HOMILY IV.J HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS. ing your condemnation, I entreat you, not to forbear coming, but to render yourselves worthy both of being present, and of approaching. Tell me, were any king to give command and to say, " If any man does this, let him partake of my table; " say, would ye not do all ye could to be admitted ? He hath invited us to heaven, to the table of the great and wonderful King, anddo we shrink and hesitate, instead of hastening and running to it ? And what then is our hope of salvation ? We cannot lay the blame on our weakness ; we cannot on our na ture. It is indolence and nothing else that renders us unworthy. So far have I spoken of myself. But may He that pricketh the heart, He that giveth the Spirit of compunction, pierce your hearts, and plant the seeds in the depth of them, that so through His fear ye may conceive, and bringforth the spirit of salvation, and come near with boldness. For, "thy children," it is said, "are like olive plants round about thy table." (Ps. cxxviii : 3.) O, then, letthere be nothing old, nothing wild, nothing harsh. For of such sort are the young plants that are fit for fruit, for the beautiful fruit, fruit 1 mean of the olive-tree. And thriving they are, so as all to be round about the table, and come together here, not in vain or by chance, but with fear and reverence. For thus shall ye behold with boldness even Christ Himself in heaven, and shall be counted worthyof that heavenly kingdom, which may God grant wemay all attain, in Jesus Christ, our Lord with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and ever, and for ages of ages. Amen. HOMILY IV. CHAPTER, n. VERSES i 3. " And you did He quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of dis- - obedience ; among whom we also all once lived, in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh, and of the mind ; and were by nature child ren of wrath even as the rest." THERE is, we know, a corporal, and there is also a spiritual, dying. 1 Of the first it is no crime to partake, nor is there any peril in it, inasmuch as there is no blame attached to it, for it is a matter of nature, not of deliberate choice. It had its origin in the transgression of the first- created man, and thenceforward in its issue it passed into a nature, and, at all events, will quickly be brought to a termination ; whereas this spiritual dying, being a matter of deliber ate choice, has criminality, and has no termina tion. Observe then how Paul, having already shown how exceedingly great a thing it is, in so much that to heal a deadened soul is a far greater thing than to raise the dead, so now again lays it down in all its real greatness. "And you," saith he "when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein afore time ye walked according to the course of this 1 [The Commentators, except Meyer, refer the i/eicpous to spiri tual death, as Chrysostom does. Meyer refers it to "eternal death, the eternal condemnation," and says the vexpovs is proleptic. He distinctly says it does not refer to physical death, though Ellicott represents him as saying that it does. G. A.] world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience." You observe the gen tleness of Paul, and how on all occasions he encourages the hearer, not bearing too hard upon him. For whereas he had said, Ye have arrived at the very last degree of wickedness, (for such is the meaning of becoming dead,) that he may not excessively distress them, 2 (because men are put to shame when their former misdeeds are brought forward, cancelled though they be, and no longer attended with danger,) he gives them, as it were, an accom plice, that it may not be supposed that the work is all their own, and that accomplice a powerful one. And who then is this? The Devil. He does much the same also in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where, after saying, "Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters," (i Cor. vi : 9.) and after enumerating all the other vices, and adding in conclusion, "shall inherit the kingdom of God ; " he then adds, " and such were some of you ; " he does not say absolutely, " ye were," but " some of you were," that is, thus in some sort were ye. Here the heretics attack us. They tell us that these expressions (" prince ofall the power ofthe air," etc.) are used with reference to God, and let ting loose their unbridled tongue, they fit these [Paul s motive in this passage is probably not what Chrysos tom says, but, on the contrary, to show how desperately bad their state was. G. A.]