ cannot be hid,” because, in all the parts and actions of our life, there are unknown eyes upon us. We, none of us, know the extent of our own influence, how many of those who are associated with us, in the common intercourse and work of life, may be, without acknowledging it, looking up to us as patterns, or at all events are taking observant note where our practice differs from theirs. “ Cannot be hid,” once more: because, like the bad man’ s sins, good works will follow after. Of every good man it may be said, as of Abel, “ He being dead yet speaketh” ;--speaketh by the memory of his virtues. Such is the rule of the Almighty’ s procedure, whether in dealing with good men or bad. It is based on principles of everlasting rectitude. It is administered after methods of gentlest kindness. It commends itself to the conscience, as answering to the conditions of a reasonable service. It is in harmony with fact, with observation, and with the experience of our own hearts. (D. Moore, M. A.) The method of penalty I am certainly within the spirit of the text when I say that some sins anticipate judgment; they invoke it, and receive its sentence, and experience its penalty, apparently before the time; they run their course quickly, and incur their doom in this life. There are other sins that meet with little check; they are slow to overtake their consequences; they come upon little in this life that can be called penalty. Speaking from daily observation, we may say that the retribution of some sins begins in this world; while there are other sins that await their punishment in the next world. We shall best come to an understanding of this truth by looking a little into the method of retribution. It is, as its definition implies, a return of disobedience, or payment, when, in due time, it returns again. It is the natural and inevitable consequence of broken law. If we seek for an explanation of this law, we find none, except that it is so. We perceive its fitness and beneficence, but farther back we cannot go. The law is wrought into our moral nature, and also into our consciousness; certainly, it commands early and universal assent. We notice also that the penalty is akin to the sin; it is under the seed-law--like yielding like. We receive back the things we have done, changed only as mist is changed to water, and heat to flame. And the effect often bears so absolute resemblance to the cause as to arrest the imagination, and is called poetic justice; the murderer drinking the poison he had prepared for another. In human government it is not so, but only because of its imperfection. It is an increated principle, and cannot be superinduced to any great extent. When a man steals, all that human law has yet learned to do is to imprison, or otherwise injure him, inflicting an arbitrary, deterrent suffering. Society merely defends itself. It is seldom skilful enough to establish a natural relation between the crime and the penalty. But that part of human society which is not organized into government, the social relationship of men, is more skilful to connect evil with its natural punishment. If one sins against the conventional laws, or moral instincts, of society, he meets with exclusion or disgrace according to the nature of the offence. Cause and effect; natural order; congruity between the sin and its penalty; these are the unfailing marks that the great teacher put upon the subject. What wisdom, what truth, what justice, is the voice of universal reason and conscience. It is the weakness of human government that it does not employ this principle in the punishment of crime, so far as it might. It was a doubtful policy that abolished the whipping-post and pillory. If a brutal husband whips his wife at home, he can have no better punishment than a whipping in public; or, if this be corrupting to the people, then in private. If these suggestions be thought to imply a retrograding civilization, let me answer, they harmonize with the Divine order. There is but one sound, effective method of punishing wrong-doing, and that is to make the offender feel the evil he has inflicted. As we thus look at retribution in the mingled light of revelation and reason, we are prepared to understand why it is that some sins are punished in this world, while other sins await punishment in a future world. If we were to classify the sins that reap their painful consequences here, and those that do not, we would find that the former are offences that pertain to the body, and the order of this world; and that the latter pertain more directly to the spiritual nature. The classification is not sharp; the parts shade into one another; but it is as accurate as is the distinction between the two departments of our nature. In his physical and social nature man was made under the laws of this world. If he breaks these laws the penalty is inflicted here. It may continue hereafter, for the grave feature of penalty is that it does not tend to end, but continues to act, like force imparted to an object in a vacuum, until arrested by some outside power. But man is also under spiritual laws,--reverence, humility, love, self-denial, purity, and all that are commonly known as moral duties. If he offends against these, he may incur but little of painful consequence. There may be much of evil consequence, but the phase of suffering lies farther on. The soil and atmosphere of this world are not adapted to bring it to full fruitage. Stating our distinction again: punishment in this world follows the sins of the grosser part of our nature--that part which more especially belongs to this world--sins against the order of nature, against the body; sins of self-indulgence and sins against society. The punishment that awaits the next world is of sins pertaining to the higher nature, sins against the mind, the affections, and the spirit. The seed of evil sown in the soil of this world comes to judgment here. The seed of evil sown in the hidden places of the spirit, does not bear full fruit till the spiritual world is reached. Man is co-ordinated to two worlds. They overlap far into one another; the spiritual inter-penetrates the physical; and the physical sends unceasing influences into the spiritual. Still, each is a field whereon evil reaps its appropriate harvest. Illustrations of the first confront us on every side; judgment pronounced and executed here; sin punished here. Take the commonest but most instructive example--drunkenness. As soon as desire becomes stronger than the will, it begins to act retributively. Having sown to the flesh, he reaps to the flesh corruption. His sin works out its penalty on its own ground. I do not say that it ends here, because it is also linked with an order more enduring than this world. For, as one standing over against a mountain may fill the whole valley with the clamour of shouting, but hears at length an echo as if from another world, so these sins, having yielded their first fruits here, may stir up vaster penalties hereafter. The terrible feature of penalty, so far as any light is thrown upon it from its own nature, is that it cannot anticipate an end. The subject finds various illustration: indolence eating the scant bread of poverty; wilful youthhood begetting a fretful and sour old age; selfishness leading to isolation; ambition overreaching itself and falling into contempt; ignorance yielding endless mistake; worldly content turning first into apathy, then into disgust; these every-day facts show that if we sin against the order of this world, we are punished in this world. If we sin against the body we are punished in the body. We turn now to the other point, namely, that sins against the spiritual nature do not incur full punishment here, but await it in the spiritual world. We constantly see men going through life with little pain or misfortune, perhaps with less than the ordinary share of human suffering, yet we term them sinners. They do not love nor fear God; they have no true love for man; they reject the law of self-denial and the duty of ministration; they stand off from any direct relations to God, they do not pray; their motives are selfish; their temper is worldly; they are devoid of what are called graces except as mere germs or chance out-growths, and make no recognition of them as forming the substance of true character. Such men break the laws of God, and of their own nature, as really as does the drunkard, but they meet with little apparent punishment. There may be inward discomfort, pangs of conscience at times, a painful sense of wrongness, a dim sense of lack, but nothing that bears the stamp of penalty. These discomforts grow less, and at last leave the man quite at ease. These men seem to be sinning without punishment, and often infer that they do not deserve it. The reason of the difference is plain. They keep the laws that pertain to this world, and so do net come in the way of their penalties. They are temperate, and are blessed with health. They are shrewd and economical, and amass wealth. They are prudent and avoid calamities. They are worldly wise, and thus secure worldly advantages. But man covers two worlds, and he must settle with each before his destiny is decided: he may pass the judgment seat of one acquitted, but stand convicted before the other. It is as truly a law of our nature that we shall worship as that we shall eat. When, a half century ago, the famous Kaspar Hauser appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, having been released from a dungeon in which he had been confined from infancy, having never seen the face or heard the voice of man, nor gone without the walls of his prison, nor seen the full light of day, a distinguished lawyer in Germany wrote a legal history of the case which he entitled, “ A Crime against the Life of the Soul.” It was well named. There is something unspeakably horrible in that mysterious page of history. To exclude a child not only from the light, but from its kind; to seal up the avenues of knowledge that are open to the most degraded savage; to force back upon itself every outgoing of the nature till the poor victim becomes a mockery before its Creator, is an unmeasurable crime; it is an attempt to undo God’ s work. But it is no worse than the treatment some men bestow upon their own souls. If reverence is repressed, and the eternal heavens are walled out from view; if the sense of immortality is smothered; if the spirit is not taught to clothe itself in spiritual garments, and to walk in spiritual ways: such conduct can hardly be classed except as a crime against the life of the soul. But one thing is certain. As the poor German youth was at length thrust out into the world for which he was so unfitted, with untrained senses in a world of sense, without speech in a world of language, with a dormant mind in a world of thought--so many go out of this world--with no preparation in that part of their nature that will most be called into use. There the soul will be in its own realm; it will live unto itself, a spirit unto spiritual things. A spiritual air to breathe; spiritual works to do; a spiritual life to live, but the spirit impotent I If there has been absolute perversion of the moral nature here, it must assert itself there in the sharpest forms, but the natural penalty of the greater part of human sin is darkness. This is the condemnation, that men have loved darkness. And the penalty of loving darkness, is darkness: it soul out of keeping with its condition, and therefore bewildered, dazzled by light cannot endure, or blind from the disused sense, it matters not which; it is equally in darkness. (T. T. Munger.) Open and hidden sins I. We are, first, to consider who those persons are whose “ sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment.” And, in making this inquiry, we must still keep in mind that all sin is condemning. The world makes strange distinctions between what it calls great and little sins; but the word of God simply declares “ the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). “ The wages of sin,” of all sin, “ is death” (Romans 6:23). But though all sin is condemning, all sin is not equally open. Many sins which nevertheless subject the soul to eternal death, are kept hidden from man, while some are open and avowed. The unchanged nature may be restrained from exhibiting to the eye of man “ sins open beforehand, going before to judgment” ; but the evil principle of all sin is there, open to the eye of that God with whom we have to do. Causes there are which work upon the unchanged mind, from letting sin break out in the life; though the real love of sin exists fully in the heart. Such a restraint is natural conscience; such, the laws and expectations of civilized, much more of refined society. But where these restraints are broken through, then the whole body of sin and evil principles which were working in the inward soul before, now become manifest in all ungodliness. They have no fear of God before their eyes; their hearts are hardened, through the deceitfulness of sin: they set the law of God always, and the law of man when they dare do so, at defiance; and so spend their short day upon earth in “ sins open beforehand, going before to judgment.” II. Let us inquire, in the second place, who those are whose sins “ follow after.” In the judgment which is formed of sin by men of the world, their minds are manifestly under a great delusion from the father of lies. They do not judge of sin as “ the transgression of the law of God,” and therefore hateful in his sight; but they measure it according to the effects which it produces against the safety or conveniences of society. They cannot see that all sin, whether it be “ open beforehand,” or whether it “ follow after to judgment,” is destructive to the soul, and dishonourable to almighty God; and, consequently, that every child of Adam who dies in any unforgiven sin, is lost. But besides this kind of delusion, which comforts many in their unholy life, and so far prevents their sin from breaking out into open wickedness, there is another cause why sin is oftentimes kept from becoming “ open beforehand.” Moral virtue, and a certain external character of religion, have still a share of the world’ s permission, nay, in a measure, of the world’ s approbation; provided that they do not make acknowledged reference to the power and obligations of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But all this only serves to make sin take deeper root. It is growing, though concealed from the world, in a soil congenial to it, and will increase unto all ungodliness. If, therefore, we retain sin in our heart by living in ignorance of the real state of our soul, while we succeed in establishing an outward character with men, we are passing through life deceiving and being deceived. Think, oh think, of the dreadful exposure in that day of all your secret bosom sins, hidden and unrepented of here, but then made manifest, to your “ shame and everlasting contempt.” III. It now remains that we consider the case of those who have neither sins going before them to judgment, nor sins following after. And who are these? where shall we find them? Not among those who have never sinned: “ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).” Not among those who sin not now: “ For their is not a just man on earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not,” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). They will be found standing in their own peculiar lot: washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11); and none who are such have sins either going before to judgment, or following after. Think upon your privileges in your acceptance in the Beloved. “ Ye are washed” from the guilt of past sins, because it is written, “ the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is the “ fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). (H. Marriot,M. A.) The open and secret sinner This is the condition of all open and notorious sinners. They are sold as slaves to sin; everybody sees and knows them to be such; they know it themselves, and are bitterly conscious of their bondage, however they may affect to think lightly of it, or even glory in it; as there are those whose glory is in their shame, and who boast of being free from the restraints of religion, honour, and public decency. Who ever offended the general conscience of society by a great and public sin, and did not feel himself to be speedily judged, condemned, and degraded? and that not only in other men’ s judgment, which he would fain set aside or over-rule if he could, as partial, unreasonable, and unjust, but in the judgment of his own heart, which, in spite of himself, affirms and concurs in that of the world. For though the world itself is full of sin, yet, bad as it is, it does, in an imperfect and irregular way, respect virtue and rebuke vice. And hereby the judgment of the world becomes a token and intimation of God’ s judgment, and God makes the conscience and opinion even of wicked men testify against the wickedness of others, though perhaps less wicked than themselves. All open sin goes before to judgment. But how stands the case with regard to secret sins? There is in these, we may suppose, no manifest offence against the decencies and proprieties of society: the world knows nothing of the sin, character is not lost, the sinner’ s life may be in other respects unimpeachable. Cannot his sin be covered up? It is a vain hope; the covered sin corrupts the whole life. If open sin is like an overmastering fire, that blazes out at every window and flames up through the roof of the devoted house, secret sin is as the smouldering heat, that preys upon the main timbers, unobserved for a time, but stealthily eating its way from one to another, till at last the crash comes, and the building crumbles into dust and ashes. What calamity is so frightful and appalling as the sudden downfall of a man, long looked upon as of pure and honourable life, but found out at last to have been hiding wickedness under an outward show of virtue? And yet sad as this is, it is not so sad as if the cherished sin had passed undiscovered and unrepented of, till the sinner stood to answer for it before the great judgment-seat. I said that covered sin corrupts the whole life. And is it not so? Of course the secret sinner is ashamed of his sin; at least he is ashamed of it in reference to the effect it would produce against him, if it were known, in the minds of some people for whose opinion he cares. Then he must live in a constant disguise of false appearance. His daily life must be a lie, and he must be under a continual necessity of committing fresh sins to hide former ones. But besides the outward and visible consequence, what I may call the material penalty of sin, whether open or secret, there is an inward one of even greater severity; namely, the alienation of the mind from God, and consequent derangement of all the spiritual faculties and operations of the soul. Can a man who is consciously and designedly dishonest, or an extortioner, or a drunkard, or an adulterer, hold unreserved and refreshing communion with his Maker, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity? It is an old and most true remark, that nobody can go on both sinning and praying; for either praying will make him leave off sinning, or sinning will make him leave off praying. A wilful sinner might keep up the outward form, and be even all the worse for doing so, but he could not exercise the spirit of prayer. For though a person who is notoriously wicked in some particulars may, from mere worldly prudence, and a just appreciation of his own interest, be upright in others, this does not cleanse the blot of his character either to the world or to himself. The thief is not honoured by people of any discernment because he may happen to be sober, nor the adulterer because he may happen to be industrious. And much less can he, upon any reasonable estimate of his own spiritual state, appease his conscience, entertain a comfortable hope that he is in God’ s favour or make it the serious business of his life to advance God’ s glory. He is, by his works, a manifest enemy to the kingdom of grace. And how stands, in this particular, the case of the secret sinner? We suppose his sin not to be known to the world; his example, therefore, creates no scandal, shocks nobody’ s feelings; it may not even be blemished by any apparent inconsistency; but the hidden sin defiles the sinner’ s conscience, and bars his approach to God, just as much as open wickedness does. And this is the way in which it operates. The man feels that there is a part of his habitual life that he cannot freely disclose and acknowledge to God; a condemning secret, which he would fain withdraw, if he could, even from the judgment of his own heart. The consequence is that the form of religion, which we are supposing the secret sinner to keep up, is but a deception, a hollow mask to hide the practical infidelity of his character. It is plain that the wilful sinner can have no comfort in the knowledge of God, or in approaching Him in prayer. He has chosen to set himself in opposition to God, and to be holden for an enemy by Him. It may be suggested that the law which forbids the darling sin is not God’ s law, the revelation which is supposed to declare it is misstated or misrepresented, or perhaps is no real revelation at all. Nobody wonders that the man who is profligate is also irreligious; and nobody thinks of taking his opinion or his practice into account in any matter in which religion is concerned. But the secret sinner may unsettle the faith of many souls besides his own. The secret sinner, again, will have to recollect, and, so far as he may, to repair any damage that he may have done to the cause of religion by the looseness of his conversation while he was supposed to be, though he really was not, a trustworthy companion for people of sincere and unpolluted minds. But whatever may be the proper outward manifestations of penitence for either open or secret sin, the work itself must be begun and wrought out within the sinner’ s heart. This season of Lent has been specially appointed by the Church for the work of self-examination and penitence: not but what we ought to be daily humbling ourselves for those faults which we daily commit, but because through our natural slowness and coldness to spiritual things we are apt to fall into a negligent way of performing these daily duties, and so require to be ever and anon awakened and warned to set ourselves more heartily to our painful task. Let us not, then be withheld by false shame from owning to God and to ourselves, and, if it must be so, to man also, the heinousness of those sins which we may have openly and knowingly committed; nor let us attempt to take refuge in that ignorance of our own acts and of their quality, which, in whatever degree it is wilful, is in that degree an aggravation of sin, not an excuse for what is done amiss; but let us gladly accept the light which the Word and Providence of God afford to us, that we may come to know ourselves as we are known by Him. It may be a painful, but it will be a saving knowledge. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.) The sins that follow I. Now there is no difficulty in fixing on the characters described under the former clause, “ Some men’ s sins are open, going before unto judgment.” From the day of Pentecost until now, the Church has had to contend with a body of men who have set themselves in direct and open hostility to holiness and God; who have mocked at His counsel and would none of His reproof. Their sins have been open; all the world has acknowledged their guilt, and anticipated their condemnation. Their offences go before them invoking God’ s judgment. Who are they, we will rather ask, described in the second clause of the text, whose wickednesses are not visible at the moment? In reply, we would remind you of the familiar division of all sin into ignorant and presumptuous. Indeed, indeed, it is quite possible for a man to be persuaded that he stands upright, when in God’ s sight he is grovelling in the dust. We will take the case of a man who rejects from his creed one of the articles of the Christian faith. These persona live on contented with their own condition; they are not sensible of any evil from the course they pursue. Now this licensed unbelief in which people, good and amiable in the main, indulge themselves upon particular points--this free thinking upon a few of the minor dogmas of the Church, which seemingly issue in nothing, leads to no harmful result, is just of the nature of those sins which follow after. The secret scepticism, Oh! it does not go before a man, calling down upon his head general reproach; it is not as the crime of dishonesty, or avariciousness, or cruelty, or impurity, which lift up their voices and imprecate judgment; but it hangs about an individual almost without his own knowledge. Noiselessly and stealthily it dogs his steps, never perhaps to be thoroughly developed in all its offensiveness, till the disembodied soul stands shivering in the eternal world. And they are not sins of faith alone which come under the category of the text. How many are they who permit themselves in some habitual breach of God’ s law, without ever realizing the fact that they are really guilty of actual sin. How many a tradesman suffers himself to take advantage of the ignorance of those with whom he deals, enlarging his profits by means not thoroughly justifiable, but which custom has sanctioned, and which, therefore, he never dreams of regarding as moral offences. So again a society, in its corporate capacity, will not hesitate to act in a manner in which its members would shrink from acting in their private capacity, as though the individual responsibility which God had stamped upon every unit of our species could be got rid of by associating together with our brethren. And what we have said with regard to things done or left undone, which men know not, and feel not, to be wrong, applies in its degree also to a variety of practices which people do know to be evil, but which yet appear too insignificant to be a cause of uneasiness. And this class of transgressions is one into which an age like the present is especially liable to fall. Men in a simple and uncivilized era are subject to gross vices, men of a refined and cultivated epoch sin small sins. Crimes of exceeding magnitude, as well as heroic virtue, belong to a nation in its infancy. Bloodshed, cruelty, incest, rapine, are the faults of a barbarous empire. Selfishness, coldness, covetousness, vanity, are the transgressions of modern times. II. We have hitherto considered the text as indicative of two descriptions of sin. The sins that follow after are the sins which men know not, or which they pass by as of little moment. But the words imply, we believe, more than that the sins in question are secret, or insignificant; they further indicate, that we have already indirectly insinuated, that although little recked of, they do in fact pursue a man to his hurt, and even to his condemnation. What is this? It is that these unknown or unregarded transgressions are not really without effect both here and hereafter. They may bear no fruit at the moment, but their fruit is not wanting. Again and again have we heard of individuals who, after a protracted career of uprightness and integrity, have been convicted of some fraud, and overwhelmed with sudden disgrace. The world marvels that one who stood so long should at last fall, that one so regular and steady and sober, and even religious should prove so false to his principles. But could we look deeper, and see as God sees, we should, perhaps, trace the final catastrophe to some single neglect, like that of abstaining from the Lord’ s Supper, which the mass never noticed, and if they had, would not have blamed; yea, which the unhappy one himself hardly knew. Yea, and we had almost said that it were well the result of the unknown sin should thus show itself now, even though its revelation be in the midst of dishonour and remorse. Better that the secret disease should be disclosed anyhow, whilst there is a possibility of cure, than that it should lie hid until the end. Death hath a strange power to banish delusions, and unravel self-deceit. When shaking itself free from the coil of flesh, the spirit often shakes off the former dulness of its mental sight, and begins to see things as they are. Then actions which once seemed right appear wrong, and practices once excused are perceived to be indefensible, and omissions which were thought pardonable look foul and terrible when the doors of eternity are unfolding. It is a very strong argument which we derive from the foregoing reasoning, for neglecting no means of grace, for under valuing no transgression. The effects of such neglect are not wholly removed even by repentance. (Bp. Woodford.) The seeming record of life, not always the actual one The Paper World informs its readers that in using postal cards they may write so that only the initiated can read the message, and write a misleading message which will disappear. The true message, it says, should be written with a gold or quill pen dipped, not in ink, but in a mixture of one part sulphuric acid and seven parts water. When dry the card bears no trace of writing, but, as a blank card might excite suspicion, it may be covered with writing in tincture of iodine. When heat is applied to the card, the writing in iodine disappears, and the writing in diluted sulphuric acid becomes legible. There is reason to fear that the same process is going on in the record of some people’ s lives. In the day when all secrets are revealed and every one appears in the naked light of the great white throne, the records on the tombstones will disappear, and in their place will stand the hidden, true record of the actual life. Fraudulent professors A curious discovery of a diamond fraud has been made by a photographer in Boston, U.S. A diamond expert was offered a very large stone for £1,600. He applied to it all the tests used in the trade, and was satisfied that it was genuine. After he had purchased it, some circumstances occurred which led him to suspect that he had been cheated, notwithstanding the apparent genuineness of the diamond. He took the stone to a photographer, and asked him to send a ray of sunlight through it with his camera. Then it was discovered that there was an obstruction in the stone. A ray which passed through other diamonds clear and straight was stopped in the suspected stone. A powerful microscope was used upon it, and it was discovered that the obstruction was some cement which joined two small stones together, the two forming the magnificent gem the merchant had bought. The two stones were separated by chemicals, and were worth about £120 each. There are people who succeed in passing the tests of ministers and Churches who, when the light of God’ s throne falls upon them in the day of judgment, will be found fraudulent professors. (Christian Herald.) Sin and judgment Recent discoveries have revealed the carcases of prehistoric animals thrown out at the foot of a Siberian glacier. These animals were preserved unchanged, unseen, and unknown, for untold centuries, beneath the frozen mud and the solid ice of the never-hasting, never-resting, ever-moving glacier. And when, at last, these long-preserved carcases came out to the light and warmth and sun, they sent forth their horrid stench. Thus sin may be buried under the mud of materialism, and be frozen in indifference, and hidden in oblivion for years and centuries and cycles, but the on-moving glacier of time will at last reveal them to the light and glory of the judgment day, and then will they stink in the nostrils of God, and of angels and of all the assembled multitudes. (R. S. Barrett.) The good works of some.-- Good works which cannot be hid I. Now it is clear that a work cannot derive its goodness from its relation to sin. Water cannot derive its sweetness from a bitter fountain. The limpid brook does not obtain its transparency from the muddy bed over which it flows. A good work, we say, must derive all its goodness from God; and, first of all, He must be its author; His Spirit must teach it; He must be its originator. In other words, a man must be taught of God before he can do aught which is pleasing in God’ s sight. But, again, in order to make a deed good, God must be the doer as well as the author of it. We must be led by the Spirit, as well as taught of the Spirit; God must work in us to do as well as to will. Not that our own work is in any degree superseded--not that our diligence is rendered unnecessary, but we are fellow-workers with God. And yet the excellence of the work is not derived from our share in the work, but from God’ s. And then for a work to be good God must be the aim of that work. “ Do all to the glory of God” --that is our duty. “ I have created him for My glory” --that is the Divine purpose. II. Our text declares of such good works as we have described, that it is impossible to hide them. “ The good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they which are otherwise” --that is, they which are not manifest beforehand--“ cannot be hid.” It is therefore a mere question of time, and not of fact; all good works shall be manifest, the only difference being that some are revealed beforehand in this life whilst others are reserved till the life to come. But what is meant by this manifestation of works? Clearly not the display of a mere action whether of body or mind. It would be no sort of consolation to the teacher, or visitor, or alms-giver ii you were to tell him that his lessons, or calls, or alms will all be published. That might be a motive for the ostentatious and purse-proud pharisee, but it is no boon to the self-denying and humble child of God. What then? Why, it follows that our text declares, not that the bare works, but that the goodness of these works shall be made manifest. And what is this goodness which shall be revealed? Precisely that which attaches to the work as good in the sight of God, and which we have already described. The origin and motive of the work will be manifested. Men may misinterpret you now; they may call you a mad religious schemer; they may Say that the cross you have taken up is assumed to disguise some dishonesty of heart; they may accuse you of a thousand motives rather than the true one; but what matters it? It shall not always be thus. And then He will make manifest the work’ s goodness of execution. He will demonstrate that it was “ not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts.” Men thought, and sometimes even you thought, that the good work was done in a wrong way. And, finally, He will make manifest the work’ s goodness of aim. But how will He reveal this fact? Will He simply declare that His honour was your object, but unfortunately it failed? No such thing. In every ease He will reveal the full accomplishment of the end whereto He sent the work; in every case He will display before you the most perfect success; in every case He will make manifest goodness consummated, a purpose attained, and glory achieved. In His own way He will show it; but show it He will; there will be no doubt about the fact; the end of the work will be proved good. Sometimes God makes this aim manifest beforehand; He shows us even now that His work is prospering in our hands; He proves to us that His glory is not only our intention, but even the actual and present result of our labours. (D. F. Jarman, M. A.) Perpetration of character Years ago in Chicago crowded gatherings were being held in the largest hall in the city, and Mr. Moody was “ in command.” Suddenly his shrewd, quick eye fell on one of the ushers; he looked at him for a minute, and then signalled to him to come to the vestry below. When they met there Mr. Moody said: “ Where do you come from--Does the senior usher know you? No, sir.” “ What do you come here for?” “ I wanted to be seen.” “ Ah,” said Mr. Moody, “ you just drop that usher’ s rod and take a back seat, now be smart.” Mr. Moody had never seen the man before, but his wonderfully keen penetration of character had detected something wrong in him. That man’ s name was Guiteau, and within four years he murdered the noble Garfield, the President of the United States. Manifest beforehand When the Sidonians were once going to choose a king, they determined that their election should fall upon the man who should first see the sun on the following morning. All the candidates, towards the hour of sun-rise, eagerly looked towards the East, but one, who, to the astonishment of his countrymen, fixed his eyes pertinaciously on the opposite side of the horizon, where he saw the reflection of the sun’ s orb before the orb itself was seen by those looking towards the east. The choice instantly fell upon him who had seen the reflection of the sun; and by the same reasoning, the influence of religion on the heart is frequently perceptible in the conduct, even before a person has made direct profession of the principle by which he is actuated. (Saturday Magazine.) . 1 Timothy 6:1-2 Servants as are under the yoke.Under the yoke The phrase “ under the yoke” fitly expresses the pitiable condition of slaves, to whom Paul here addresses himself. Of all the hideous iniquities which have cried to heaven for redress, slavery, which places a man in such a position to his fellow, is one of the worst. It is as pernicious to the owner as it is to the slave. Dr. Thomson has well said, “ It darkens and depraves the intellect; it paralyzes the hand of industry; it is the nourisher of agonizing fears and of sullen revenge; it crushes the spirit of the bold; it is the tempter, the murderer, and the tomb of virtue; and either blasts the felicity of those over whom it domineers, or forces them to seek for relief from their sorrows in the gratifications and the mirth and the madness of the passing hour.” In the days of our Lord and of His apostles, slavery was a time-honoured and widely ramified institution. It was recognized in the laws as well as in the usages of the empire. So numerous were those “ under the yoke,” that Gibbon, taking the empire as a whole, considers it a moderate computation to set down the number of slaves as equal to the number of freemen. In Palestine the proportion would probably be less, but in Rome and other great cities the proportion would be far greater. Christianity, with its proclamation of equality and brotherhood, came face to face with this gigantic system of legalized property in human flesh, and we want to know how the gospel dealt with it. I. Let us first see what Christianity did not do for the slaves. That the followers of Him who cared most for the poor and needy, and who longed to break every yoke, pitied these slaves in their abject and humiliating condition, goes without saying. But they certainly did not urge the slaves to escape, or to rebel, nor did they make it an absolute necessity to church membership that a slave-owner should set all his slaves free. We may be quite sure that such a man as Paul would not be insensible to the evils of slavery, and further, that it was not from any deficiency in moral courage that he did not urge manumission; but told some slaves to remain in the condition in which they were, and, by God’ s help, to triumph over the difficulties and sorrows peculiar to their lot. Strange as this may seem at first sight, was it not wise? Did it not prove in the long-run by far the best thing for the slaves themselves, leading to a more complete extirpation of slavery than if more drastic methods had been tried at first? II. Let us see, then, what Christianity did for the slaves.1. It taught masters their responsibilities. 2. It inculcated on the slaves a course of conduct which would often lead to their legal freedom. Under Roman law, liberty was held out as an encouragement to slaves to be honest, industrious, sober, and loyal; and, therefore, any Christian slave who obeyed the laws of Christ would be on the high road to emancipation. Liberty thus won by character was a better thing than liberty won by force or by fraud, and was more accordant with the genius of Christianity. 3. It gave dignity to those who had been despised and who had despised themselves. The work, which had once been a drudgery, became a sacred service; and this your toil and mine may surely be. 4. But, besides all this, Christianity laid down principles which necessitated the ultimate destruction of slavery. It taught that all men had a common origin; that God had made of one blood all nations; and that men of every class were to join together in the wonderful prayer, “ Our Father which art in heaven.” Learn, then, to trust to principles rather than to organization. Let life be more to you than law, and change of life more than change of law. Care for character first, believing that circumstance will care for itself. And, finally, in conflict with evils deep and wide-spread as ancient slavery, be patient, and have unwavering faith in the God of righteousness and love. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The slave winning his master for Christ Many a heathen master was rebuked amid his career of profligacy by the saintly lives of Christian slaves, who had given themselves up to the Lord of purity; and probably the hearts of many were touched through the prayers of those they had despised. We have read of a negress in the Southern States who was caught praying by her master, and cruelly beaten for her pains. Stripped and tied fast to the post, as the blood stained whip ceased for a moment to fall on the quivering flesh, she was asked if she would give over praying. “ No, massa, never!” was the answer; “ I will serve you, but I must serve God.” Again the lashes rained down on her bleeding back; but when once mere they ceased, the voice of the follower of Jesus was heard praying, “ O Lord, forgive poor massa, and bless him.” Suddenly the whip fell from his hand; stricken with the finger of God, he broke down in penitence. Then and there the prayer was answered--the godless master was saved through the faithfulness of the slave he had despised. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The power of custom to conceal si n:--But we must not overlook the insidious and powerful influence of custom, which makes a sin so familiar that we do not trouble to investigate2. We deal with it as a sentinel does with one he has allowed to pass without challenge--he thinks it all right, and lets him pass again and again, until at last he is horrified to find he has been giving admission to a foe. John Newton, for example, after his conversion (which was as genuine as it was remarkable), carried on for years the inhuman traffic of slavery, and felt his conscience at rest so long as he did what he could for the bodily comfort of the slaves. He was quite insensible to the sinfulness of slavery until it pleased God to open his eyes, which had been blinded by custom. And, at the close of last century, an American gentleman left a plantation well stocked with slaves to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was evidently unconscious of any inconsistency. It is not to be won dered at that, in the early days of Christianity, disciples of Jesus were similarly deceived. Instead of condemning them, let us ask ourselves whether custom is not blinding us to other sins. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) That the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed.-- The imperfections of Christians exaggerated by the enemies of Christianity It is objected to Christianity, which in my text may be considered as meant by “ the name and doctrine of God,” that many of those who profess to be regulated by its spirit and laws, instead of being better, are often much worse than other men; that, pretending to adhere to it as a System of truth and righteousness, they yet frequently neglect or violate the duties of those relations and conditions in which they are placed; that servants, for example, as here particularly alluded to by the apostle, bearing the name of Jesus, do, notwithstanding, act unfaithfully and disobediently; that the same remark is applicable to individuals of every other class and station in civil society; and that even some of the ministers of the gospel, who have studied it most, and should know it best, are themselves grievously addicted to the follies and vices of the world.1. In the first place, then, the persons by whom the objection is adduced, seem, in many cases, to be influenced by a determination to censure, with or without reason, the conduct of Christ’ s professed followers. Whatever aspect we put on, and whatever deportment we maintain, they must discover, or imagine, something which they may use as a pretext for personal reproach, and which they may ultimately level against the doctrine or principles that we hold. If we are grave, they accuse us of being morose and gloomy. If we are cheerful, then we are light and joyous spirits, having as little seriousness and as much wantonness as themselves. 2. We remark, in the second place, that the fact which gives rise to the objection we are considering is not unfrequently exaggerated by the fault of an individual being transferred and imputed to the whole class to which he belongs. The ultimate aim is to bring Christianity into disrepute--to “ blaspheme the name and the doctrine of God” ; and in order to accomplish what is thus intended, the aberrations of every individual Christian are spoken of as descriptive of all who have embraced the religion of Jesus, and as a sort of universal and necessary accompaniment to the faith and character of His disciples. 3. It may be observed, in the third place, that the fact of which we are speaking is often exaggerated, by considering one part of the Christian’ s conduct as a test of his whole character. The splendour of their virtues is obscured by an individual spot, which malice or misconception has magnified far beyond its real size. And their character is appreciated, not by the tone of their principles, in connection with the habitual tenor of their conduct, but by a single vicious action, of which their mind is utterly abhorrent, which they bewail with unfeigned sorrow, and which a candid eye would trace to those imperfections of the heart, and those infelicities of condition, which adhere to humanity in its best estate. The unmanly equivocation of Abraham, the aggravated crime of David, and the unhappy strife between Paul and Barnabas, are held out as the characteristic features of these eminent persons; that faith, and piety, and humility, and zeal for the glory of God and the best interests of mankind, by which they were severally distinguished, go for nothing in the estimate that is formed. 4. In the fourth place, the fact by which unbelievers are furnished with the objection we refer to, is frequently amplified by a too rigid comparison of the Christian’ s conduct with the religion in which he professes to believe. Now, it would be fair enough to judge us by the standard to which we appeal, if they would take care at the same time to apply it under the direction of those rules, which the very nature and circumstances of the case require to be observed in such an important trial. They forget that the morality of the gospel must be perfect, because it is prescribed by a perfect Being, and that, had it been otherwise, they would very soon have discovered it to be unworthy of its alleged author. They forget that moral imperfection is an attribute of our fallen nature, and must therefore mingle in all our attempts to comply with the Divine will, and to imitate the Divine character. Conclusion:1. And, in the first place, let it not be thought that we mean to plead for any undue or unlawful indulgence to the disciples of Jesus. 2. In the second place, let Christians beware of encouraging unbelieving and ungodly men in this mode of misjudging and misrepresenting character. 3. Lastly, let us scrupulously abstain in our own conduct from everything of which advantage may be taken, for that unhallowed purpose. (A. Thomson, D. D.) The imperfections of Christian, no argument against Christianity Men may reject what is true, and disobey legal authority; that is what they do every day. But such rejection and disobedience neither alter the nature of that truth, nor destroy the legitimacy of that authority. In the same way the Christian religion, being established on grounds which have the sanction of God to support them, cannot be deprived of its claims to our submissive regard, because those who profess to believe in it do not act uniformly as it requires. “ Let God be true, and every man a liar.” The objection must suppose that the wickedness of professing Christians arises either from Christianity being directly immoral in its influence, or from its being deficient in power to make its votaries holy. Now, that its influence is far from being directly immoral will be granted, without hesitation, by every one who is at all acquainted with its spirit and its principles. It has a character so completely opposite to this, that it is commonly accused by its enemies of being severely and unnecessarily strict, inasmuch as it requires us to conform ourselves to a perfect law, and to imitate a perfect example. The objection, therefore, must owe its force to the other alternative that was stated. It must suppose that Christianity is deficient in power, or not properly calculated to make its votaries holy. Wherein, then, does its alleged deficiency consist? In what respect is it naturally inefficacious for making men virtuous and good? Is it defective in the plainness and energy of its precepts? Nothing can be plainer, or more forcible, than the manner in which it proposes its rules for the regulation of our conduct. Again, is Christianity defective in the extent of its morality? Its morality could not be more extensive than it actually is. There is no vice which it does not prohibit; there is no virtue which it does not enjoin. Is it defective in the principles on which its morality is founded? That might be affirmed, if it inculcated the principle of fictitious honour, which this moment stimulates to noble deeds, and the next gives its countenance to boundless dissipation and bloody revenge, or the principle of sentimental feeling. But the principles of Christian morality are of a quite different and infinitely more perfect kind, and fitted, by their natural and unfettered operation, to form a character of unblemished and superlative worth. Profound regard for the authority of Him who made us, whose subjects we now are, to whom we are finally accountable, and who possesses the most sacred and unquestionable title to our unreserved homage; firm and lively faith in the existence and perfections of God; supreme love and ardent gratitude to that Being who is infinitely amiable in Himself, and whose unbounded mercy in Christ Jesus has laid us under obligations to obedience the most cheerful and devoted; a heartfelt reliance upon that sacrifice of Himself by which the Son of God redeemed sinners from the guilt and the dominion of sin, and, by the influences of His Holy Spirit, extends as far as the habitations of men are found, elevates us above the sordid wish of living to ourselves, and consists in so loving each other as Christ has loved us. Is Christianity defective, then, in the sanctions with which its laws are enforced? These sanctions are fitted to awe the stoutest, and to animate the coldest heart. Is it defective in the encouragements which it gives to virtuous exertions? What encouragements greater than these: an assurance that “ the eye of God is ever upon the righteous, and His ear open to their cry.” Is it defective, I ask, in the last place, in the external means which it prescribes for promoting the spiritual improvement of the Christian? Here, also, it is wholly unexceptional. It puts into his hands a volume, which is “ given by inspiration, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction ill righteousness, that as a man of God he may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” It consecrates one day in seven to rest from ordinary labour, to give him a special opportunity of examining his heart, and of providing an additional store of knowledge and wisdom for his guidance in future. In all the views now taken of the moral influence of the gospel, it evidently appears that no defect whatever can be ascribed to it in that particular. On the contrary, it seems perfectly calculated, by the qualities we have found it to possess, to purify, in an extraordinary measure, the heart and the character of its adherents. (A. Thomson, D. D.) The imperfections of Christians no argument against Christianity The argument is not complete till we have considered the effects which Christianity has produced on the moral character of its adherents.1. Let it be considered what a multitude of excellent characters have been formed by the influence of the gospel. From its first establishment down to the present day, every successive age has had a number of individuals and of families by whom its sanctifying power has been deeply felt and practically exhibited. On looking into the history of its progress and effects, we observe that it no sooner obtained a footing, than it began to change the moral aspect of society, wherever, at least, the profession of it prevailed. 2. But the holy tendency of the gospel is obvious, not only from its powerful effect on those who have truly believed its Divine origin, and given a candid reception to its doctrines; the same thing may be seen in the improved moral condition of those also who have either given a mere speculative assent to it, or who are acquainted only with its tenets and precepts, or who live merely in countries where it is professed. The history of the gospel furnishes us with a detail of interesting and incontrovertible facts, which demonstrate that Christianity has neither been useless nor detrimental as a moral system: that it has maintained an influence peculiar to itself over the sentiments and manners of mankind; and that this influence has been at once powerful, important, and extensive. 3. It is not enough, however, to state that there are many who show in their conduct the holy tendency and sanctifying power of Christianity; that there are, and have been, multitudes of Christians who have adorned their religion by the exercise of every virtue; it is proper to state, in addition to this, the contrast which their present conduct exhibits to their former conduct, and also to the deportment of others who have rejected the gospel, or who have never heard of its existence. It is right also to compare the moral character of the Christian with that of others who have not known or adopted the same religious faith. 4. It was formerly stated that the fact upon which the objection we are considering is founded, is frequently exaggerated by the fault of one Christian being transferred or imputed to the whole Church. But I have now to observe that the fact is also most unfairly and injuriously misapplied in another way. Our adversaries make no distinction between real and merely nominal Christians. 5. That the gospel has not been more generally efficacious in reforming mankind and in perfecting the character of its votaries, is to be accounted for in various ways. Without entering into any detail, however, I may merely mention one general principle which appears to solve the whole difficulty. The gospel is not a system of compulsion. (A. Thomson, D. D.) The duty of Christians in reference to the objection founded upon their imperfections We are called upon, by every motive of gratitude to the Saviour, of regard to the Divine honour, and of compassion to the souls of men, who must be saved by Christianity, or not be saved at all, to abstain from all those actions and indulgences by which “ the name or the doctrine of God may be blasphemed.” This is the exhortation of the apostle, which we shall now endeavour to illustrate, by pointing out the way in which it is to be complied with, so as most effectually to answer the end for which it is given.1. And, in the first place, we exhort you never to forget that the gospel is a practical system. When you turn your mind to any one of its doctrinal truths, you will consider that it is not only to be believed, but that it is to make you free, in some respect or other, from the dominion of iniquity. When you meet with any precept, you will recollect that it is not merely a proof of the perfection of that morality which revelation inculcates, but a rule for your deportment in that branch of holiness to which it refers. When you cast your eye upon the delineation of a character, you will view it as not only held out to attract, or to interest you, but as set before you to warn you against certain offences or to recommend the practice of certain virtues. 2. In the second place, with the same view we exhort you to a faithful and conscientious discharge of the duties which belong to the several relations in which you stand, and the various circumstances in which you are placed. Nor is this all. The circumstances, as well as the relations of life, come under the government of the rule we are considering. 3. In the third place, we exhort you to make a willing sacrifice even of certain privileges and comforts, when the exigences of the case require it, though, in ordinary circumstances, you would be warranted in refusing to make it, if it were demanded. “ Let as many servants as are under the yoke,” says the apostle, “ count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed.” While you recollect what is due to yourselves, you must recollect still more what is due to the gospel. (A. Thomson, D. D.) The wicked lives of Christians no argument against the truth of Christianity I. First I am to consider what just ground or colour there may be for a complaint of the exceeding wickedness of men now under the Christian dispensation. And here it may with truth be observed to the advantage of our holy religion, that, as bad as men are under it, they would have yet been worse without it. The rule by which Christians are obliged to walk is so excellent, and they are thereby so fully and clearly informed of the whole extent of their duty; the promised assistances are so mighty and the rewards so vast, by which they are animated to obedience; that their transgressions, as they are attended with a deeper guilt, so must needs appear to be of a more prodigious size than those of other men. And it is no wonder, therefore, if, on both these accounts, good and holy persons have spoken of them with a particular degree of detestation and horror. And as the vices of Christians are, for these reasons, open and glaring, so their virtues oftentimes disappear and lie hid. The profound humility and self-denial, which the Christian religion first enjoined, leads the true disciples of Christ, in the exercise of the chief gospel graces, to shun the applause and sight of men as much as is possible. On these, and such accounts as these, I say vice seems to have the odds of virtue among those who name the name of Christ, much more than it really hath. II. Secondly, that they are very unreasonable in so doing, I am in the next place to show. For--1. The holiest and purest doctrine imaginable is but doctrine still; it can only instruct, admonish, or persuade; it cannot compel. The gospel means of grace, powerful as they are, yet are not, and ought not to be, irresistible. Let the gospel have never so little success in promoting holiness, yet all who have considered it must own that it is in itself as fit as anything that can be imagined for that purpose, and incomparably more fit than any other course that ever was taken. Did philosophy suffer in the opinion of wise men on account of the debaucheries that reigned in those ages, wherein it flourished most among the Grecians and Romans? Was it then thought a good inference that, because men were very dissolute when wisdom was at the height, and the light of reason shone brightest, therefore wisdom and reason were of little use towards making men virtuous? 2. The present wickedness of Christians cannot be owing to any defect in the doctrine of Christ, nor be urged as a proof of the real inefficacy of it towards rendering men holy; Because there was a time when it had all the success of this kind that could be expected; the time, I mean, of its earliest appearance in the world; when the practice of the generality of Christians was a just comment on the precepts of Christ; and they could appeal from their doctrines to their lives, and challenge their worst enemies to show any remarkable difference between them.1. There must needs be a great disparity between the first Christians and those of these latter ages; because Christianity was the religion of their choice. They took it up while it was persecuted. 2. Another account of the great degeneracy of Christians may be drawn from men’ s erecting new schemes of Christianity which interfere with the true and genuine account of it. 3. It is not to be expected but that, where Christians are wicked, they should be rather worse than other men; for this very reason, because they have more helps towards becoming better, and yet live in the contempt or neglect of them. III. Some more proper and natural inferences that may be drawn from it. They are many and weighty. And--1. This should be so far from shocking our faith, that it ought on the contrary to confirm and strengthen it; for the universal degeneracy of Christians in these latter days was plainly and punctually foretold by Christ and His apostles. 2. Consider the monstrous degree of pravity and perverseness that is hid in the heart of man, and to account for the rise of it. 3. Learn from thence not to measure doctrines by persons, or persons by doctrines: that is, not to make the one a complete rule and standard whereby to judge of the goodness or badness of the other. 4. To excite ourselves from thence to do what in us lies towards removing this scandal from the Christian faith at large, and from that particular church of Christ to which we belong; both by living ourselves as becomes our holy religion; and by influencing others, as we have ability and opportunity, to live as we do; that so both we and they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things (Titus 2:10). (Bp. Atterbury.) A faithful slave Near the close of the civil war a gentleman residing in a Southern state deemed it prudent, the Northern army being within four miles of his residence, to conceal his State bonds, plate and other valuables. He decided on burying them in the woods; but as this concealment required assistance, it was necessary to take one of his slaves into his confidence. The man he selected was one whom he knew to be a consistent Christian. With this slave’ s aid he buried his treasure, and only he and his master knew the hiding-place. When the Northern troops came two days afterward, they were informed by the slaves, then emancipated, which of their number knew of the buried treasure. The man was ordered to disclose the spot where it was hidden, but he knew if he did so his former master would be ruined, and he refused. Six men with loaded pistols pointed at his head repeated the order, and gave him twenty minutes to decide whether he would obey or die. Life was very sweet, and the slave burst into tears, but told them he would rather die than break his word to his master. The rough soldiers were touched by the faithful fellow’ s heroism, and released him unharmed. It is often said that religion makes men weak and unmanly, but this Christian slave is an instance of the injustice of the charge. He was faithful even in peril of death. Our social position The position we have in society, when we come to think of it, ought never to make us unhappy. There is a kind of painting, or work, that they make in other countries, that they call mosaic. It is made by little pieces of marble, or pieces of glass of different colours. They are so small that each one represents merely a line. There are simply these little pieces of glass or marble, and, if one of the pieces falls or is trampled on, no matter; it is not worth anything at all of itself. And yet the artist takes that little piece, and places it by another, and hands out another, and proceeds until he makes a human face--the shape, the eyes, the mouth, the lips, the cheeks, the human form, part shaped to part--so that, standing off three or four feet, you could not tell it from an oil painting. Now, suppose that one of those little pieces should say, “ I wish he would put me in the apple of the eye” ; and another, “ I wish he would put me on the lip” ; and another the cheek--but the artist knows just where to put it, and to put it any where else would be to mar the picture. And if one should be lost, it would mar the picture. Each one has its place. I have thought it is so in society. God is making a great picture out of society. He is making it out of insignificant materials, out of dust and ashes; but He is making a picture for all eternity, and wherever God may be pleased to put me in that picture, if He puts me at all, it seems to me I should be glad to be there. We shall be glad of it, and the arch angels shall contemplate God’ s picture. I cannot tell where I shall be; but God is putting us where we should be, and these plans are for our good and our glory and our triumph. And when we get to heaven, we shall not wish we had been much different from what we were, only that we had been better. But here we are so dissatisfied! (Bp. Simpson.) The true motive in service Let us invite servants to remember that they are working for God as well as for man. Their master’ s kitchen is a room in their Father’ s house. They may have bad employers who do not care for good work, or ignorant ones who do not appreciate it, or disheartened ones who have ceased to expect it. They must take for their guidance their heavenly Father’ s work in nature. His rain falls on the just and on the unjust, on the carefully tilled field which invites His blessing and on the stony ground which refuses it. Their ambition must be to make their work fit to be part of His. Their kitchen must be able to welcome His sunshine without being put to shame by it. There should be no vessel thrust away to the back of the cupboard too foul to receive the purity of His daisies or His primroses. When they find themselves hampered and defeated by thoughtlessness or selfishness, they must think how nature makes the best of everything, throwing ivy over ruins, and absorbing all decay into something new and good. (Edward Garrett.) 1 Timothy 6:3; 1 Timothy 6:5 Wholesome words.Wholesome words The opposite of wholesome in our common speech is that which tends to produce disease; but the opposite of the Greek word, of which this is a translation, is that which is already unsound or diseased. The thought of the apostle is, that there is nothing morbid or unhealthy about the words of Jesus. The words of the Lord are healthy, having nothing of the disproportion of monstrosity, or the colouring of disease about them; and therefore they are wholesome, so that all who believe and obey them become thereby stronger, nobler, and sounder in all the qualities of moral manhood. Now let us see how this statement of Paul may be verified and illustrated. I. We may take first the matter of creed, and we shall find, when we come to investigate, that in this department the words of the Lord Jesus were distinguished by two qualities which mark them as pre-eminently healthy. The first of these is their positive character. The Lord was no mere dealer in negations. Dr. Samuel Johnson complained of Priestley, as a philosopher, that he “ unsettled everything and settled nothing” ; but no one can read the four Gospels without feeling that in meeting Jesus he has come into contact with One who speaks in the most positive manner. On subjects regarding which the wisest minds of antiquity were completely uncertain, He has the fullest assurance. We may wade through volumes of metaphysics, from those of Aristotle to those of Kant, without getting any distinct notion of God, but “ when we hear Jesus say, ‘ God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,’ we feel that God is a personal reality; and though Christ does not define the nature of spirit, yet when He speaks of God as thinking, loving, willing--His Father and ours--we understand Him better than the philosophers, though He penetrates to the depth of a nature which they had vainly sought to define.” He has settled our minds upon the subject, not by argument, but by awakening in us the God-consciousness which is one of the instincts of our being, and so bringing us to say, “ It must be so, for I can rest in that.” In like manner, when He enforces duty He evokes the conscience within us to a recognition of its responsibility. So, too, in reference to the future. He does not argue, He asserts with the speech of One who knows whereof He affirms, and forthwith the natural longing of the heart for immortality finds its craving satisfied, and settles in the certainty that “ dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.” Akin to this positive characteristic of the Saviour’ s words concerning creed is the discouragement which they give to all indulgence in speculations about things which are merely curious, and have no bearing upon our character or conduct. Thus, when one of His disciples asked, “ Are there few that be saved?” He declined to answer the question, and fixed the attention of His hearers on the vital and urgent matter of individual duty, saying, “ Strive ye to enter in at the strait gate,” Everything that is profitless and without bearing on life and godliness He brands as unworthy of consideration or discussion, and all mere logomachies are unsparingly condemned by Him. Now in these two things you have the symptoms of mental and spiritual health. The man who accounts nothing certain never focuses his mind on anything; while he who runs after every sort of speculation, scatters his mind over everything. The one never gets ready to do anything; the other attempts so much that he really accomplishes nothing. Is it not, precisely, in these two respects that the unhealthiness of much of the thinking in our own age manifests itself? II. But now, passing from the domain of creed to that of character, we are equally struck with the healthiness of the Saviour’ s words in reference to that.1. For in dealing with that subject He is careful to put supreme emphasis, not on that which is without, but on that which is within. He distinguishes between the head and the heart, and never confounds intellectual ability with moral greatness. Now the healthiness of all this is apparent at a glance, for it goes to the root of the matter, and only One who was Himself whole-hearted could thus have prescribed for diseased humanity. 2. Again, in reference to character, the healthiness of the Saviour’ s words appears in that He insists, not on asceticism in any one particular, but on full-rounded holiness. He does not require the eradication of any one principle of our nature, but rather the consecration of them all. 3. But looking now, to the department of conduct, we have in that another equally striking exemplification of the healthiness of the words of the Lord Jesus. He was very far from giving any countenance to the idea that religion is a thing only of sentiment. He insisted, indeed, as we have seen, on the importance of faith in the great central doctrines; and He was equally emphatic in declaring the innerness of holiness. But He dwelt on both of these only that He might the more effectually reach that conduct which one has called “ three-fourths of life.” 4. But another illustration of the healthiness of Christ’ s words in regard to conduct may be seen in the absence of all minute and specific details. He lays down great principles, leaving it to the conscience of the individual to make the application of these to the incidents and occasions of life as they arise. The words of Christ are not like the directions on a finger-pest at a crossing, or the indicators of the cardinal points upon a spire, which are of service only in the places where they are set up; but rather like a pocket compass, which, rightly used and understood, will give a man his bearings anywhere. Nothing so educates a man into weakness and helplessness as to be told in every emergency precisely what he must do. That makes for him a moral “ go-cart,” outside of which he is not able to stand, and the consequence is that he can never be depended upon. If the teacher shows the pupil how to work each individual sum, he will never make him proficient in arithmetic. The man who is continually asking himself, as to his food, what he shall eat and what he shall drink and what he shall avoid, is either a dyspeptic or a valetudinarian. He is not healthy. And in like manner, he who in the domain of morals is continually inquiring of somebody, may I do this? may I go thither? or must I refrain from that? has never rightly comprehended the healthiness of Christ’ s words, and is far from having attained the strength which they are calculated to foster. Here is the great law, “ Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) A contrast between true and false teaching At the close of the second verse Paul urges Timothy not to be silent, but to “ teach and exhort” the Christians in Ephesus on the subject in slavery. I. The wholesomeness of Christ’ s teaching. The apostle speaks of “ wholesome words,” a translation which we prefer to that given in the Revised Version , because it conveys the idea of imparting health to men and to society. Christ’ s teaching is the ozone of the moral atmosphere.1. It concerned itself with practical questions. The Sermon on the Mount (which is the chief specimen given us of His teaching) proves this to demonstration. As Jesus Himself put it: a candle was not lighted by Him in order to be looked at or talked about; but that it might give light to all that were in the house. In other words, the Christian religion is to be used rather than to be discussed, and is meant to throw light upon all the obscurities of life’ s pathway until it leads up to the light of heaven. 2. His teaching was embodied in His perfect life. This made it the more helpful. These slaves, for example, to whom the apostle had been speaking, wanted to know what they were to do under the provocations and hardships of their lot. And nothing could help them more than the knowledge of Him whose gentleness was never at fault; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. 3. His teaching, tended, to the increase of godliness. “ The doctrine which is according to godliness, means the teaching which makes men more like God--in holiness and righteousness and love. But in sharp contrast with this is presented-- II. the unwholesomeness of false teaching, the effects of which were visible in the character of those who accepted and taught it.1. Self-sufficiency was written on the forehead of each of them. As Paul says, “ He is proud,” literally “ carried away with conceit,” “ knowing nothing.” A footman is generally more awe-inspiring than his master. And this was true of pretentious teachers in Paul’ s days, of whom he says they are “ carried away with conceit.” 2. Love of verbal disputes was another characteristic of theirs. The word translated “ doting” indicates a distempered and sickly condition, which turns away from the “ wholesome” food of the gospel; just as a child with a poor appetite refuses bread-and-butter, and can only daintily pick and choose among delicacies, and the more he has of them the worse his appetite becomes. It is a bad sign when society has unwholesome appetites, caring more for art than for truth--more for manner than for matter; for these are signs of decadence such as preceded the fall of the Roman empire. 3. A carnal appetite was displayed by these opponents of our Lord’ s wholesome words. Our translation, “ supposing that gain is godliness,” is incorrect and misleading. No one supposes, or ever supposed, that worldly gain is godliness, or leads to it; but many in all ages have been guilty of what Paul suggests, namely, of “ using godliness as a way of gain.” In other words, these men, corrupted as they were in mind, in the whole inner life, and “ bereft of the truth,” only professed the Christian faith so far as it was serviceable to their worldly interests. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Supposing that gain is godliness.--Gain not godliness That men are greatly exposed to embrace the absurd doctrine that virtue exists in utility. I. I am to explain the meaning of the doctrine that virtue consists is utility. This sentiment has been maintained by those who believe, as well as by those who disbelieve Divine revelation. The turning point is utility. Intention is of no farther value than as it leads to utility: it is the means, and not the end. “ The result of this part of the subject is, that those persons have been grossly mistaken, who taught that virtue was to be pursued for its own sake. Virtue is upon no other account valuable, than as it is the instrument of the most exquisite pleasure.” All who suppose that virtue consists in utility, agree in maintaining that virtue has no intrinsic excellence, as an end, but only a relative excellence, as a means to promote the only ultimate end in nature, that is, happiness. Since happiness is, in their view, the supreme good, and misery the supreme evil, they conclude that the whole duty of men consists in pursuing happiness, and avoiding misery. Upon this single principle, that virtue wholly consists in its tendency to promote natural good, in distinction from natural evil, Godwin has founded a scheme of sentiments which, carried into practice, would subvert all morality, religion and government. II. I proceed to demonstrate the absurdity of supposing that “ gain is godliness,” or that virtue essentially consists in utility. This sentiment is not only false, but absurd, because it contradicts the plainest dictates of reason and conscience.1. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that virtue may be predicated of inanimate objects. These have a natural tendency, in various ways, to promote human happiness. The mode in which a man is made subservient is by inducement and persuasion. But both are equally the affair of necessity. The man differs from the knife as the iron candlestick differs from the brass one; he has one more way of being acted upon. This additional way in man is motive, in the candlestick it is magnetism. Such is the natural and avowed consequence of the doctrine, that virtue consists in utility. It necessarily implies that mere material objects may be really virtuous; and some material objects may have more virtue than the most benevolent of the human race. 2. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that virtue may be predicated of the mere animal creation. It is no less absurd to ascribe virtue to the utility of animals than to ascribe virtue to a refreshing shower, or a fruitful field. 3. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that men may be virtuous, without any intention to do good. They certainly may be very useful, without having utility in view. Men are every day performing actions which have a tendency to promote that public good which lies beyond all their views and intentions. But the doctrine under consideration places all virtue in the tendency of an action, and not in the intention of the actor. Intention is of no farther value than as it leads to utility. This is stripping moral virtue of every moral quality, which is a gross absurdity. 4. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that men may be virtuous in acting, not only without any intention, but from a positively bad intention. If the virtue of an action consists altogether in its tendency, it may be as virtuous when it flows from a bad intention as when it flows from a good intention, or from no intention at all. The intention of an agent does not alter the tendency of his action. A man may do that from a good intention, which has a tendency to do evil; or he may do that from a bad intention, which has a tendency to do good. Some actions done from the worst intentions have been the most beneficial to mankind. Be it so, that no malevolent action has a natural or direct tendency to promote happiness; yet if virtue consists in utility the good effect of a malevolent action is just as virtuous as the good effect of a benevolent one. For the doctrine we are considering places all virtue in the tendency of an action, and not in the intention of the agent. 5. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that there is nothing right nor wrong in the nature of things, but that virtue and vice depend entirely upon mere accidental and mutable circumstances. There are certain relations which men bear to each other, and which they bear to our Creator, which create obligations that never can be violated without committing a moral crime. 6. To suppose that virtue consists in utility is to suppose that there is nothing in the universe intrinsically good or evil but happiness and misery. 7. To suppose that virtue consists in utility is to suppose that there is really no such thing as either virtue or vice in the world. If the actions of free agents are either good or evil, solely on account of their tendency to promote either pleasure or pain, then nothing can be predicated of them but advantage or disadvantage. Actions which promote happiness may be denominated advantageous, but not virtuous; and actions which produce misery may be denominated disadvantageous, but not vicious. III. Men are greatly exposed to embrace it. This the apostle plainly intimates, by exhorting Timothy to withdraw himself from those who “ supposed that gain is godliness.”1. From the resemblance which this error hears to the truth, though it be diametrically opposite to it. Those who maintain that virtue consists in utility, represent it under the alluring name of universal philanthropy, which is an imposing appellation. They pretend that happiness is the supreme good, and virtue solely consists in promoting it to the highest degree. They insinuate that this philanthropy directly tends to diffuse universal happiness, and to raise human nature to a state of perfection in this life. 2. The danger will appear greater if we consider by whom this pleasing and plausible error is disseminated. It is taught by grave divines, in their moral and religious treatises and public discourses. Law and Paley have been mentioned as placing the whole of virtue in utility. Dr. Brown, in his remarks upon the Earl of Shaftesbury’ s characteristics, maintains that virtue consists in its tendency to promote individual happiness. 3. There is a strong propensity in human nature to believe any other scheme of moral and religious sentiments, than that which is according to godliness. Men naturally love happiness, and as naturally hate holiness. (N. Emmons, D. D.) A mercenary motive A Christian lady in America, who has earnestly and prayerfully laboured to carry the gospel to the Mongolian laundrymen around her, at length succeeded in getting one of them to attend Sunday school and church regularly. The man was attentive and well-behaved, and the lady had great hopes of him. She tried to interest others in his welfare, too, and induced her friends to patronise his laundry. Visiting him at his home a few days ago, she received a warm welcome. John gave her to understand that he enjoyed very much attending the Sunday school, information that was exceedingly gratifying. Anxious, however, to receive more practical demonstration of the influence of the school upon him, she asked him if he did not think it did him good. “ Yi, yi!” came the convincing response, “ washee fol le whole conglogation.” The Chinaman’ s idea of getting good is not an uncommon one; unhappily, it is the motive of many a church connection. 1 Timothy 6:3; 1 Timothy 6:5 Wholesome words.Wholesome words The opposite of wholesome in our common speech is that which tends to produce disease; but the opposite of the Greek word, of which this is a translation, is that which is already unsound or diseased. The thought of the apostle is, that there is nothing morbid or unhealthy about the words of Jesus. The words of the Lord are healthy, having nothing of the disproportion of monstrosity, or the colouring of disease about them; and therefore they are wholesome, so that all who believe and obey them become thereby stronger, nobler, and sounder in all the qualities of moral manhood. Now let us see how this statement of Paul may be verified and illustrated. I. We may take first the matter of creed, and we shall find, when we come to investigate, that in this department the words of the Lord Jesus were distinguished by two qualities which mark them as pre-eminently healthy. The first of these is their positive character. The Lord was no mere dealer in negations. Dr. Samuel Johnson complained of Priestley, as a philosopher, that he “ unsettled everything and settled nothing” ; but no one can read the four Gospels without feeling that in meeting Jesus he has come into contact with One who speaks in the most positive manner. On subjects regarding which the wisest minds of antiquity were completely uncertain, He has the fullest assurance. We may wade through volumes of metaphysics, from those of Aristotle to those of Kant, without getting any distinct notion of God, but “ when we hear Jesus say, ‘ God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,’ we feel that God is a personal reality; and though Christ does not define the nature of spirit, yet when He speaks of God as thinking, loving, willing--His Father and ours--we understand Him better than the philosophers, though He penetrates to the depth of a nature which they had vainly sought to define.” He has settled our minds upon the subject, not by argument, but by awakening in us the God-consciousness which is one of the instincts of our being, and so bringing us to say, “ It must be so, for I can rest in that.” In like manner, when He enforces duty He evokes the conscience within us to a recognition of its responsibility. So, too, in reference to the future. He does not argue, He asserts with the speech of One who knows whereof He affirms, and forthwith the natural longing of the heart for immortality finds its craving satisfied, and settles in the certainty that “ dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.” Akin to this positive characteristic of the Saviour’ s words concerning creed is the discouragement which they give to all indulgence in speculations about things which are merely curious, and have no bearing upon our character or conduct. Thus, when one of His disciples asked, “ Are there few that be saved?” He declined to answer the question, and fixed the attention of His hearers on the vital and urgent matter of individual duty, saying, “ Strive ye to enter in at the strait gate,” Everything that is profitless and without bearing on life and godliness He brands as unworthy of consideration or discussion, and all mere logomachies are unsparingly condemned by Him. Now in these two things you have the symptoms of mental and spiritual health. The man who accounts nothing certain never focuses his mind on anything; while he who runs after every sort of speculation, scatters his mind over everything. The one never gets ready to do anything; the other attempts so much that he really accomplishes nothing. Is it not, precisely, in these two respects that the unhealthiness of much of the thinking in our own age manifests itself? II. But now, passing from the domain of creed to that of character, we are equally struck with the healthiness of the Saviour’ s words in reference to that.1. For in dealing with that subject He is careful to put supreme emphasis, not on that which is without, but on that which is within. He distinguishes between the head and the heart, and never confounds intellectual ability with moral greatness. Now the healthiness of all this is apparent at a glance, for it goes to the root of the matter, and only One who was Himself whole-hearted could thus have prescribed for diseased humanity. 2. Again, in reference to character, the healthiness of the Saviour’ s words appears in that He insists, not on asceticism in any one particular, but on full-rounded holiness. He does not require the eradication of any one principle of our nature, but rather the consecration of them all. 3. But looking now, to the department of conduct, we have in that another equally striking exemplification of the healthiness of the words of the Lord Jesus. He was very far from giving any countenance to the idea that religion is a thing only of sentiment. He insisted, indeed, as we have seen, on the importance of faith in the great central doctrines; and He was equally emphatic in declaring the innerness of holiness. But He dwelt on both of these only that He might the more effectually reach that conduct which one has called “ three-fourths of life.” 4. But another illustration of the healthiness of Christ’ s words in regard to conduct may be seen in the absence of all minute and specific details. He lays down great principles, leaving it to the conscience of the individual to make the application of these to the incidents and occasions of life as they arise. The words of Christ are not like the directions on a finger-pest at a crossing, or the indicators of the cardinal points upon a spire, which are of service only in the places where they are set up; but rather like a pocket compass, which, rightly used and understood, will give a man his bearings anywhere. Nothing so educates a man into weakness and helplessness as to be told in every emergency precisely what he must do. That makes for him a moral “ go-cart,” outside of which he is not able to stand, and the consequence is that he can never be depended upon. If the teacher shows the pupil how to work each individual sum, he will never make him proficient in arithmetic. The man who is continually asking himself, as to his food, what he shall eat and what he shall drink and what he shall avoid, is either a dyspeptic or a valetudinarian. He is not healthy. And in like manner, he who in the domain of morals is continually inquiring of somebody, may I do this? may I go thither? or must I refrain from that? has never rightly comprehended the healthiness of Christ’ s words, and is far from having attained the strength which they are calculated to foster. Here is the great law, “ Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) A contrast between true and false teaching At the close of the second verse Paul urges Timothy not to be silent, but to “ teach and exhort” the Christians in Ephesus on the subject in slavery. I. The wholesomeness of Christ’ s teaching. The apostle speaks of “ wholesome words,” a translation which we prefer to that given in the Revised Version , because it conveys the idea of imparting health to men and to society. Christ’ s teaching is the ozone of the moral atmosphere.1. It concerned itself with practical questions. The Sermon on the Mount (which is the chief specimen given us of His teaching) proves this to demonstration. As Jesus Himself put it: a candle was not lighted by Him in order to be looked at or talked about; but that it might give light to all that were in the house. In other words, the Christian religion is to be used rather than to be discussed, and is meant to throw light upon all the obscurities of life’ s pathway until it leads up to the light of heaven. 2. His teaching was embodied in His perfect life. This made it the more helpful. These slaves, for example, to whom the apostle had been speaking, wanted to know what they were to do under the provocations and hardships of their lot. And nothing could help them more than the knowledge of Him whose gentleness was never at fault; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. 3. His teaching, tended, to the increase of godliness. “ The doctrine which is according to godliness, means the teaching which makes men more like God--in holiness and righteousness and love. But in sharp contrast with this is presented-- II. the unwholesomeness of false teaching, the effects of which were visible in the character of those who accepted and taught it.1. Self-sufficiency was written on the forehead of each of them. As Paul says, “ He is proud,” literally “ carried away with conceit,” “ knowing nothing.” A footman is generally more awe-inspiring than his master. And this was true of pretentious teachers in Paul’ s days, of whom he says they are “ carried away with conceit.” 2. Love of verbal disputes was another characteristic of theirs. The word translated “ doting” indicates a distempered and sickly condition, which turns away from the “ wholesome” food of the gospel; just as a child with a poor appetite refuses bread-and-butter, and can only daintily pick and choose among delicacies, and the more he has of them the worse his appetite becomes. It is a bad sign when society has unwholesome appetites, caring more for art than for truth--more for manner than for matter; for these are signs of decadence such as preceded the fall of the Roman empire. 3. A carnal appetite was displayed by these opponents of our Lord’ s wholesome words. Our translation, “ supposing that gain is godliness,” is incorrect and misleading. No one supposes, or ever supposed, that worldly gain is godliness, or leads to it; but many in all ages have been guilty of what Paul suggests, namely, of “ using godliness as a way of gain.” In other words, these men, corrupted as they were in mind, in the whole inner life, and “ bereft of the truth,” only professed the Christian faith so far as it was serviceable to their worldly interests. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Supposing that gain is godliness.--Gain not godliness That men are greatly exposed to embrace the absurd doctrine that virtue exists in utility. I. I am to explain the meaning of the doctrine that virtue consists is utility. This sentiment has been maintained by those who believe, as well as by those who disbelieve Divine revelation. The turning point is utility. Intention is of no farther value than as it leads to utility: it is the means, and not the end. “ The result of this part of the subject is, that those persons have been grossly mistaken, who taught that virtue was to be pursued for its own sake. Virtue is upon no other account valuable, than as it is the instrument of the most exquisite pleasure.” All who suppose that virtue consists in utility, agree in maintaining that virtue has no intrinsic excellence, as an end, but only a relative excellence, as a means to promote the only ultimate end in nature, that is, happiness. Since happiness is, in their view, the supreme good, and misery the supreme evil, they conclude that the whole duty of men consists in pursuing happiness, and avoiding misery. Upon this single principle, that virtue wholly consists in its tendency to promote natural good, in distinction from natural evil, Godwin has founded a scheme of sentiments which, carried into practice, would subvert all morality, religion and government. II. I proceed to demonstrate the absurdity of supposing that “ gain is godliness,” or that virtue essentially consists in utility. This sentiment is not only false, but absurd, because it contradicts the plainest dictates of reason and conscience.1. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that virtue may be predicated of inanimate objects. These have a natural tendency, in various ways, to promote human happiness. The mode in which a man is made subservient is by inducement and persuasion. But both are equally the affair of necessity. The man differs from the knife as the iron candlestick differs from the brass one; he has one more way of being acted upon. This additional way in man is motive, in the candlestick it is magnetism. Such is the natural and avowed consequence of the doctrine, that virtue consists in utility. It necessarily implies that mere material objects may be really virtuous; and some material objects may have more virtue than the most benevolent of the human race. 2. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that virtue may be predicated of the mere animal creation. It is no less absurd to ascribe virtue to the utility of animals than to ascribe virtue to a refreshing shower, or a fruitful field. 3. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that men may be virtuous, without any intention to do good. They certainly may be very useful, without having utility in view. Men are every day performing actions which have a tendency to promote that public good which lies beyond all their views and intentions. But the doctrine under consideration places all virtue in the tendency of an action, and not in the intention of the actor. Intention is of no farther value than as it leads to utility. This is stripping moral virtue of every moral quality, which is a gross absurdity. 4. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that men may be virtuous in acting, not only without any intention, but from a positively bad intention. If the virtue of an action consists altogether in its tendency, it may be as virtuous when it flows from a bad intention as when it flows from a good intention, or from no intention at all. The intention of an agent does not alter the tendency of his action. A man may do that from a good intention, which has a tendency to do evil; or he may do that from a bad intention, which has a tendency to do good. Some actions done from the worst intentions have been the most beneficial to mankind. Be it so, that no malevolent action has a natural or direct tendency to promote happiness; yet if virtue consists in utility the good effect of a malevolent action is just as virtuous as the good effect of a benevolent one. For the doctrine we are considering places all virtue in the tendency of an action, and not in the intention of the agent. 5. To suppose that virtue consists in utility, is to suppose that there is nothing right nor wrong in the nature of things, but that virtue and vice depend entirely upon mere accidental and mutable circumstances. There are certain relations which men bear to each other, and which they bear to our Creator, which create obligations that never can be violated without committing a moral crime. 6. To suppose that virtue consists in utility is to suppose that there is nothing in the universe intrinsically good or evil but happiness and misery. 7. To suppose that virtue consists in utility is to suppose that there is really no such thing as either virtue or vice in the world. If the actions of free agents are either good or evil, solely on account of their tendency to promote either pleasure or pain, then nothing can be predicated of them but advantage or disadvantage. Actions which promote happiness may be denominated advantageous, but not virtuous; and actions which produce misery may be denominated disadvantageous, but not vicious. III. Men are greatly exposed to embrace it. This the apostle plainly intimates, by exhorting Timothy to withdraw himself from those who “ supposed that gain is godliness.”1. From the resemblance which this error hears to the truth, though it be diametrically opposite to it. Those who maintain that virtue consists in utility, represent it under the alluring name of universal philanthropy, which is an imposing appellation. They pretend that happiness is the supreme good, and virtue solely consists in promoting it to the highest degree. They insinuate that this philanthropy directly tends to diffuse universal happiness, and to raise human nature to a state of perfection in this life. 2. The danger will appear greater if we consider by whom this pleasing and plausible error is disseminated. It is taught by grave divines, in their moral and religious treatises and public discourses. Law and Paley have been mentioned as placing the whole of virtue in utility. Dr. Brown, in his remarks upon the Earl of Shaftesbury’ s characteristics, maintains that virtue consists in its tendency to promote individual happiness. 3. There is a strong propensity in human nature to believe any other scheme of moral and religious sentiments, than that which is according to godliness. Men naturally love happiness, and as naturally hate holiness. (N. Emmons, D. D.) A mercenary motive A Christian lady in America, who has earnestly and prayerfully laboured to carry the gospel to the Mongolian laundrymen around her, at length succeeded in getting one of them to attend Sunday school and church regularly. The man was attentive and well-behaved, and the lady had great hopes of him. She tried to interest others in his welfare, too, and induced her friends to patronise his laundry. Visiting him at his home a few days ago, she received a warm welcome. John gave her to understand that he enjoyed very much attending the Sunday school, information that was exceedingly gratifying. Anxious, however, to receive more practical demonstration of the influence of the school upon him, she asked him if he did not think it did him good. “ Yi, yi!” came the convincing response, “ washee fol le whole conglogation.” The Chinaman’ s idea of getting good is not an uncommon one; unhappily, it is the motive of many a church connection. 1 Timothy 6:6-8 But godliness with contentment is great gain.Contentment I. Seek the blessedness of godly contentment.1. No doubt contentment apart from godliness is a good thing. Seneca and Lucretius, and other pagan philosophers, were never tired of singing its praises; and Socrates, when he walked through the streets of Athens, and saw around him the evidences of wealth, art, and culture, exclaimed, “ How many things there are which I can do without.” (1) To some this feeling of contentment with their present condition seems constitutional. There are men and women who have an easy-going disposition, which makes the best of everything. (2) Others again are content, not so much from happy temperament, as from the fact that the lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places, and they have a goodly heritage. Belonging to the rich and leisured classes, they have no temptation to win a position, or to make money, by unworthy means, for these are already theirs without effort. 2. It is not contentment, however, which is inculcated here so much as “ godliness with contentment.” Many a man has been content without being godly, who might have been saved had his content been disturbed and destroyed. II. Entertain a lowly estimate of yourselves. “ We brought nothing into this world.” Of all God’ s creatures, the human child is most helpless, most dependent upon kindly care; and one of the lessons taught by the coming of an infant into the home is the lesson of human dependence. What have we, indeed, through life that we did not receive? The very powers which enable us to win position or wealth are as much Divine gifts as the wealth itself. No one here has reason for boasting or pride, but only for reverent gratitude to Him who has crowned us with loving-kindness and with tender mercy. III. Estimate justly the value of earthly things. However precious worldly things may seem, it is certain “ we can carry nothing out” of the world when we leave it. It is a narrow bed which will form the last resting-place even for the owner of a province or the ruler of a nation. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Godliness You know that all the waters in the world run towards the sea. The little stream which you watch trickling through the green meadow runs on till it joins another stream, and this again to a third, and so on, and it grows larger and broader and deeper till it becomes a river, on which ships may ride, and down which they may sail to the great ocean. The heart and mind of a godly person all turn towards God as the waters flow towards the sea; he loves Him above all other things, admires Him above all other persons, trusts to Him above all other hopes, and values Him above all other joys. (E. Garbett, M. A.) Godliness, the parent of content I. What is meant in scripture by “ godliness” ? It frequently means the gospel. As in this same first Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy 3:16), “ Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.” In other passages godliness means, as the word actually means in the old Saxon, Godlikeness, or a likeness to God; because the object of the revelation of Christ in the gospel is to show us the character of God in the person of a man, and thereby set us a pattern for us to copy--and by offering grace to all, by which they may be able to copy that pattern, to make them Godlike by making them like Christ. II. Now the effect of this godliness is in the text stated to be “ contentment” --“ godliness with contentment” --that is, religion with the contentment which it always brings forth. Let us now, in examining this part of our subject, endeavour to learn how true religion produces contentment.1. It teaches us to know God. The ideas which men are able to form of God’ s character, by observing His works, and without the help of revelation, are not such as to produce contentment. His works show the extent of His power; and the order and harmony of them, His own knowledge and perfection. But to know this will not produce contentment. We must know God’ s moral character for this. Now the Bible reveals God to us as a God whose name is “ Love” ; as a God whose goodness and mercy are as great as His power and wisdom. Thus the Bible reveals the Eternal God as the kindest friend of sinful man. And when this, which the Word of God thus discovers, is believed in the heart, then contentment must be produced, and will increase as the knowledge of God’ s character and the assurance of His love increase. For the Christian thus reasons: Is God all-wise? then surely He knows what is best for me. Is He as good as He is wise? then surely He will give what is best for me. 2. But, secondly, the Scripture teaches us to know ourselves, and thus leads us to contentment. Discontent always springs from pride and an overweening conceit of our own value and excellence. We are all by nature high-minded, and esteem ourselves at more than we are worth. Thus, true religion, by humbling a man, tends to produce contentment, for it shows him and makes him feel that he deserves nothing, so that every thing he has is more than he deserves; since he who values himself at nothing will count everything he receives to be above his value, and therefore a call on him for gratitude. And this contentment, the blessed fruit of godliness, were it spread through the world, were it growing in every heart, would set the foundations of the earth in course again, and bring into order what sin has thrown into confusion. It would teach men to keep to their place and to fulfil its duties. It would cut up all covetousness by the root, while it would give no check to honest industry and proper care to provide for our own household. It would put an end to that diseased love of change, and restless, excited spirit, which is continually agitating the mind of those who are in the world as the winds ruffle the unstable ocean. (W. W. Champneys, M. A.) The benefit of contentment He was not content to call godliness gain, but he calleth it great gain; as if he would say, gain, and more than gain; riches, and better than riches; a kingdom, and greater than a kingdom. As when the prophets would distinguish between the idol-gods and the living God, they call Him the great God; so the gain of godliness is called great gain. The riches of the world are called earthly, transitory, snares, thorns, dung, as though they were not worthy to be counted riches; and therefore, to draw the earnest love of men from them, the Holy Ghost brings them in with these names of disdain, to disgrace them with their loves; but when He comes to godliness, which is the riches of the soul, He calleth it great riches, heavenly riches, unsearchable riches, everlasting riches, with all the names of honour, and all the names of pleasure, and all the names of happiness. As a woman trims and decks herself with an hundred ornaments, only to make her amiable, so the Holy Ghost setteth out godliness with names of honour, and names of pleasure, and names of happiness, as it were in her jewels, with letters of commendation to make her be beloved. Lest any riches should compare with godliness, He giveth it a name above others, and calleth it great riches, as if He would make a distinction between riches and riches, between the gain of covetousness and the gain of godliness, the peace of the world and the peace of conscience, the joy of riches and the joy of the Holy Ghost. The worldly men have a kind of peace and joy and riches. But I cannot call it great, because they have not enough, they are not contented as the godly are; therefore only godliness hath this honour, to be called great riches. The gain of covetousness is nothing but wealth; but the gain of godliness is wealth, and peace, and joy, and love of God, and the remission of sins, and everlasting life. Therefore only godliness hath this honour, to be called great gain. (H. Smith.) Enough The godly man hath found that which all the world doth seek, that is, enough. Every word may be defined, and everything may be measured, but enough cannot be measured or defined, it changeth every year; when we had nothing, we thought it enough, if we might obtain less than we have; when we came to more, we thought of another enough; now we have more, we dream of another enough; so enough is always to come, though too much be there already. For as oil kindleth the fire which it seems to quench, so riches come as though they would make a man contented, and make him more covetous. (H. Smith.) Contentment a commander Such a commander is contentation that wheresoever she setteth foot an hundred blessings wait upon her; in every disease she is a physician, in every strife she is a lawyer, in every doubt she is a preacher, in every grief she is a comforter, like a sweet perfume, which taketh away the evil scent, and leaveth a pleasant scent for it. (H. Smith.) Poor capital for the next world Once it was remarked to Lord Erskine that a certain man dying had left £200,000, whereupon he replied, “ That’ s a poor capital to begin the next world with.” Truly it was so, for if, on the other hand, the man had given it away in charity he would thus have really laid it up as treasure in heaven, where in a certain sense he would have possessed and enjoyed it, whereas in this case he left it all behind him on earth when he died, and thus really lost it. Money of no use beyond the grave At Andermatt, in Switzerland, recently, some workmen were repairing a wall that runs round the old churchyard when they suddenly came upon several skeletons, and on disturbing them there fell from the lower jaw of one, two gold coins of the reign of Charles VIII. of France, at the end of the fifteenth century. Further search revealed the presence in the bony hand of the skeleton of a piece of linen rag in excellent preservation, and on unfolding the rag the men brought to light ten silver coins of the sixteenth century, of the time of Francis I. of France. There is no means of knowing how the money came to be in so strange a place. It may have been placed there by superstitious friends of the dead, or death might have suddenly come upon a man who was carrying his money in that way. One thing, however, is certain, the money had not been used by him. When we see how men scheme, and labour, and hoard, it would seem that they have forgotten that it is of no use beyond the grave. Folly of hoarding up wealth We are told that when Alexander, the conqueror of the world, was dying, he gave orders that at his burial his hands should be exposed to public view that all men might see that the mightiest of men could take nothing with him when called away by death. The same lesson was taught us by Job when he said, “ Naked came I out of my mother’ s womb, and naked shall I return thither.” A mouthful of earth will one day stop the cravings of the most covetous. This makes the hoarding up of wealth so vain an occupation. He who died the other day worth three millions and a half, is now as poor as the beggar whom he passed in the street. “ I would not mind dying,” said a miserly farmer, “ if I could take my money with me!” but when he ceased to breathe he left all behind him. What folly it is to spend all one’ s time in gathering a heap to leave it so soon. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Leaving wealth Mahmoud, the first Mohammedan conqueror who entered India, when a mortal disease was consuming him, ordered all his costly apparel, and his vessels of silver and gold, and his pearls and precious stones, to be displayed before him. In the royal residence at Ghuznee, which he called the Palace of Felicity, he drew from this display, wherewith he had formerly gratified the pride of his eye, a mournful lesson, and wept like a child. “ What toils,” said he, “ what dangers, what fatigues, both of body and mind, bays I endured for the sake of acquiring these treasures, and what cares in preserving them! and now I am about to die and leave them.” (Dictionary of Illustrations.) Exemplary contentment A gentleman was once talking to Thomas Mann, a pious waterman on the river Thames, and having ascertained that he never laboured on the Sabbath, and was dependent on his labour for a living, he said, “ Well, as your gains have been so small, you could not lay much up. Have you not been anxious, as you have proceeded in life, lest, from the very nature of your employment, exposed as it is to danger and to all weathers, you should be laid up by illness, and have nothing to support you?” “ No, sir; I have always believed in God’ s Providence. I think I am just fitted for the situation which He has appointed to me, and that what He has fixed is best. I am, therefore, satisfied and thankful. I endeavour to do the duty which daily falls to me, and to be careful of my earnings: I have always had enough, and I have no fears about years to come.” “ Yet, my friend,” said the gentleman, “ if illness were to come, and you had not a provision made for the supply of your need in helpless old age, ought not this to give you some uneasiness?” “ No, sir, that is not my business. Future years are not my business. That belongs to God, and I am sure that, doing my duty in His fear now, and being careful in what He intrusts to me, He will supply my need in future in that way which He shall think best.” The gentleman then said, “ We have heard that teaching the poor to read has a tendency to make them discontented with the station in which Providence has placed them. Do you think so?” “ No, sir; quite the contrary. All that I have read in the Bible teaches me to be content with the dispensations of Providence, to be industrious and careful. A Christian cannot be an idle or an ungrateful man.” Contentment I. I am to explain Godliness. This consists in two things.1. It consists in a godly heart. Godly signifies godlike. Those who have a heart after God’ s own heart are godly, and bear His moral image, in which man was at first created, and to which every renewed person is restored by the special influence of the Divine Spirit. The Spirit in regeneration enstamps the moral image of God upon the heart, which consists in righteousness and true holiness. There is nothing in which men so nearly resemble God as in a godly heart. 2. Godliness implies not only a godly heart, but a godly life. All men will live according to their hearts. (1) A sincere consecration of themselves to God. Those who mean to live a godly life, give themselves away to God in an everlasting covenant, never to be forgotten. (2) The godly not only devote themselves to God, but pay a sincere and habitual obedience to the intimations of His will. II. That this Godliness will produce contentment.1. Godliness leads those who possess it to realize that God always treats them as well as they deserve. They live under an habitual sense of their unworthiness in the sight of God. 2. The godly are sensible that God always treats them according to their prayers, which reconciles them to the Divine dispensations towards them. 3. That it leads men to live by faith in the perfect wisdom and rectitude of the Divine government. The godly believe that the hand and heart of God are concerned in all the events which actually take place. III. That godly contentment will produce great gain; or rather, that godliness with contentment is great gain.1. That godly contentment gains all the good in this world. Those who are contented after a godly sort, enjoy all the things that they possess, and they actually possess as much as they desire to possess; which affords them complete contentment. The contented person is in just such a situation as He, all things considered, desires to be in. 2. That those who possess godly contentment, gain not only this world, but the world to come. Contentment here prepares them for contentment there. Godliness here prepares them to enjoy godliness there. Improvement:1. If godliness produces contentment, then those have reason to doubt of the sincerity of their religion who do not derive contentment from it. 2. If godliness produces contentment, then none can be contented who are destitute of godliness. 3. If godliness be so gainful as we have heard, then none can be godly too soon. 4. If godliness be so gainful as we have heard, then there is no danger of being too godly. 5. If godliness be so gainful as has been represented, then the godly have good reason to pity the ungodly. 6. If godliness be so gainful as has been represented, then the godly ought to do all they can to lead others to be godly. Godliness is benevolence, and benevolence wishes well to all mankind. (N. Emmons, D. D.) We brought nothing into the world. What we carry out of the world There is a sense in which the text is true, and there is a sense in which it is not true. I. There is a sense in which it is true. It is true that we can carry nothing of our material possessions out of the world. We must leave behind our homes, our business, our property, our very bodies. This is--1. A fact the most obvious.2. A fact the most practically disregarded. II. There is a sense in which it is not true. There are certain things which we did not bring with us, but which we shall carry away with us.1. Our memories. We came without recollections, we shall carry thousands away. 2. Our responsibilities. We came without responsibilities, we shall carry loads away. 3. Our characters. We came without a character, we shall carry one away. 4. Our true friendships. We came without true friendships, we shall carry many away. 5. Our true sources of spiritual joy. Powers of holy meditation, hopes of approaching good, communion with the Infinite Father, etc., and all these we shall carry away with us. (The Homilist.) The responsibility of life I. Consider man’ s dependence and mortality. Everything that we possess and enjoy is not so much a gift as a loan. Strength to labour, and the reward of our labour, all worldly possessions and happiness, are merely for a time. They are only lent to us during our life, to be returned at our death. We often hear of a man having only a life interest in certain property. But who has more than a life interest in any worldly possessions? But, as the text reminds us, we shall have to go out of this world. II. Consider man’ s moral and spiritual nature, and consequent accountability. We brought much with us into this world, and we shall carry more out.1. We brought a spiritual nature with us into this world, or, rather, we came into this world spiritual beings. Man is not a body, but a spirit. We have bodies, we are spirits. The universal consciousness of man testifies to the fact that he possesses a life higher than that of the brutes. Into the heavenly kingdom there cannot enter anything that defileth. “ Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” 2. We brought a moral nature with us into this world, or, to speak more correctly, we came into this world moral beings. Things affect us, not merely as pleasurable or painful, but as right or wrong. 3. We shall carry out of this world what we did not bring with us into the world. We must all carry with us the record of our life. 4. Besides the record of our life, which we must carry with us out of the world, we shall be blessed or condemned for what we leave behind us in the world. All of us will leave behind an influence which will live long after we are forgotten. (A. F. Joscelyne, B. A.) Having food and raiment.--Contentment with little I. Let us consider the necessities of nature. These are few, and simple, and easily satisfied. For we should distinguish between real and artificial wants. In reference to happiness, a man only has what he can use. If he possesses a thousand pounds which he cannot use, it matters not, as to the benefit he derives from it, whether it be in his coffer or in the bowels of the earth. II. We should do well to consider the insufficiency of the creature. When we see men dissatisfied with what they have, and all anxiety and exertion to amass an abundance of this “ world’ s goods,” we should imagine that there was a superlative excellency in these things, and that our happiness absolutely depended upon them. Happiness is an eternal thing. “ A good man shall be satisfied from himself.” III. To induce you to be satisfied with such things as you have, consider Your unworthiness. You murmur because you have not more--but should you not be thankful for what you have? If a man owes you a debt, you ought to have your demand; and if you do not receive the whole, you may justly complain. But it is otherwise with a beggar who asks alms. How much more therefore are we bound to say, with Jacob, “ I am not worthy of the least of all Thy mercies” ! Cease complaining, Christian. IV. Observe what you have already in possession or in reversion. When I view the Christian--when I see him blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places--when I see him a son of God, an heir of immortality--loved with an infinite love; redeemed by the blood of the everlasting covenant; called out of darkness into marvellous light. Oh why do not these blessings absorb us! Once they did. When we were first induced to seek them-we thought of nothing else. We then said, If I succeed and obtain these--how willingly can I leave everything else! V. Consider the providence of God. Suppose now a voice from heaven were to assure you that a little was best for you. You answer, I would try to acquiesce. And cannot God speak by actions as well as words? VI. Consider how much safer you are with little than with much. Honey does not more powerfully attract bees than affluence generates temptations. Did you never see men ruined by prosperity? Have you duly considered the duties as well as snares of a prosperous condition? “ Where much is given, much will be required.” VII. Consider the brevity of your continuance upon earth, where alone you will need any of these things. “ What is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away!” And how much of this fleeting period is already consumed! There may be but a step between you and death. Now if time be short, your trouble cannot be long. Were you ever so prosperous, it is only the sunshine of a day--the evening shades are beginning to spread, and will hide all your glories from your view. Read the verse before the text: “ For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” (W. Jay.) 1 Timothy 6:9-11 But they that will be rich.Covetousness I. The dangers of this temper of mind are obvious.1. It leads many to deception and dishonesty. 2. To get advantage to oneself is a false aim for any Christian life. If you know how insidious these and other perils are, you may well pray: “ Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” II. Defences against such evils are within our knowledge, and many are finding moral security through using them.1. Watch against the tendency to extravagant living. The absence of simplicity in some households leads to more evils than you think. Be brave enough to be simple in your habits. Seek to live without ostentation. 2. On the other hand, see to it that you do not bow down to worship the golden calf. No idolatry is more prevalent than this. 3. Cultivate love for higher things than the world offers. Good will conquer evil by its own inherent force. 4. Pray for the spirit of heroism in common life. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Temptation A careful examination of our text will show that it is in no sense exclusive. Those addressed in it are not such as have riches, but such as want riches, and are determined, whether or no, to obtain them. By further consideration of the chapter you will see that the reference to such as would be rich in our text, is only made as an illustration of the great truth for which the apostle is endeavouring to find impressive utterance. He selected the simplest and commonest illustration. He might with equal truth have said: They that will be wise; they that will succeed; they that will get pleasure. I want to bring out into the light the general truth he illustrates, which appears to be this: There are certain kinds of character which are singularly exposed to the influence of temptation, and certain conditions of body and mind which seem to lay us open to the power of temptation. What Paul seems to say in our text, put into other words, is this: “ Those with this moral disposition, the wish to be rich, are, in consequence of that disposition, exposed to the force of peculiar temptations” ; and so he leaves us to infer that what is true of that particular state will apply to many other similar conditions. The laws which regulate our mental and spiritual natures can often be understood by the help of analogous laws which we observe to rule our bodily frames. I. There are certain classes of character singularly exposed to temptation.1. Strong-willed and ambitious men. “ These fall into temptation and a snare.” From some points of view these strong-willed men may be regarded as the noble men of earth. They have a purpose in life, which holds in and guides, as with bit and bridle, all the forces of their being. They are the great men in our mills and warehouses; the foremost as statesmen, and in carrying out great social and national enterprises. Yet this disposition lays men open to peculiar dangers. It comes too often to be opposed to that spirit of contentment which the apostle here intimates is peculiarly suitable to “ godliness,” and which is the result of a daily thaukful dependence on that living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. Especially do we find that this strong-will is liable to become self-will. And if you observe these strong-willed men carefully, you will find they are sadly often falling into sin in relation to their dependents and servants; becoming imperious in their manners, forgetting the ordinary charities of social intercourse, and treating those who serve them as though they were an inferior kind of creature; which is, in the sight of the one God who made us all, a sad and mournful sin against the common brotherhood. They that will be anything fall thereby “ into temptation and a snare.” If such is your disposition, remember, that is the side of your nature on which you are peculiarly exposed to danger. Do you then ask, May a Christian man be ambitious? May he say, I will--I will be rich; I will be great; I will be successful?--I reply, “ Yes, he may; but only when he can add, ‘ If God sees best.’“ He may be ambitious if he can keep leaning on God all the while he pursues his ambitions. 2. Now, let us consider together two opposite classes of character--intense impulsive men, and inactive, sluggish men. These also “ fall into temptation and a snare.” They are very liable to sins of commission. So feebly swayed by prudential considerations, they often do things which they live very greatly to regret. In connection with Christian life and work, they are exposed to the sins of discouragement and failing perseverance. They, too, often live a butterfly life, emptying the nectar from no flower on which they settle, but flying hither and thither from flower to flower, and gathering no stores of honey. They are like those streams which are only fed by mountain rains, or melting snows; they sometimes flow along in a very passion of excitement, but only for awhile; they soon subside; for weeks there is but a trick ling rill, and often the stones lie bleaching in the sun for months together. There are few things which do more injury to a Church than the ebb and flow of its hopes and efforts through the influence of its impulsive members. There are many of the opposite disposition. It is exceedingly difficult to arouse them at all. They seem to have no personal wills. They are always requiring to be urged and pressed. Such persons have their peculiar liabilities to temptation; mostly to sins of omission, the sins which come in connection with procrastination; sins arising from neglect of duty. 3. Only one other phase of character I will mention. Men who must have company. These also “ fall into temptation and a snare.” God has set the solitary in families. “ It is not good that man should be alone.” But you must have observed that this spirit possesses some men very much more than others. There are some who feel as if they could not live without company. They feel restless in their very homes if no one beside their family is found there. I do not say that, on the very face of it, this is wrong; but need I point out to you how perilous such a disposition becomes? Need I remind you how many have, through it, been led astray into drinking habits, and so ruined in heart and in home, in body and in soul? II. There are certain times in a man’ s life when temptation has peculiar force. One of the wonderful discoveries of this scientific age is that of the successive changes through which our bodies pass in the course of our lives. Now, these bodily changes are very remarkably associated with our moral conditions; especially are they connected with the varying force of bodily passions. In some conditions of our frame, no temptation to the indulgence of any bodily lust would exert an effective power on us. In other conditions of our frame, the least exposure seems to involve our fall, we feel to be actually “ overtaken,” “ overwhelmed.” There are three periods of life in which, for the most part, men fall under the power of evil. Most men that fall, fall either into young men’ s peril, full-grown men’ s sins, or old men’ s sins. The devil never appears so much like an angel of light as when tie clothes himself to meet the rising passions of early manhood. A mourn ful proportion of our youth “ fall into temptation and a snare,” and are “ drowned in destruction and perdition.” Many a man has conquered the sins of youth, and then fallen before the sins of manhood. Sensual passion seems to acquire a new force then. The lust of gold. The thirst for position and fame urges men then. Men begin, for the most part, to be misers, or drunkards, or sensualists about this age. “ A hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.” Yet old age has its special evils. Temptations to those sins which the Bible gathers up in the word “ uncleanness.” Often uncleanness of word and conversation; often, alas! of life and conduct also. It would appear that bodily lust and passion gathers itself in old age for one last struggle to gain the mastery. (R. Tuck, B. A.) The love of money You will notice, in the first place, the emphasis which is to be put upon the opening of this passage. “ They” --not they that will be rich; because riches are ordained of God, and, rightly held and rightly used, are an instrument of most beneficent power, salutary to the possessor as well as the recipient of bounty--“ They that will be rich” whether or not “ fall into temptation,” etc. They are willing to give the whole force and power of their being; for they will have it. They are men who, because they will be rich, cannot be conscientious; and who learn soon to say that most beggarly of all things, “ A man cannot be a Christian and be in my business.” How came you in it then? Yea, they have not time to cultivate refinement; they have not time for the amenities of life; they have not time for their household; they have not time for friendship; they have not time for love. And so, because they will be rich, they give up their heart also. And having given all these up, God blesses and blasts them: blesses, for they are rich, and that is what they call blessing; blasts, because it is not in the nature of God Himself, without an absolute change of the laws by which He works, to make a man happy who has, for the sake of gaining wealth, divested himself of those elements in which happiness consists. For what if the harp, in order to make itself blessed, should sell, first, its lowest base string, and then its next one, and then its next string, and then its next, and its next, until finally every string of the harp is sold? Then, when all the heaps of music are piled up before it, and it wants to play, it is mute. It has sold the very things out of which music must needs come. And men that will be rich give up sensibility, affection, faith, manhood, coining them all, emptying themselves: and when they get possession of their wealth, what is there left for them to enjoy it with? Their marrow is gone. There is no string in the harp on which joy can play. Not only will they who will be rich sacrifice everything, but they will not hesitate to do everything that is required--only, as men that will be rich require impunity, it must be safe. And so comes the long, detestable roe of mining, subterranean conduct, the secrecy of wickedness, collusions, plotting, unwhispered things, or things only whispered; that long train of webbing conduct which makes man insincere, pretentious hypocrites, whited sepulchres that are fair without, but that are inwardly full of death and dead men’ s bones. Men begin at first to make a little; they find how easy it is; they enlarge their ambition, and the conception dawns upon them, “ Why am not I one of those who are appointed to be millionaires.” In the beginning of life, a few thousands would have satisfied their ambition. Now, hundreds of thousands seem to them but a morsel. They grow more and more intense. Temptations begin to fall upon them. You can no more make money suddenly and largely, and be unharmed by it, than a man could suddenly grow from a child’ s stature to a man’ s stature without harm. There is not a gardener who does not know that a plant may grow faster than it can make wood; that the cellular tissue may grow faster than the ligneous consolidation; and that then it cannot hold itself up. And many men grow faster in riches than they can consolidate. Men who are tempted to make money suddenly, are almost invariably obliged to traverse the canons of morality. Avarice in its earliest stages is not hideous, though at the bottom it is the same serpent thing that it is at last. In the beginning it is an artist, and the man begins to think, “ I will redeem my parents. Oh! I will repurchase the old homestead. Ah I will I not make my village to bud and blossom as a rose?” How many things do men paint in the sky which clouds cover and winds blow away, and which fade out with the morning that painted them. But where do you find a man who begins to make money fast, that does not begin to have narrower, baser, and avaricious feelings? Such men begin to be tempted to believe that success atones for faults. Men are tempted as soon as they get into this terrific fire of avarice, to regard morality as of little avail compared with money-making. They are dazzled. You will recollect our Saviour’ s words, “ The deceitfulness of riches.” Men are snared when they are given up to fiery avarice. They are snared because the very things by which they propose to gain success become in the long run the means of their own destruction. Cheating is another snare. No man cheats once without cheating twice. Like a gun that fires at the muzzle and kicks over at the breach, the cheat hurts the cheater as much as the man cheated. Cheating is a snare, and will always be a snare. The cheater falls into it. Conceit is another snare. Men lose wisdom just in proportion as they are conceited. It is astonishing to see how conceited men are in power. I have noticed how soon those that will be rich at any hazard, fall into drinking habits. They have come into a sphere in which they begin to fall not simply into “ temptation and a snare,” but into divers “ lusts.” Now comes extravagance. With extravagance come many more mischievous lusts. And when you see a man given to licentious indulgence, you may be sure that he will come to want a crust. Mark that man. Poverty is on his track; and he shall be surely overcome and destroyed by it. We are not to understand that money is the root of all evil; but the love of it--bestowing that which we have a right to bestow only on undying and immortal qualities upon God, and angels, and men--bestowing love, idolatrously, upon material gain. It is not said that all evil springs from this cause; but at one time and another this may become the cause of all evil. It has corrupted in its time every faculty and every relation in which a man stands connected with his fellows. It has divided families, it has parted friendships, it has corrupted purity. The love of money, often, is stronger than the love of kindred. I observe that as men come into this, one of two things takes place; they forsake the house of God, they forsake religious society, because either they have no taste for it, or because it irritates them, or annoys them, and they will not bear the restraint or else, on the other hand, they betake themselves to religion because under certain circumstances, religion is an atonement for misconduct. It is a policy of life-insurance to men that are in iniquity. It is not, “ What is true?” but, “ What will make me feel good while I am a wicked man?” That they seek. They err from the faith. But now comes the solemn sentence, “ They pierce themselves through with many sorrows.” I wish you could see what I have seen. A sword is merciful compared with “ the sorrows that pierce men with pain through life. You do not dare to adopt economic courses, because men would rush in on you, and take possession of you. And so men go under false appearances. How they suffer! Ah! if a man is going to be ruined, and has the testimony of his conscience that he has been an honest man, there is some alleviation to his suffering; but frequently it is a ruin carrying with it blight. Is it not a terrible thing to see a man, in the middle of life, count death better than life? Thank God, a man does not need to be very rich to be very happy, only so that he has a treasure in himself. A loving heart; a genuine sympathy; a pure unadulterated taste; a life that is not scorched by dissipation or wasted by untimely hours; a good sound body, and a clear conscience--these things ought to make a man happy. A man may be useful and not be rich. A man may be powerful and not be rich; for ideas are more powerful than even dollars. If God calls you to a way of making wealth, make it; but remember do not love money. If God calls you to make wealth, do not make haste to be rich; be willing to wait. If God calls you into the way of wealth, do not undertake to make yourself rich by gambling. (H. W. Beecher.) The love of money The passion exists under various modifications. In some few of its subjects, it appears to be pure, unmixed, exclusive; terminates and is concentrated upon just the money itself--(that is, the property) the delight of being the owner of so much. “ It is mine! so much I” But, in much the greater number of instances, the passion involves a regard to some relative objects. In some it is combined with vanity; a stimulating desire of the reputation of being rich; to be talked of, admired, envied. In some it has very much a reference to that authority, weight, prevailing influence, in society, which property confers; here it is ambition rather than avarice. In some the passion has its incitement in an exorbitant calculation for competence. So much, and so much, they shall want; so much more they may want, for themselves or their descendants. So much more they should like to secure as a provision against contingencies. Some are avaricious from a direct dread of poverty. Amidst their thousands, they are haunted by the idea of coming to want. And this idea of danger, from being undefined, can always hover about a man, and force its way into his thoughts. So described, this spirit, possessing and actuating such a number of our fellow mortals, bears an ill and a very foolish aspect. Let us now specify a few of its evil effects, with a note of admonition on each of them. One obvious effect is--that it tends to arrogate, and narrow, and impel the whole action and passion of the soul toward one exclusive object, and that an ignoble one. Almost every thought that starts is to go that way. Silver and gold have a magnetic power over his whole being. The natural magnet selects its subject of attraction, and will draw only that; but this magnetism draws all that is in the little world of the man’ s being. Or it is an effect like that of a strong, steady wind; every thing that is stirred and moveable, that rolls on the ground, or floats on water or air, is driven in that one direction. If it were a noble principle--if it Were religion, that exerted over him this monopolizing and all-impelling power, what a glorious condition! The brief admonition upon this is, that if a man feel this to be mainly the state of his mind, it is a proof and warning to him that he is wrong. Observe, again, that this passion, when thus predominant, throws a mean character into the estimate of all things, as they are all estimated according to the standard of money-value, and in reference to gain. Thus another value which they may have, and, perhaps, the chief one, is overlooked, unseen, and lost. Again, this passion places a man in a very selfish relation to other men around him. He looks at them very much with the eyes of a slave-merchant. He cannot sell them, but the constant question is, “ What, and how, can I gain by them? When this principle has the full ascendency, it creates a settled hardness of character. The man lives, as to the kinder affections, in the region of perpetual ice. He is little accessible to the touches and emotions of sympathy; cannot give himself out in any generous expansion of the affections. And here observe, again, that the disposition in question operates, with a slow but continual effect, to pervert the judgment and conscience. It is constantly pressing the line that divides right from wrong; it removes it, bends it away, by slight degrees. The distinction becomes less positive to the judgment. Self-interested casuistry is put in operation. But it comes nearer to the object of Christian admonition to observe the operation of this evil principle in ways not incompatible with what may be called integrity. It withholds from all the generous and beneficent exertions and co-operations, in which pecuniary liberality is indispensable; and excites against them a spirit of criticism, exception, cavil, and detraction. “ They are sanguine, extravagant.” “ This is not the time.” “ They are unnecessary, impracticable.” “ There are many evil consequences.” It causes to forego opportunities for gaining a beneficial influence over men’ s minds. It puts an equivocal and inconsistent character on Providence. “ As to my own interests, Providence is not at all to be trusted--I must take the whole care on myself.” We only add, it fatally counteracts and blasts internal piety, in all its vital sentiments. (J. Foster.) The love of money “ The love of money,” says the apostle, “ is the root of all evil” ; not that all evils have, but that all may have, their root therein. Take a rapid glance of a fewer these, to which it certainly gives birth. And first, what root it is “ of idolatry” ; or rather it is not so much a root of this, as itself this idolatry--“ Covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). This sounds a hard saying, but it is one which can justify itself. For what is the essence of idolatry? Is it not a serving and loving of the creature more than the Creator; a giving to the lower what was due only to the higher, what was due only to Him who is the highest of all? And as this love of money disturbs the relations of men to God, drawing off to some meaner object affections due to Him, so it mingles continually an element of strife and division in the relations of men with one another. Again, what a root of unrighteousness, of untruthful dealing between man and man, of unfair advantage taken of the simple and the ignorant, of falsehood, fraud, and chicane, does the love of money continually show itself to be! And then--for time would fail me if I dwelt at large on all the mischiefs that spring from this, which even the heathen poet could style “ the accursed hunger of gold” --what treading on the poor; what thrusting of them on unwholesome and dangerous occupations, with no due precautions taken for their health and safety; what shutting up of the bowels of compassion from the Lazarus lying at the gate; what wicked thoughts finding room in men’ s hearts, secret wishes for the death of those who stand between them and some coveted possession, have all their origin here. Consider, then, first, how powerless riches are against some of the worst calamities of our present life; how many of the sorrows which search men out the closest, which most drink up the spirit, these are utterly impotent to avert or to cure. Ask a man in a fit of the stone, or a victim of cancer, what his riches are worth to him; why, if he had the wealth of the Indies ten times told, he would exchange it all for ease of body, and a little remission of anguish. But why speak of bodily anguish? There is an anguish yet harder to bear, the anguish of the man whom the arrows of the Almighty, for they are His arrows, have pierced; who has learned what sin is, but has stopped short with the experience of the Psalmist, “ Day and night Thy hand is heavy upon me; my moisture is like the drought in summer” (Psalms 32:4), and never learned that there is also an atonement. What profits it such a one that all the world is for him, so long as he feels and knows that God is against him? Then, too, how often we see a man comparatively desolate in the midst of the largest worldly abundance. These considerations may do something; but take now another and a more effectual remedy against this sin. Let a greater love expel a less, a nobler affection supersede a meaner. Consider often the great things for which you were made, the unsearchable riches of which you have been made partakers in Christ; for coveteousness, the desire of having, and of having ever more and more, sin as it is, is yet the degeneration of something which is not a sin. Man was made for the infinite; with infinite longings, infinite cravings and desires. But finally, the habit of largely and liberally setting apart from our income to the service of God and the necessities of our poorer brethren is a great remedy against covetousness. (R. C. Trench.) Fruit of covetousness-- (1) oppression:--The love of money is a root of every evil, and oppression is one of its many bitter fruits. The subject of this discourse is the multiform oppression of the poor, that results from a too eager pursuit of wealth. In ruder times, the rich often oppressed the poor in a very direct manner. When might took the place of right, they who had the power did not always take the trouble of covering their rapacity under legal forms. They kept back the labourer’ s hire, or seized his patrimonial field, or enslaved his person, according to the measure of impunity which their circumstances permitted them to enjoy. In this country, and in the present day, such vulgar robbery cannot be perpetrated. Love of money, a spring in the heart, when one channel of issue is blocked up, will force its way by another. Accordingly, this passion as certainly, and perhaps we should say as extensively, oppresses the poor now, as in ruder nations at earlier times. The same native evil is compelled to adopt more refined modes of action: but the oppression may be as galling to the poor and as displeasing to God although it keep strictly within the letter of human law. I have no doubt the law of Christ is violated amongst us--thoughtlessly, in ignorance, and in company with a multitude, it may be--but still sinfully violated, to a most alarming extent, in connection with the money-making efforts of this mercantile community. You have seen a street thronged from side to side with human beings, men, women, and children, all moving in one direction. The mass moves like a river. If every one keep his own place and glide along with the current, the motion will be gentle and harmless. But two or three strong men in the midst of that crowd conceive a desire to proceed at a much quicker rate than their neighbours. Yielding to that impulse, they bound forward with might and main. Observe the effect of their effort. They press on the persons that are next them. If these be strong men too, the only effect will be to push them faster forward, and the greater pressure may be only a pleasant excitement. But the pressure extends on either side, and is felt even to the outer edge of the crowd. Wherever there is a woman, a child, or a cripple, the feeble goes to the wall. The person originating the pressure may not be in contact with that sickly passenger--there may be many persons between them; but the pressure goes through all the intermediate links, not hurting any till it come to one who is unable to bear it, and hurting the helpless. In such a crowd you may sometimes see the selfishness of human nature in all is undisguised odiousness. The man seeks his own advantage, heedless of the injury that his effort may inflict on others. He is not guilty of a direct deed of injustice. He would not lift his hand to strike the feeble; he would not illegally wrest away his property. He endeavours to act justly: nay, he sometimes opens his hand in charity to the distressed. But really, though indirectly, he is an oppressor. He wriggles forward, although his movements necessarily hurt the poor. He looks to his own things; and disregards the things of others. He breaks the law of Christ. The oppressions which abound in our day, as the fruits of covetousness, are chiefly of this nature. They are by no means so gross as the tyranny which the feudal lords of the Middle Ages exercised on their serfs; but they spring from the same source, and are essentially of the same character in the estimation of the Judge. I shall now enumerate and briefly illustrate some of the forms which oppression assumes in modern society. 1. The reduction of wages below the point at which a labouring man can support his family, or a woman support herself. 2. The labour of children is another evil more or less remotely an effect of the haste to be rich. 3. Sabbath labour is one of the oppressions that the prevalence of the money-interest inflicts upon mankind. It is an evil that cries loud to the Lord of Hosts. 4. Yet another oppression let me name--the poor are in a great measure cooped up in crowded lanes, and miserable houses. This is one bitter fruit of a general selfishness. Conceive the force operating now within this city in the direction of money-making. If all the energies that are expended in that direction were added, how vast would the sum of them be! I know not a speculation more interesting than this. It would represent a power which, if collected and united, and turned upon the city’ s filth, and poverty, and ignorance, would sweep them away, as the stream of a mighty river rolling down our streets would carry off the mire that accumulated on their surface. (W. Arnot.) Fruit of covetousness-- (2) dishonesty:--I. The path by which covetousness leads to dishonesty is marked off step by step by the apostle in the text.1. They “ wilt be rich” (verse 9). A class of persons are here characterized. They are described by the leading aim of their lives. It is not said what their religious profession was. Perhaps their belief was orthodox, and their zeal warm. All that we learn about them is, that in God’ s sight money was their “ chief end.” This is not a right--not a safe aim for an immortal being. 2. They “ fall into temptation.” The word conveys the idea of an unexpected fall--a stumble into a pit which you did not expect to be there. If the real movement of a man’ s life be toward money, while he diligently keeps his face turned round to maintain the appearance of being a Christian, he will certainly fall into every pit that lies in his way. The motion, too, is uneasy. Those who set out in pursuit of riches, making no other profession, get on more smoothly. 3. They fall into temptation. A man does not all at once go into vicious practices. He glides, before he is aware, into a position where he is exposed to the pressure of a strong temptation. Those who have rightly measured their own strength will avoid persons and places that put it to a severe test. He that trusteth to his own heart is a fool. 4. A snare marks another stage of this downward progress. The man who has thoughtlessly and in foolhardiness placed himself in the way of temptation, is soon surrounded--the meshes of a net compass him about. He got easily in, but he finds it impossible to get out again. He has recourse to a false entry, a forgery, or some other of the thousand tricks that the wit of hard-pressed men has invented, and the complicated forms of business has served to conceal. Behold the desperate, helpless fluttering of the bird in the snare of the fowler--dashing itself on the sides of an iron cage! 5. The next step is into “ many foolish and hurtful lusts.” These raging lusts are, as it were, watching, ready to fasten on their victim as soon as they see him in the toils of the net. You may have observed that a man whose pecuniary affairs are in a desperate position is peculiarly liable to fall into meaner vices. How frequently do the agonies and embarrassments that precede a shameful disclosure precipitate a man into the abyss of secret drunkenness! These lusts that covetousness leads to are “ foolish and hurtful” ; they pretend to cure, but they only deepen the wound. They apply a balsam that soothes the sore for a moment, but fixes disease more firmly in the flesh. I shall not trace this progress farther. II. The dishonesty to which covetousness leads. “ Flee these things, but follow after righteousness.” The vices that the love of money lands in are not named at length. In general, they are said to be foolish and hurtful. But the opposite graces are individually specified. The first on the list is righteousness. Of course, the opposite vice to which covetousness tends, and against which his warning is directed, is injustice. Righteousness is required in all our transactions--righteousness, not according to the conventional rules of society, which shift like the sand, but according to the immutable standard of the Divine law. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. How many are at this day put to shame for detected dishonesty, who once would have resented the supposition of it as keenly and sincerely as you! I do not know your hearts: and what is more, you do not know them yourselves. One who does know them, however, testifies that they are deceitful above all things. Some forms of dishonesty, such as a false balance, that are prominently condemned in Scripture, we shall pass over without particular notice, because in modern society, though they still exist, they have been comparatively cast into the shade by other inventions. Dishonesty is obliged to hide itself now under more elaborate devices. I mean the adulteration of goods offered for sale by the mixture of other ingredients. A false representation to a customer as to the original cost of your wares, or the rate of your profit, is manifestly dishonest. Above all things, you who have others, especially young persons, employed in selling your goods, charge them to be true and honest. I speak now not for the purchasers, but for the salesmen. Breach of trust is a form of dishonesty alarmingly frequent in our day. Righteousness is one and unchangeable. It compasses about your mighty trafficking, and lays bonds on it, as completely and as easily as the smallest bargainings between a huckster and a peasant at the wayside: even as the same law with equal ease retains a little water in a cup, and the ocean’ s wave within the ocean’ s bed. (W. Arnot.) Haste to be rich Now, why should “ haste” be condemned? for this is the voice of the Old Testament, not once or twice, but many times, either in direct terms or their equivalents. Why should haste to be rich be inveighed against, if riches are a great blessing? In the first place, riches may either be produced or collected. For the most part, the riches that bless men are the riches that are either produced, or are so improved by methods of ingenuity and industry that their service is much greater than it would be in the form of raw material. The foundation of all prosperity is production. The stone is good for nothing until it has been shaped. Now, the man that produces wealth is the foundation man. But that is a slow work. It is impossible to hasten nature very much. A man that could sow his wheat every night, and reap in the morning, would consider himself very fortunate and very happy. A man that, owning an iron mine, could draw metal as he did water from a fountain, and ship it abroad, would consider himself very fortunate. But a man can do neither. Man is the servant of the seasons. He sows in the autumn or spring. With long patience he waits, as James says, like the husbandman for the harvest; and little by little, and year by year, the man attains larger and larger means, greater competency, and, by and by, to riches; and any man that undertakes to run ahead of processes of this kind in producing runs against natural law. Natural, do we say? It is moral law, just as much as any other law. It is the law of the production of wealth, that a man should render an equivalent for every stage of value. Sudden wealth is not hasty wealth, necessarily; I am speaking of the production and development of riches. The production of wealth connects itself with benevolence, with sympathy. A man that manufactures agricultural implements receives a certain reward for that; but he is a benefactor; he abbreviates labour everywhere. What is left at the end of every year, that which was not necessary to maintain the conditions of life, is what we may call the permanent wealth of a man. It is a slow accumulation, taking the world at large. Collectors of wealth that other men have produced may get rich speedily and safely; but producers of wealth, by the very Divine law, must go patiently, and continue through long times. So he that makes haste to get rich is liable to fall into the violation of this fundamental law of equivalents--that is, into fraudulent ways. But every man that is developing or producing riches is, at the same time, educating himself in morals, or should be; for the fundamental conditions of increase lie in the man himself. So, the development of wealth requires time, not only from the nature of production, but also because God designed it to be an education in all the minor moral qualities--as, for example, in moderation, in industry, in temperance, in loyalty, in fidelity, in respect for other’ s rights that co-operate with men; for in the immense complication of riches men are in partnership with men they never saw. Haste to be rich is also a great danger to men, because it tempts them to employ illegitimate means--sleights, crafts, disingenuous ways, greed, violations of honesty. “ Men have been fools to go through such long processes; they have taken these circuitous routes, and have had a superstitious observance of moralities; if they had the courage to go cross-lots they could come to the same results in less than half the time” ; and so they jump the boundary line, and run across the great roads that have been unfolded and developed by experience--and come to destruction. They think they are weaving cordage; but they are only running spider’ s webs up and down their ship; and the first storm will break and destroy the whole of them. A man, therefore, that is making haste to be rich is tempted to ostentation; for riches quickly earned are like new wine, which is strong. But ostentation is expensive, and there is many a man that is tempted to ostentation by the sudden increment of his riches, whether it be in houses, in lands, in equipage, in luxurious furnishings, in a sumptuous table, in yachts, in horses and hounds, in coaches, or what not. Men having sudden wealth are apt to become cruel through indifference to ether men’ s rights. There is such a thing as a society-robber. Then, too, anxiety, haste, is apt to change into idolatry; and the very ends which men have in life are neglected, and the man’ s wealth becomes as an idol which he worships. (H. W. Beecher.) Peril in handling wealth In Washington, U.S., recently, it was found that some lady clerks engaged in sorting bank bills in the Treasury department found sores breaking out on their face and hands, and were obliged to leave. This led to an inquiry, when it was found that the cause was the arsenic employed in the manufacture of the paper. “ I have known,” says a journalist, “ a half-dozen cases where ladies have been compelled to resign their positions. There are three who were here six years before they were afflicted with sores. About three months ago they were so visited by them that they had to quit work. They have been away ever since, and the physician’ s certificate in each case says that their blood is poisoned with arsenic.” This fact may be regarded as an illustration of the unnoticed peril sometimes lurking in handling wealth. Wealth a fatal weight At Long Branch, some visitors, strolling on the beach, observed a large fish hawk swoop down into the waters of the bay and strike its talons into a huge plaice. The bird rose with its prey, but its weight proved too great and dragged him down. Several times the bird struggled to ascend, but failed, and, exhausted, it finally fell into the water still clinging to its captive. Its talons were so embedded in the fish that it could not release them, and it was drowned. The “ fish died of its wounds, and both were washed ashore, where with difficulty they were separated. The death of the hawk in this effort to carry off its prize is typical of a disaster very common in life. Covetousness and avarice only too often prompt men to struggle for a great financial prize, and in the struggle they sacrifice honour, integrity, and sometimes even life, natural and eternal. 1 Timothy 6:11 But thou, O man of God.The man of God I. His relations to God are suggested by the title itself, “ man of God.” This had formerly been distinctive of a prophet, and especially of Elijah, the great reformer, who so realized the truth underlying it that he began many a message by the favourite formula, “ The Lord God of Israel, before whom I stand.” In Ephesus, Timothy had to take up as decided a stand against prevailing evils as Elijah had maintained in the kingdom of Israel; and he too was to find strength and wisdom in the presence of God, whence he might come forth to the people as God’ s representative and spokesman. Any devout man may be called a “ man of God” if he is--1. Living near God and coming forth to his duties, as Moses came from the mount of communion, reflecting the light of heaven. 2. Representing God is the outcome of communion with Him. Reflection of light can only result from the incidence of light. A mirror shut up in a pitch-dark cellar is not to be distinguished by the eye from a flagstone, but placed in the sunlight it may reflect a whole heaven of beauty. If you would let your light shine before men, you must put yourself in true relation to the Sun of Righteousness. And, again, no one would be called “ a man of God” unless he was-- 3. Seeking God’ s ends. It was because Timothy was by profession and in character “ God’ s man” that the apostle assumes that his course would of necessity be different from that of the worldly--that he would flee the things they loved. Everyone would discredit the assertion of one who said he represented a drapery establishment if, day after day, he was engaged in buying and selling timber or coal, and left all soft goods unregarded. II. His relations to sin are those of unconquerable repugnance.1. The nature of these sins is exemplified in the words uttered just before by Paul against the love of money, the hurtful lusts of the human heart, and the foolish and evil practices to which these lead. 2. The means of escape from these are twofold. Sometimes we may meet and conquer a temptation, and sometimes we may more wisely flee from it. III. His relations to virtues. Negative precepts distinguished the Old Dispensation, but the New Dispensation is not content with them. The virtues mentioned here are arranged in pairs.1. Righteousness and godliness include all conduct towards God: obedience to His law, trust and reverence, devoutness and prayer. 2. Faith and love are the two essentials to such a life, for righteousness is the offspring of faith, and godliness is the offspring of love. 3. Patience and meekness have regard to our dealings with our fellow-men, especially with those who persecute or wrong us, and they are among the most difficult graces to exhibit. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Are you a man of God I. The text speaks of a man. II. The text says that we are not only to be a man, but it tells us what sort of a man; it says--a “ man of God.” There are two or three kinds of men.1. There is the “ manor the world.” You hear such a person say, “ Well, you know, I am a man of the world.” A “ man of the world” is supposed to know everything, but, as a rule, you find that what he knows is everything of indulgence and badness. But does he know how to bear trial when it comes? But the “ man of God” feels that duty, principle, righteousness, are of first importance. The “ man of the world” puts expediency before him; the “ man of God” has principle for his guide. The “ man of God” says, “ It is not necessary for me to live, but it is necessary that the women and children should get out of danger before me.” The “ man of the world” always pushes himself first, because he is a “ man of the world” ; the “ man of God” first lifts up others, because he is a “ man of God.” 2. Then there is the “ man of business.” All such a man is noted for is that he is a “ man of business.” His greatest characteristic is that his head is “ screwed on the right way.” The “ man of God” seeks first the kingdom of God; the “ things” of the world are of secondary importance. The “ man of God” is, however, “ diligent in business,” but he is not a slave to it. 3. There are also other classes of persons called “ men of wealth” and “ men of learning.” Being a “ man of God” implies a man who has found God--God is in all his thoughts. Is God so hard to find as some of the Churches would have us believe? The “ man of God” is one who has not only found God, but obeys His commandments. In the text the “ man of God” is called upon to “ follow righteousness” ; that is, to train himself to act in a right or straight course of conduct. An old writer has pointed out that man has naturally a habit of walking askew. How difficult for a man to walk a hundred yards in a perfectly straight line! It is impossible for him to do so if he shut his eyes. I appeal to your recollection whether you ever saw a straight path across a field; it is always tortuous, in and out. Likewise, the path taken by a man’ s heart is not direct and straight by nature. The “ man of God” is reliable; he can be trusted with uncounted gold, and his word is as good as his bond. The “ man of God” should be godly; that is, like God, unselfish, not seeking exclusively his own good, but the good of all. The “ man of God” will practise self-respect, self-control, and self-denial. (W. Birch.) Following righteousness Ignorant though Stewart was of every technicality in trade, he was a man of undeviating truth and uprightness. He was aware that unjustifiable profits were made by shopkeepers, and that they had no conscience whatever about practising deception in order to place a fictitious value upon their goods. All such false ways he utterly abhorred, and he was determined to try his own plan. At all risks, he made up his mind that he would not look for more than ten per cent profit, and that he would never deceive a buyer as to the prime cost of any article in his store. “ Ten percent, and no lies” --that was Mr. Stewart’ s motto for doing business. But it is a curious instance of the repugnance of the trade to carry on business on such terms that the salesman, who could not have suffered in any way by this arrangement, became irritated against his employer, and at the end of a month or so resigned his situation. He declared that he could no longer be a party to sell goods by such rules--that, in fact, Mr. Stewart was giving them away to the public; and, with very significant emphasis, he added, “ Before another month is over you will be a bankrupt.” Mr. Stewart’ s business, however, gradually enlarged, until, after being in business half a century, his property and stock was worth twenty million pounds, thus proving that “ honesty is the best policy. (Memoir of Stewart, the Millionaire.) Patience. Patience portrayed Among all the graces that adorn the Christian soul, like so many jewels of various colours and lustres, against the day of her espousals to the Lamb of God, there is not one more brilliant than this of patience; not one which brings more glory to God, or contributes so much toward making and keeping peace on earth; not one which renders a man more happy within himself, more agreeable to all about him; insomuch that even they who themselves possess it not, yet are sure to commend it in others. I. In the first place, patience is a virtue common to us with God. Long-suffering is His darling attribute; and what is dear in His sight ought not to be less precious in ours. And how marvellous is His patience who daily pours His blessings on those men who as daily offend, affront, and dishonour Him! Yet God’ s blessings are abused to the purposes of luxury and lasciviousness; His truth is denied; His commandments are broken; His Church is persecuted; His ministers are insulted; His Son is crucified afresh; and His own long-suffering is made an argument against His existence--and He is still patient. What is man, then, that he should complain? II. The patience which we so much admire in God shone forth yet more amazingly in the person of his Son Jesus Christ. For was ever patience like that patience which, descending from a throne of glory, bore a long imprisonment in the womb to sanctify sinners, and lay in a stable to bring them to a kingdom. III. The patience thus practised by Christ is enjoined by His Holy Gospel, being, indeed, the badge of that gospel and its professors. Is the mind tempted to impatience by the disappointment of its desires and the loss of worldly goods and enjoyments? The Scripture, to eradicate the temptation, is full of precepts enjoining us to contemn the world, and not to set our hearts upon things that pass away, and that cannot satisfy the soul when it is possessed of them. The worldly man is always impatient, because he prefers his body to his soul; the Christian prefers his soul to his body, and therefore knows how to give largely and to lose patiently. IV. If we find all the saints of God who have been eminent for their faith in Christ to have been as eminent for their patience, without which their faith must have failed in the day of trial; it being not through faith alone, but, as the apostle says, “ through faith and patience,” that they “ inherited the promises. Faith begat patience, which, like a dutiful child, proved the support of its parent. Through patience Moses, so often abused and insulted, and only not stoned by a stiffnecked people, still entreated the Lord for them. V. The present state of man renders the practice of this virtue absolutely necessary for him if he would enjoy any happiness here or hereafter. Could we, indeed, live in the world without suffering, then were there no need of patience. “ He that endureth to the end shall be saved. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” VI. The manifold inconveniences of impatience will set this truth off to great advantage. As patience is the attribute of God, impatience had its beginning from Satan. “ Through envy of the devil,” saith the wise man, “ came death into the world.” And whence proceeds envy but from impatience of beholding the happiness of another? Impatience and malice, therefore, had one father, and they have grown together in his children ever since. (Bp. Horne.) Meekness It is recorded that after Thomas Aquinas had returned to Bologna a stranger came one day to the monastery, and, visiting the prior, asked that one of the brothers might carry a basket for him to the market to make some purchases. “ Tell the first brother you see in the cloisters,” said the prior. The brother happened to be Thomas Aquinas, who, at the curt command of the stranger, took up the basket and followed. But he was suffering from lameness, and the arrogant stranger turned round and scolded him for being so slow. The Bolognese, looking on with indignation at the treatment of the revered teacher of the Schools, said to the visitor, “ Do you know who it is that you are treating in this way? It is Brother Thomas!” “ Brother Thomas!” he exclaimed; and, falling on his knees, begged the saint’ s forgiveness. “ Nays” said Thomas, “ you must forgive me for being so slow!” 1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith.The good fight War is a terribly earnest business which will not bear to be trifled with. Of all things under the sun, this work of fighting, if it is to be done at all, is one that must be done with all our heart and mind. It is no mere holiday affair of plumes and epaulettes, and drums and trumpets, and flags and fine parade. Only certain ruin will come to those who go into it in that spirit, with a light and careless heart. Well, now, it is to such a work that Paul likens the Christian life, and it is in the same earnest spirit that he would have us to deal with it. Of course, there are many points in which it differs altogether from the warfares of this world: they work sorrow and desolation and death, but this brings joy and fruitfulness and life. They doubtless call forth heroic qualities of courage and devotion, which, however, are often sullied by fierce and pitiless passion; but this conflict of ours, while it demands equal courage and devotion, is gentle also, and merciful, ready to suffer loss, but not to inflict loss. Oh, very true, in times like ours this conflict differs materially from that which Paul and Timothy had to wage in the early martyr ages of the Church’ s story. The wild beasts at Ephesus, the stonings in Jerusalem, the prison and the stake and the cross of those days, all have vanished from the warfare, which you may think, therefore, now hardly deserves so great a name. Yet a warfare it is still, not without its peril and its privation, and its enemy, and its conflict, partly within and partly without; and it needs now, as ever, a brave and an earnest heart. Is our religion at all like a real, earnest battle? Were I speaking to you of your common everyday life, with its labour and weary wrestle to keep the wolf from the door, I might call it a hard battle for the poor man; and some of you, I daresay, would be ready enough to reply, “ Ay, that it is, and we know it well enough, too--a hard, weary, ceaseless struggle; and sometimes we could almost wish we were well through it, and could be at rest.” So, then, the words have clear meaning to many of us--I daresay to most of us. But could you say now as much about the affairs of your spiritual life? That is what Paul had in his eye. But have you ever maintained any such battle for integrity and truth, for the soul and for God, as you have often done for meat and drink, and raiment, and a respectable position. Assuredly, if we are true followers of Christ we shall find plenty of enemies to contend with--enemies who are ready to take advantage of every opportunity, and who are not to be overcome without long and resolute battle. You shall find these foes at the outset within yourselves. And the first part of every man’ s battle is to overcome and master these. I do not much value a warfare which is chiefly to get the better of other people. I do not believe that there is much good fighting in any one till he has first conquered himself. The battle begins, therefore, in our own heart and life. It is well to know that, for some are far more alive to their neighbour’ s danger than they are to their own; and so long as they are of that mind they will never fight to any purpose the fight to which we are called. The nearest foes are those that are first to be dealt with, and there is no victory for us until these are overcome, and our nearest foes are those within ourselves. There are doubts, perhaps, perplexing your mind and chilling your faith, and you must fight your way into clearness, facing them like a thoughtful, earnest man; for if you do not you may well chance to settle down in chill indifference to all that is at stake. Then there are lusts and appetites of the flesh which perhaps hotly assail you, and you must contend with them, and beat them into subjection, for otherwise they will grow just as they are gratified, and bind you in a bondage of shame. And there are still more malignant lusts of the mind, as envy, pride, malice, hatred, uncharitableness, revenge; and we must do resolute battle with these and slay them, for if we let them live on they will soon leave no life in us. And there is the love of the world and the things of the world, and we must set ourselves to deny and resist that; for oh, how many heartless souls there are that succumb to these allurements, and never strike one blow or win one victory in the good fight, because their hands have been weakened and their arms have been blunted by the world which they had folded to their hearts. But our warfare is not confined to these inward wrestles with deceitful lusts and hurtful snares; it is not our own souls only that have to be saved. You might be religious after a fashion, and yet rather a selfish kind of man, if that were all that you were caring for. And the selfish man, no matter even though his self-seeking concerns his highest interests, the selfish man is not the true Christian man. Our battlefield is the world. We may not stand neutral in any righteous cause. Is there ignorance, breeding its poisonous crop of superstition, which we can in any wise help to remove? Is there injustice done which we can either arrest or redress? Then it will not do for you and me to stand by and say it is no concern of ours. This is called a “ good fight,” and surely with good reasons. Sometimes we are in the way of saying, “ that was a good fight,” when all we mean is that it was well and stoutly contested; we praise the combatants simply because they did their part well. But here the phrase has afar deeper meaning than that. This is a good fight, whether we do our part in it well or ill. It is the cause that makes it good, as it is the cause alone that makes any warfare right. Alas! how few of the world’ s wars can lay any claim to that name. And to do all this by persuasion, by pity, by tender sympathy, by bearing each other’ s burdens, by the truth spoken in love, by meek and patient suffering for righteousness’ sake, by faithful example, by brotherly kindness and charity. So with good weapons the good fight is to be fought. Not with wrangling and bitterness, not by malice and cunning, not by persecution and hatred, but by the gentle drawing of all cords of love. Think not to gain the victory here by ways or by forces which Christ has never used. But it is also called a fight of faith. And for that, too, there is good reason. It is a fight for faith, but specially and still more it is a fight by faith. Only by faith can the victory be won. It is a fight for the faith. Always the Christian has to do battle for the faith once delivered to the saints, to retain it for himself, and to hand it down to his children, and to maintain it for the world. Sad it is to think that after so many centuries of Christian history, it would almost seem as if the enmity to the gospel only grew more intense and more bitter. The culture and highest education of this age has, alas! largely drifted away from it into atheism agnosticism, esoteric Buddhism, and what not. What we have to contend for is faith in God, and for Christ as the revelation of God, and for faith in the immortal spirit and the life which is eternal; in short, for faith in its essential truth and in its purity, as Christ lived it and taught it, and as the apostles proclaimed it by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And as our good fight is for the faith, so also it is by faith that it must be carried on. It will not be well if we take to other weapons. “ This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” He who said that was a master of clear and convincing reason. Very far was he from despising the intellect which God had given him for ordering all his thoughts aright. Always the soldier must have faith in his commander, faith in his skill, his courage, his loyalty, his capacity; and if he cannot trust these he is sure to be beaten. The rank and file, amid the smoke and dust of the conflict, perceive nothing but what lies close at their hand, and they may not be able to understand why they are ordered to keep this post or retire from that, why to rush on one peril, why to avoid another; but if they have faith in their leader they will say, He knows best; it is our business to be where he would have us to be, and to do what he would have us to do, and if we fall what matter, so long as the fight only be won?” Without such a faith there would be no battle gained. There is nothing for us, then, but to fight on in faith: and if we do not, if we choose our own way and not Christ’ s, does not our past experience tell us that that way leads to sorrow and disaster? When was it that you fell before the tempter, and were brought, perhaps, to shame? When was it that your efforts to do good to others proved barren and fruitless? Was it not then, when you were full of self-confidence and had lost your faith in God? And when were your victories won, when did you make any progress in godliness? Was it not then, when you put your trust in Christ and did His will, and left Him to make it all Clear in His own good time? (W. C. Smith, D. D.) The fight It is a curious fact that there is no subject about which most people feel such deep interest as “ fighting.” This is a simple fact, whatever way we may try to explain it. We should call that Englishman a dull fellow who cared nothing about the story of Waterloo, or Inkermann, or Balaclava, or Lucknow. We should think that heart cold and stupid which was not moved and thrilled by the struggles at Sedan, and Strasburg, and Metz, and Paris, during the war between France and Germany. But there is another warfare of far greater importance than any war that was ever waged by man. This warfare, I am aware, is a thing of which many know nothing. Talk to them about it, and they are ready to set you down as a madman, an enthusiast, or a fool. And yet it is as real and true as any war the world has ever seen. It has its hand-to-hand conflicts and its wounds. It has its watchings and fatigues. It has its sieges and assaults. It has its victories and its defeats. Above all, it has consequences which are awful, tremendous, and most peculiar. I. True Christianity is a fight. True Christianity! Let us mind that word “ true.” There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death. He is not meant to live a life of religious ease, indolence, and security. With whom is the Christian soldier meant to fight? Not with other Christians. Wretched indeed is that man’ s idea of religion who fancies that it consists in perpetual controversy! No, indeed! The principal fight of the Christian is with the world, the flesh, and the-devil. These are his never-dying foes. Unless he gets the victory over these three, all other victories are useless and vain. He must fight the flesh. Even after conversion he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. He must fight the world, The subtle influence of that mighty enemy must be daily resisted, and without a daily battle can never be overcome. The love of the world’ s good things--the fear of the world’ s laughter or blame--the secret desire to keep in with the world--the secret wish to do as others in the world do, and not to run into extremes--all these are spiritual foes which beset the Christian continually on his way to heaven, and must be conquered. He must fight the devil. That old enemy of mankind is not dead. Remember the maxim of the wisest general that ever lived in England--“ In time of war it is the worst mistake to underrate your enemy, and try to make a little war.” This Christian warfare is no light matter. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight. Let us not think that in this war we can remain neutral and sit still. Such a line of action may be possible in the strife of nations, but it is utterly impossible in that conflict which concerns the soul. The boasted policy of non-interference--the “ masterly inactivity” which pleases so many statesmen--the plan of keeping quiet and letting things alone--all this will never do in the Christian warfare. It is a fight of universal necessity. No rank, or class, or age, can plead exemption, or escape the battle. Ministers and people, preachers and hearers, old and young, high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, kings and subjects, landlords and tenants, learned and unlearned--all alike must carry arms and go to war. It is a fight of perpetual necessity. It admits of no breathing time, no armistice, no truce. On week-days as well as on Sundays--in private as well as in public--at home by the family fireside as well as abroad--in little things like management of tongue and temper, as well as in great ones like the government of kingdoms--the Christian’ s warfare must unceasingly go on. II. True Christianity is the fight of faith. Success depends entirely on believing. A general faith in the truth of God’ s written Word is the primary foundation of the Christian soldier’ s character. A religion without doctrine or dogma is a thing which many are fond of talking of in the present day. It sounds very fine at first. It looks very pretty at a distance. But the moment we sit down to examine and consider it, we shall find it a simple impossibility. We might as well talk of a body without bones and sinews. As for true Christians, faith is the very backbone of their spiritual existence. No one ever fights earnestly against the world, the flesh, and the devil, unless he has engraven on his heart certain great principles which he believes. A special faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ s person, work, and office, is the life, heart, and mainspring of the Christian soldier’ s character. Habitual lively faith in Christ’ s presence and readiness to help is the secret of the Christian soldier fighting successfully. He that has most faith will always be the happiest and most comfortable soldier. Nothing makes the anxieties of warfare sit so lightly on a man as the assurance of Christ’ s love and continual protection. Let us turn to the pages of early Church history. Let us see how the primitive Christians held fast their religion even unto death, and were not shaken by the fiercest persecutions of heathen emperors. For centuries there were never wanting men like Polycarp and Ignatius, who were ready to die rather than deny Christ. Fines, and prisons, and torture, and fire, and sword, were unable to crush the spirit of the noble army of martyrs. The whole power of imperial Rome, the mistress of the world, proved unable to stamp out the religion which began with a few fishermen and publicans in Palestine! And then let us remember that believing in an unseen Jesus was the Church’ s strength. They won their victory by faith. Let us examine the story of the Reformation. Let us study the lives of its leading champions--Wycliffe, and Huss, and Luther, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Hooper. Let us mark how these gallant soldiers of Christ stood firm against a host of adversaries, and were ready to die for their principles. What battles they fought! What controversies they maintained! What contradiction they endured! What tenacity of purpose they exhibited against a world in arms! And then let us remember that believing in an unseen Jesus was the secret of their strength. They overcame by faith. III. True Christianity is a good fight. “ Good” is a curious word to apply to any warfare. All worldly war is more or less evil. The Scripture does not call the Christian fight “ a good fight” without reason and cause.1. The Christian’ s fight is good because fought under the best of generals. The Leader and Commander of all believers is our Divine Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ--a Saviour of perfect wisdom, infinite love, and almighty power. The Captain of our salvation never fails to lead His soldiers to victory. 2. The Christian’ s fight is good, because fought with the best of helps. Weak as each believer is in himself, the Holy Spirit dwells in him, and his body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. 3. The Christian fight is a good fight, because fought with the best of promises. 4. The Christian’ s fight is a good fight, because fought with the best of issues and results. 5. The Christian’ s fight is good, because it does good to the soul of him that fights it. All other wars have a bad, lowering, and demoralizing tendency. They call forth the worst passions of the human mind. They harden the conscience, and sap the foundations of religion and morality. The Christian warfare alone tends to call forth the best things that are left in man. It promotes humility and charity, it lessens selfishness and worldliness, it induces men to set their affections on things above. 6. The Christian’ s fight is a good fight, because it does good to the world. All other wars have a devastating, ravaging, and injurious effect. But go where you please, you will find that the presence of a few true Christians is a blessing. Surely this is good! 7. Finally, the Christian’ s fight is good, because it ends in a glorious reward for all who fight it. (1) It may be you are struggling hard for the rewards of this world. Perhaps you are straining every nerve to obtain money, or place, or power, or pleasure. (2) It may be you know something of the Christian warfare, and are a tried and proved soldier already. (Bp. Ryle.) The Christian warfare; or, the good fight of faith I. In what respects the Christian life is the fight of faith.1. There are enemies of our salvation, and there must be faith in the soul to set against them. Where there are not two parties, there can be no fight. There is no fighting in heaven, for there are no enemies there (Revelation 21:25). There is none of this fighting in the unbelieving world neither; for the enemies have all there alone, and there is no faith to set against them (Luke 11:21). 2. Faith has the chief interest in this fight. In it there will be use for all the graces, the doing and suffering graces: yet the fight has its name from faith, as that which has the chief hand in it. It carries on the fight, and obtains the victory--“ Whom resist, steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:9). 3. Lastly, the great design of a holy God, in that fight is the trial of faith. Hence says the apostle (1 Peter 1:6-7). II. In what respects it is a good fight? III. Why is the Christian life, in the disposal of holy providence, made a fight? No doubt the Lord could have given His people a constant sunshine as well on this side as the other side of death, and cleared the way of those armed adversaries that are ready to attack them.1. That the members may be conformed to their Head in their passage through the world. 2. That the nothingness, and utter unworthiness of the creature, which is to wear the crown of glory for ever, may convincingly appear; so as they themselves and all others may see it is owing purely to free grace, not to them (Deuteronomy 8:2). 3. For the greater confusion of the grand adversary, who, attacked Him in person in the world, and whom He causeth poor weak creatures to triumph over after they have maintained a fight with Him (Romans 16:20). 4. For the greater glory of the Captain of their salvation, the more full display of the freedom of grace, and the efficacy of His blood and Spirit. 5. For that they may have a greater variety of experiences--“ Patience worketh experience; and experience, hope” (Romans 5:4). 6. Lastly, that heaven may be the more sweet to them, when they come to it. IV. Why their fight is called a fight of faith. The reason is, because by that means all the glory of the victories obtained redounds to free grace, not to the sinner himself, “ It is of faith, that it might be by grace” (Romans 4:16). V. I will touch at some particular fights of faith the Christian may have in his course heavenward, such as--1. In a call to some more than ordinary work or duty.2. In desertion.3. In temptations from Satan.4. In afflictions.5. With this present evil world.6. With sin.7. With death. Some have a fighting life with the world all their days: but, alas! it is not the fight of faith with it, but a sinful faithless fighting with it, that carries on the ruin of their souls. Ye will know this faithless fight with it by these two things.1. All their fight is to get something of the world, not to be kept from the spiritual evil of the world. 2. Their fight they have with the world takes away from them all favour of the Word of God and of religion. We must then stay our hearts by faith--1. Firmly believing the Scripture accounts of the unseen world (Hebrews 11:1). 2. Firmly believing the Scripture account of the way to heaven; that Christ is the way to it (John 14:6); and that by faith we walk in Him to it (Colossians 2:6). 3. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for your safe passage to the upper part of the unseen world (Psalms 73:24; Psalms 31:5); committing your soul to Him, rolling the weight of your through-bearing on Him as the Captain of salvation appointed of God to bring many sons to glory. 4. Believing that your Lord Christ is Lord of the unseen world, and that the whole compass of it above and below is under His dominion (Revelation 1:18). (T. Boston, D. D.) The problem of life Human life is not a consummated and perfected thing; it is a struggle, a conflict universally; and that not by accident, not by the intrusion of any unexpected obstacle, not by the re-establishment of the original and fundamental policy of creation, but by the very genius of creation. This conflict inheres in the very problem which the physical existence was set to work out. All acts of development from childhood to manhood are in the nature of aggression, of vigilance, of impulsion, of pressure onward, with more or less pain and penalty. The unfolding of every faculty is like a birth, and has its pain, its throe; and the organization of character comes by the drill of each separate organ. The making of a perfect man, according to the large ideal of Christ Jesus, obliges men to compel themselves in such a way that the whole process of education takes on the form of a conflict. Men recognize this outwardly. No man gains the aptitudes which are required for the maintenance of his physical existence without earnest study, without great patience, without much self-denial, without long drill, without hard work. You cannot acquire skill in your fingers without making them war against the tool, against matter, and against the laws by which matter is governed. Let us look at some points of the conflict which belongs to personal experience, which takes on different forms, and which all feel, more or less, in some form. There is, in the first place, the control of a man’ s own disposition, the control of his appetites and passions, which are indispensable servants, and strong-handed servants, but which are very dangerous masters, that slip easily into the seat of authority. Without appetites and passions, a man would languish as a plant without sap; there would be neither vigour nor success in his life; and yet, indispensable as they are as pioneers and engineers, they are dangerous. And multitudes of men, not knowing how to make suitable war upon domineering passions and appetites, are perpetually broken down. Then come the whole range of irritable and malign feelings. Irritableness is merely sensibility exercised in a certain direction. In general sensibility is a great blessing. Quickness to respond to fact, to truth, to that which is right, is a Divine blessing to any soul. At the same time, quickness is the peculiar difficulty of temper, which acts without thinking, without direction, and without discretion. A man who was without susceptibility to the impulse of anger would have no power of resistance or self-defence. Multitudes of evil which, if permitted to get control of us, would be most pernicious, and often fatal, are repelled by the sudden impulse of indignation. Thousands and thousands of temptations you must destroy at once, or they will destroy you. How many men, under such circumstances, know how to carry themselves evenly and justly, making anger turn to indignation, and making indignation turn to profit in moral results? How many are there who have no need to fight? Is your anger a patient steed so subdued to the saddle and bridle that you can ride it without watch and care? Is it an easy thing for you to maintain sweetness and equanimity? What man ever attempted to live a Christian life who has not had a painful consciousness of the need of conflict in regard to his temper and malign feelings? Then there is the more subtle danger of self-indulgence in every one of its forms. In this realm there is a perpetual seeking after immediate pleasure. There is, then, need that a man should rouse himself continually, and in every direction, that he should be up and around, that he should be vigilant and laborious as against this fatal spirit of quietude--this anchoring of the soul in still waters. But what shall I say of the conflict that every man has in life with pride, and with the love of praise, which leads one to violate others’ rights, and to seek, in an undue measure, his own welfare? Let no one suppose that this conflict is necessarily one of dreariness, and that the Christian life, because it is a life of conflict, is therefore a life of morbid suffering or pain. It is a conflict that every man goes through who masters the mathematical science; but is it a painful conflict? When the awkward boy first goes to the school of manners, and is obliged to throw back his shoulders, and turn out the palms of his hand, and step with an appropriate instead of a clownish tread, it is a painful thing for him to do, and to do continually, and to form the habit of doing; but nobody says of children when they are sent to the dancing school, “ Poor children! What a conflict they are going through!” And yet, it is a conflict that they are going through. And at every step of the education of his body or of his disposition, of his physical organs, or of his thought and feeling, a man is going through a conflict, and a conflict that sometimes is accompanied by bitter pain. There are sometimes exigences, though they are very rare, which bring men into an elevated condition without much struggle; but the ordinary experience of men in Christian life is one in which they press forward and overcome just as a man does who produces results by thought, by work, by patience in strife. The whole of Christian life is a conflict in that way. See how men are surrounded. See how the shopmate is obliged to repel the sagacious influences of him who stands near him. See how the moral tone of a man may be lowered by the vulgarity and impurity of the man who sits next to him, and thrusts vile paragraphs under his eye, and narrates in his ear stories that are not fit for him to hear or repeat. No thermometer in the open air was ever more subject to the thermal influences of nature than men are to the influences that are exerted upon them on every side; and we are constantly to wage a conflict of resistance with every man we meet, and with all the circumstances in which we are placed, that we may turn them to account, and that we may frustrate and thwart the mischief that is in them. But these are comparatively small things. How is it when you are father and mother, and a nest full of birds come down to you with your faults exaggerated in them, and the faults of two or three of your ancestors thrown in, and you are to bring up those children, strong-willed, and constantly breaking out into this and that mischief? How many persons there are who have been discouraged and almost heart-broken by the burden that God has laid upon them to develop, to train, and to graduate successfully into life, a houseful of children! It is a burden that you have to carry. It is a warfare that you have to meet. Then there are social surroundings, infelicities, hardships, difficulties, tasks of support, catastrophes, which overtake men in life. If you will be kind enough to go down stream the water will not bubble around you a particle; it will make your passage very easy; but now turn about and go up stream, and see how the force of the current heaps the water about you. So long as a man is content to go down stream in life, and does not attempt to go up stream, he goes easy; but let him undertake to go up stream for the sake of a higher life, and see if on every side he does not find difficulties to be overcome and trials to be borne. But, if he perseveres, by and by so many of them will be mastered and he will have gained such momentum that his career will be, comparatively speaking, joyous, though it may not be easy. The rising from one plane or sphere to another plane or sphere is always with difficulty. How, then, shall we maintain this conflict? Largely by volition in respect to new things, and by reducing to habits, as far as possible, things with which we are familiar. It is in the power of a man to make automatic thousands of acts that at first he was obliged to force himself to perform. We have not really learned a thing till we have learned it so that the learning ceases to be conscious. We are also to fight this conflict as much as possible by adopting the principle, or by recognising the fact and making it a principle of practical life, that there is in every man an equipollent force over against each faculty that is in him; that if there is selfishness there is generosity; that if there is hatred there is love; that if there is avarice there is benevolence; that if there is fear there is hope; and that in the discipline of a man’ s nature it is not so wise to directly attack the evil as to excite the corresponding good, and let that take the control of the evil. Is a man prone to think of things that he ought not to think of? Let him think of things that he ought to think of. Let him give the mind another direction and indulge in another class of thoughts. Does a child hurt itself? See how the nurse or the mother catches up some mirror, some brilliant object, and flashes it in the child’ s eye to divert its attention from its pain. It is not wise to mourn over a child that is hurt or to look at its bruise; it is wise, rather, to direct its thoughts to something else Then, aside from these things, fill your soul from day to day with the great truths which are given to us in the gospel of Christ. (H. W. Beecher.) The good fight I. It is severe. Our enemies are many, strong, united. II. It is painful. It is the house divided against itself. One desire in antagonism to another. III. It is constant. Foes never tire, we must never rest. (Homilist.) The Christian warfare I. Survey the field of battle. This world is a great battlefield. Upon its bosom are two armies. They are disproportionate in numbers. The one is large, united, armed, disciplined, and determined. The other is small, sometimes trembling and irresolute, with here and there a bold and earnest hero, but for the most part but indifferent soldiers. Their appearance and preparations are best described in 1 Kings 20:27; and it may be that this very passage was intended as a type of them: “ The children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country.” In this position they are both ready for the battle; but alas! the one is oftentimes more ready than the other. The first is united, and it fills the country: the other is as two flocks of kids. The first is armed with every conceivable weapon: the other has but one. The first is disciplined and determined: the other is simple and feeble. And yet, withal, there is no doubt of the issue. Every soldier in the little army is unconquerable. Many and many an antagonist is conquered and subdued. To what, then, must we attribute this remarkable success? Not to their numbers, certainly; for they are the fewest of any people. Not to their wisdom; for they are the foolish of this world. Not to their strength; for they are the weak things of it. It is to their Captain who commands them. He is the cause of this incessant victory against their overwhelming odds. The first army is commanded, indeed, by a mighty prince. No common general is he. Uniting every species of ability and strength save one, he is altogether invincible by any other might than that of our Commander; but before Him he has no success. II. We are now to investigate the nature of their warfare. The apostle here calls it a “ good fight,” and a “ fight of faith” ; by which terms he shows us at once the object and method of warfare.1. Take its object. It is the very opposite of the world. The object of the true soldier of Christ is to win souls to Him, to save men from hell, to make known the salvation purchased by Christ, and the promised freedom of the soul from sin. 2. Take, next, the principles of this warfare. Here again we see the difference between these two contending armies. In Satan’ s army every conceivable weapon is authorized. Lying, equivocation, misrepresentation, forging of books, corruptions of human writings, and the base and unholy trickery of false miracles, are resorted to as occasion may demand. Not such are the principles upon which Christians are called to fight. To them it is not permitted to act but according to the will and Word of God. 3. Let us regard, then, the methods by which the army of Christ are required to maintain their ground in the world. There are three modes of warfare by which they do this. They disarm their opponents, they silence the enemy, they bring them over to their side. These are the results of the Christian’ s mode of warfare. III. But I proceed to consider the weapons which the christen warrior uses. Will all the tradition, or all the philosophy, or all the science of the world break any sinner’ s heart, or bring him into captivity, or destroy the power of his sins? They are not the Christian’ s sword, and with such shall no man prevail. But let us bring the gospel to bear upon these cases. Let us set before the young man, the infidel, or the selfish worldling the love of God in Christ, exhibiting as it does on the one hand the peril and necessary judgment of sin, and on the other the glorious remedy which is provided, and you bring the only weapon which will pierce their hearts. The Scripture, then, is our weapon. IV. The discipline which is necessary for so great a conflict.1. Keep under the body. A habit of self-restraint is an essential element in Christian warfare. 2. Another direction is to endure hardness. Softness, and that temper which makes us shrink from opposition and the rough usage which we may meet with in our career, is often a sad hindrance to the Christian. 3. But the main thing is, that he should study the use of his weapon. 4. Last of all, pray. (W. Harrison, M. A.) Lay hold on eternal life. Man’ s great duty While there is eternal life in the gospel sufficient for all, none are specially excluded from its benefits. Those only are excluded who exclude themselves, and refuse to be saved on God’ s own terms. His proclamation of mercy to a lost, rebel world, is clogged with no exceptions. I. Consider our need of eternal life. Greatest gift of God! eternal life is deliverance from eternal death, the curse of a broken law, and the doom of a burning hell. Eternal life is eternal blessedness--the pardon of sin’ s guilt, and freedom from its tyrannous power. II. Consider how we obtain eternal life. III. Consider more particularly what we have to do, to obtain eternal life. Do! It is not to make ourselves worthy of it; nor to attempt to merit it; nor to wait till we are holy before we come to Christ. Salvation is not of works, but of faith. IV. Consider when we are to lay hold on eternal life--When--but now? If the body is in great danger, and means of safety and escape are offered, there is no occasion to press them on men; to cry, lay hold on life, or say, do it now. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Eternal life within present grasp “ Lay hold on eternal life.” Observe that this precept is preceded by another “ Fight the good fight of faith.” Those who lay hold on eternal life will have to fight for it. As my text follows the command to “ fight the good fight of faith,” it teaches us that the best way of contending for the faith is, for ourselves personally to lay hold on eternal life. You cannot defend the faith by mere reasoning. There is a higher and a better life than that which is known to the most of men. There is an animal life which all possess; there is a mental life which lifts us up above the beasts; bat there is another life as much above the mental life as the mental life is above the mere animal life. The bulk of men are not aware of this, and when they are told of it they do not believe the statement. Dream not that any of you will ever obtain eternal life hereafter unless you receive it in this life. Where death finds you eternity will leave you. I. “ Lay hold on eternal life,” that is, believe in it. You cannot lay hold on it unless you know it to be a reality. We do not lay hold on shadows, or fictions, or fancies. It is needful, therefore, to begin by a realizing faith.1. That we may believe in this life, let me say that Holy Scripture constantly describes men unrenewed by Divine grace as being dead; they are “ dead in trespasses and sins.” 2. The Scripture represents believers everywhere as possessing everlasting life. “ He that believeth in Him hath everlasting life.” 3. This life is produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit within the heart. 4. What a difference this quickening has made in those who have received it! What a marvellous life it is! It brings with it new perceptions, new emotions, new desires. It has new senses: there are new eyes, with which we see the invisible; new ears, with which we hear the voice of God, before inaudible. Then have we a new touch, with which we lay hold on Divine truth; then have we a new taste, so that we “ taste and see that the Lord is good.” This new life ushers us into a new world, and gives us new relationships and new privileges. I want you all to get this idea into your heads--I mean all of you who have not learned this fact as yet: there is a life superior to that of common men--a life eternal, to be enjoyed now and here. I want this idea to become a practical force with you. Stephenson got the notion of a steam-engine into his brain, and the steam-engine soon became a natural fact with him. Palissy, the potter, had his mind full of his art, and for it he sacrificed everything till he gained his end; so may you, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, lay hold upon eternal life as being a blessed possibility; and may you be moved to seek it! There is an eternal life; there is a life of God in the soul of man; and I trust that you will each one resolve, “ If it is to be had I will have it.” Henceforth direct your thoughts and desires this way. II. But this is not enough: it is merely the door-step of the subject. “ Lay hold on eternal life” : that is to say, possess it. Get it into your own soul: be yourself alive. How is eternal life grasped?1. It is laid hold of by faith in Jesus Christ. It is a very simple thing to trust the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet it is the only way of obtaining the eternal life. 2. This life once laid hold upon is exercised in holy acts. From day to day we lay hold on eternal life by exercising ourselves unto godliness in deeds of holiness and lovingkindness. Let your life be love, for love is life. Let your life be one of prayer and praise, for these are the breath of the new life. 3. In laying hold upon it, remember that it is increased by growth. Zealously grasp more and more of it. Do not be afraid of having too much spiritual life. Lay hold on it; for Christ has come not only that we may have life, but that we may have it more abundantly. 4. Remember that spiritual life is enjoyed in the fullest sense in close communion with God. “ This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” III. “ Lay hold on eternal life.” That is, watch over it, guard it, and protect it. Most men will preserve their lives at any cost. Unless they are drunk or mad, they will do anything for dear life: “ Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”1. Let every believer regard the life of God within him as being the most precious possession, more valuable by far than the natural life. It would be wise to lay down a thousand natural lives, if we had them, in order to preserve the spiritual life. 2. To that end the apostle bade Timothy flee from those things which are detrimental to that life. “ Thou, O man of God, flee these things.” A man that is very careful of his life will not remain in a house where fever has been rife. 3. Then the apostle tells Timothy to seek after everything that would promote his eternal life. He says, “ Follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness” : seek after that which will exercise and develop your highest life. Frequent those hills of holiness where the atmosphere is bracing for your new-born spirit. 4. God help us to lay hold on eternal life, and to that end above all things lay hold on Christ! We only live in Him: He is our life. To be divided from Christ is as surely death to us as it would be death to the body to be separated from the head. IV. “ Lay hold on eternal life,” that is, fulfil it. Labour that the time of your sojourning here shall be occupied, not with this poor, dying existence, but with the eternal life.1. Fulfil the higher and the eternal life in every position of society. The chapter opens with advice to servants, who then were slaves. Their earthly life was wretched indeed, but the apostle bids them live, not for this present life, but for the eternal life. 2. Fulfil this better life, also, by leaving alone those questions which would swallow up the hour. See how Paul destroys these devourers--“ Questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.” 3. Further, the apostle bids us do this so as to surmount the temptations of selfishness. He warns us that “ they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. V. Last of all, exact eternal life. By the two hands of faith and hope lay hold on eternal life as the great reward of the righteous.1. Let me suggest that we think much about the life to come. We shall soon be there in the endless home, let us send our thoughts thither like couriers in advance. 2. When you think of it, and your heart grows warm with the thought, then count it very near. Suppose you are to live a comparatively long life, yet no human life is really long. 3. Rehearse eternal life! Rehearse the service and joy of heaven! They have rehearsals of fine pieces of music; let us have a rehearsal of heaven’ s harmonies. The thing is practicable. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 6:13-16I give thee charge in the sight of God.Motives to steadfastness When earnest Christians realize that they are about to leave the world, they are concerned that those who will fill their places should be loyal to the principles they have tried to maintain. The “ commandment” which the young evangelist was to keep must be taken, in its broadest sense, as referring to the great principles of righteousness and truth which Christ Jesus had embodied and maintained. Although of celestial origin, this commandment would not appear to men “ without spot,” if its representatives were men of blemished reputation. Two motives to such steadfastness are suggested in the Verses before us: the one being drawn from the example of Christ, the other from the greatness of God. I. The example of Christ is suggested in the allusion made to--1. His good confession before Pontius Pilate. It is well for us when we either suffer, or compel, all the incidents of life to lead our thoughts back to Christ. It was partly in order to make this possible that the details of His life and ministry are so fully given in the Gospels. Temptations, troubles, friendships, joys, conflicts, all that go to make up our experience, find counterparts in Him. He witnessed a good confession, though He knew the price of it would be agony, shame, and death! There was a difference, however, between the Lord’ s confession and Timothy’ s or ours. Timothy “ confessed” the good confession, Christ Jesus “ witnessed” the good confession. Christ “ witnessed” because He was identified with the truth He confessed, and was the source of every such confession after. Timothy “ confessed,” for his confession was responsive and secondary, and found its inspiration in that of his Lord. 2. Christ’ s achieved victory is another source of encouragement to His faithful followers. The Cross of Calvary was the immediate result of our Lord’ s good confession; but that was not its final result. God, who quickeneth all things, has raised Him from the dead, and amongst the glorified and redeemed He already appears as Prince and Saviour. The victory of Christ is the encouragement and inspiration of all who are engaged in the conflicts of truth with error, of holiness with sin. Notice how this description of the expected appearing of Christ leads to the noble doxology which celebrates-- II. The greatness and glory of God, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” If He be for us, who can be against us? Timothy is fittingly reminded that--1. God is eternal. All time is at His disposal. 2. God is the blessed and only Potentate. If you substitute for “ blessed” its synonym in modern English, you get the beautiful truth, that ours is a happy God--full of joy in Himself, the source of joy to all His creatures. 3. “ God quickeneth all things.” He can so quicken us that out of sadness and difficulties and torpor He can raise us to newness of life. 4. God is incomprehensible--as yet to us--in Himself and in His doings; “ dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.” It is a beautiful thought, that He is not hidden from us through absence of light, but through excess of light. Therefore, amid the gradual development of His purposes, we have only to witness a good confession, leaving all the results to Him. 5. God is Almighty, “ the only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” the King of those who reign, the Lord of those who rule. All authority is in His hands. Let us not lose sight of Him to whom in this passage the great apostle ascribes honour and power everlasting. We too often regard ourselves as the rulers of the world, and forget our absolute dependence; but, in relation to the blessed and only Potentate, we are far more insignificant than insects are in relation to us. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The blessed and only Potentate.--Christ’ s service One figure stands at the centre of man’ s history and dominates over it all--the figure of Christ. Now, there is no way to be securely and perfectly this except for him who takes Christ as his King, Would you resist temptation, would you be pure, kind, contented, truthful, honest? Well, then, enroll yourself with deliberate purpose as Christ’ s soldier, His scholar, His servant, His subject. Christ our King! What kind of a king is He? His kingdom is not of this world. To understand Him you must lay aside altogether your notions of earthly sovereignty. From the Cross He has reigned. The throne of Solomon had its golden lions and ivory steps, and gorgeous was the jewelled chair of Byzantium; but the throne of the King of kings was a cross of shame. And, strange to say, the World, in its penitence, in its satiety, in its remorse, has turned away from its own petty potentates, has dropped its weapons, has torn the garland from its brow, has fallen low upon its knees before the Son of Man on His instrument of torture. It has gazed on Him in the faded purple of mockery, and in His crown of thorns, and nations have said, in awe-struck whispers, “ Behold your King!” Yes; and kings themselves have bowed down before that throne of sorrows. When Henry IV. of Germany cowered before the thin old Pope at Canossa; when Barbarossa received upon his neck the foot of the proud potentate; when our own Henry II. was scourged by monks before the shrine of Canterbury; when John received back his crown from Pandulf; when Godfrey refused to wear a crown of gold where his Saviour had a crown of thorns; when Rudolf of Hapsburg, not finding the sceptre in the temple of his coronation, seized upon the crucifix and swore that that should be his sceptre; when the most ancient crown of Europe was made, not of gold, but of iron, and that iron hammered, as men believed, out of a nail of the true cross--what was this but the homage of earthly kings to a Diviner royalty! Yes; and no power on earth has ever been able to resist Christ. Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King! Greece despised Him, and Greece glimmered into a dream; but the Cross remains. Rome hated Him, and Rome has crumbled into the dust; but the Cross remains. Philosophy rejected Him, and philosophy has sunk into impotence; but the Cross remains, Is ire your King? Or will you choose in His place some vile and worth less tyranny, some evil spirit, some despotic and besetting vice? Three centuries ago the Spaniards were besieging the little town of St. Quentin, on the frontiers of France. Its ramparts were in ruins, fever and famine were decimating its defenders, treason was gliding among its terrified population. One day the Spaniards shot over the walls a shower of arrows to which were attached little slips of parchment, promising the inhabitants that if they would surrender, their lives and property should be spared. Now, the governor of the town was the great leader of the Huguenots, Gaspard de Coligni. As his sole answer he took a piece of parchment, tied it to a javelin, wrote on it the two words, Regem habemus--“ We have a king” , and hurled it back into the camp of the enemy. Now that was true loyalty, loyalty in imminent peril, loyalty ready to sacrifice all. But who was that king for whom, amidst sword and flame, amid fever and famine, Coligni was defending those breached and battered walls? It was the weak and miserable Henry II. of France, whose son, Charles IX., was afterwards guilty of the murder of Coligui and the infamies of St. Bartholomew. Have you a king? Is Christ your King? All, if He be, He is not a feeble, corrupt, false, treacherous man like Coligui’ s master, but a King who loves you, who died for you, who pleads with you even now on the right hand of the Majesty on High. Is Christ your King? If you are selfish and frivolous; if you are a better and a gambler; if you are a whisperer and one who delights in lies; if you are a fornicator or a “ profane person, as was Esau” ; if you worship Mammon; if your god is your ledger and you mind earthly things; if you are double-tongued, shifty, niggardly, worldly--say not that Christ is your King. Is Christ your King? If in sincerity and truth you will take Christ for your King and Captain I promise you two things. First, I promise you security. Principle is a noble thing; but in the fatal mirage of the passions principle is lost sight of, and amid the glamour of temptation principle not only loses something of its pristine splendour, but it becomes as if it were not. And the other blessing which Christ will give you is joy.; for Christ says,” Peace I give you, My peace I leave with you; not as the world giveth give I unto you.” “ Not as the world giveth!” There has been a joy in dungeons and on scaffolds passing the joy of the harvest. Christ does not delude as Satan does with promises as. “ Serve me, and you shall be rich.” (Archdeacon Farrar.) The sovereignty of Christ 1. Jesus is a King in His own eternal and essential right. He is the Creator of all things; He is the Preserver of all things; He is the sovereign Lord and Proprietor of ell things. But, then, He is a King in another sense, and it is to that, that allusion is here made. 2. He has a mediatorial kingdom which was given Him by the Father as a recompense for His great and glorious undertaking on behalf of our world: and thus He is a mediatorial King. Now, in this view of the subject as a mediatorial King, and having mediatorial kingdom committed to His care, trust, management, and government, we may observe that this kingdom was small in its origin. At its first rising after His resurrection and ascension, the dimensions were small. 3. But, then, there is a third kingdom: if I may so speak, another kingdom within this kingdom--a kingdom in the hearts of His beloved people. “ The kingdom of God,” it is said, “ is within you.” It is in vain for men to pretend that they are the subjects of Christ merely because they are so outwardly. 4. I say He is a very bountiful Sovereign in whom you have trusted. He has promised to give everything which He possesses that He can give, and that His subjects can receive. He has made a covenant with them which is well ordered in all things and sure. “ All things are yours.” 5. Observe, again, He is a tender-hearted and sympathizing Sovereign. He feels for all His subjects; for every one of you, and for the meanest subject that He has; so that everything which concerns them concerns Him. There is no trial which presses sore on the mind which He does not feel, and in which He does not participate. 6. Then, observe, He is a condescending Sovereign. He entreats you to come to His bosom--to make known to Him your every concern. Solomon has this expression, “ In the light of the king’ s countenance is life.” There is doubtless here an allusion to the language of his royal Father: the father said, “ Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.” So he says again, “ One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Then again it is said, “ In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (W. Wilkinson.) Whom no man hath seen.--God invisible I. Consider what the eye itself is, the poor implement of which we demand so much. A ball of clay and mortality, it can act only on what is material and corruptible like itself. It is limited to a certain province even among these surrounding things. How delicate an organ it is, that is yet capable of taking in the broad scenes of the ocean and the land, and reaching as it were the stars at their immeasurable distances! At very short intervals of time it must be shut up within its fringes from the very light that it lives by; and when it is in its utmost vigour, the direct flash of a single sunbeam is more than it can bear. A tear dims it. A mote takes away from it every capacity but that of pain. A spark destroys it for ever. It cannot penetrate even the thin veils of outward nature. The true light may shine inward, though the body be dark. The soul sees otherwise and more nobly than through that narrow window. Is it through these lenses of flesh--so easily distempered, so often giving false pictures, so soon to perish--is it through these that we would gaze on the King Eternal? II. Think, further, who He is whom we ask to be thus manifested to us. The very idea of God absolutely excludes the possibility of His being an object of sight. He is a pure Intelligence, circumscribed by no form, bounded by no space, and to be communicated with only through the Spirit which Himself imparts. But the unconvinced may say: This is not what we seek, or have ever imagined. But we would lay our eyes upon some undeniable signs and representatives of the Almighty Providence. Yet the Scriptures tell them, and their own religious reason tells them, that they are actually surrounded with just such signs and representatives in the natural creation. It is His spirit that gives it life. It is His wisdom that gives it law. It is not, however, with such as these, they may reply, that we are satisfied. We would have testimonies strictly miraculous, transcending all the powers of nature, and thus exhibiting an immediate connection with the Almighty One. The Scriptures and our religious reason then take up the word again and say: Foolish and slow of heart! unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. It does not seem, then, that there is the virtue you fancy in the spectacle that you ask. And why should there be? Why should transient visions and strange occurrences impart a steadier trust than the perpetual marvels of this glorious world, and the eternal chain of decrees and providences that can be held but in one sovereign hand? One thing more may be urged by those who withhold or utter faintly the ascription in the text, “ To whom be honour and power ever lasting,” because “ no man hath seen nor can see Him.” They may say, It is not even such wonders as you have alluded to that we crave. They are for the individual only, or at most have their chief concern with but a tribe or a generation of men. We would have a supernatural sign that should be permanent and universal. It should be for all eyes. To this suggestion we need not call on the Scriptures for a reply. It demands an open impossibility, and is inconsistent with itself. Whatever should be thus associated with the works of nature must necessarily be regarded as one of them, however marvellous and inexplicable it might appear. We can scarcely conceive of anything more wonderful than is somewhere or other already presented. From what has been said, I hope it has been made clear, that no one has cause for objection or mistrust because the Lord is invisible, for it is inconceivable how He should be otherwise. “ To Him, whom no man hath seen or can see, be honour and power everlasting.” “ What we adore under the affection of our senses,” says an old writer, “ deserves not the honour of so pure a title. Nor is it strange that we should place affection on that which is invisible. All that we truly love is thus.” The soul itself--is it not invisible, like its Source? To be born as we are, animal and moral beings, into two states at once--to dwell in a world like this we inhabit of pale reflections and shadows, where what is the most real is the least obvious--and at the same time to think the outward shape everything, and the secret intelligence and power that makes all to be what it is, nothing--this is to want the very sense that best becomes and exults us. The Scriptures, with a beautiful boldness of expression, speak of “ seeing Him who is invisible.” And when they thus speak, their meaning is twofold--to acquaint ourselves with him and to rejoice as in His presence. “ He that doeth evil,” says John, “ hath not seen God.” But” Blessed are the pure in heart,” it is for them that the double privilege is reserved of knowing and enjoying Him. (N. L. Frothingham.) The invisible God The atheist never saw God, and therefore knows not how to believe such a being; he cannot comprehend Him. He would not be a God, if He could fall within the narrow model of a human understanding. He would not be infinite if He were comprehensible, or to be terminated by our sight. How small a thing must that be which is seen by a bodily eye, or grasped by a weak mind! If God were visible or comprehensible, He would be limited. Shall it be a sufficient demonstration from a blind man, that there is no fire in the room, because he sees it not, though he feel the warmth of it? The knowledge of the effect if sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause. Who ever saw his own life! Is it sufficient to deny a man lives, because he beholds not his life, and only knows it by his motion? He never saw his own soul, but he knows he hath one by his thinking power. The air renders itself sensible to men in its operations, yet was never seen by the eye. If God should render Himself visible, they might still question as well as now, whether that which was visible were God, or some delusion. If He should appear glorious, we can as little behold Him in His majestic glory, as an owl can behold the sun in its brightness; we should still but see Him in His effects, as we do the sun by its beams. If He should show a new miracle, we should still see Him but by His works; so we see Him in His creatures, every one of which would be as great a miracle as any can be wrought, to one that had the first prospect of them. To require to see God is to require that which is impossible (1 Timothy 6:16). (S. Charnock.) 1 Timothy 6:17; 1 Timothy 6:19 Charge them that are rich in this world.The perils and possibilities of the rich I. The dangers of the rich are manifold, but only two or three are suggested here.1. The danger of self-conceit is hinted at in the words, “ Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded.” The vulgar boasting of wealth, and the ostentatious display of it, are indications of this. Again, the self-sufficiency that leads a successful man to attribute all his gains to his own shrewdness and diligence, and to speak contemptuously of those who never get on in the world, as if God had nothing to do with his physical energy and mental calibre, with the education and training of his youth, or with the unexpected opportunities of his manhood, is another sign of “ high-mindedness.” The pride which refuses to associate with those whose income is smaller, and which will hold aloof from intelligent and religious men and women, in order to cultivate acquaintance with those whose minds are shallow, but whose establishments are costly, and whose influence in the money market is great. 2. Another danger threatening rich men is that of trusting to uncertain riches. It is on this evanescence that Paul lays stress when he speaks of the folly of trusting to them. He hints at the conquest of this by exercising confidence in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. The remembrance of the fact that God gave you money adds sacredness to it, a sense of responsibility in the use of it, and arouses the gratitude and praise which are His due. II. The opportunities of the rich are as noteworthy as their dangers.1. They can “ do good” to others, and many a noble institution has its source in the generous and wise gifts of those whom God has prospered. But besides this-- 2. They can do noble things. The words used by Paul, which are both rendered “ good” (in the R.V. as well as the A.V.), have not the same meaning in Greek. They would be better translated, “ Charge them that they do good, and that they be rich in noble deeds.” The latter word used by Paul signifies what is honourable and lovely in itself. It fell from the lips of our Lord when He described Mary’ s act of devotion. Rich men can afford to make wise and noble experiments in philanthropy and in Christian enterprise. III. The recompense of the rich who are thus faithful is not obscurely taught in the words which describe them as laying up in store for themselves “ a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” Of course, Paul does not mean that they gain eternal life by their good works. No one insists more strongly than he does on the fact that salvation is the gift of sovereign grace to the sinful and undeserving. But from its nature this grace becomes a talent, with which we are to do service for God. And since the nature of the future recompense is found in the development of life, all that makes that life more full of possibility and of result lays up in store a good foundation against the time to come. The fact is, that the connection between this life and that is far closer than many imagine it to be. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Trust in God, and not in riches 1. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may never acquire; to trust in God, is to trust in Him whom we may always depend on finding. 2. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot avail us in the various calamities which occur in the course of human life; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will always be with us in all our straits and trials. 3. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot meet the wants of the heart, if it is found; to trust in God, is to trust in One who can fully supply all our need. 4. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may be deprived of in a moment, or may gradually lose; to trust in God, is to trust in One whom we can never be deprived of, and never shall lose. 5. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we must all part with at last; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will be ours for ever. 6. Many and great are the blessings of every kind which this trust in God, rather than in riches, will secure to us. (1) It will teach us to moderate our desires after riches, and to be less eager than we often are in the pursuit of them. (2) It will show us how we may mingle the right pursuit of temporal things with that supreme regard to spiritual things which their paramount importance entitles them to. (3) It will enable us, when worldly losses come, to bear up patiently and hopefully under them, and to hear the voice of God speaking to us in them. (4) It will teach us the responsibility which is always connected with the possession of any portion of earthly things, and remind us of the account which we must give to God for the way we have used them. (Alex. Reid.) Human affections raised, not destroyed, by the gospel The apostle sets before us, in the text, two applications of the same human affection. He bids us not to “ trust in uncertain riches,” but to trust “ in the living God.” He assumes that this trusting impulse exists, and he would not destroy but reform it. He would exhibit the true and eternal object for a tendency in itself indestructible; and would intimate that there is pre pared for the just desires of the soul a sphere of being, adequate to these desires, and from which the present detains us, only as the counterfeit and mockery of it! On the one hand “ uncertain riches” ; on the other the parallel announcement, that “ God giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” And thus the Spirit, that spoke in the exhortation of Paul, instructs in the great truth, that the faculties of men are themselves a mechanism for eternity; that it is not they--it is not Love, and Reliance, and Hope, and Desire--but their habitual objects, that man must toil to change. On this important matter, then, I shall first endeavour briefly to engage your attention, and I shall then attempt to illustrate the melancholy extent of the actual perversion of our nature, by showing how, even in their wanderings, these affections betray the higher purpose for which they were primarily intended, and how--more especially in the instance noted in the text, the “ trust in riches” man still unconsciously invests with the very attributes of perfect felicity,, of heaven, and of God, the earthly idol to which he sacrifices both! There are those, then, who speak with solemn and prophetic truth of the change which comes over the aspect of the human soul, when, for the first time, “ awaking to righteousness,” it is introduced (while yet in the world of time) into the eternal world, and becomes cognizant of the glories, till then unseen, that surround “ the throne of God and the Lamb.” But when, from the dignity and circumstances of the change, men pass to define its natured there is often, it seems to me, much inaccuracy and some imprudence in their statements. We find it sometimes described as if no one element of human nature were to remain in the regenerate spirit. The declaration that a new heart is bestowed is taken in almost the fulness of a literal acceptation. All the old machinery of humanity is discarded; the “ works” are, as it were, taken out of the case of the instrument, and a totally new organization of passions and affections provided. The spiritual renewal is thus falsely, I think, and dangerously, made to consist, not in “ setting” our emancipated “ affections upon things above” --not in the privilege of having “ the whole body, and soul, and spirit preserved blameless until the coming of Christ,” but in the acquisition of some indescribable affections (if such they may be called), which, though they be named love and desire, are no longer human love and human desire, but differing almost as much, it would seem, from these affections as they are in our hearts, as love and hate differ from each other! Hence that mystic and dangerous mode of representation too common among a large class of teachers, which would exalt the “ love to God,” for example, beyond all human conception, not merely in the dignity of its object (in which, I need not say, no language could overstate it), but even in the very nature of the feeling; as if the love of a devoted friend was one thing and intelligible, but the love to God quite another affection, and all but incomprehensible! The error of all such cases is the same--the notion that in the work of renewal new faculties are given us, instead of a new direction to the old ones; the notion that God annihilates human nature when He only perfects it; to destroy the channels themselves, instead of cleansing their polluted streams, and then replenishing them for ever with the waters of Paradise! As long as men conceived that the religious affections are in their essence wholly different from every other affection, they will inevitably conclude that the training and discipline for them must be itself equally different. So far for the general principle involved in the particular exhortation of the apostle, the principle that the same affections which cling to the lowly earth are those which must struggle, under celestial guidance, to find their rest in God. “ Trust not in riches, but [trust] in the living God!” Blessed invitation I How it exalts, even while it reproves, our fettered nature! Trust, yes, trust with a devotedness such as the wildest frenzy of avarice has never exhibited! Trust, and fear not! It is among the noblest energies of your being--it was never given in vain. Trust, but “ trust in the living God!” Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage, Labour after knowledge, but let it be “ the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!” Be it ours to find in the new world unveiled in the gospel the true materials of these holy desires, and so to train them while on earth for the society of heaven. I have but this moment glanced at a topic which might well demand deeper and fuller illustration. I mean the change which the fact of the incarnation of God most rightfully make in all that concerns the laws and regulation of the human affections. For, after all, these affections do, doubtless, strive, in the first instance, towards human objects; human themselves, they naturally cling to the human outside and beyond them. Ever since God became incarnate, this tendency precludes not their direct passage to heaven; nay, it quickens and guides it. It would have been little short of miracle, that even the most pious should maintain the state of perpetual contemplative affection towards the awful essence of the unmingled God. But when that God became man this difficulty was removed. The direct pathway to heaven was opened to the human heart. And the more you regard the passage, the more will you perceive that such views as those I have sketched were, in substance, the views which occupied the inspired teacher. His whole object is manifestly to contrast the two rivals for the human heart, the worlds visible and invisible; and hence it is that the text before us is the natural sequel to the preceding verse, where the glory of the eternal God is unveiled in all its majesty as the object which is to fix the affections of man. There is, proclaims St. Paul (1 Timothy 6:15), a “ blessed and only Potentate,” who is hereafter to determine, “ in His own time” (as it is emphatically called), the appearing of Christ Jesus in glory. This Being demands, as His inalienable right, all the energies of all the affections; for no inferior claimant can interfere with Him, who is “ King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then comes the exhortation. Seeing that such a privilege as this is ours (1 Timothy 6:17), “ charge them that are rich in this world,” that they interpose not a veil between themselves and this Father of their spirits, or suffer the clouds and vapours of earth to sully or eclipse the beams of this eternal sun. “ Charge them, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy!” Our earthly objects of pursuit are themselves clad by hope with colours that rightfully belong only to their celestial rivals; our ordinary earthly longings themselves strain after a really heavenly happiness, while they miss so miserably the way to reach it; that, in other words, in the treasuries of heaven are laid up all that you truly covet, even while, by a wretched illusion, you labour after their mockeries on earth! Surely, if this can be proved, no conceivable argument can more powerfully demonstrate how we are made for religion, and can only find our true rest there! Now the truth is, so wholly are we framed for the eternal world, that we must make a heaven of earth before we can fully enjoy it. God has so inwoven, in the innermost texture of our nature, the title and testimonies of the immortal state for which He made us, that, mingled with the perishable elements of earth, it is, even now, for ever around us; it rises in all our dreams, it colours all our thoughts, it haunts us with longings we cannot repel; in our very vices it reveals itself, for they cannot charm us till they have more or less counterfeited it. There are aspirations turned astray, that, even in their distortion, attest their origin and purpose, There are warped, and crippled, and polluted hopes, that, even from their dungeon of flesh, still cry to heaven. In the spirit of these convictions, turn again to the text. To whom does the apostle enjoin the exhortation? To “ them that are rich in this world.” What does he here assume? He assumes the existence of wealth, and, involved in that existence, the desire to attain it, which is the necessary motive for its accumulation. He assumes that there resides in the heart of man the desire to build up around it the means of perpetual enjoyment, to secure to itself the materials of happiness--of happiness, for such is the specific essence of moneyed wealth, that may be independent of the moment, and which (as it were, condensed in its representative) may be preserved for a period indefinitely future. But what terms, save these, shall we employ, when we would depict the heaven of the Scripture revelation? What characters are these but the very properties of God’ s eternal world? And so far is it not manifest that the votary of earthly wealth does in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies? The delusion produces its own delusive results. But these also are but the shadowy copies of a bright and holy reality. Every attribute of the eager candidate for earthly happiness and security is but the poor semblance of the very state the Christian already possesses or anticipates. The rich are first warned of the peril of what is here called “ high-mindedness” ; a word whose happy ambiguity perfectly corresponds to my argument. But as there is a worldly and Satanic high-mindedness, so is this, as before, but the counterfeit presentment of a high-mindedness God-given and celestial. Laying deep its foundations in self-abasement, the doctrine of faith alone bestows the blessed confidence, without which the Christian may be the inconsolable penitent, the mortified ascetic, the prostrate trembler before an offended God; but without which he is, nevertheless, but half a Christian. The happy confidence of the children of God is an element which, though false teaching may exaggerate, no true teaching will ever discard. It is not for nothing that he is bid to rest upon the Rock of Ages, and to anticipate upon earth the repose of immortality. Here, then, is the “ high-mindedness” of the Christian; here is the truth to match that worldly falsehood, that high-mindedness base and debasing; here is the bright, unchanging fire, which the votary of this world would rake among the dust and ashes of earth to enkindle! Once more, the “ rich in this world” is warned, not merely of the peril of self-exaltation, but also of that of unbounded “ trust” in the fleeting riches he accumulates. The contrast I need not here insist on. We have already noticed it, and the apostle himself has expressly enforced it. The “ living God” and His liberal graces arise to claim the homage of the “ trusting” heart. The dependent on riches makes them his god, in making them the object of his dependence. Heaven is here again defrauded of its own, and all the charms of the Divine character, the charms that fix and fascinate the adoring believer in Christ--its abiding permanence, its just sovereignty, its fixed security, its unshaken falthfulness--all are torn from the throne of God to clothe the idol of the worshipper of wealth! (W. A. Butler.) The duties of the rich Every condition of life hath its peculiar dangers to be avoided and duties to be done, but none hath dangers more threatening or duties more important than that of the rich and great: whose situation, notwithstanding, is seldom considered by those who are in it as having anything to be feared; and is generally imagined by others to comprehend almost everything that is to be wished. To be thus environed with temptations, and probably sensible of none of them, is a most pitiable condition. Now the peculiar dangers of the rich and great arises either from the eminence of their station or the abundance of their wealth: and therefore the text points a caution against each. But I shall be able at present to treat only of the first: which is, that they be not high-minded. Every superiority of every sort, which men only imagine themselves possessed of, is too liable to be over-rated and improperly used. But superior fortune and condition are advantages so visible to all eyes, create such dependences, and give such influence, that it is no wonder if they tempt to uncommon haughtiness. Now undoubtedly distinguished rank is entitled to distinguished regard; and the good order of society very much depends on keeping up that regard; and therefore the great should in a proper manner be much more careful to keep it up than many of them are. But when they nurse up the consciousness of their own superiority into a contemptuous neglect of others and insolent expectations of unfit submissions from them, they have great need to be reminded that respect is paid to wealth and birth because the common good requires it, not because the persons who receive it are always worthy of it; but their dishonourable behaviour will be the more conspicuous for their honourable station. And even supposing them guilty of nothing else to lessen the esteem they claim, yet claiming too much of it, or too openly, will frustrate their intention most effectually. For neither equals nor inferiors will suffer near so much to be extorted from them as they would have bestowed most freely on their own accord. But one sort of condescension to inferiors may be of peculiar advantage; I mean listening to useful information and advice from them, things which the great are very apt to think themselves above, when every one else sees they have much need of them. Neither affluence nor high rank by any means imply superiority of judgment. But if humility in the great could be no ether way beneficial to them, yet avoiding the guilt of so injurious a behaviour as indulging a proud spirit prompts them to, is surely a motive important enough. Thus too many treat their tenants hardly, or permit them to be so treated. Another sort of persons, for whom superiors too commonly will not vouchsafe to have the consideration that they ought, are those who come to them upon business. Obliging such to an unreasonable attendance, making them wait long, and it may be return often, is a very provoking and a very injurious kind of stateliness. But there is another fault still worse frequently joined with this; deeming it beneath their notice whether such of their inferiors as have just and reasonable demands upon them are paid when they ought. Another very blameable and very pernicious instance of high-mindedness in the great is imagining the management of their families an attention too low for them. Even that of their children they very commonly despise to an astonishing degree. Or if they have humility enough to inspect some part of their education, it is usually the outward and showy but less material part. Now proceed to the latter, trusting in uncertain riches: which phrase comprehends placing the happiness of life either in wealth itself or in those pleasures and amusements which it is commonly made the instrument of procuring. The prohibition therefore of doing this extends to regulate the acquisition, the possession, and use of a great fortune; and to go through the subject fully, each of these points must be considered.1. The acquisition. In speculation it seems hardly to be expected that any one who is once master of enough to answer his real and reasonable wants should feel any desire almost, on his own account, of having more: that he should take much pains about is very wonderful; and that he should do anything wrong for it quite unaccountable. No temptation is a warrant for doing wrong; but to do wrong without anything that deserves the name of a temptation is exceedingly bad. And it cannes be nature, but merely an absurd habit wilfully indulged, that tempts men to accumulate what they have no need of. But though riches alone render eagerness for more very blameable and unbecoming, yet greatness added to them doubles the fault. For exalted rank absolutely calls for the exercise of honourable disinterestedness. 2. Concerning the possession of it. Now keeping a heap of wealth merely for the sake of keeping it is an apparent absurdity. Keeping it merely for the repute of having it is a very low inducement. And if laying up against future accidents be pretended, a moderate store will suffice for a reasonable security, and nothing can secure us absolutely. Indeed the larger the fortune, the more room for accidents in one part or another of it; and the loss of a small part will be as grievous to a heart set upon riches as that of a larger to another man. Besides, whoever lives only to the purpose of saving and accumulating will be tempted by this ruling passion to a sinful neglect of the poor and the worthy among his friends and dependants, perhaps among his relations and very children. But besides the sins which may be committed in the getting or keeping of wealth, there are-- 3. Others, committed too frequently in using it; which persons of superior fortune and rank must be charged to avoid, and which undoubtedly the text comprehends. For putting their trust in riches is just as much the description of those who place the happiness of life in the enjoyment of large estates as those who place it in the possession of them. Some trust in their riches so very inconsiderately that they trust there will never be an end of them, let them be squandered as extravagantly as they will. So they set out with gratifying themselves in everything. Others, if they do not dissipate their estates in so wild a manner, yet use them principally to minister to their sensuality and debauchery; vices which men of superior fortune somehow imagine they have a sort of right to be guilty of. Another very bad use of wealth, in which too many seem to place no small part of their happiness, is that of gaming. But supposing wealth be neither spent in this nor any of the gross vices mentioned before, yet if it be employed in ministering to a course of more decent and refined luxury, or in supporting such a pomp of life as nourishes vanity and pride, or in filling so much time with unprofitable entertainment, that little room is left in the mind for objects of importance: these things also the rich and great must be charged to amend. I proceed to the duties of which he enjoins they shall be peculiarly reminded.1. The first is, to trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. After warning them against placing their happiness in the pre-eminences, the possessions or pleasures of this world, it was very natural to direct them where they should place it: for somewhere-we must. And his precept carries the proof of its own fitness along with it. For the living God must have the greatest power to reward our trust, and He who giveth us all things richly to enjoy hath shown Himself to have the greatest will also. Some persons, it may be, when they are pressed upon the subject, will plead that they are by no means without inward regard to God; though they cannot say they give much outward demonstration of it in acts of worship. But supposing them sincere, what reason can there be why respect to God should not be paid outwardly when respect to every superior besides is? But it is possible for us to keep up a sufficient possession of religion to secure both public order and domestic tranquility, yet by no means have a sufficient sense of it for obtaining eternal life; and what will the former avail us without the latter? We should all, therefore, learn to live more to our Maker; to imprint on our hearts and exert in our whole behaviour a stronger sense of His present providence and future rewards. It would be a direction, a security, an improvement, a comfort to us beyond expression. 2. The second duty prescribed in the text as peculiarly necessary for the rich and great is that they do good, that they be rich in good works. If men of rank and fortune observe duly the preceding part of the apostle’ s charge, they will easily be induced to observe the concluding one. If they are neither so high-minded as to neglect and despise their fellow-creatures, nor so selfish as to trust in uncertain riches, in the acquisition, the possession, or voluptuous enjoyment of them, for their happiness, but expect it only from their acceptance with the living God; they will naturally imitate Him whom they desire to please, particularly in His beneficence, the most amiable of all His perfections. And it is not by their wealth only that they are able and therefore called to do good, but by their whole behaviour. But still, though almsgiving is by no means the whole of beneficence, yet it is an essential part in those whom God hath qualified for it. And He hath given them all things richly and in plenty, not merely for themselves to enjoy in the vulgar sense, but that others may enjoy a due share of them and they the pleasure of imparting it; the worthiest and highest enjoyment of wealth that can be. But, in general, that both our charity and our generosity should bear some decent and liberal proportion to our abilities, and the rich in this world be rich in good works also. Nor is it sufficient for the rich to give plentifully, but they must do it on every fit occasion speedily; be ready to distribute and not stay till the circumstances of the poor are beyond recovery or their spirits broken under the weight of their misfortunes, but make haste to help them and, as far as possible, prevent distress. (T. Seeker.) God the giver of wealth A good example of liberality was given by Mr. Thornton, of Clapham, a noble-hearted Christian merchant. One morning, when he had received news of a failure that involved him in a loss of no less than a hundred thousand pounds, a minister from the country called at his countinghouse to ask a subscription for an important object. Hearing that Mr. Thornton had suffered that loss, he apologized for having called. But Mr. Thornton took him kindly by the hand: “ My dear sir, the wealth I have is not mine, but the Lord’ s. It may be that He is going to take it out of my hands and give it to another; and if so, this is a good reason why I should make a good use of what is left.” He then doubled the subscription he had formerly intended to give. That they do good.--Live for some purpose Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit nor seeing when good cometh--a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub. (J. A. James.) The opportunity of doing good We shall then know better than we do now know that every soul on its way to eternity has its appointed times and seasons of good, which, if they be allowed to pass away shall never, never return again. Though the person be not lost, yet the innocence, the heroism, the saintliness, may be. We must, therefore, lose no opportunity of doing good to the souls and bodies of those whom God’ s good providence has put under our care, because if we miss it by our own fault, it may never again be allowed to us; the persons whom God intended us to profit may be taken out of our reach, may be taken into another world before they come in our way again. (John Keble.) Doing good An eminent surgeon, who was also an eminent Christian, visited a lady who was a professed believer in Christ, but who, like some ladies I have heard of, was frequently troubled with imaginary diseases. The good doctor was frequently called in, until at last he said to her, “ Madam, I will give you a prescription which I am certain will make a healthy woman of you, if you will follow it.” “ Sir,” she said, “ I shall be so glad to have good health that I will be sure to follow it.” “ Madam, I will send you the prescription this evening.” When it arrived it consisted of these words, “ Do good to somebody.” She roused herself to relieve a poor neighbour, and then sought out others who needed her help, and the Christian woman, who had been so constantly desponding and nervous, became a healthy, cheerful woman, for she had an object to live for, and found joy in doing good to others. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 6:17; 1 Timothy 6:19 Charge them that are rich in this world.The perils and possibilities of the rich I. The dangers of the rich are manifold, but only two or three are suggested here.1. The danger of self-conceit is hinted at in the words, “ Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded.” The vulgar boasting of wealth, and the ostentatious display of it, are indications of this. Again, the self-sufficiency that leads a successful man to attribute all his gains to his own shrewdness and diligence, and to speak contemptuously of those who never get on in the world, as if God had nothing to do with his physical energy and mental calibre, with the education and training of his youth, or with the unexpected opportunities of his manhood, is another sign of “ high-mindedness.” The pride which refuses to associate with those whose income is smaller, and which will hold aloof from intelligent and religious men and women, in order to cultivate acquaintance with those whose minds are shallow, but whose establishments are costly, and whose influence in the money market is great. 2. Another danger threatening rich men is that of trusting to uncertain riches. It is on this evanescence that Paul lays stress when he speaks of the folly of trusting to them. He hints at the conquest of this by exercising confidence in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. The remembrance of the fact that God gave you money adds sacredness to it, a sense of responsibility in the use of it, and arouses the gratitude and praise which are His due. II. The opportunities of the rich are as noteworthy as their dangers.1. They can “ do good” to others, and many a noble institution has its source in the generous and wise gifts of those whom God has prospered. But besides this-- 2. They can do noble things. The words used by Paul, which are both rendered “ good” (in the R.V. as well as the A.V.), have not the same meaning in Greek. They would be better translated, “ Charge them that they do good, and that they be rich in noble deeds.” The latter word used by Paul signifies what is honourable and lovely in itself. It fell from the lips of our Lord when He described Mary’ s act of devotion. Rich men can afford to make wise and noble experiments in philanthropy and in Christian enterprise. III. The recompense of the rich who are thus faithful is not obscurely taught in the words which describe them as laying up in store for themselves “ a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” Of course, Paul does not mean that they gain eternal life by their good works. No one insists more strongly than he does on the fact that salvation is the gift of sovereign grace to the sinful and undeserving. But from its nature this grace becomes a talent, with which we are to do service for God. And since the nature of the future recompense is found in the development of life, all that makes that life more full of possibility and of result lays up in store a good foundation against the time to come. The fact is, that the connection between this life and that is far closer than many imagine it to be. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) Trust in God, and not in riches 1. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may never acquire; to trust in God, is to trust in Him whom we may always depend on finding. 2. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot avail us in the various calamities which occur in the course of human life; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will always be with us in all our straits and trials. 3. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot meet the wants of the heart, if it is found; to trust in God, is to trust in One who can fully supply all our need. 4. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may be deprived of in a moment, or may gradually lose; to trust in God, is to trust in One whom we can never be deprived of, and never shall lose. 5. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we must all part with at last; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will be ours for ever. 6. Many and great are the blessings of every kind which this trust in God, rather than in riches, will secure to us. (1) It will teach us to moderate our desires after riches, and to be less eager than we often are in the pursuit of them. (2) It will show us how we may mingle the right pursuit of temporal things with that supreme regard to spiritual things which their paramount importance entitles them to. (3) It will enable us, when worldly losses come, to bear up patiently and hopefully under them, and to hear the voice of God speaking to us in them. (4) It will teach us the responsibility which is always connected with the possession of any portion of earthly things, and remind us of the account which we must give to God for the way we have used them. (Alex. Reid.) Human affections raised, not destroyed, by the gospel The apostle sets before us, in the text, two applications of the same human affection. He bids us not to “ trust in uncertain riches,” but to trust “ in the living God.” He assumes that this trusting impulse exists, and he would not destroy but reform it. He would exhibit the true and eternal object for a tendency in itself indestructible; and would intimate that there is pre pared for the just desires of the soul a sphere of being, adequate to these desires, and from which the present detains us, only as the counterfeit and mockery of it! On the one hand “ uncertain riches” ; on the other the parallel announcement, that “ God giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” And thus the Spirit, that spoke in the exhortation of Paul, instructs in the great truth, that the faculties of men are themselves a mechanism for eternity; that it is not they--it is not Love, and Reliance, and Hope, and Desire--but their habitual objects, that man must toil to change. On this important matter, then, I shall first endeavour briefly to engage your attention, and I shall then attempt to illustrate the melancholy extent of the actual perversion of our nature, by showing how, even in their wanderings, these affections betray the higher purpose for which they were primarily intended, and how--more especially in the instance noted in the text, the “ trust in riches” man still unconsciously invests with the very attributes of perfect felicity,, of heaven, and of God, the earthly idol to which he sacrifices both! There are those, then, who speak with solemn and prophetic truth of the change which comes over the aspect of the human soul, when, for the first time, “ awaking to righteousness,” it is introduced (while yet in the world of time) into the eternal world, and becomes cognizant of the glories, till then unseen, that surround “ the throne of God and the Lamb.” But when, from the dignity and circumstances of the change, men pass to define its natured there is often, it seems to me, much inaccuracy and some imprudence in their statements. We find it sometimes described as if no one element of human nature were to remain in the regenerate spirit. The declaration that a new heart is bestowed is taken in almost the fulness of a literal acceptation. All the old machinery of humanity is discarded; the “ works” are, as it were, taken out of the case of the instrument, and a totally new organization of passions and affections provided. The spiritual renewal is thus falsely, I think, and dangerously, made to consist, not in “ setting” our emancipated “ affections upon things above” --not in the privilege of having “ the whole body, and soul, and spirit preserved blameless until the coming of Christ,” but in the acquisition of some indescribable affections (if such they may be called), which, though they be named love and desire, are no longer human love and human desire, but differing almost as much, it would seem, from these affections as they are in our hearts, as love and hate differ from each other! Hence that mystic and dangerous mode of representation too common among a large class of teachers, which would exalt the “ love to God,” for example, beyond all human conception, not merely in the dignity of its object (in which, I need not say, no language could overstate it), but even in the very nature of the feeling; as if the love of a devoted friend was one thing and intelligible, but the love to God quite another affection, and all but incomprehensible! The error of all such cases is the same--the notion that in the work of renewal new faculties are given us, instead of a new direction to the old ones; the notion that God annihilates human nature when He only perfects it; to destroy the channels themselves, instead of cleansing their polluted streams, and then replenishing them for ever with the waters of Paradise! As long as men conceived that the religious affections are in their essence wholly different from every other affection, they will inevitably conclude that the training and discipline for them must be itself equally different. So far for the general principle involved in the particular exhortation of the apostle, the principle that the same affections which cling to the lowly earth are those which must struggle, under celestial guidance, to find their rest in God. “ Trust not in riches, but [trust] in the living God!” Blessed invitation I How it exalts, even while it reproves, our fettered nature! Trust, yes, trust with a devotedness such as the wildest frenzy of avarice has never exhibited! Trust, and fear not! It is among the noblest energies of your being--it was never given in vain. Trust, but “ trust in the living God!” Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage, Labour after knowledge, but let it be “ the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!” Be it ours to find in the new world unveiled in the gospel the true materials of these holy desires, and so to train them while on earth for the society of heaven. I have but this moment glanced at a topic which might well demand deeper and fuller illustration. I mean the change which the fact of the incarnation of God most rightfully make in all that concerns the laws and regulation of the human affections. For, after all, these affections do, doubtless, strive, in the first instance, towards human objects; human themselves, they naturally cling to the human outside and beyond them. Ever since God became incarnate, this tendency precludes not their direct passage to heaven; nay, it quickens and guides it. It would have been little short of miracle, that even the most pious should maintain the state of perpetual contemplative affection towards the awful essence of the unmingled God. But when that God became man this difficulty was removed. The direct pathway to heaven was opened to the human heart. And the more you regard the passage, the more will you perceive that such views as those I have sketched were, in substance, the views which occupied the inspired teacher. His whole object is manifestly to contrast the two rivals for the human heart, the worlds visible and invisible; and hence it is that the text before us is the natural sequel to the preceding verse, where the glory of the eternal God is unveiled in all its majesty as the object which is to fix the affections of man. There is, proclaims St. Paul (1 Timothy 6:15), a “ blessed and only Potentate,” who is hereafter to determine, “ in His own time” (as it is emphatically called), the appearing of Christ Jesus in glory. This Being demands, as His inalienable right, all the energies of all the affections; for no inferior claimant can interfere with Him, who is “ King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then comes the exhortation. Seeing that such a privilege as this is ours (1 Timothy 6:17), “ charge them that are rich in this world,” that they interpose not a veil between themselves and this Father of their spirits, or suffer the clouds and vapours of earth to sully or eclipse the beams of this eternal sun. “ Charge them, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy!” Our earthly objects of pursuit are themselves clad by hope with colours that rightfully belong only to their celestial rivals; our ordinary earthly longings themselves strain after a really heavenly happiness, while they miss so miserably the way to reach it; that, in other words, in the treasuries of heaven are laid up all that you truly covet, even while, by a wretched illusion, you labour after their mockeries on earth! Surely, if this can be proved, no conceivable argument can more powerfully demonstrate how we are made for religion, and can only find our true rest there! Now the truth is, so wholly are we framed for the eternal world, that we must make a heaven of earth before we can fully enjoy it. God has so inwoven, in the innermost texture of our nature, the title and testimonies of the immortal state for which He made us, that, mingled with the perishable elements of earth, it is, even now, for ever around us; it rises in all our dreams, it colours all our thoughts, it haunts us with longings we cannot repel; in our very vices it reveals itself, for they cannot charm us till they have more or less counterfeited it. There are aspirations turned astray, that, even in their distortion, attest their origin and purpose, There are warped, and crippled, and polluted hopes, that, even from their dungeon of flesh, still cry to heaven. In the spirit of these convictions, turn again to the text. To whom does the apostle enjoin the exhortation? To “ them that are rich in this world.” What does he here assume? He assumes the existence of wealth, and, involved in that existence, the desire to attain it, which is the necessary motive for its accumulation. He assumes that there resides in the heart of man the desire to build up around it the means of perpetual enjoyment, to secure to itself the materials of happiness--of happiness, for such is the specific essence of moneyed wealth, that may be independent of the moment, and which (as it were, condensed in its representative) may be preserved for a period indefinitely future. But what terms, save these, shall we employ, when we would depict the heaven of the Scripture revelation? What characters are these but the very properties of God’ s eternal world? And so far is it not manifest that the votary of earthly wealth does in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies? The delusion produces its own delusive results. But these also are but the shadowy copies of a bright and holy reality. Every attribute of the eager candidate for earthly happiness and security is but the poor semblance of the very state the Christian already possesses or anticipates. The rich are first warned of the peril of what is here called “ high-mindedness” ; a word whose happy ambiguity perfectly corresponds to my argument. But as there is a worldly and Satanic high-mindedness, so is this, as before, but the counterfeit presentment of a high-mindedness God-given and celestial. Laying deep its foundations in self-abasement, the doctrine of faith alone bestows the blessed confidence, without which the Christian may be the inconsolable penitent, the mortified ascetic, the prostrate trembler before an offended God; but without which he is, nevertheless, but half a Christian. The happy confidence of the children of God is an element which, though false teaching may exaggerate, no true teaching will ever discard. It is not for nothing that he is bid to rest upon the Rock of Ages, and to anticipate upon earth the repose of immortality. Here, then, is the “ high-mindedness” of the Christian; here is the truth to match that worldly falsehood, that high-mindedness base and debasing; here is the bright, unchanging fire, which the votary of this world would rake among the dust and ashes of earth to enkindle! Once more, the “ rich in this world” is warned, not merely of the peril of self-exaltation, but also of that of unbounded “ trust” in the fleeting riches he accumulates. The contrast I need not here insist on. We have already noticed it, and the apostle himself has expressly enforced it. The “ living God” and His liberal graces arise to claim the homage of the “ trusting” heart. The dependent on riches makes them his god, in making them the object of his dependence. Heaven is here again defrauded of its own, and all the charms of the Divine character, the charms that fix and fascinate the adoring believer in Christ--its abiding permanence, its just sovereignty, its fixed security, its unshaken falthfulness--all are torn from the throne of God to clothe the idol of the worshipper of wealth! (W. A. Butler.) The duties of the rich Every condition of life hath its peculiar dangers to be avoided and duties to be done, but none hath dangers more threatening or duties more important than that of the rich and great: whose situation, notwithstanding, is seldom considered by those who are in it as having anything to be feared; and is generally imagined by others to comprehend almost everything that is to be wished. To be thus environed with temptations, and probably sensible of none of them, is a most pitiable condition. Now the peculiar dangers of the rich and great arises either from the eminence of their station or the abundance of their wealth: and therefore the text points a caution against each. But I shall be able at present to treat only of the first: which is, that they be not high-minded. Every superiority of every sort, which men only imagine themselves possessed of, is too liable to be over-rated and improperly used. But superior fortune and condition are advantages so visible to all eyes, create such dependences, and give such influence, that it is no wonder if they tempt to uncommon haughtiness. Now undoubtedly distinguished rank is entitled to distinguished regard; and the good order of society very much depends on keeping up that regard; and therefore the great should in a proper manner be much more careful to keep it up than many of them are. But when they nurse up the consciousness of their own superiority into a contemptuous neglect of others and insolent expectations of unfit submissions from them, they have great need to be reminded that respect is paid to wealth and birth because the common good requires it, not because the persons who receive it are always worthy of it; but their dishonourable behaviour will be the more conspicuous for their honourable station. And even supposing them guilty of nothing else to lessen the esteem they claim, yet claiming too much of it, or too openly, will frustrate their intention most effectually. For neither equals nor inferiors will suffer near so much to be extorted from them as they would have bestowed most freely on their own accord. But one sort of condescension to inferiors may be of peculiar advantage; I mean listening to useful information and advice from them, things which the great are very apt to think themselves above, when every one else sees they have much need of them. Neither affluence nor high rank by any means imply superiority of judgment. But if humility in the great could be no ether way beneficial to them, yet avoiding the guilt of so injurious a behaviour as indulging a proud spirit prompts them to, is surely a motive important enough. Thus too many treat their tenants hardly, or permit them to be so treated. Another sort of persons, for whom superiors too commonly will not vouchsafe to have the consideration that they ought, are those who come to them upon business. Obliging such to an unreasonable attendance, making them wait long, and it may be return often, is a very provoking and a very injurious kind of stateliness. But there is another fault still worse frequently joined with this; deeming it beneath their notice whether such of their inferiors as have just and reasonable demands upon them are paid when they ought. Another very blameable and very pernicious instance of high-mindedness in the great is imagining the management of their families an attention too low for them. Even that of their children they very commonly despise to an astonishing degree. Or if they have humility enough to inspect some part of their education, it is usually the outward and showy but less material part. Now proceed to the latter, trusting in uncertain riches: which phrase comprehends placing the happiness of life either in wealth itself or in those pleasures and amusements which it is commonly made the instrument of procuring. The prohibition therefore of doing this extends to regulate the acquisition, the possession, and use of a great fortune; and to go through the subject fully, each of these points must be considered.1. The acquisition. In speculation it seems hardly to be expected that any one who is once master of enough to answer his real and reasonable wants should feel any desire almost, on his own account, of having more: that he should take much pains about is very wonderful; and that he should do anything wrong for it quite unaccountable. No temptation is a warrant for doing wrong; but to do wrong without anything that deserves the name of a temptation is exceedingly bad. And it cannes be nature, but merely an absurd habit wilfully indulged, that tempts men to accumulate what they have no need of. But though riches alone render eagerness for more very blameable and unbecoming, yet greatness added to them doubles the fault. For exalted rank absolutely calls for the exercise of honourable disinterestedness. 2. Concerning the possession of it. Now keeping a heap of wealth merely for the sake of keeping it is an apparent absurdity. Keeping it merely for the repute of having it is a very low inducement. And if laying up against future accidents be pretended, a moderate store will suffice for a reasonable security, and nothing can secure us absolutely. Indeed the larger the fortune, the more room for accidents in one part or another of it; and the loss of a small part will be as grievous to a heart set upon riches as that of a larger to another man. Besides, whoever lives only to the purpose of saving and accumulating will be tempted by this ruling passion to a sinful neglect of the poor and the worthy among his friends and dependants, perhaps among his relations and very children. But besides the sins which may be committed in the getting or keeping of wealth, there are-- 3. Others, committed too frequently in using it; which persons of superior fortune and rank must be charged to avoid, and which undoubtedly the text comprehends. For putting their trust in riches is just as much the description of those who place the happiness of life in the enjoyment of large estates as those who place it in the possession of them. Some trust in their riches so very inconsiderately that they trust there will never be an end of them, let them be squandered as extravagantly as they will. So they set out with gratifying themselves in everything. Others, if they do not dissipate their estates in so wild a manner, yet use them principally to minister to their sensuality and debauchery; vices which men of superior fortune somehow imagine they have a sort of right to be guilty of. Another very bad use of wealth, in which too many seem to place no small part of their happiness, is that of gaming. But supposing wealth be neither spent in this nor any of the gross vices mentioned before, yet if it be employed in ministering to a course of more decent and refined luxury, or in supporting such a pomp of life as nourishes vanity and pride, or in filling so much time with unprofitable entertainment, that little room is left in the mind for objects of importance: these things also the rich and great must be charged to amend. I proceed to the duties of which he enjoins they shall be peculiarly reminded.1. The first is, to trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. After warning them against placing their happiness in the pre-eminences, the possessions or pleasures of this world, it was very natural to direct them where they should place it: for somewhere-we must. And his precept carries the proof of its own fitness along with it. For the living God must have the greatest power to reward our trust, and He who giveth us all things richly to enjoy hath shown Himself to have the greatest will also. Some persons, it may be, when they are pressed upon the subject, will plead that they are by no means without inward regard to God; though they cannot say they give much outward demonstration of it in acts of worship. But supposing them sincere, what reason can there be why respect to God should not be paid outwardly when respect to every superior besides is? But it is possible for us to keep up a sufficient possession of religion to secure both public order and domestic tranquility, yet by no means have a sufficient sense of it for obtaining eternal life; and what will the former avail us without the latter? We should all, therefore, learn to live more to our Maker; to imprint on our hearts and exert in our whole behaviour a stronger sense of His present providence and future rewards. It would be a direction, a security, an improvement, a comfort to us beyond expression. 2. The second duty prescribed in the text as peculiarly necessary for the rich and great is that they do good, that they be rich in good works. If men of rank and fortune observe duly the preceding part of the apostle’ s charge, they will easily be induced to observe the concluding one. If they are neither so high-minded as to neglect and despise their fellow-creatures, nor so selfish as to trust in uncertain riches, in the acquisition, the possession, or voluptuous enjoyment of them, for their happiness, but expect it only from their acceptance with the living God; they will naturally imitate Him whom they desire to please, particularly in His beneficence, the most amiable of all His perfections. And it is not by their wealth only that they are able and therefore called to do good, but by their whole behaviour. But still, though almsgiving is by no means the whole of beneficence, yet it is an essential part in those whom God hath qualified for it. And He hath given them all things richly and in plenty, not merely for themselves to enjoy in the vulgar sense, but that others may enjoy a due share of them and they the pleasure of imparting it; the worthiest and highest enjoyment of wealth that can be. But, in general, that both our charity and our generosity should bear some decent and liberal proportion to our abilities, and the rich in this world be rich in good works also. Nor is it sufficient for the rich to give plentifully, but they must do it on every fit occasion speedily; be ready to distribute and not stay till the circumstances of the poor are beyond recovery or their spirits broken under the weight of their misfortunes, but make haste to help them and, as far as possible, prevent distress. (T. Seeker.) God the giver of wealth A good example of liberality was given by Mr. Thornton, of Clapham, a noble-hearted Christian merchant. One morning, when he had received news of a failure that involved him in a loss of no less than a hundred thousand pounds, a minister from the country called at his countinghouse to ask a subscription for an important object. Hearing that Mr. Thornton had suffered that loss, he apologized for having called. But Mr. Thornton took him kindly by the hand: “ My dear sir, the wealth I have is not mine, but the Lord’ s. It may be that He is going to take it out of my hands and give it to another; and if so, this is a good reason why I should make a good use of what is left.” He then doubled the subscription he had formerly intended to give. That they do good.--Live for some purpose Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit nor seeing when good cometh--a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub. (J. A. James.) The opportunity of doing good We shall then know better than we do now know that every soul on its way to eternity has its appointed times and seasons of good, which, if they be allowed to pass away shall never, never return again. Though the person be not lost, yet the innocence, the heroism, the saintliness, may be. We must, therefore, lose no opportunity of doing good to the souls and bodies of those whom God’ s good providence has put under our care, because if we miss it by our own fault, it may never again be allowed to us; the persons whom God intended us to profit may be taken out of our reach, may be taken into another world before they come in our way again. (John Keble.) Doing good An eminent surgeon, who was also an eminent Christian, visited a lady who was a professed believer in Christ, but who, like some ladies I have heard of, was frequently troubled with imaginary diseases. The good doctor was frequently called in, until at last he said to her, “ Madam, I will give you a prescription which I am certain will make a healthy woman of you, if you will follow it.” “ Sir,” she said, “ I shall be so glad to have good health that I will be sure to follow it.” “ Madam, I will send you the prescription this evening.” When it arrived it consisted of these words, “ Do good to somebody.” She roused herself to relieve a poor neighbour, and then sought out others who needed her help, and the Christian woman, who had been so constantly desponding and nervous, became a healthy, cheerful woman, for she had an object to live for, and found joy in doing good to others. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Timothy 6:20-21O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust.Peril and preservation I. The peril against which the apostle warns Timothy was the intellectual pride and subtle speculation which, afterwards, in the second and third centuries, became formulated into a sort of philosophical system. It was then known as Gnosticism, because it exalted “ gnosis” --knowledge--above faith, and was of a decidedly presumptuous and pragmatical tendency. The effect of such knowledge has ever been to cause men to err concerning the faith; to lose simplicity and devoutness; to wander into the pleasant meadows of Doubting Castle, till they are seized and imprisoned by Giant Despair; and unless they there learn to pray, and bethink them of the key of promise, they are left at last to fumble and stumble among the tombs. “ He who wandereth out of the way of understanding shall abide in the congregation of the dead.” II. Preservation from such peril is to be found in God’ s answer to the prayer which Paul breathed over Timothy--“ Grace be with thee.” We cannot by searching find out God. Intellectual acuteness has never yet succeeded in discovering Him. (A. Rowland, LL. B.) The guarding of the deposit What the deposit was, we may not doubt. It was the Christian faith, in its entirety and purity; and the contexts, in which the apostle’ s repeated warning occurs, present to us the occasions which even then rendered it necessary. “ Profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called,” were, even then, undermining the faith of their authors and of those who listened to them; and it was requisite that even one who had received from the lips of St. Paul himself “ the form of sound words,” should be exhorted to “ hold it fast.” But to us, at this far later stage of the Church’ s history, the admonition comes fraught with many a lesson, to be drawn from the experience of the past, and also from the peculiar circumstances in which we find ourselves placed, by the providence of God, as members of the Church of England. The deposit of the faith may be regarded under a more simple or a more complex form. Any Christian man who can recite the Apostles’ Creed may be said to have the deposit of the faith stored in his memory; but how much more, “ pertaining to life and godliness,” does he not require, both for the enlightening of his understanding, and for the guidance of his life? Brethren, do we consider as we ought the precious form in which the Christian faith has been delivered to us in our Book of Common Prayer? It has been recently affirmed by a distinguished Presbyterian, that “ the Church, if she would fulfil her mission, must avail herself of the riches which her children during all these ages have been gathering for her.” Here is, indeed, the deposit of the faith, elucidated and interpreted in all its fulness. Learned and unlearned, the wayfaring man and little child, are here instructed, in respect of their manifold necessities and obligations, in respect of their diversified relations both to God and to man, what it is to believe the gospel of Christ. Again, there is a most important feature of our Church, in respect of which we must surely feel how urgent is the duty faithfully to guard the deposit which has been committed to our trust. We cannot but regard as a most signal instance of God’ s wondrous working for us, the circumstance that He accorded to us the power, which many others did not possess, of retaining in its integrity the constitution of the Church as it has existed from apostolic times. Surely a thoughtful man must ask, with all reverence, why God thus dealt with us; nor will he permit himself to hold the gift in less esteem, because it was not vouchsafed to others. If it be indeed our duty to regard our ecclesiastical polity as a blessing which has been secured to us by the grace and favour of God--if, in this regard, we have indeed cause to say, “ The lines are fallen to us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage” --then let us be very careful never ourselves to speak or to act, never to lead others to speak or to act, in the spirit of those of whom we read, that “ they thought scorn of that pleasant land” which God had given them. Again, if our Book of Common Prayer be indeed a precious treasure house in which is stored for our use the deposit of the Christian faith, must we not be very careful to guard it from neglect, to secure to it its due honour? Are we, then, as careful as we should be here? We cannot be “ guarding the deposit” if we give, or teach others to give, a non-natural sense to the language of the Baptismal Office, of the Catechism, of the Office for the Administration of the Holy Communion, or of the Ordinal: we are not handing on, as faithful stewards, that which has been committed to our trust, except we give their full significance to the teaching of the Prayer Book, as well as to that of the Articles. Suffer me to mention another point, which is essential to the “ guarding of the deposit.” A complaint is not unfrequently made of those who preach not Christ, but the Church. I do not deny that the want of a right understanding of Christian truth, and of a due feeling of its sacred character, may possibly lead to this monstrous result; but I would venture to remind you, that if we would “ guard the deposit” faithfully, we must preach both Christ and His Church. It is, indeed, a fatal error not to “ hold the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, and being knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” ; but it is also a most grievous error, so to hold the Head as to ignore the divinely appointed organization, through which, as the apostle assures us, the nourishment of the body is dispensed, and its unity and strength secured. We cannot speak faithfully of Christ the Vine, of Christ the Head, of Christ the chief Corner-Stone, without speaking also of that wondrous, spiritual structure, His gracious relation to which is marked by the many names of love and power which are assigned to Him in Holy Scripture. Some persons may be tempted not to “ guard the deposit” in certain points, by the hope of conciliating those who are unhappily separated from us. They may desire to withdraw what others regard as unauthorized pretensions, and so to occupy a common ground with them. What, then, must be the necessary effect of their doing so, while “ the deposit,” as enshrined in the formularies of our Church, remains what it is? They must deprive themselves of all excuse, before God and man, for using or assenting to those formularies. And, more than this, so far as their action is concerned, the Church becomes degraded into the most presumptuous and arrogant of sects, presuming, as she does from their point of view, to utter before God words of most awful and solemn import, to which her heart does not respond, and before men to make pretences and speak “ great swelling words of vanity,” while she yet repudiates her title to any real distinction from other Christian bodies which put forward no such claims. If we will not “ guard the deposit” which has been committed to our trust as a Church, we have no alternative but to renounce it openly and honestly, having first put to ourselves with all seriousness the momentous inquiry, “ Did that deposit come to us from the hand of God, or no?” But whither will men turn, if they should unhappily resolve to forsake the historic Church of the past, which we are taught to believe and to confess, as retaining to the end of the world her imperishable continuity, marvellously as she may be taught to adapt herself to the needs of successive generations, and to the various characteristics of “ the nation of them that are saved, that shall walk in her light” ? Once more, let me present to you that which appears to many a further and most cogent reason for unflinching steadfastness and faithfulness to our high trust. I refer to the remarkable position in which the Church of England has stood ever since the Reformation, in respect of all other Christian bodies throughout the world; and more than ever at this day stands, by virtue of her own wide extension and of her intercommunion with other branches of the Church Catholic, holding the same faith and observing the same order with herself. “ If there be,” says Bishop Lightfoot, “ any guiding hand in the progress of history, if there be any Supreme Providence in the control of events, if there be any Divine Presence and any Divine call--then the position of England, as the mother of so many colonies and dependencies, the heart and centre of the world’ s commerce and manufacture, and the position of the English Church, standing midway between extremes in theological teaching and ecclesiastical order, point to the Church of this nation, with the very finger of God Himself, as called by Him to the lofty task of reconciling a distracted kingdom and healing the wounds of the nations.” For the sake, then, of this inspiring hope, under the sense of this overwhelming responsibility, let us as members of that vast communion, whose worship ascends to God from well-nigh every portion of our globe, resolve by His help to “ guard the deposit” which He has committed to our trust, and to stand still in the safe paths of duty and obedience, if haply our eyes or our children’ s eyes may be blessed by seeing this great “ salvation of God.” (G. Whittaker, M. A.) Oppositions of science falsely so called.--Science and theology There is no more vital and anxious thought in the religious life of to-day than the supposed conflict between science and religion. In certain quarters it has come to be taken for granted, that reason is necessarily opposed to faith; that nature and her teachings, so far as they can be understood and interpreted, are in conflict with the teachings of revelation; and that scientific men and theologians are therefore arranged in two hostile armies, having nothing in common, and engaged in a struggle which must ultimately end in the destruction of the one or the other. The result is, that scientific men and investigations are denounced as sceptical enemies of religious truth; and the compliment is abundantly returned by insinuations of bigotry and intolerance, as essential characteristics of religious teachers. And, in the popular mind, there is a vague and uncertain dread that the faith is to be overthrown, and the verities to which it clings, and upon which it is founded, are to be evaporated into myths and superstitions, which must take their place amid the exploded falsehoods of a too credulous past. A calmer and more comprehensive view of the contest will, however, justify us in saying, that the fear of the Christian is unfounded, and the sneer of the sceptic undeserved; that the apparent conflict is only an apparent one; and that the antagonism finds its field in the want of harmony, not so much between the verities of science and religion, as between scientific hypotheses and religious opinions; and that between nature and revelation, when properly understood, there must be a substantial harmony, since God is the author of them both. The misunderstanding is not between the things themselves, but between the guesses of men who seek to be their priests and interpreters. For science is simply our knowledge of nature, its facts, and its laws; and religion is simply our knowledge of God, and of our relations to Him. And, as the facts of nature reveal themselves slowly and almost reluctantly in response to patient research and careful study, it is but natural that the investigations and conclusions of one age should differ from those of another; that the latest deductions of science to-day should contradict the theories of a century ago, and that, in turn, they should expect to be contradicted by the theories of a century hence. Meanwhile, what is true remains; and this process of investigation and refutation carried on by scientific men from age to age, is but the method by which the truth concerning nature is separated from the fancies of men; and its result is, not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the true. And yet the truthfulness of the true does not depend upon its having been discovered and known by men. No line or word on the vast page of the universe is altered by the most careful scrutiny; it is only that these mysterious words are spelled out, and read with fewer errors than other scholars made who had gone before. So, also, in religion there are certain facts which constitute its basis, and which are proposed to our faith, not as theories or opinions, but as facts. And along with these, there are systems of opinion, the deductions of human reason from the Divine premises, but which, as human deductions, are liable to be erroneous and false. And yet these human systems are but the honest efforts of men to understand the accepted facts of revelation, and to apply them to the circumstances and needs of human life. Devout men of science will never be wanting to refute the flippant sneer which, in the name of science, invades a domain beyond its proper grasp; and earnest men of theology will ever be ready to expose and correct the errors of other theological systems. And so, in science and in religion, each has, within its own adherents and disciples, its mutual check and safeguard, by which the truth is preserved, and the fancies of men, when inconsistent with it, are exploded. But the trouble begins when scientific men attempt to teach theology, or theologians assume to teach science. For as there is nothing in the study of science which necessarily makes a man a theologian, the theological views of the scientist may not be worth so much as those of an unlettered but earnest Christian; for that value is determined, not by intellectual acquisition, but by a devout habit of mind and heart. And there is nothing in the study of theology which necessarily acquaints a man with what is known as scientific truth; and therefore the scientific views of a theologian are of small value, since they are not in the line of study or thought to which he naturally devotes himself. And so long as scientists attempt to teach theology, and theologians insist upon refuting what they choose to dignify by the name of science, so long there will be a terrible warfare of words; but it will not touch nor jeopardize for a moment the indestructible harmony between true science and true religion, between a right reason and a devout faith, between the broad page of nature, written by His own finger through the long processes of His own law, and the page of inspiration, written by the human amanuensis of His own Spirit. There is one point, however, in the universe, in which nature and revelation meet; one point in which the visible creation comes in contact with the invisible and supernatural forces which pervade the universe. That solitary point is the incarnation of the Son of God. In it nature and revelation mysteriously meet and harmonize; as by it this human nature of ours--the very crown and glory of the visible creation--is taken into union with God. Here the ultimate mystery of science and religion meet and harmonize and are at one; as by the incarnation the nature of man is allied to the throne of God in a union which can never be divorced, and which waits for its final epiphany for the manifestation of the sons of God. (W. A. Snively, D. D.)