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Rev. J.H. Bainton

The Epistle to the Ephesians,

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THE
Epistle to the Ephesians
ITS DOCTRINE AND ETHICS.

BY
R. W. DALE, M.A., LL.D.
BIRMINGHAM.

FIFTH EDITION.

|Tmt&0tt' :
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

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PREFACE.

THESE Lectures were intended to illustrate to a
popular audience the Doctrine and the Ethics
of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. As they were
delivered on Sunday mornings, in the ordinary course
of my ministry, it was necessary for the sake of
"edification" to dwell on some topics at greater
length and with greater urgency than would have
been necessary for purposes of exposition ; and for
the sake of " practice " it was necessary to apply
the precepts of the Epistle to the details of conduct.
Some passages which were suggested by the obliga
tions of the pastor rather than of the expositor I have
omitted ; others I have condensed ;. and to many
passages I have given a less free and familiar form
than that in which they were delivered. One or two
of the Lectures, as they appear in this volume, were
obviously too long for endurance in these times,
though they would have been regarded as abnormally
brief by the robust ecclesiastical ancestors of the
congregation of which I am the minister ; in delivery
these Lectures had to be divided.

PREFACE.

But both in substance and in style the Lectures
still retain clear traces of their original character.
They were written for a popular congregation, not
for the solitary student. And I do not know that I
should have had the courage to publish them but for
the very kind and hearty reception which has been
given both in England and America to a similar
series of Lectures which I published some years ago
on the Epistle to the Hebrews. I have learnt that
there are large numbers of Christian people to whom
expository lectures of this popular kind are of more
service than ordinary commentaries.
My obligations to Meyer are too numerous to
admit of recognition in detail. Throughout my
study of the Epistle his commentary was always at
my side ; whenever I have differed from him it has
been with the greatest hesitation, and with the
uncomfortable apprehension that, after all, he was
probably in the right and I in the wrong. I ought
also to express my obligations to Bishop Ellicott.
In my early ministry I found his commentaries of
great value ; and in the preparation of these Lectures
my sense of their excellence has been confirmed and
renewed.

R. VV. DALE.

CONTENTS.

I'At..
Introddctory  [I
LECT. I. Paul's Apostleship — The Saints at Ephesus —
Paul's Benediction. (Eph. i. i, 2) . . . 11
II. Election in Christ. (Chap. i. 3, 4) . . . .25
III. Regeneration and Sonship in Christ. (Chap. i.
5. 6)  4°
IV. The Forgiveness of Sins. (Chap. i. 7) . . .53
V. The Forgiveness of Sins and the Death of
Christ. (Chap. i. 7}  68
VI. The Final Restoration of All Things. (Chap. i.
8-10)  90
VII. The Holy Spirit the Seal of God's Heritage
and the Earnest of our Inheritance. (Chap.
i. 11-14)  109
VIII. The Illumination of the Spirit. (Chap. i. 15-17) 128
IX. The Resurrection and Glory of Christ in Rela
tion to the Hope of the Church. (Chap. i.
18— "• 7)  144
X. Salvation by Grace. (Chap. ii. 8, 9) . . .170
XI. Christian Men God's Workmanship. (Chap. ii. 10) 185
XII. Jubaism and Christianity. (Chap, ii 11-22) . , 201

viii CONTENTS.
LECT. pace
XIII. The Grace given to Paul. (Chap. iii. 1-13) . 220
XIV. Filled unto all the Fulness of God. (Chap. iii.
14-21) ...  242
XV. The Unity of the Church. (Chap. iv. 1-16) . 260
XVI. The Immorality of the Heathen. (Chap. iv. 17-19) 294
XVII. The Christian Method of Moral Regeneration.
(Chap. iv. 20-24)  3°^
XVIII. Miscellaneous Moral Precepts. (Chap. iv. 25—
v. 21)  323
KLX. Wives and Husbands. (Chap. v. 22-33) . • • 349
XX. Children and Parents. (Chap. vi. 1-4) . . . 378
XXI. Servants and Masters. (Chap. vi. 5-9) . . 398
XXII. The War against Principalities and Powers.
(Chap. vi. 10-12)  412
XXIII. The Whole Armour of God. (Chap. vi. 13-17) . 426
XXIV. Prayer ; Intercessory Prayer ; Conclusion.
(Chap. vi. 18-24)  435

INTRODUCTORY.
EPHESUS.
JERUSALEM, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome— these
great cities represent the most considerable
influences which determined the early fortunes
and development of the Christian church.1
In Jerusalem the sacred traditions of sixteen
centuries were too strong for the free and adven
turous spirit of the new Faith. The Lord Jesus
Christ Himself had observed the religious customs
of the Jewish people, had worshipped in their syna
gogues and in their temple, had kept their feasts ;
and though He had disregarded, ostentatiously dis
regarded, some of the mechanical and technical
precepts which had been deduced from the com
mandments of the Jewish law, He had acknow
ledged the authority of the law itself, and had
never challenged the claims of the Jews to religious
supremacy over the rest of mankind.
There were some of His words, indeed, which
naturally created doubt, and even alarm, among those
who regarded the institutions and prerogatives of
1 In Alexandria, under the influence of a high culture, there
was a blending and reconciliation of tendencies which were
separately active elsewhere.
1 P,

LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS.

Judaism with blind and passionate veneration.
What must have seemed the light audacity with
which He spoke of the possible destruction of the
temple, the very home of God, and of His raising
it up in three days ; His denial that the distinction
between things clean and unclean had any real
moral significance ; His declaration to the Samaritan
woman that the hour was coming when the sacred-
ness both of mount Gerizim and of Jerusalem would
have passed away ; the startling warning in His
conversation with Nicodemus that Jewish birth was
not an adequate title to the blessedness of the
Messianic age, and that "except a man be born
anew he cannot see the kingdom of God " : were
all very perplexing and even ominous. But in the
general current of our Lord's popular teaching there
was little or nothing to suggest that a great religious
catastrophe was impending.
Knowing who He was and what He accomplished
for mankind by His incarnation, His death, and His
resurrection, we see that it was inevitable that the
ancient institutions of Judaism should lose their
sanctity. Now that we have had time to consider
"the grace and truth" which "came by Jesus Christ,"
we can see that there was a great contrast be
tween the spiritual and ethical contents of the new
Faith and the spiritual and ethical contents of the
old Faith ; a contrast so immense that the organisa
tion which was a support and defence to the religious
life of ancient saints would be a peril to the nobler

INTRODUCTORY.

life of the kingdom of heaven and a restraint
upon its free and vigorous development. But the
approaching change was not suspected by even the
closest friends of Christ during His earthly ministry.
That the dissolution of all things was at hand was an
impression which they might naturally have received
from some things that He said shortly before His
crucifixion,; but I suppose that they all believed that
as long as the world lasted Judaism would last.
Even after His resurrection and ascension into
heaven this seems to have been the common belief
of the Jewish Christians that lived in Jerusalem and
its neighbourhood. The temple was still standing ;
the priests still discharged their functions ; morning
and evening the sacrifices commanded by the an
cient law were still offered ; the sabbath was still
honoured ; at every great festival the city was still
thronged by tens of thousands of Jews and proselytes
from remote lands ; the only sacred books which, as
yet, God had given to men were the writings of
Moses and the prophets ; and these were still read,
as they had been read for several centuries, in the
synagogues every sabbath day. Those who believed
that Jesus was the Christ had received some fresh and
wonderful revelations of the righteousness and love of
God; but while rejoicing in their new knowledge, their
new religious life, and their new hopes, they saw no
reason for suspecting that the ancient institutions of
*heir race had passed away. The apostles themselves-:
did not at once discover that Christ had made all

LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS.

things new ; that the altars, the sacrifices, the sabbaths,
the festivals, the priests of Judaism had given place
to a more spiritual service ; that the temple was
no longer sacred ; that the Jewish people were no
longer the elect race, and that their prerogatives had
disappeared in that Divine and eternal kingdom
which acknowledged no distinction between Jew and
Gentile, and conferred on all who are in Christ the
same august titles, making them all the sons of God
and the heirs of eternal glory.
At Antioch the church began to be conscious of a
larger freedom. The church in that city was prin
cipally composed of Gentiles. To heathen men who
had found God in Christ, the future was far greater
ind nobler than the past. They were not under the
spell of ancient traditions, but were exulting in the
inspiration of new and infinite hopes. They had
received all things from Christ. They listened with
interest to what they heard from their Jewish brethren
about what God had done for the Jewish people in
past centuries, and they listened with veneration to
the words which had been spoken in God's name by
Jewish prophets. But to them Christ was not only
supreme : from Him, and from Him alone, had come
their knowledge of the true God, their assurance of
the remission of sins, and their hope of immortality.
Their Jewish brethren might, if they pleased, continue
to observe the customs of their ancestors ; but, for
themselves, they were Christians, not Jews ; and the
power and love of Christ were sufficient for them

INTRODUCTORY.

apart from the institutions of Judaism. We owe it to
these generous and courageous men, and above all to
the apostle Paul, their great leader, that Christianity
disentangled itself from what would have been a
disastrous alliance with the traditions, customs, pre
judices, and fortunes of the Jewish race, and asserted
its true character as the kingdom of God among men
and not a new Jewish sect. " The disciples were called
Christians first at Antioch."
When the new Faith had achieved its freedom from
the control of the synagogue, and began to make its
own way in the great heathen world, it was exposed
to fresh perils. Many of its converts were men
that had been corrupted by the gross licentiousness
of heathen society, and they brought the vicious
habits and the base ethical ideas of their former life
into the church. Men who had acknowledged the
authority of Christ, who had received Christian
baptism, who sat at the .Lord's supper, and who
were rejoicing in the great hopes of the Christian
life, had to be told that they must not be guilty of
lying, theft, drunkenness, and the grossest sensual
sins. Christian truth was in danger as well as
Christian morality. The gospel, notwithstanding
its wonderful discoveries concerning God and His
relations to the human race, concerning the spiritual
nature of man and the immortal life and blessedness
conferred by Christ, left unsolved some of the philo
sophical questions in which the restless and subtle
curiosity of the Greek intellect found an irresistible

LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS.

attraction ; and it also appeared to leave unoccupied
those vast regions of thought which had been the
chosen field of very much of oriental speculation.
Some Christian converts made a natural attempt
to handle the facts and truths of the Christian faith
according to the methods of the philosophical schools ;
they endeavoured to supplement what seemed to
them the incompleteness of apostolic teaching by
precarious inferences from Christian truths imper
fectly apprehended, or by speculative theories which
were altogether alien from the contents of the gospel.
In some cases there was an attempt to blend with the
historical manifestation of God in Christ one or other
of those wild and elaborate schemes of the universe
which were among the most audacious and the most
worthless products of the oriental imagination.1
All these influences — the licentiousness, the ex
cessive intellectual subtlety, the vague and reckless
speculation — affected the development of Christian
life and thought in those Asiatic Greek cities of
which Ephesus was the largest, the richest, the most
splendid, and the most corrupt.
Rome is the representative of influences of alto
gether a different kind. The traditions of universal
sovereignty and the imperial temper of the masters
of the world became the inheritance of the Roman
church, and gradually created that immense au
thority which for good or for evil, but at last for
1 See the striking account of " Le Syncrdtisme Oriental," in
;hap. viii. of M. Renan's Marc.-AuriU.

INTRODUCTORY.

evil only, was exerted by the Bishop of Rome over
all western Christendom.1
It was from Rome that Paul wrote this epistle to
the church at Ephesus ; he had been a prisoner
there for about two years. There are indications
in the earlier chapters of the epistle that the power
of the empire of which Rome was the centre had
touched his imagination, and perhaps had given a
new and grander form to his conception of the
future triumphs of the Divine kingdom. It is in
the epistle to the church at Colosse, a city on the
high road between Ephesus and the Euphrates, that
he directly attacks the heresies which had been
brought into the church by theosophic specula
tion, but in this epistle also Paul recognised and
desired to satisfy the cravings of the Asiatic in
tellect for large and daring theories of the invisible
and spiritual universe. A considerable part of the
epistle is occupied with precepts directed against
those moral corruptions from which the Ephesiari
Christians had not yet escaped.
Ephesus, as I have already said, was a rich and
splendid city. It was the capital of the great Roman

1 What Dr. Lightfoot justly describes as "the urgent and
almost imperious tone which the Romans adopt in addressing
their Corinthian brethren during the closing years of the first
century" illustrates the origin of the Roman supremacy. It
was the church however, not the bishop, that assumed this
moral authority. See Dr. Lightfoot's most valuable dissertation
prefixed to his edition of the newly recovered portions of the
Epistle of Clement.

8 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS.
province of Asia. It had an extensive commerce.
When the fertile countries of Asia Minor, now im
poverished by the government of the Turk, were
wealthiest, Ephesus was all that Smyrna now is to
the diminished trade of the Levant. And it was
famous throughout the world for the magnificence of
the temple of Diana.
Paul knew the city well. As he was returning to
Syria from Greece on his second missionary journey
he called there with Aquila and Priscilla, stayed
there a few days, discussed the claims of the Lord
Jesus in the synagogue, and promised to return. On
his third missionary journey, after visiting the
churches in the interior of Asia Minor, he came
down to the coast and remained in Ephesus and its
¦neighbourhood for two or three years. For three
months he went week after week to the synagogue,
speaking boldly and reasoning with the Jews " con
cerning the kingdom of God." Then he separated
his converts from the Jewish congregation and hired
the school, the lecture hall, of Tyrannus, who was
probably a Greek lecturer on rhetoric and philosophy.
There he was able to meet day after day with all
who cared to listen to his exposition and defence
r>f the Christian gospel. His teaching seems to have
made a great impression on the city, and at last
provoked the alarm of the trades that depended on
the reverence for Diana. There was a violent popular
tumult, and Paul left Ephesus for Macedonia and
Greece. On his way back from Greece to Jerusalem

INTRODUCTORY.

he called at Miletus, which was twenty or thirty miles
from Ephesus, and sent a message to the elders of the
Ephesian church to meet him ; the pathetic address
which he delivered to them has been preserved by
Luke, and is contained in the twentieth chapter of
the Acts of the Apostles.
Considering the length of time that Paul had lived
in Ephesus, it is remarkable that the epistle does not
contain any of the kindly messages to personal
friends which are so numerous in other epistles of
his. The explanation seems to be that the epistle
was intended for the use of more than one church.
In some very early manuscripts there is a curious
omission of the words " at Ephesus " in the first
verse. I imagine that Paul left a blank to be filled
up by the copyist, and that while one copy was
meant for the saints " at Ephesus," another was
probably meant for the saints " at Laodicea," and
perhaps another for a third church in the same neigh
bourhood. Tychicus carried the copies with him to
the churches for which they were intended, and was
also entrusted with the personal messages and the
account of himself which Paul wished to be given to
his friends. " But that ye also may know my affairs,
how I do, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful
minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all
things : whom I have sent to you for this very
purpose, that ye may know our state, and that he
may comfort your hearts."

Note. — Throughout these Lectures I have spoken of "the
church at Ephesus!' although this phrase does not occur in
the Epistle itself. It was addressed to "the saints" not to " the
church " ; this may have been because copies of the letter were
to be sent to cities in which there was more than one " church."
When the Apocalypse was written there was only one church in
Ephesus (Apoc. ii. i), and there was only one when Paul met
the Ephesian elders at Miletus ; it is reasonable to conclude
that there was only one when this Epistle was written. At an
earlier time there may have been more than one. The subject
is an old topic of controversy between the Presbyterians and
the Independents. See Dr. Davidson's " Ecclesiastical Polity
of the New Testament," pages 76-88.

I.
PAUL'S APOSTLESHIP—I HE SAINTS AT EPHES US-
PAUL'S BENEDICTION.
"Pan!, an apostle of Christ Jesus, through the will of God, to the
saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus : grace to
you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."
— Eph. i. I, 2.
T N these words we have :
J- I. Paul's description of himself: "an apostle
of Jesus Christ through the will of God!'
II. Paul's description of those to whom he is
writing : " the saints , . and the faithful in
Christ Jesus."
III. Paul's salutation or benediction : " Grace to
you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ" I.
Paul describes himself as " an apostle of Jesus
Christ through the will of God." He was not
appointed to his office through the intervention of
the church,1 or of those who had been apostles before
him ; his call came direct from Heaven. Much less
1 The church at Antioch separated Paul for the work to
which he had been called (Acts xiii. 1-3) ; but his original call
and his apostolic authority came direct from Christ

12 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. 1.
had he dared to undertake his great work at the
impulse of his own zeal for the honour of Christ and
the redemption of men. To the last he thought of
himself as " less than the least of all saints," and had
he chosen his own place it would have been among
the obscurest of those who trusted in Christ for the
pardon of sin and eternal life. He had been " a
blasphemer and persecutor " ; he was " the chief of
sinners " ; he was " not meet to be called an apostle
because [he] persecuted the church of God." But
God's grace to him had been very wonderful, and it
was this grace which had appointed him to "preach
unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
In the depths of his humility were the foundations
of his strength. His courage and confidence might
have been shaken if he had ever had to consider his
intellectual, his moral, or his spiritual qualifications
for his work. If he had permitted himself to ask
whether, after his violent hostility to Christ, it was
fitting that he should be a preacher of the Christian
gospel and a founder of Christian churches, he might
have shrunk from the honour of his conspicuous
service. But nothing came between him and the will
of God. When he was giving an account to Agrippa
of Christ's appearance to him on the Damascus road
he said " I was not disobedient unto the heavenly
vision " ; but it does not seem to have been the habit
of his mind to think of even his own consent to the
Divine call. He says in one of his epistles that
Christ's love — not his own gratitude for Christ's love,

I.ECT. I.] PAUL'S APOSTLESHIP. 13
his own joy in it, but Christ's love — constrained him
to live a life of incessant and laborious devotion to
Christ's service. The love in Christ's heart was an
energy acting immediately on all the faculties and
powers of his own life. And when he describes him
self as an apostle "through the will of God" he means
that he felt that the Divine will was in immediate
contact with him, was the strong yet gracious force
which placed him in the apostleship, and which sus
tained him in all his apostolic labours and sufferings.
He attributed nothing to the vigour of his faith, to
the passion of his gratitude for the Divine goodness,
to the completeness of his self-consecration to Christ's
service ; he was living and acting under the control
of forces which had their origin beyond and above
himself; his apostolic work was the effect and ex
pression of a Divine volition. V
The expression is characteristic of the Pauline
theology ; Paul believed that the Divine will is
the root and origin of all Christian righteousness
and blessedness. And this is the secret of a strong
and calm and effective Christian life. The secret is
hard to learn. We find it difficult not to interpose
something between "the will of God" and our
personal redemption; between "the will of God" and
our obedience to the Divine law ; between " the will
of God " and the work which we are doing for God
and for mankind ; and so the direct action of the
power and grace of God upon our life is deflected
and impeded. Instead of welcoming the Divine

14 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. i.
mercy with frank delight, we ask whether our own
faith is sufficiently simple and strong to warrant us
in accepting the great blessings of the Christian re
demption. We should remember that whatever our
ill desert may be, it is " the will of God " that we
should receive " repentance and the remission of
sins," and we should say from our very heart " Thy
wiJ' be done." After we have endeavoured to serve
God for many years we miss the life and strength
which He has actually given us in Christ, and we
miss them because we are perplexed and uncertain
as to whether we have consented, without reserve
and qualification, to achieve a moral and spiritual
perfection which has its roots in Christ and not
in ourselves, the honour of which will be Christ's,
not ours. Again we should remember that it is " the
will of God " that this righteousness should be ours,
that it is the law of human nature to receive perpetual
accessions of strength from Divine fountains, and we
should say "Thy will be done." The vigour and
hopefulness of our work for others are lessened by the
uneasy consciousness that we are wanting in spiritual
fervour and force ; by the fear that our motives are
not perfectly unselfish, that our consecration is not
complete, that pur intellectual qualifications are
inadequate. Thoughts like these are sufficient to
paralyse the strength of the strongest and to quench
the fire of the most zealous. Whatever work lies
under our hand should be taken up in the spirit in
which Paul accepted his apostleship and discharged

lect. I.] PAUL'S APOSTLESHIP. 15
its duties. Our election to a service to which we
have no claim, and which is beyond our strength, is
an illustration of God's wonderful grace, and an
assurance that a power, not our own, will ally itself
with our weakness ; we should say again, " Thy will
be done."
But has the human will no place or function in
human redemption, and in the active service in which
Christian men show their loyalty to Christ and their
love for the race ? Is " the will of God " the only
force in the spiritual universe ? Must there not be a
real response on our part to the Divine mercy before
the Divine mercy can pardon ounsin ? If Christ is to
abide in us, must not we abide in Him ? If we are to
do any work worth doing for God or man, must not the
fires of enthusiasm and charity be kindled in our own
hearts, and must not those fires consume the cowardice,
the selfishness, the vanity, and the personal ambition
by which our work would be spoiled ?
There are some of you, I hope, to whom these
questions occasion no difficulty. When God comes
into real and close contact with the soul, we can
think only of Him, not of ourselves ; of His mercy,
not of our own faith ; of His grace, not of our own
consent to receive it ; of His choice of us, not of our
choice of Him ; of His will, not of our own sub
mission to it
Paul was an apostle "through the will of God"
His own will consented, no doubt, to receive the
apostleship ; but it was the habit of his mind to

16 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. l
refer his whole apostolic life and work directly to
God. Our own spiritual activity reaches its greatest
intensity when we are so filled with the glory of
the Divine righteousness, the Divine love, and the
Divine power, that we are conscious only of God,
and all thought of ourselves is lost in Him.
II.
Having described himself, Paul goes on to describe
those to whom the epistle is written. They are " the
saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ
Jesus." They are "saints" It is impossible, I fear, to
restore this word to its ancient and noble uses. It
has been tainted with superstition, which has limited
its application to those who have exhibited an ex
ceptional holiness ; and for many centuries it has
been restricted to men whose holiness has been of a
very technical and artificial type. It has been de
graded by unbelief, which, in bitter mockery of the
contrast between lofty aims and ignoble achieve
ment, has flung it as an epithet of scorn at all who
have professed to make the Divine will, and not the
laws and customs of human society, the rule of their
conduct. In the early days all Christians were "saints"
The title did not attribute any personal merit to
them ; it simply recalled their prerogatives and their
obligations. Whenever they were so described they
were reminded that God had made them His own.

lect. i.] THE SAINTS AT EPHESUS. 17
They were "holy" because they belonged to Him.
The temple had once been "holy," not because of
its magnitude, its stateliness, and the costly materials
of which it was built, but because it was the home of
God ; and the tabernacle which was erected in the
wilderness, though a much meaner structure, was just
as " holy " as the temple of Solomon, with its marble
courts and its profusion of cedar and brass and silver
and gold. The altars were " holy " because they
were erected for, the service of God. The sacrifices
were "holy" because they were offered to Him.
The priests were " holy " because they were divinely
chosen to discharge the functions of the temple
service. The sabbath was " holy " because God had
placed His hand upon it and separated its hours
from common uses. The whole Jewish people were
"holy" because they were organised into a nation,
not for the common purposes which have been the
ends of the national existence of other races, but to
receive in trust for all mankind exceptional revela
tions of the character and will of God. And now,
according to Paul's conception, every Christian man
was a temple, a sacrifice, a priest ; his whole life was
a sabbath ; he belonged to an elect race ; he was the
subject of an invisible and Divine kingdom ; he was
a " saint."
The institutions of Judaism had given only a very
rough and coarse representation of the idea of holi
ness ; and there are passages in this epistle which
will throw far more light upon what is really meant

IS LECTURES ON THE F.PHES1ANS. [lect. 1.

by being a " saint " than we can derive from the
Jewish temple, the Jewish priests, the Jewish sacri
fices, and the Jewish sabbath; but the rudimentary
conception is to be found in the holy places, the
holy things, the holy times, and the holy persons of
the ancient Faith.
And there was one essential element in that
rudimentary conception which remains unchanged in
the new and higher form of sanctity which is .pre
sented in the Christian church. Speaking broadly,
nothing became "holy" in Jewish times by any
human act consecrating it to God. No man could
erect a building and make it a temple. There was
only one temple, and this had been erected by
Divine appointment and on a Divine plan. When the
Jews began to build synagogues in different parts of
the country for religious instruction and worship it
was not supposed that the buildings had any sanctity.
A synagogue was not, like the temple, the home
and palace of God ; it was erected for the 'con
venience of a congregation. Nor could any man,
at the impulse of his own devout zeal, make him
self a priest, or obtain admission into the priesthood
by the authority of those who were priests already.
No man took this honour to himself; it belonged
exclusively to the family on which God had con
ferred it. Nor could any general consent to set
apart a day for religious uses make the day sacred as
the sabbath was sacred. No person, no place, no
time cculd be set apart for God by any human

LECT. !.] THE SAINTS AT EPHESUS. 19
appointment, and so made holy. Every consecrated
person, place, and time was consecrated, not by the
fervour of human devotion, but by the authority of
the Divine will.
And a "saint," a consecrated man, according to
the apostolic conception, is one whom God has set
apart for Himself. The act of consecration is God's
act, not ours. As I have said already, the title of
"saint" implies no personal merit; it is the record of
a great manifestation of God's condescension and love.
Our part is subordinate and secondary. We have
only to submit to the authority of the Divine claim,
and to receive the dignity conferred by the Divine
love. The common conception is precisely the reverse of
this, and precisely the reverse of the truth. It begins
with a human volition instead of a Divine volition.
It makes the act of consecration a human act instead
of a Divine act. God's place becomes subordinate
and secondary ; He only accepts what we give. As
the sanctity is supposed to originate in the voluntary
surrender of the heart and life to God, the measure
of the sanctity is determined by the extent of the
surrender; and a man is more or less of a saint in
the degree in which he makes himself over to God.
The apostolic idea was far more profound. It was
an essential part of Paul's whole theory of man's
relation to God. The theology of the Epistle to the
Romans, the theology of this epistle, obliged him to
rest the idea of sanctity, not f n the shifting sands of

20 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. I.
human volition, but on the eternal foundations of the
Divine love.
Those whom he describes as "saints" he also
describes as " the faithful hi Christ Jesus!' Scholars
are divided as to whether Paul means that they have
faith or whether he means that they have fidelity.
The word which he uses may stand as well for the
one idea as for the other. Had he been asked in
which sense he employed it, I think he might have
answered that Faith carries Fidelity with it. For to
Paul faith was very much more than intellectual
belief; it was an act in which the intellect, the heart,
the conscience, and the will acknowledged Christ as
the Redeemer and the Ruler of men. As long as
faith of this kind exists in a man, Christ has
sovereignty over his life ; and the man's faith
guarantees his fidelity.
They are the faithful' " in Christ Jesus." This is
one of Paul's characteristic phrases. I shall not
attempt to explain it in this lecture. The doctrinal
teaching of this epistle is very little more than a
development of this single expression. To explain
what Paul meant by being "in Christ" would be to
expound a great part of his theology.
III.
The closing words of the second verse, " Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ" are commonly described as the salu
tation of the epistle; they take the place of the

lect. l.j PAUL'S BENEDICTION. 21
kindly words which were usual in the beginning of
ancient letters. But " Grace and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" belong to too
lofty a region for the words to be regarded as merely
an expression of courtesy and good will. They are
not a prayer, for they are not addressed to God but
to men ; and yet they are very much more than a
wish. I think that we must call them a Benediction.
When our Lord sent out His twelve apostles on
an evangelistic journey during His own ministry,
He said to them : " Into whatsoever city or village
ye shall enter, search out who in it is worthy, and
there abide till ye go forth. And as ye enter into
the house salute it. And if the house be worthy,
let your peace come upon it : but if it be not worthy
let your peace return to you." The customary
Jewish salutation, " Peace be with this house," when
spoken by the apostles of Christ, was to be made
real and effective by the concurrence of the Divine
grace. It was really to bring peace to those whose
hearts were simple, trustful and devout ; the words
of benediction were to be confirmed and fulfilled by
God. And Paul had equal authority to speak in
God's name. To those in the Ephesian church who
were really "saints," and who were really "faithful
in Christ Jesus," his words were to be more than a
courteous and affectionate desire for their religious
welfare. His words were " with power." They were
a gospel, a message from God. They were to bring
home to Christian hearts a fresh assurance of the

22 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. i.
"grace " of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus
Christ, a fuller realization and a richer consciousness
of the "peace" the infinite and eternal blessings,
which that grace conferred.
It is the prerogative and function of priests to
bless in God's name. This prerogative belonged
to the apostle, and in this salutation he is discharg
ing the function. The tradition of this august and
benignant power has never disappeared from the
church ; but in the dark and evil days through which
Christendom has passed it came to be restricted to
those who claimed to be priests in a sense in which
ordinary Christian men are not. But even in
churches which have conceded to the priesthood an
exclusive sanctity there survive traces of the original
dignity of the people. The old form of the ancient
liturgies is still retained, and when the priest says
to the congregation " The Lord be with you," the
congregation replies " And with thy spirit." The
blessing of the priest bestowed on the people is
answered by the blessing of the people bestowed
on the priest.
The power of benediction, which belongs to the
commonalty of the church and not to church officers
only, is a beautiful illustration of the true ideal of
the Christian life. We dwell in Christ and Christ
dwells in us. It is a superstitious and most ruinous
falsehood to tell men to reverence the Real Presence
of Christ in the consecrated wafer with the lamp
burning before it in the silent church. His Real

lect. i.] PAUL'S BENEDICTION. 23
Presence, according to His own teaching, is to be
found in the common life and activity of every
Christian man. His Real Presence is to be found in
the Christian tradesman at his counter, the Christian
clerk at his desk, the Christian mechanic at his bench,
the Christian mother among her children. Christ is
really present in the Christian physician going
through the wards of a hospital, in the Christian
barrister pleading in court, in the Christian states
man contending in parliament for justice and peace.
The service which, as Christian men, we render
to our race is Christ's service rather than ours.
When we pity human suffering our pity is made
more tender by Christ's own compassion ; when we
struggle against injustice and tyranny the fires of
our indignation are kindled and made more vehement
by Christ's infinite hatred of unrighteousness.
And so, if the true ideal of the Christian life were
fulfilled, men would be conscious that whenever
we came near to them Christ came near, bringing
with Him the rest of heart, the courage, and the hope
which His presence always inspires. When we
invoked on men the Divine favour and the Divine
peace, the invocation would be His rather than ours ;
it would be spoken in His name, not in our own;
and what we spoke on earth would be confirmed and
made good in heaven. We have ceased to bless
each other, because our consciousness of union with
Him who alone can make the " blessing " effective
has become faint and dim. When He was on earth

24 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. i.
those who touched the border of His garment were
healed of physical sickness. Now that He is in
heaven there streams from Him a mightier and more
gracious power ; and if our union with Christ and
Christ's union with us were more complete, that
power, working through us, would be a perpetual
source of blessing to mankind.

11.
ELECTION IN CHRIST.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ: even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in
love." Eph. i. 3, 4.
THE first three chapters of this epistle are a
very striking example of Paul's manner. No
one ever wrote in the same way before or since.
I suppose indeed that he did not actually write the
epistle himself, but dictated it, and as he spoke he
was swept along by the impetuous rush of a fer
vent passion. One proposition melts into another.
Thought flows into thought. No one sentence is
complete, apart from the sentence which precedes it
and the sentence which follows it. But if once we
permit our mind to move from the words whose full
meaning we are trying to discover, we shall drift
away with the stream and shall soon find ourselves
in remote provinces of truth.
The verses which we have now to consider can
hardly be understood without looking forward to
what Paul has written in the very heart of the

26 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. n.
epistle ; and yet if we try to anticipate what occurs
later on we shall be likely to miss what he has
written here. But we must do our best, remembering
however that it is necessary to be in possession of
the whple movement of the apostle's thought, to grasp
the real and complete meaning of any part of it.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ" These words recall the joy and triumph
of the ancient psalms. They read as if Paul were
intending to write a song of happy thanksgiving.
His heart is all a-flame. It is clear that he is not
writing under the influence of any mere intellectual
excitement created by the clearness of his vision of
some great theory of God's relations to the human
race or to the universe in general. Whatever doc
trinal theory may be implied or explicitly asserted
in the sentences which follow, he begins by thanking
and praising God for the infinite and everlasting
blessings which he himself and other Christian men
had found in Christ.
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ!' When Paul
wrote this epistle, five-and-twenty or thirty years
had passed by since Christ appeared to him near
Damascus. They had been very wonderful years.
None of them had been wasted. It is evident from
his epistles that his religious thought was constantly
extending its control from one region of truth to
another, as well as constantly securing a firmer hold

r.ECT. ii.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 27
of tfie truth which he had already mastered ; and
with the growth of his religious knowledge there was
a corresponding growth of his religious life. It is
true, no doubt, that his conversion was followed by
an immediate and complete revolution both in his
belief and in his conduct. When he went into the
synagogues of Damascus and proclaimed that Jesus
was the Son of God all that heard him were amazed.
Only a few weeks ago he had been hunting the
disciples of Christ from house to house in Jerusalem,
dragging them from their hiding-places, and sending
them to prison ; he had come to Damascus to carry
on the work of persecution. And now instead of
laying the church waste he was its champion and
defender. It was clear that a most extraordinary
change had passed upon him ; but the change went
on ; the power of his new faith was not exhausted
in the immense transformation which passed upon
him as soon as he received it ; when he wrote
this epistle he was a very different man from what
he was when he began to preach the Christian
gospel. And he attributes to Christ the whole develop
ment of his spiritual life. The larger knowledge
of God and of the ways of God, which came to
him from year to year, had come from Christ ; and
he felt sure that whatever fresh discoveries of God
might come to him would also come from Christ.
Faith, hope, joy, peace, patience, courage, zeal, love
for God, love for men — he had found them all in

28 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [i.r.cr. n.

Christ. It was on the ground of his own personal
experience that he was able to tell men that the
"riches of Christ" are "unsearchable." And when
he exclaims, " Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every
spiritual blessing . . . in Christ" he is express
ing the deep and passionate gratitude created by
the happy and sacred memories of many years ;
he himself had found in Christ "every spiritual
blessing!' He defines the blessings with which God has
blessed us in Christ as " Spiritual" blessings ; he
does not intend simply to distinguish them from
material, physical, or intellectual blessings, he means to
attribute them to the Spirit of God. Those who are
" in Christ" receive the illumination and inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. Whatever perfection of righteous
ness, whatever depth of peace, whatever intensity of
joy, whatever fulness of Divine knowledge reveal the
power of the Spirit of God in the spiritual life of
man, "every spiritual blessing" has been made ours
in Christ.
Further, Paul describes these blessings as having
been conferred upon us " in heavenly places " in Christ.
To the apostle the visible order of human life was
merely temporary, and was soon to pass away. Cities,
empires, the solid earth itself, sun and stars, had for
him no enduring reality. But the blessings which
God has conferred upon us in Christ have their place
among unseen and eternal things. He has " blessed

lect. n.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 29
us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in
Christ." And now the thought of the apostle has risen to
its true home, among the sublimities of the life of
God. It is there, and there alone, that he finds the
fountain of those eternal blessings which are the
glorious inheritance of the church. These blessings
are not the natural reward and crown of human loyalty
to the Divine throne. Nor are they blessings which
were first thought of by saintly souls in hours of lofty
and daring speculation on the immeasurable possibili
ties of the infinite future and which were conferred in
answer to their prayers, and to satisfy the generous
cravings of noble natures. Paul goes back to the silent
ages " before the foundation of the world" ; and he says
that before the creation of the universe began it was
the Divine purpose that all who are in Christ should
be an elect race, separated from the rest of mankind,
consecrated to God by His own act, delivered by His
own power from every stain and imperfection, "holy
and without blemish before Him" and dwelling for ever
in the blessedness and security of His " love"
I need hardly remind you that Calvinism has
derived its strongest scriptural support from the in
terpretation which has been placed upon certain
passages in the writings of the apostle Paul. On
the first few verses of this epistle the Calvinistic
theory of election and predestination has been sup
posed to rest as on foundations of eternal granite.

30 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ii.
According to this theory, as defined in the third
chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, a
certain number of men " are by the decree of God, for
the manifestation of His glory," "predestinated unto
everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting
death " ; the particular individuals thus predestinated
and foreordained are unchangeably determined ; " and
their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot
be either increased or diminished." The decree of
God that some men shall be saved does not rest upon
" any foresight of [their] faith " ; the decree of God
that others should be lost does not rest upon any
foresight of their unbelief. Further, " as God hath
appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He by the
eternal and most free purpose of His will foreordained
all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are
elected . . . are effectually called unto faith in
Christ by His Spirit working in due season ; are
justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power
through faith unto salvation. . . . The rest of
mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearch
able counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth
or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of
His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by
and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their
sin, to the piaise of His glorious justice."
That is the theory of the Westminster divines ; it
is not the theory of the apostle Paul. It is true
that the technical terms of the Calvinistic theology
are to be found in his epistles, but they do not stand

lect. ii.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 31
for the Calvinistic ideas. When Paul speaks of God
as electing men, choosing them, foreordaining them,
predestinating them, he means something very dif
ferent from what Calvinism means when it uses the
same words.
Calvinism teaches that by the decree of God some
men are foreordained to everlasting death ; Paul
teaches that it is the will of God "that all men
should be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth."1 Calvinism teaches that "neither are any
other redeemed by Christ . . . but the elect
only"; Paul teaches that "Christ gave Himself a
ransom for all." a Calvinism teaches that God's
choice falls on men when they are not " in Christ,"
and brings them into union with Him that they
may receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal
life ; Paul teaches that the elect are those who
are "in Christ," and that being in Him they enter
into the possession of those eternal blessings which
before the foundation of the world it was God's
purpose, His decree, to confer upon all Christians.
According to the Calvinistic conception some men
who are still "children of wrath, even as the rest,"
to use a phrase which occurs later in this epistle, are
among the "elect" and will therefore some day
become children of God. That is a mode of speech
foreign to Paul's thought; according to Paul no
man is elect except he is "in Christ." We are

' 1 Tim. ii. 3. s 1 Tim. ii. 6.

32 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ii.
all among the non-elect until we are in Him. But
once in Christ we are caught in the currents of the
eternal purposes of the Divine love ; we belong to the
elect race ; all things are ours ; we are the children of
God and the heirs of His glory. God has " blessed
us with every spiritual blessing . . . in Christ"
God " chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world that we should be holy and without blame
before Him in love."
It may be alleged that all that Paul has written on
these high matters is mere speculation. God's eternal
purposes lie beyond the farthest reach of human
inquiry. What could the apostle know about them,
unless indeed a revelation came to him in some
Divine vision or by some Divine voice ? and is it
reasonable to suppose that God would make known
to men by supernatural means what has so remote a
connection with practical righteousness ?
But criticism of this kind is rash and superficial.
When Paul wrote these words about God's eternal
choice or election of those that are in Christ, and
about their being foreordained by God unto adop
tion as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, he
was absolutely sure of his ground. There is not a
touch of speculation in this glorious passage. It was
not even necessary that he should appeal, as he
appeals elsewhere, to " visions and revelations." He
was only telling the Ephesian Christians what he had
actually seen for himself, what was plainer and more

lect. n.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. ^
real to him than earth and ocean. The Ephesians
might see the truth for themselves, and just as Paul
had seen it. We in these days may also see it for
ourselves. There is a very just sense in which we may
say that it had been revealed to the apostle, but once
revealed it is an open secret for all devout Christian
men. We need not quote texts in order to prove it ;
while we believe the truth on Paul's bare authority
we do not really know it.
That God had blessed him with every spiritual
blessing in heavenly places in Christ was with Paul
not a matter of speculation ; it was not even a
matter of faith ; it was a matter of experience. He
knew it, just as he knew that the sun warmed him
and that the water quenched his thirst. The bless
ings had actually become his. For five-and-twenty
or thirty years he had been receiving them.
Pie knew that he was " in Christ." This too was
not a matter of bare faith, but of experience. Long
before he wrote this epistle he had said : " I have been
crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer
I, but Christ liveth in me." 1 A little later he had
told his own story in the memorable words, " if any
man is in Christ he is a new creature ; the old things
are passed away ; behold they are become new." 3
And in this union with Christ he had found a free
dom, a force, a fulness of life, which to him. were
the assurance that only " in Christ " could man fulfil
1 Gal. ii. 20^ * 2 Cor. v. 17. D

34 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. H.
the Divine idea of human perfection and blessed
ness. In Christ he had received the light of God and
the strength of God and the joy of God. As a blind
man whose sight has been restored to him knows
that while he was unable to see the shining heavens
and the mountains and the stars and the faces of
those whom he loved he was not living his true life.
so Paul knew that until he was in Christ he had
never approached the perfection and glory which
God had made possible to the race. It was by no
accident that union with Christ exalted and trans
figured the whole spiritual nature of man, and raised
him to diviner levels of life. Man was made for this ;
"before the foundation of the world" God had de
termined that " in Christ " man should find God and
God find him.
And now that Paul was conscious that he had
come into the line of God's eternal purpose his hopes
were immeasurable, and they were hopes which had
their root and justification in his actual experience.
Already Divine forces were at work in him, and he
was certain that while he remained in Christ these
forces would continue to work ; he was confident that
at last they would give him a complete victory over
all sin. By his union with Christ he was consecrated
to God as a temple is consecrated, or a priest, or a
sacrifice ; and he could not doubt that the consecra
tion would be made effective by the cleansing of his
whole life from the impurity which must trouble and
dishonour the righteous God who loveth righteous*

lect. ii.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 35
ness. This then must be the ultimate purpose of
God for all who are in Christ. He chose them "in
Him, that they should be holy and without blemish
before Him in love"
Mr. Matthew Arnold in his "St. Paul and Pro
testantism " has made a very ingenious and interest
ing attempt to deprive Protestantism (or, as he com
monly calls it, Puritanism,) of the strength it has
derived from its appeal to the authority of the great
apostle of the Gentiles. But occasionally Mr. Arnold
misses his way, and his criticisms touch the very heart
of the theology of Paul himself. Discussing the
doctrines of Calvinistic Puritanism he says : " the
passiveness of man, the activity of God, are the great
features of this scheme ; there is very little of what
man does, very much of what God does." 1 Arminian
Methodism, though it puts aside the Calvinistic doc
trine of predestination, is-, in Mr. Arnold's judgment,
open to the same criticism : " the foremost place,
which in the Calvinistic scheme belongs to the doc
trine of predestination, belongs in the Methodist
scheme to the doctrine of justification by faith.
. . . Christ, by His satisfaction, gave the Father
the right and the power (nudum jus Patri acquirebat,
said the Arminians) to follow His mercy, and to make
with man the covenant of free justification by faith,
whereby, if a man has a sure trust and confidence
Page 79.

36 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ii.
that his sins are forgiven him in virtue of the satis
faction made to God for them by the death of Christ,
Jie is held clear of sin by God and admitted to salva
tion. This doctrine, like the Calvinistic doctrine of
predestination, involves a whole history of God's
proceedings, and gives, also, first and almost sole
place to what God does, with disregard to what man
does." i
But very much the same may be said of Paul's own
doctrine. If in Calvinistic Puritanism " there is very
little of what man does and very much of what God
does," and if this is its reproach, the same reproach
attaches to the Pauline epistles. If Arminian
Methodism is at fault because it gives "first and
almost sole place to what God does, with disregard
to what man does," Paul is equally at fault.
Mr. Arnold's real controversy is neither with Cal
vinistic Puritanism nor with Arminian Methodism,
but with religion itself. He is a moralist. To him
conduct is three-fourths of human life ; and religion
is "ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling,"
" morality touched by emotion." He thinks that
"the paramount virtue of religion is that it has
lighted up morality ; that it has supplied the emotion
and inspiration needful for carrying the sage along
the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary
man along it at all." He remains faithful to the
old Astronomy : to him the world of human conduct

1 " St paul and Protestantism," pages 84, 85.

lect. 11.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 37
is the centre of all the spheres, and around it revolve
as useful and subordinate orbs the august objects
of religious faith ; the sun shines to ripen the
harvests which grow in earthly fields ; the stars
move through the infinite depths of heaven to guide
the course of the sailor, perhaps to touch the fancy
of the poet Religion declines to accept this theory
of the universe ; to religion, God is the centre of
all things and God is greater than all things.
To the moralist the supreme object of human life
is to be temperate, truthful, just, fearless, industrious,
kindly. If reverence for God and the hope of immor
tality can give fresh sanctions to moral duties and
fresh strength to discharge them, the aid of religious
faith is gratefully accepted ; but faith discharges a
secondary and ministerial function. To the man
who has seen the glory of God and heard His august
voice, life has larger and loftier aims. God fills earth
and heaven, time and eternity. His first duty is to
God, and that duty includes all others. Life derives
its chief interest from God, and finds in Him its true
and complete meaning. The intrinsic and natural
obligations of temperance, truthfulness, justice, cour
age, industry, kindness, remain and are indefinitely
strengthened ; the ideal of all these virtues is height
ened and ennobled ; but instead of occupying the
whole territory of duty, they are only a single pro
vince of a wider realm over which the will of God
is absolute and supreme.
With this immense enlargement of the area of

38 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ii.
duty, with a Divine ideal of righteousness to be ful
filled, with immortal perfection and blessedness to be
lost or won, man becomes conscious of his need of a
spiritual force beyond his own. He invokes Divine
inspiration and receives it. Henceforth he measures,
not his own strength, but God's, against all the tasks
to which he is called. What he himself does seems
nothing; what God does in him, through him, and
for him, seems everything.
Mr. Arnold is clear-minded enough to see the
contrast between his own way of thinking of human
life and conduct and Paul's way. He says that
" the voluntary, rational, and human world, of right
eousness, moral choice, effort, filled a large place
in [Paul's] spirit. But the necessary mystical and
Divine world of influence, sympathy, emotion, filled an
even larger." 1 That is Mr. Arnold's way of saying
that to Paul God was infinitely great. The same
thing is true of all prophets and of all men that have
exerted great and enduring influence on the religious
thought and life of mankind.
And we may measure the real force and depth of
every religious movement by the greatness of its con
ception of God. In century after century, in nation
after nation, great religious impulses, which seemed at
first to promise a complete and permanent ethical and
religious reformation, have soon spent their strength
because their conception of God was defective in
1 Ibid., page 120.

lect. ii.] ELECTION IN CHRIST. 39
some of its most necessary elements. It is not
enough that men know that God is great to punish
and great to reward. It is not enough that they
recognise in His will an awful authority which it is
criminal and disastrous to resist. God should be
great to the imagination, filling it with splendour ;
great to the intellect, commanding its most reverent
homage and raising it to its loftiest activity ;
great to the heart, inspiring it with passionate affec
tion, with perfect trust, with deep gratitude, with
glorious hope, and with the awe which will restrain
from sin ; great to the conscience as the personal
revelation of the eternal law of righteousness ;
infinitely great to all that is noblest in man; great
as the Creator of all things ; great as the Sustainer
of all things ; great because of His eternal justice ;
great because of His infinite love ; great as the
fountain of all moral and spiritual perfection in
His creatures ; great as the fountain of all their
blessedness. /The greater our conception of God, the
greater will be our own life. /When Christendom
comes to know and worship a God in whom all the
elements of greatness are found, the evil days of
darkness, of superstition, of sorrow, and of sin will
for ever pass away, the prayers of saints will be
answered, and the fair visions of prophets will be
fulfilled.

III.
REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST.
*' Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Chtist
unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. "
Eph. i. s, 6.
THESE words must not be considered alone.
They are a link in a golden chain, and we
shall not see their full meaning unless we recall the
sentences which precede them. " God hath blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ." Why ? Because " He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and without blemish before Him in love." And
this again was because He had "foreordained us unto
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself"
We may reverse the order of the apostle's thought,
and may begin with what he seems to describe as the
original and eternal fountain of that great movement
of the Divine love and power which will be consum-
. mated in our eternal blessedness and glory. Christ
is the eternal Son of God ; and it was the first,
the primaeval purpose of the Divine grace that His
life and sonship should be shared by all mankind ;

lect. ill.] REGENERATION AND SuNSHIP IN CHRIST. 41
that through Christ all men should rise to a loftier
rank than that which belonged to them by their
creation, should be " partakers of the Divine nature "
and share the Divine righteousness and joy. Or
rather, the race was actually created in Christ ; and
it was created that the whole race should in Christ
inherit the life and glory of God. The Divine
purpose has been thwarted and obstructed and
partially defeated by human sin. But it is being
fulfilled in all who are " in Christ." They are there
fore described as chosen in Him before the foundation
of the world, that they should be holy and without
blemish before Him in love. If we consent to re
ceive Christ as the Lord and Giver of life we fall
into the line of God's eternal purpose, we are God's
elect in Him. And that the end for which we
are elected may be achieved, " God has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ."
We have now to consider that original and central
Divine purpose which explains and includes all that
the infinite love of God has done for our race already,
all that the infinite love of God will do for us through
the endless ages beyond death ; God "foreordained
us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto
Himself" " Through Jesus Christ!' Our Lord is always
represented as being, in the highest sense and in a
unique sense, the Son of God. And without ventur
ing into the lofty, and perhaps perilous, inquiries

4.2 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. hi.
suggested by the Athanasian Creed, without dis
cussing whether before the incarnation Christ could
have been rightly spoken of as the Son or whether
Plis truer name was that which is given Him by
John — the Word of God — I may express the con
viction that the relation which, when He was in this
world, our Lord sustained to the Father represented
and revealed an eternal fact, and that the sonship
of the earthly Christ has its foundation and root in
relations eternally existing in the Godhead. Much
more than this the Athanasian Creed could hardly
have been intended to affirm.
But passing on to what we know of our Lord as
He lived among men, nothing so perfectly represents
the impression which His character, spirit, and history
produce upon us as the title which describes Him as
the Son of God. Other men had been God's servants ;
He too, as Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians,
was " born under the law " ; but to speak of Him as a
servant does not tell half the truth. He is a servant
and something more. There is an ease, a freedom, a
grace about His doing of the will of God, which can
belong only to a son. There is nothing constrained
in His moral and spiritual perfection ; it is not the
result of art and painstaking. He was born to it, as
we say ; He does the will of God as a child does the
will of its father, naturally, as a matter of course,
almost without thought.
About the Father's love for Him He has never any
doubt ; and there is no sign that His perfect faith is

lect.iil] REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST. 43
the result of discipline, or that it had ever been less
secure and tranquil than it was in the maturity of
His strength. There is nothing to suggest that He
had discovered God's love for Him. He always knew
it ; it awakened no surprise. It gave Him peace
and strength and blessedness, but produced no passion
of rapture. It was His from the first, as the air and
the sunlight were His.
The character of His communion with the Father
confirms this impression. There is no irreverent
familiarity, but there is no trace of fear or even of
wonder. It is plain that He lived in the very light
of God, saw God as no saint had ever seen Him ; but
He is not subdued and overawed by the vision.
Prophets had fallen to the ground when the Divine
glory was revealed to them ; but Christ stands calm
and erect. A subject may lose self possession in the
presence of his prince, but not a son.
And when He speaks of the glory which is to
come to Him after His death and resurrection, He
is still a Son anticipating the honour to which
the Father has always destined Him, and which
indeed had always been His. I know of nothing
more wonderful than the blending of the human
and the Divine, the submission of voluntary service
with the freedom of natural and essential sonship,
in His last great prayer : " I glorified Thee on the
earth, having accomplished the work which Thou
hast given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify
Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory

44 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. nr.
which I had with Thee before the foundation of
the world." x
Christ was God's Son, the first of the human race
that ever knew God as a Father. But Paul means
us to understand that if we are " in Christ," we too
according to God's eternal purpose have become
God's sons. The sonship of Christ, as far as this is
possible in the nature of things, (or I should rather
say, as far as this can be made possible by the power
and love of God,) has become ours. The eternal
relationship between Christ and the Father cannot
belong to us ; but all who are one with Christ share
the blessedness, the security, and the honour of
that relationship ; and the life of Christ, which has
its eternal fountains in the life of God, is theirs.
For this adoption of which Paul speaks is some
thing more than a mere legal and formal act,
conveying certain high prerogatives. We are " called
the sons of God" because we are really made His
sons_by_a new and supernatural birth. Regeneration
is sometimes described as though it were merely a
change in a man's principles of conduct, in his cha
racter, his tastes, his habits. The description is
theologically false, and practically most pernicious
and misleading. If regeneration were nothing more
than this, we should have to speak of a man as
being more or less regenerate according to the
extent of his moral reformation ; but this would be

1 John xvii. 4, 5.

lect. HI.] REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST. 45
contrary to the idiom of New Testament thought.
That a great change in the moral region of a man's
nature will certainly follow regeneration is true ;
this change however is not regeneration itself, but
the effect of regeneration, and the moral change
which regeneration produces varies in many ways in
different men. In some the change is immediate,
decisive, and apparently complete. In others it is
extremely gradual, and may for a long time be hardly
discernible. In some regenerate men grave sins
remain for a time unforsaken, perhaps unrecognised.
Look at these Ephesian Christians. The apostle has
to tell them that they must put away falsehood and
speak the truth ; that they must give up thieving,
and foul talk, and covetousness, and gross sensual sin.
He addresses them as "saints." He describes them
as having been chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, and foreordained by God unto adoption
as sons unto Himself; and yet he knows that they
are in danger of committing these base and flagrant
offences. It was hard for them to escape from the
vices of heathenism. They were regenerate ; but
as yet, in some of them, the moral effects of regene
ration were very incomplete, the change which
regeneration was ultimately certain to produce in
their moral life had only begun, and it was checked
and hindered by a thousand hostile influences.
The simplest and most obvious account of re
generation is the truest. When a man is regenerated
he receives a new life and receives it from God. In

46 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. hi.
itself, regeneration is not a change in his old life
but the beginning of a new life which is conferred by
the immediate and supernatural act of the Holy
Spirit. The man is really " born again." A higher
nature comes to him than that which he inherited
from his human parents ; he is " begotten of God,"
" born of the Spirit."
There is no doubt a very true sense in which all
men may be called God's children. Paul acknow
ledged the truth of the line of the heathen poet,
" We are also His offspring." But the sonship of the
race is rudimentary. There is in most men some
faint consciousness that, by the law of their nature,
their true home is in God's presence, and that perfect
strength and blessedness are to be found only in
His love. In their trouble and fear they appeal to
God as children appeal to a father for pity, for
counsel, for safety, for help. Natural instincts which
are rarely completely suppressed bear witness to the
grandeur of the destiny for which we were created.
The capacity for receiving the Divine life is native
to us ; that we should receive it is an essential part
of the Divine idea of human nature. But the actual
realization of our sonship is possible only through
Christ. Even apart from sin it was possible only
through Him. If the Divine life is to be ours, and
with the Divine life Divine sonship, we must be one
with Christ. And those to whom the gospel comes
are made one with Christ in response to their faith
in Him. "As many as received Him to them gave

lect. in.] REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST. 47
He the right to become children of God, even to
them that believe on His name."1 "Ye are all sons
of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus." " Behold,"
says John, " what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us that we should be called children
of God " ; and this is not a distinction conferred upon
all mankind, for he adds : " for this cause the world
knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."2 " The
adoption of sons" comes to us through Christ.
Indeed Paul did not believe that even the saints of
the old Jewish times were sons of God in the sense in
which we are His sons. They had great hopes, but
the hopes were not fulfilled. They differed nothing
from bondservants. They were under the law.
"But when the fulness of the time came God sent
forth His Son . . [to] redeem them which were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons."5 And however hard and technical this way of
putting it may seem, it represents a real spiritual fact
of transcendent importance, which we may verify for
ourselves. Look through the Psalms. They record
.a very noble and beautiful development of the
spiritual life. But no psalmist addresses God as a
Father. He is the Creator of all things ; the heavens
declare His glory, and the firmament showeth His
handiwork. He is a Shepherd, who leads us in paths
of righteousness for His name's sake. He is a King.,
He is the Sun, the Shield, the Refuge, the Dwelling-

1 1 John i. 12. 2 1 John iii. I. a Gal. iii. 4, 5.

48 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. III.
place of His people, their Rock of Defence ; but their
Father never. Here and there in the Old Testament
Scriptures, six or seven times at most in a literature
extending over more than twelve centuries, God is
spoken of as a father, but the name does not carry
with it the nearness of kinship and the tenderness of
affection, which are conveyed by the description used
in the New Testament, and there is nothing in the
spiritual life of the ancient saints which responds to
the title. Great as they were, the " spirit of adop
tion " was not theirs. They " died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them and
greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on earth." Not merely
during their earthly life, but after they had passed to
their rest, they waited and hoped for the coming of
Christ : " God having provided some better thing
concerning us, that apart from us they should not be
made perfect." Not until the Son of God became
man could men, either in this world or in worlds
unseen, become the sons of God. The incarnation
raised human nature to a loftier level, lifted it nearer
to God, fulfilled in a new and nobler manner the
Divine idea of humanity. We stand on heights
which the ancient saints never reached. John the
Baptist was greater than the greatest of the prophets ;
but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater
than he. God "foreordained us unto adoption as sons
through Jesus Christ unto Himself."
And these great and surprising blessings are con-

lect. in.] REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST. 49
ferred upon us, not because of any personal merit of
ours, but " according to the good pleasure of [God's]
will." We had no claim upon Him for gifts like
these. Nor in conferring them did He act under the
constraint of any law of His own nature which im
posed upon Him either a necessity or an obligation
to raise us to the dignity of Divine sonship. Every
thing is to be ascribed to God's infinite love, to His
free, unforced, spontaneous kindliness. What He has
done for us is " to the praise of the glory of His
grace!' Even now Paul has not said enough to convey his
conception of the absence of all claim on our part
to the blessings which are ours in Christ. He is so
eager to make it clear that the whole reason of the
honour and blessedness which God has made our
inheritance is to be found in God's own love, that he
accumulates phrase upon phrase to emphasise and
to glorify the spontaneity of the Divine goodness.
God " foreordained us unto adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ " ; this seems sufficient to show that our
sonship is not won by our personal effort and
righteousness ; but to Paul it is not sufficient ; — " ac-
cording to the good pleasure of His will " ; it seems
impossible to say more than this, but even this is not
enough ;— " to the praise of the glory of His grace " ;
nor is the apostle satisfied even now, and he adds,
" which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved"
With the infinite suggestiveness of that last word
Paul seems to have been content. Christ dwells for
E

5o LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. hi.
ever in the infinite love of God, and as we are
in Christ the love of God for Christ is in a wonderful
manner ours.
All that constituted the strength and nobleness
of Calvinism lies in this account of human salva
tion. To saintly men who held the Calvinistic
creed, which to us seems so hard, so severe, so intoler
able, it was radiant with the glow and glory of that
passionate joy in the Divine love which Paul expresses
in the early part of this epistle. When they con
tended for the Calvinistic theory of the Divine decrees,
they only meant that all things come to us from God,
that our redemption from sin and our eternal glory
are the effect of His free and spontaneous love.
When they said revolting and incredible things con
cerning the depravity of human nature, and main
tained that all the actions of unregenerate men are
sinful, that the very virtues of the unregenerate, their
justice, their truthfulness, their generosity, their com
passion for suffering, are but splendid vices, they
meant that we were made to illustrate a Divine right-
eousness, and that apart from union with God this
righteousness is impossible. When they declared that
" man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost
all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying
salvation," this was nothing more than an attempt
to say that all the springs of human goodness
are in God. When they insisted that Christ's
" obedience and satisfaction " are imputed to us
by God, and that by this imputation we are

lect. in.] REGENERATION AND SONSHIP IN CHRIST. 51
justified, this was only an artificial and unfortunate
way of saying that we owe all things to the infinite
grace of God, and that God's grace is ours through
our union with Christ. Their most extravagant and
daring and appalling statements concerning the
Divine predestination of the lost to dishonour, wrath,
and everlasting death were but the endeavour of
devout men, who were filled ' with immeasurable
wonder and thankfulness by their own salvation, to
translate into a theological system their profound
conviction that they had no stronger claim on the
mercy of God than any of those who had been
condemned to eternal destruction, and that their
salvation was to be ascribed, and ascribed withou*
reserve, to the unsearchable riches of God's grace.
To us it has become apparent that the theory in
which they defined the relations between God and
the human race involved the gravest slanders both
on the Divine justice and on the Divine love. But
we should not forget that to men of the loftiest
genius, and the noblest and most heroic piety, this
theory has appeared to contain the only satisfactory
account of the mystery and glory of the moral
universe. To them God was infinitely great and
glorious, and the theology of Augustine and Calvin
asserted His greatness and His glory. We have
learned that man, who was created to bear the image
of God and to share the sonship of Christ, has also
an august dignity, that man's will as well as God's
will has authority and force. It is not easy in any

52 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iii.
scheme of human thought to find room for man
when any adequate place has been given to the
supremacy of God ; but place must be found for
both. Of the two extremes — the suppression of man
which was the offence of Calvinism, and the sup
pression of God which was the offence against which
Calvinism so fiercely protested — the fault and error of
Calvinism was the nobler and grander. The history
of the Augustinian and Calvinistic theology in its
best times is a fresh and striking illustration of the
eternal law, " he that loseth his life shall save it " ;
for the most heroic forms of human courage, strength,
and righteousness have been found in men who
in their theology seemed to deny the possibility of
human virtue and made the will of God the only real
force in the moral universe.

IV.
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
" In whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
cfour trespasses according to the riches of His grace." — Eph. i. 7.
THE earlier verses of this chapter contain Paul's
conception of the Divine ideal of human nature.
The region in which his thought is moving lies far
remote from that to which we have been so powerfully
attracted by recent scientific speculations. Modern
science believes that it has discovered traces of the
long and dark and difficult path by which human
nature has made good its ascent from the lowest
levels of life to its present dignity and power.
The apostle is interested in inquiries of a loftier
order. He is not occupied with the processes by
which the Divine ideal of human nature has moved
towards its partial fulfilment, but with the Divine
ideal itself.
Whether the nature of man, as we know it, came
into existence six thousand years ago as the im
mediate creation of the Divine hand, or whether
it is the result of a Divine thought which has
gradually accomplished itself through ages of conflict

j4 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iv.
and suffering, the Divine ideal of human life remains
the same. It was the Divine purpose "before the
foundation of the world" that men should share
the life and sonship of the eternal Son of God. It
was for this that human nature received its wonderful
capacities, — whether these capacities were conferred
by a single and isolated creative act, or whether they
were the achievement of protracted ages of develop
ment. As this was the Divine ideal of the destiny
of the race, it was a fundamental law of human
nature that its sanctity and righteousness were to
be secured by union with Christ : God " chose us
in Him before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love " ; and therefore whatever wisdom, power,
happiness, and glory were possible to the race were
possible only through Christ : " in Christ " " God
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places."/ We may say that according to
the Divine thought the human race was to be a
great spiritual organism having Christ for the root
of its life and blessedness. Abiding in Christ the
race was to abide in God ; and only by abiding in
Christ could the race achieve the perfection and
glory for which it was created. /
But the Divine purpose did not suppress human
freedom. It could be fulfilled only by the free con
currence of the race with the Divine righteousness
and love ; and the whole order of the development
of the Divine thought has been disturbed by sin. In

lf.ct. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 55
His infinite goodness God has delivered us from the
immense catastrophe which came upon us through our
revolt against His authority. In the text we learn
how this deliverance is effected. We were created
that "in Christ," not apart from Him, we should
achieve the perfection of power and righteousness
and should become sons of God ; and when we had
sinned the fundamental law of our nature was not
reversed. "In Christ" not apart from Him, "we
have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace!'
In these words Paul tells us nothing more than
our Lord Himself had told His disciples during His
earthly ministry. He said that " the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and
give His life a ransom for many." l And when He
gave the cup to the twelve at the last supper He
said, " Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood of the
covenant which is shed for many unto the remission
of sins." 2 The apostolic doctrine of the atonement
rests on Christ's own teaching.
To understand this doctrine it is necessary to form
a clear conception of what is meant by the forgive
ness of sins ; and those who have had the opportunity
of discovering the very loose way in which large
numbers of people think about the simplest religious
truths will not be surprised if I begin by reminding
you that forgiveness is not a change in our minds
1 Matt. xx. 28.' a Matt. xxvi. 28.

56 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. IV.

towards God but a change in God's mind towards
us. Take an illustration. A son has been guilty of
flagrant misconduct towards his father ; has insulted
him, slandered his character, robbed him, and almost
ruined him. The son discovers his guilt and is
greatly distressed. He does all he can to atone for
his wickedness. He has become a better man, and
there is a great change in his mind and conduct
towards his father. But it is possible for all the
change to be on one side. He may be unable to
remove or even to lessen his father's indignation
against him. His father may continue for years
bitter, relentless, unforgiving. I do not mean to
suggest that God will be hard with us when we
repent ; but if we are to have any clear and true
thoughts about this subject we must see distinctly
that it is one thing for us to repent of sin and to
become better, and quite another thing for God
to forgive us.
Nor must the Divine forgiveness be confounded
with peace of conscience. I have known many
people who were restless and unhappy, dissatisfied
with themselves, and unable to find any rest of heart
in the Divine mercy. And the reason why the Divine
mercy gave them no peace or courage or hope or
joy was very plain. They were not troubled by
the Divine hostility to their sin, and therefore
the assurance that God was willing to forgive them
afforded them no relief. It was not God's thoughts
about them that occasioned their distress, but their

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 57
own thoughts about themselves. They did not want
to obtain the Divine forgiveness, but to recover their
own self respect, which had been wounded by the
discovery of their moral imperfections. But it is
clearly one thing for God to be at peace with us, and
quite a different thing for us to be at peace with
ourselves. There is another possible error. We must not
suppose that as soon as God forgives us we escape
at once from the painful and just consequences of our
sins. The sins may be forgiven, and yet many of
the penalties which they have brought upon us may
remain. There is a certain alliance between the
laws of nature and the laws of righteousness, and
there is a similar alliance between the natural laws
of society and the laws of righteousness. If a man
is guilty of habitual drunkenness he suffers for it.
His physical strength will sooner or later be en
feebled ; his blood will become foul ; his consti
tution will be undermined ; disease will fasten upon
him ; his intellect will lose something of its clearness
and vigour ; and his moral force will be lessened.
When a man repents of his drunkenness and becomes
sober, when he receives God's forgiveness for his
drunkenness, he does not escape at once from the
natural consequences of his past excesses. The con
sequences remain for a long time ; they disappear
very gradually, if they disappear at all. No Divine
act arrests the operation of the natural laws which
punish the penitent for his former drunkenness.

58 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. n.

There are vices, such as flagrant lying, gross
treachery, deliberate dishonesty, which involve a man
in heavy social penalties. He does not escape these
penalties when he repents of the vices and receives
the Divine pardon. He is maimed for life. His
chances are lost. He will recover with difficulty
the confidence of even kindly and generous men.
Positions of public trust and honour will be closed
against him. He will be excluded from many kinds
of usefulness. These penalties will come upon him
and will remain upon him by the action of Divine
laws which are implicated in the very structure of
social life; and no Divine act will lift the penitent
beyond their reach and give hjm back all that he has
lost by his wrong-doing. Many of the terrible con
sequences of sin are untouched by the Divine for
giveness. What is it then for God to Forgive sins ?
Forgiveness among ourselves implies that there
has been just resentment against the person whom
we forgive, resentment provoked by his wrong doing.
When we forgive him the resentment ceases. The
resentment may not have quenched our affection.
Indeed, the strength of our love often increases the
strength of our resentment. An offence which, if
committed by a stranger, would be regarded with
indifference, creates, if committed by a child, a
brother, or a friend, intense moral pain and deep
moral indignation.

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 59
But to attribute anger and resentment to God is to
oppose the whole current of the religious thought of
our time. We think of Him as an immense and
kindly Power, and a Power can feel neither moral
resentment nor moral approbation. It works uncon
sciously, and according to fixed laws. If it blesses it
blesses without delight ; if it punishes it punishes
without anger. But just in the proportion in which
God is regarded as a Power rather than a Person, He
loses those attributes of infinite majesty which filled
the saints of other ages with reverence and awe. For
a Person, however weak and however obscure, is more
august than any mere Power however great, however
just, however benignant ; there are no terms of
comparison between them. By excluding from our
conception of God the idea of personality, we
degrade Him to a rank inferior to ourselves. If God
is not a living person I am greater than He.
Or if the idea of God's personality is not altogether
suppressed, we are in danger of thinking that His life
is passionless. He may have a certain tranquil satis
faction in our happiness and righteousness, but we
falsely imagine that we dishonour His greatness if we
suppose that He is provoked to moral resentment
and indignation by our sin. We think of Him as a
summer ocean of kindliness, never agitated by storms.
This was not the conception of Jewish saints ;
this is not the conception which has formed the faith
and righteousness of the Christian church. For
myself I worship the God who was revealed in Christ ;

60 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iv.
having seen Him I believe that I have seen the
Father. He wept over the city of Jerusalem ; in
those tears I see the revelation of the infinite sorrow
of the Divine love thwarted and defeated by human
sin. On a sabbath day in a synagogue there were
men watching Christ to see whether He would heal a
man whose hand was withered ; if He did they would
have a fresh proof that He was a sabbath breaker,
and this was the charge which they were bringing
against Him to destroy His authority as a prophet
sent from God. He " looked round about on them
with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their
heart";1 in that anger, in that grief, I see the
revelation of the Divine anger and the Divine grief
when men's hearts are so hardened that while they
are hot in their zeal for the mere external forms and
institutions of religion they are blind to the noblest
manifestations of the Divine righteousness and good
ness, and care more for the most mechanical of their
religious traditions than for the living triumphs of
God's love over the sins and miseries of mankind.
And when towards the close of His earthly ministry
the indignation of Christ burned with a white heat,
and He fiercely denounced the Pharisees and all the
ecclesiastical authorities of the people, I see in the
fires of His wrath a revelation of the wrath of God
against men who make great professions of sanctity
and religious zeal, but to whom temple and priest,
1 Mark iii. j.

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 61
altar and sacrifice, Divine laws and Divine promises,
the religious hopes and fears and sorrows of the race,
are but the instruments of ambition and covetousness,
and who, rather than lose their own wealth, reputa
tion, authority, and ease, will silence the voice of
Divine truth, resist religious reformation, slander and
crush the prophets of God.
I do not degrade God when I believe that He
listens with pity to the cry of the oppressed ; I do
not degrade Him when I believe that He rises in
anger to break in pieces the oppressor. I do not
degrade God when I believe that He watches with
keen sympathy and delight the heroic struggles of
good men to be true and just ; I do not degrade
Him when I believe that He looks with scorn upon
conscious falsehood and dishonesty. I do not degrade
God when I believe that He loves men the more
because of their righteousness ; I do not degrade
Him when I believe that He regards not only with
disapproval but with resentment those who sin.
When He forgives men His resentment ceases.
The cessation of Divine resentment has effects
which do not follow the cessation of just human
resentment against wrong doing. A man may for
give a trusted friend who, by a systematic course of
fraud extending over many years, has stripped him
of his wealth and dragged him down to miserable
poverty; but the forgiveness cannot cancel the guilt of
the treachery and the fraud. A wife on her death
bed may forgive her husband's persistent neglect.

62 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iv.
cruelty, and unfaithfulness. The wrongs of years
may be forgotten ; the tender memories of their
early love and happiness may fill her heart ; all her
resentment may be swept away by the returning tide
of the affection she felt for him in the fair morning of
life, before the clouds gathered and her miseries
began. But the guilt of his villainy is not lessened
by her forgiveness. He cannot silence his conscience
by pleading that his wife has pardoned him. The
brutal offences of those shameful years are still his,
though the woman he wronged assured him that
she forgave him everything and loved him still.
The very generosity of her forgiveness, if his moral
nature has not become wholly insensible, will bring
his guilt home to him afresh, and increase the anguish
of his self reproach. The sins are his ; her pardon
has not broken the terrible chain which binds them
to him.
And there are some considerations which might
make us suppose that it is impossible in the nature
of things to escape from the guilt of past wrong
doing. The sins once committed remain a part of
our moral history for ever. What is done cannot be
undone ; and the continuity of our moral' life cannot
be dissolved. Conscience, which is the representative
of the Divine authority, the witness to the Divine
law, holds us responsible for all our sins and refuses
to release us from their guilt. You may commit a
sin to-morrow ; it will be your sin, if you are still
alive, thirty, forty, fifty years hence, — yours when you

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 63
are seventy, though you committed it when you were
five-and-twenty. You cannot escape from it. The
malignant lie, the act of cruelty, the deliberate dis
honesty will cling to you, year after year, and you
will not by any moral effort be able to throw it off.
When all the people that you injured are dead, the
crime will still be yours. You may suffer agonies
of humiliation and self reproach on account of it, but
it will still be yours. You may endure heavy penal
ties of another kind for it : public scorn, the loss of
social position, the ruin of your fortunes, the breaking
up of your home, the alienation and desertion of your
own flesh and blood : but it will still be yours. You
may sometimes forget it, but it will not cease to be
yours because for a time you cease to think of it.
Suddenly, in the dead of night, or when you are
prostrate with sickness, or when death is drawing
near, conscience will spring up in her wrath, armed
with an iron lash, and will scourge you for the offence
as fiercely as on the morning after it was committed.
Conscience has no authority to pardon sin, to cancel
your responsibility for it, to treat you as though you
were not guilty of it.
But when God forgives us He actually remits our
sin. Our responsibility for it ceases. The guilt of it
is no longer ours. That He should be able to give
us this release is infinitely more wonderful than that
He should be able to kindle the fires of the sun and
to control, through age after age, the courses of the
stars.

64 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iv.
He can forgive sin because He is God. Sin is a
violation of the eternal law of righteousness, and the
eternal law of righteousness is neither above God nor
below God. It is not below Him so as to leave Him
free to suppress and disregard at His will the eternal
contrast between Right and Wrong, to make virtue
shameful and vice honourable, to brand and punish
truth, justice, and generosity as sins, to command
and to reward falsehood, injustice, selfishness, as
righteousness. To attribute to Him such a power as
this would render it impossible to attribute to Him
any moral perfection, and would make Him the
tyrant of the universe, not the God. But on the other
hand the eternal law of righteousness is not above
Him. If it were He would be under authority as we
are ; He would not be supreme, but would be simply
the mightiest and most illustrious Minister of a more
august power, its Representative, its Defender, but
still its Servant.
The eternal law of righteousness is one with the
eternal life and will of God. To quote words which
I have used- elsewhere : " The supremacy of the law
is absolute and irreversible. But when God is truly
known, conscience, without revoking or qualifying the
acknowledgment of this supremacy, confesses that the
authority which it had recognised in an ideal law is the
awful and glorious prerogative of a living Person." 1
1 " The Atonement : the Congregational Union Lecture for
1875." Page 372.

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 65
Our supreme duty is to love, trust, and obey God.
This includes all other duties ; and in every moral
offence of which we are guilty the supreme obligation
is violated. The identity between God and the eternal law of
righteousness is His characteristic and incommuni
cable prerogative. This, — not His everlasting exist
ence, not His immense power, not His immeasurable
knowledge ; this, — not the infinite resources revealed
in the vastness, variety, and grandeur of the visible
universe which He created, and which through count
less ages has rested on His strong and solitary
support ; this, — not the mysterious energy which
originated all forms of conscious life, from its lowest
gradations which doubtfully emerge from the dull
and blind inertness of matter, to the spiritual
strength and splendour of the celestial princes who
have their home in His own eternal glory ; this
.identity between the eternal law of righteousness
and the life and will of God — constitutes His title to
universal obedience and homage, to the love and the
worship of earth and heaven.
It is this which gives authority to His forgiveness
of sin. When His resentment against us ceases the
eternal law of righteousness ceases to be hostile to
us. When He pardons our transgressions the eternal
law of righteousness no longer holds us responsible
for them. The shadow which they had projected
across our life, and which lengthened with our length
ening years, passes away. We look back upon the
F

66 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. iv.

sins which God has forgiven and we condemn them
still, but the condemnation does not fall upon our
selves ; for God, who is the living law of righteous
ness, condemns us no longer.
The peace and the blessedness of this release from
guilt are wonderful. The soul is conscious of a
Divine freedom. It can approach God with happy
trust and with perfect courage, for the past is no
longer a source of terror, and the future is bright
with immortal hope. It has lost a heavy burden
which was too great for its strength, and it has a fresh
and surprising alertness and joy in all duty. The
bitter reproaches of conscience are silenced ; for
conscience is the minister and representative of
God, and when God forgives conscience ceases to
condemn. To those who have known the power of the Divine
forgiveness to cancel the guilt of sin, the act is as
clearly supernatural as any of the miracles recorded
in the Gospels, and it is more wonderful, for it reveals
the ascendency of the Divine will in a region of life
far nobler than that in which the physical miracles
of the Gospels were wrought.
"In Christ" "we have our redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the
riches of His grace!' The relation between the death
of Christ and the forgiveness of sins I must reserve
for another lecture. Meanwhile I venture to ask
those of you who have felt that the infinite mercy
of God might forgive us apart from any sacrifice for

lect. iv.] THE FORGIVENESS OF S/NS. 6)
sins, to consider how much the Divine forgiveness
means, that it is the forgiveness of One whose life
and will are inseparable from the eternal law of
righteousness, and that His forgiveness carries with
it an actual extinction of the guilt of the sins which
are forgiven.
It is possible that an inadequate conception of the
nature and effect of the Divine forgiveness may be at
the root of many difficulties concerning the atone
ment Note. — Forgiveness may be defined :
(i) In personal terms— as a cessation of the anger or moral
resentment of God against sin.
(2) In ethical terms— as a release from the guilt of sin, which
oppresses the conscience.
(3) In legal terms— as a remission of the punishment of sin,
which is eternal death.

V.
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND THE DEATH OF
CHRIST.
" In whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace." Eph. i. 7.
WE have already considered what Paul means
by " the forgiveness of our trespasses " ; we
have now to inquire what he meant by saying that
we have forgiveness in Christ and through the
" blood " or death of Christ.
That our Lord Jesus Christ declared that men
were to receive redemption or the remission of sins
through Himself, and especially through His death,
appears from several passages in the Gospels ; and
the great place which His last sufferings occupied in
His thought from the very commencement of His
ministry, the frequency with which He spoke of
them, the wonderful results which He said were to
follow them, the agitation and dismay which He felt
as they approached, and His anxiety to pass through
them and beyond them, show that to Christ His
death was not a mere martyrdom but an awful and
glorious crisis in His own history and in the history
of the human race. 68

lfct. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 69
The apostles Peter, Paul, and John, though each
had his own characteristic conception of the work of
Christ and the Christian salvation, are agreed in
declaring that the ground of our forgiveness is in
Christ, and they are also agreed in attributing a
mysterious importance and efficacy to His death.
" We thus judge that One died for all, therefore all
died." " Him who knew no sin He made to be sin
on our behalf; that we might become the righteous
ness of God in Him." " He was delivered up for our
trespasses." " He died for our sins according to the
Scriptures." " He gave Himself for our sins." " He
suffered for sins once, the Righteous for the un
righteous, that He might bring us to God." " His
own Self bare our sins in His body upon the tree."
" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be the Propitiation for
our sins." " He is the Propitiation for our sins ;
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."
" The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all
sin." " God appointed us not unto wrath but unto
the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ who died for us." " God commendeth His
own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us ; much more then being now
justified by His blood, shall we be saved from the
wrath of God through Him." " Being justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus : whom God set forth to be a Propitiation,
through faith, by His blood, to show His righteous-

70 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
ness, because of the passing over of the sins done
aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the show
ing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season ;
that He might Himself be just and the Justifier of
him that hath faith in Jesus." 1
But no collection of isolated passages gives an
adequate impression of the strength of the proof
that both our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles
taught that in Him " we have our redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
tlie riches of [God's] grace." This truth is wrought
into the very substance of the Christian gospel as
that gospel appears in the pages of the New Testa
ment. We may not be able to understand quite
clearly why the ground of our forgiveness is in
Christ ; we may be still less able to discover any
special and direct relation between the death of
Christ and the act of the Divine mercy in forgiving
us : but that the ground of our forgiveness is in
Christ, not in ourselves, and that His death has a
unique relation to the remission of sins, are facts which
lie at the very foundation of the faith and hope and
life of the Christian church. Theories of the atone
ment have varied from age to age ; some of them have
been very technical and artificial, they were equally
remote from the sad realities of the moral life of man

1 2 Cor. v. 14 ; 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. iv. 25 ; 1 Cor. xv. 3 ; Gal. i. 4 ;
1 Pet. iii. 18; 1 Pet. ii. 20-; 1 John iv. 10; 1 John ii. 2;
1 John i. 7 ; I Thess. v. 9 ; Rom. v. 8, 9 ; Rom. iii. 24-26.

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 71
and from the eternal perfections of the moral life of
God ; some of them were grotesque ; some of them
morally offensive as well as intellectually incredible ;
but through all changes of theological thought men
have found in Christ, and especially in the death of
Christ, the reason and ground of the Divine forgive
ness. Theories of the atonement have exercised and
baffled the speculation of a long succession of theo
logians, but the atonement itself has continued to
give consolation and courage to all penitent hearts,
transforming their despair into hope, their misery
into peace, and their terror into perfect joy in the
righteousness and love of God. /
Perhaps the great mystery is inaccessible to
human thought. This is the position maintained by
Coleridge in a well known passage in the " Aids to
Reflection." What he describes as " the mysterious
act, the operative cause " of redemption, is in Cole
ridge's judgment " transcendent " ; " it can be charac
terized only by the consequences " ; and he contends
that the apostle Paul describes the redemptive act
of Christ, not as it is in itself but by its results in
the actual salvation of men. It has an effect corre
sponding to the effect of paying a ransom for a slave,
and is therefore described as the payment of a
ransom. It has an effect corresponding to the effect
of removing the resentment and anger of a person
who has been wronged, and is therefore described as
a reconciliation or atonement. It has an effect cor
responding to the effect of ancient sacrifices which

72 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.

expiated the offences that excluded from the temple,
and it is therefore described as an expiation. These
observations are profoundly true, and had the meta
phorical character of the terms under which the
death of Christ is described in the New Testament
been recognised, and the proper limits and functions
of metaphorical description been understood,1 theo
logians would have been saved from some of the
most intolerable theories of this great mystery. To
put Coleridge's meaning into simpler language, an
illustration which is of excellent use for explaining
the effects of the atonement is of no use for explain
ing the nature of the atonement.
We may perhaps be unable to construct anything
that can deserve to be called a theory of the atone
ment. All our attempts at explanation may at best
be only provisional. But I am not inclined to admit
that the whole subject is as far beyond the reach of
human thought as Coleridge maintained. Something
may be known, though there will always remain an
infinite mystery to inspire us with reverence and awe.
The two truths which Paul affirms in the text are,
in a sense, equally mysterious ; but the first may be
more accessible than the second. He says, first, that
we have the forgiveness of our trespasses " in Christ"
and, secondly, that we have the forgiveness of our
trespasses in Christ " through His blood."
1 See note at the end of this lecture.

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 73
We are assisted to approach the first truth by
what he has said in the earlier verses of this chapter.
The eternal springs of the diviner life of the human
race are in Christ. Whatever strength and wisdom
and blessedness and glory are possible to us are
possible through Him and through our union with
Him. Christ's eternal righteousness, His eternal
relationship to the Father, the Father's delight in
Him, are the origin of all the greatness for which the
human race was created. It was from Christ, accord
ing to the Divine idea of the race, that we were to
receive all things. Every spiritual blessing was con
ferred upon the race in Him. The race was chosen
" in Him before the foundation of the world," to be
"holy and without blemish before [God] in love."
His sonship was to be the root of ours.
The responsibility, — shall I venture to call it ? — the
immense, the glorious responsibility, of our righteous
ness, rested on Him. In His strength the whole race
was to find strength to do the will of God. His love
for the Father was to sustain our love ; His trust in
the Father was to be the life of our trust ; His joy
in the Father the perpetual inspiration of our joy.
We were to reveal, in inferior forms, Christ's eternal
perfection, — to reveal it, I say ; for our perfection
was to illustrate the infinite resources of the moral
life of Christ Himself, and was to be His rather than
our own. The Divine idea of the human race carried
with it the prerogatives of sonship ; for if we were
to repeat and illustrate, under whatever limitations,

74 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
the characteristic glory and blessedness of the eternal
Son of God, it was necessary that we too should be
"sons of God " and not merely His servants. In our
original creation, it was God's purpose that Christ
should be the vine and we the branches. His life
was to be ours, and was to be manifested in our
righteousness. This was the Divine idea of the race. It is an idle,
and yet an infinitely attractive, dream to speculate on
what the history of the race and of every individual
of the race would have been if the Divine idea had
been freely and loyally accepted by us, and if
through generation after generation the idea had
revealed more and more fully the infinite wealth
of its grace and glory. But we ceased to abide
in Christ. We revolted against God. We incurred
the Divine resentment. We have come under the
condemnation of the eternal law of righteousness.
Now unless the Divine idea of human nature is to
be surrendered, the reason and ground of our forgive
ness and restoration to God must be in Christ, not in
ourselves. Had we continued steadfast in our fidelity
we should have lived a life of faith in the Son of God,
finding in Him, not in ourselves, the root and ideal
perfection of our righteousness, the reason and
ground of our sonship and our blessedness ; and
through our union with Christ we were to reach
the greatness to which the infinite love of God had
destined us. Even apart from sin, our whole relation
to God was to be determined, not by our own isolated

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 75
and personal worth, but by the transcendent glory of
Christ. It is in harmony with this law that now we
have sinned we should have forgiveness in Him. The
first of the two truths which the apostle states in this
verse, — that in Christ " we have our redemption, the
forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of
[God's] grace," — is involved in the Christian concep
tion of human nature.
But what special relation can be discovered be
tween the death of Christ and the remission of sins?
It is this question that haunts and perplexes many
devout minds ; and it is this question that, according
to Coleridge, admits of no answer. To discover the
relation between two terms, both terms must be
known ; and if the redemptive act of Christ lies
wholly beyond the reach of human thought we can
never know the relation between that act and the
blessings which result from it.
But let us return to that law of human nature which
we have already considered. In Christ we have found
the ideal righteousness of the race. Shall we be sur
prised if we also find in Christ the ideal submission
of the race to the justice of the Divine resentment
against sin ? That God should forgive sin apart from
a real and effective submission to the expression of
His just condemnation of sin is inconceivable ; and,
holding fast to the great truth that Christ's glorious
perfection is the reason and ground of our very
existence and of our relation to the universe and to

75 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
God, it appears to be in harmony with the funda
mental conception of the relations between the human
race and Christ that His submission to the pain and
loss which came upon the race as the result of sin
should be the reason and ground of the Divine for
giveness. According to the Divine idea of the
human race Christ's moral relations to the Father are
the highest, the perfect expression of ours. But as
the result of our sin it is indispensable, if we are to
be forgiven, that in us there should be the relation
of perfect submission to the righteousness of God in
condemning and punishing sin. This relationship has
no place, can have no place, in the eternal relations
between the Son and the Father. Unless by a
supreme act of humiliation, self sacrifice, and love,
Christ descends from His glory and stands by our
side ; unless the dark and awful shadow of our sin
falls upon Him ; unless He freely consents to have
brought home to His very heart the guilt of the
race ; unless He submits to some experience of the
woe and loss by which the guilt of the race is
punished : His moral relations to the Father will
not be the perfect expression of the relations which
must exist between us and God if we are to re
ceive the pardon of sin. Christ's righteousness is
the ideal form of our righteousness ; Christ's sonship
is the ideal form of our sonship ; and since our
sin has made it necessary that there should be in
us a moral submission to the righteousness of the
Divine hostility to sin, it seems inevitable that in

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 77
Christ this submission should appear in ideal and
transcendent perfection. Else we cease to' be related
to God through Him. But this is an incomplete
statement of the truth ; and while stated incompletely
it has an appearance of unreality.
The eternal relations between Christ and the Father
are the ideal and perfect form of the relations between
ourselves and God ; but this is true because the life
of Christ is ours, and Christ is the root of our perfec
tion, because He is the vine and we are the branches,
because there is no righteousness in us which is not
first in Him. In the light of this truth I think that
some of the obscurity and mystery of the atonement
will be relieved.
For, as I have said already, it seems morally
impossible that our sin should be forgiven without a
frank, unreserved, and reverential submission on our
part to the justice of the Divine condemnation of sin,
and to the justice of the Divine menaces against
sin. Whatever else may be necessary before the
Divine forgiveness can be granted, this seems
indispensable. To regard with moral antagonism the
Divine resentment against sin, to meet it in a spirit of
revolt, to ignore it, are grave offences. For those
who have sinned to refuse a real moral submission
to the justice of the pain and loss with which God
has menaced sin renders reconciliation with God and
the pardon of sin impossible. This submission how
ever is a form of righteousness altogether foreign to
the eternal righteousness of the Son of God. Nothing

78 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.

analogous to it could have a place in His eternal life
with the Father. But there is no righteousness in us
which is not first in Him ; and if we are to make
a true submission to the resentment of God against
sin, and to the justice of the penalties in which this
resentment is expressed, it seems necessary that He
should pass through a moral experience like that
which He passed through in the garden and on the
cross, and by His own spontaneous submission render
our submission possible. His eternal righteousness
makes it possible for us to be righteous, for we were
created to live in His life ; His voluntary endurance
of agony, spiritual desertion, and death made it pos
sible for us to consent from our very heart to the
justice of God's condemnation of our sin. In another
sense than that in which the words are used by the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " He was made
perfect through suffering," His submission carries
ours with it.
This truth is of such critical importance that I
venture to state it in another form. Christ described
Himself as the "Way" to the Father, and said "No
one cometh unto the Father but by Me." x It is a very
inadequate and artificial interpretation of these words
to allege that Christ has done something or endured
something which constitutes a ground on which God
can permit us' to have access to Himself notwith
standing our sin. Nor is it enough to say that

1 John xiv. 6.

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 79
Christ's teaching inspires us with penitence for sin,
with true and just thoughts concerning God's con
demnation of sin, and with a firm trust in the Divine
mercy. It is not something which Christ has done
or suffered, it is not something which Christ has
taught, that is the "Way " to. God ; Christ Himself is
the "Way." The higher Christian consciousness of
nineteen centuries has discovered that Christ is the
"Way" to the Father, because in our access to God
we are one with Christ ; His love for the Father and
His trust and joy in the Father become ours. In our
approach to God we have fellowship with Christ.
Every right and pure and noble and happy affection
that floods our spiritual life has its fountains in the
life of Christ Himself, and our religious consciousness
is a lower form of His own. And since for us as
sinful men there can be no right approach to God
without a moral submission to the righteousness
of the penalties which had been drawn upon us by
sin, Christ could not be for us the " Way " to the
Father unless Christ's submission had anticipated
ours. It is in the power of Christ's own endurance
of death, and in fellowship with that endurance, that
we submit to the righteousness of God's condem
nation of our sin.
The death of Christ has another effect which con
stitutes it the reason and ground of our forgiveness.
Something more is necessary, if we are to be for
given, than a real submission to the justice of the
Divine resentment against sin. It is not morally con-

So LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
ceivable that God should forgive our past sin except
there were some security for our future righteousness.
He may forgive us before we have been able to break
the force of evil custom and to expel evil passions \
and indeed it is the glory of the Christian gospel that
it assures us at the very beginning of the great and
arduous attempt to achieve a perfect righteousness
that all the unrighteousness of which we have been
guilty is for Christ's sake freely pardoned. The
pardon is specially connected with the death of
Christ. But I find it difficult to believe that the
death of Christ could be a sufficient reason for the
forgiveness of sins unless it were a force which
destroyed sin.
In the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
Paul develops at considerable length a truth which
appears in several other parts of the New Testament,
and which attributes to the death of Christ this
destructive power. The relations between Christ and
those who are in Him are so intimate that His
death is their death and His resurrection their resur
rection. They were crucified with Him, buried with
Him, and they rose again with Him. The truth has
been verified in the spiritual consciousness of devout
men. The death of Christ is the death of sin.
I cannot illustrate this truth at any length, but
it is too intimately connected with the great fact
that in Christ "we have our redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
the riches of His grace" to be omitted,

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." Si
The principal positions which I have maintained
are these :
ist That it is in harmony with the fundamental
law of human nature that the reason and ground of
our forgiveness should be in Christ ; for the reason
and ground of our creation, of our righteousness, and
of our blessedness as the sons of God, are in Him.
2nd. That our forgiveness is specifically connected
with the death of Christ for three reasons :
(i.) The relations of Christ to the Father are the
transcendent expression and original root of our
relations to the Father. We are related to the
Father through Him. And since the relation of
moral submission on our part to the righteousness of
God's resentment against sin was an indispensable
condition of the forgiveness of sin, it became neces
sary that Christ Himself should assume this relation
of moral submission to the righteousness of God's
resentment against sin, that His submission might
be the transcendent expression of ours.
(2.) There is no righteousness in us which is not
first in Christ. And since our submission to the
righteousness of God's resentment against sin was an
indispensable condition of our forgiveness, Christ's
submission became necessary to render ours possible.
His submission carries ours with it.
(3.) His death is the death of sin in all who are
one with Him.
There is another aspect of the mystery which is
not wholly concealed from us, an aspect which for
G

82 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
several centuries has occupied the chief thought of
those who have endeavoured to construct a theory of
the atonement.
It has been felt that the honour and authority of
the eternal law of righteousness would be impaired if
the penalties of sin were remitted by a sovereign act
of the Divine mercy. For these penalties are not
arbitrary. It is just that those who have sinned
should suffer. As it belongs to us . to obey the law
of righteousness, it belongs to God as the Supreme
Moral Ruler to inflict the punishment which is due to
disobedience. If, after the precepts of the law have
been broken, its penalties are arbitrarily cancelled, the
law sustains a double injury. It seems insufficient
that those who have sinned should repent and sin no
more. On what grounds can the punishment which
they have already deserved be justly remitted ? It
seems insufficient that they should make the most
complete moral submission to the justice of the
punishment with which disobedience is menaced.
How can the acknowledgment that punishment is
deserved constitute an adequate ground for re
mitting it?
I have said that it belongs to God as the Supreme
Moral Ruler to inflict the punishment which is justly
due to our revolt against the eternal law of right
eousness and against Himself, to whom that law
requires us to yield perfect obedience. The infliction
of the punishment is an expression of His condemna
tion of sin and of His moral resentment against those

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 83
who are guilty of sin. The life and will of God are
so completely one with the eternal law of righteous
ness that we are unable to conceive that this con
demnation and resentment can be suppressed. If it
were, there would seem to be a conflict between the
eternal law of righteousness and the life and will of
God. The death of Christ contains the solution of these
difficulties. For, —
(1.) Christ, the eternal Son of God and the root of
our righteousness, having become man, endured death
in order to render possible our moral consent to the
justice of the Divine resentment against sin, and to
the justice of the penalties in which that resentment
might have been revealed. Had God withdrawn from
us His light and life, and destroyed us by revealing
His moral resentment against our sin, this would have
been an awful manifestation of the moral energy of
His righteousness and of His abhorrence of moral
evil. Its moral value would have been infinitely
heightened by the intensity of His love for us. But
God in the greatness of His love shrank from
depriving us of that blessed and glorious destiny
for which we were created ; and in order to secure
our moral submission to the righteousness of His
resentment, a moral submission which was the neces
sary condition of our forgiveness, He surrendered
His own eternal Son to spiritual desertion and to
death. In this surrender, made for such a purpose,
there was a sublimer moral manifestation of the

84 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
Divine thought concerning sin than there would
have been in condemning the race to eternal death.
(2.) The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the Moral
Ruler of the human race. The moral supremacy
of God is manifested and exerted through Him.
Through His lips the awful sentence is to be pro
nounced which will condemn the lost to irrevocable
ruin : " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal
fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." 1
It will be " at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from
heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire "
that Divine " vengeance " will come upon them that
" know not God " and " obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus," and then they will "suffer punishment,
even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord
and from the glory of His might." It was His
function to punish sin and so to reveal His judgment
of it. But instead of inflicting suffering He has
elected to endure it, that those who repent of sin
may receive forgiveness and may inherit eternal
glory. It was greater to endure suffering than to
inflict it.
To sum up in a sentence the principal positions I
have maintained in this argument : the death of
Christ was an act of submission on behalf of man
kind to the justice of the penalties of violating the
eternal law of righteousness, an act in which our own
submission not only received a transcendent expres-

1 Matt. xxv. 41.

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 85
sion but was really and vitally included ; it was an
act which secured the destruction of sin in all who
through faith are restored to union with Christ ; it
was an act in which there was a revelation of the
righteousness of God which must otherwise have been
revealed in the infliction of the penalty of sin on the
human race. And therefore in Christ " we have our
redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses according
to t/ie riches of [God's] grace."
There is one deep and serious moral objection to
the doctrine of the atonement which it may be well
for me to notice before closing. It is an objection
created by a form of theological rhetoric once very
common though it has now disappeared. There was
a time when it was not unusual for preachers to speak
of the Lord Jesus Christ as enduring the wrath of
God which we had deserved ; and the same repre
sentation of the sufferings and death of Christ was
given in treatises from which rhetoric should have
been rigorously excluded. Those who suppose that
this conception is an integral part of the theory of
the atonement naturally recoil from the whole
theory with strong moral revulsion. The conception
introduces an intolerable fiction into a region where
our whole moral nature urgently demands the most
august moral realities. It assumes that God ficti
tiously imputed to Christ sins of which He was
innocent, and that on the ground of this fictitious
imputation God was filled with wrath against Him.
That any serious theologian ever believed either of

86 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
these revolting propositions is incredible. They had
a place in a theological theory, they lent themselves
still more frequently to the uses of popular rhetoric,
but that they were ever steadily confronted and
accepted as real facts I cannot conceive.
Against Christ there could be no resentment in the
breast of the Father. In the moment of Christ's most
awful agony the Father's moral approval of Him was
most intense. " Therefore doth the Father love Me
because I lay down My life, that I may take it
again." x But it was possible for the Father to with
hold from Christ the manifestation of His presence
and of His love. For God's life is a free, personal
life. He reveals Himself and His thought voluntarily.
The loss of the sense of His presence is not always an
indication that we have incurred His displeasure. It
has been the common belief of men who have thought
profoundly on the spiritual life that what they have
described as " the loss of interior consolation " may
be a part of the discipline of a saintly nature, and
that the terrible desolation which it inflicts is not
necessarily the punishment of exceptional sin, but
may be the necessary condition of the development
of exceptional righteousness. God may withdraw the
manifestation of His presence from a saint, though if
the saint had never been a sinner, or if he did not
belong to a race of sinners, this severity of discipline
would surely be unnecessary. 1 John x. 17.

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 87
Christ had never sinned, but He had come into the
world to make the sorrow, and as far as He could
the very sin of the world His own ; and so the
supreme woe came upon Him which forced from His
heart the cry of agony, " My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me ? " It was an awful moment.
Darkness — darkness that might be felt — enfolded
Him. All vision of God was lost, lost for Him whose
life had been a life in the Divine light and love. In
that fearful gloom He too had now to walk by faith,
not by sight. But His faith in God, and in God's
infinite righteousness, did not falter. He submitted
with unshaken trust and with undiminished love. His
cry of agony is a cry of faith and of filial affection :
" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? "
It seems almost certain that His terrible moral
suffering was the immediate cause of His death.
What death really is we do not yet know. What,
apart from the Christian redemption, it would have
been, we shall never know. To us, however, it must be
infinitely more than it can be to inferior races, and it
is surrounded in the Scriptures with awful mystery
and dread. The breaking up of that physical nature
in which our natural life is rooted would have been,
but for Christ, an immense and fatal catastrophe.
To Christ, the prospect of it seems to have been
appalling, and it was made more appalling by the
spiritual agonies which He knew would precede and
which probably occasioned it. The mystery which
surrounds the cross is impenetrable. But we may

SS LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. v.
venture to say that the laying down of His life was
the supreme achievement of His self sacrifice, His
great and unique act of submission on behalf of the
race to the justice of the evils which the race had
deserved by sin. And if this is true, then, although
no theory of the relations between His death and the
forgiveness of sin may afford us intellectual satis
faction, and though there are times and moods in the
life of most of us when the greatness and sacredness
of the mystery seem to forbid as irreverent and
profane all attempts to speculate on the manner in
which His death accomplished its great redemptive
purposes, we may still receive with awe and wonder,
with faith and hope and immeasurable joy, the blessed
assurance that He "suffered for sins once, the
Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring
us to God," and that "we have our redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses
according to the riches of [God's] grace."

Note to Page 72. — "Analogies are used in aid of conviction ;
metaphors as means of illustration. The language is analogous,
wherever a thing, power, or principle in a higher dignity is ex
pressed by the same thing, power, or principle in a lower but
more known form. Such, for instance, is the language of
John iii. 6, ' that which is born of the flesh is flesh ; that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit.' The latter half of the verse
contains the fact asserted; the former half the analogous fact,
by which it is rendered intelligible. If any man choose to call
this metaphorical or figurative, I ask him whether with Hobbes
and Bolingbroke he applies the same rule to the moral attributes
of the Deity? Whether he regards the Divine justice, for

lect. v.] "REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD." 89
instance, as a metaphorical term, a mere figure of speech ? If
he disclaims this, then I answer, neither do I regard the words
born again, or spiritual life, as figures or metaphors. I have
only to add that these analogies are the material, or (to speak
chemically) the base, of symbols and symbolical expressions ;
the nature of which as always tautegorica.1 (i.e. expressing the
same subject but with a difference) in contradistinction from
metaphors and similitudes, that are always allegorical (i.e. ex
pressing a different subject but with a resemblance), will be found
explained at large in the ' Statesman's Manual,' p. 35-38.
"Of metaphorical language, on the other hand, let the following
be taken as instance and illustration. I am speaking, we will
suppose, of an act which in its own nature and as a producing
and efficient cause is transcendent, but which produces sundry
effects, each of which is the same in kind with an effect produced
by a cause well known and of ordinary occurrence. Now when
I characterize or designate this transcendent act, in exclusive
reference to these its effects, by a succession of names borrowed
from their ordinary causes, (not for the purpose of rendering the
act itself or the manner of the agency conceivable, but in order
to show the nature and magnitude of the benefits received
from it, and thus to excite the due admiration, gratitude, and
love in the receivers,) in this case I should be rightly described
as speaking metaphorically ; and in this case to confound the
similarity, in respect of the effects relatively to the recipients,
with an identity in respect of the causes or modes of causation
relatively to the transcendent act or the Divine Agent is a
confusion of metaphor with analogy, and of figurative with
literal, and has been and continues to be a fruitful source of
superstition or enthusiasm in believers, and of objections and
prejudices to infidels and sceptics." — Coleridge's "Aids to
Reflection" (2nd Edition), pp. 196-198.

VT.
THE FINAL RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS.
" [The riches of His grace] which He made to abound toward us in all
wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of
His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him,
unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in
Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth."
— Eph. i. 8-10.
WRITING to the Corinthians Paul entreats them
to " receive not the grace of God in vain." x
Gifts of God which are conferred at the impulse of an
infinite mercy and goodness, and through the humili
ation and sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, should fill our hearts with wonder and with
gratitude. They are so precious in themselves, they
were secured for us at so great a cost, they are the
expressions of so glorious a love, that to regard them
with indifference is a shameful crime. Nor is it safe
to leave any of the gifts of God's grace unappro
priated. Those for which we care nothing may be as
necessary for our salvation as those for which we care
most. We should receive them all with reverence
and joy. 1 2 Cor. vi. i.

lect. vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 91
Among these gifts Paul enumerates " all wisdom
and prudence." By " wisdom " I suppose he means
a large knowledge of God, and of the ways of God,
and of the will of God ; by "prudence" the power to
perceive how this knowledge affects the guidance of
life. A few verses later on he tells the Ephesian
Christians that he is constantly giving thanks for
them, and that he prays that God will give them " a
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Him," that having the eyes of their heart enlightened
they may know the greatness of their redemption and
of their destiny. It will be convenient to leave the
general consideration of the Divine gifts of " wisdom "
and " prudence " till we reach that prayer.
In the verses which are now to occupy us the
apostle says that God has made " the riches of His
grace " " to abound toward us" by revealing to us His
intention concerning the ultimate destiny of the whole
creation. That intention was once an unrevealed
" mystery " ; it was not known to the prophets,
psalmists, and saints of earlier ages. It is made
known to us now " according to His good pleasure
which He purposed in Him 'n ; we have not forced the
Divine secret ; no necessity has compelled God to
reveal it ; nor has it been revealed as the result of
any unforeseen developments in the history of man

1 This is one of the few passages in which I think that the
Revisionists have made a change for the worse. Surely Paul
meant " which He purposed in Himself."

92 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect.vi,
and the universe. From the beginning of all things
it was in the Divine thought that the sorrow and sin
of innumerable ages should be brought to a close in
what Paul describes as " a dispensation of the fulness
of the times!' and that in this final movement of the
Divine love and power the righteousness and blessed
ness of heaven and earth should be consummated and
made eternally secure. It was God's eternal purpose
to " sum up all things in Christ"; and to further the
accomplishment of His purpose He has at last made
it known.
These words bring us face to face with a subject of
transcendent interest. There are several passages in
the New Testament, and this is one of them, which
make it clear that the Divine mercy is ultimately to
achieve a complete triumph over misery and moral
evil ; and these passages, if they stood alone, might
give us the impression that all who in any age, in any
land, in any world, have erred and strayed from God
are to be brought back by the Good Shepherd to the
flock and to the fold. This fair vision of universal
restoration has from time to time fascinated the imagi
nation and touched the heart of many devout men ;
and in our days it has become an article of faith with
large numbers of Christian people, who find in it
the only solution of the difficulties of the universe.
But this epistle, like the other documents con
tained in the New Testament, was not written for
persons who were uninstructed in the Christian faith.
The church existed before the Scriptures. The con-

lect.vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 93
tents of the Christian revelation were made known
by living speech, before they were recorded in
writing. In an epistle therefore very much is taken
for granted. It is not to be interpreted like an act of
parliament any more than a speech or a sermon.
When I am preaching to a congregation like this I do
not feel it necessary to qualify and guard everything
I say, in order to prevent it from being misunderstood.
I say one thing at a time, and trust to your own
knowledge of the broad substance of the Christian
faith to supplement the partial statements of a single
sermon. If I am preaching on the human aspects of
our Lord's earthly history I do not think it necessary
to interpolate a declaration of my faith in His Divinity.
If lam insisting that only by patient endurance in
well doing can you make sure of glory, honour, and
immortality, I do not feel obliged to remind you
that we owe everything, righteousness in this life and
eternal blessedness in the next, to the free grace of
God and to the redemption achieved for us by
Christ. So when an apostle was writing a letter
to a church he wrote freely. He did not write as
if the persons who were to read his letter were without
knowledge or without sense, or as if they were
captious and were likely to force his words to con
clusions, which they knew were contrary to some of
the principal truths which were received by all
Christians. If anything is certain and clear about the teach
ing of Christ and of His apostles it is that they

94 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vi.
warned men not to reject the Divine mercy and so
to incur irrevocable exile from God's presence and
joy. They assumed that some would be guilty of
this supreme crime and would be doomed to this
supreme woe. The wheat will be gathered into the
garners of God, and the chaff will be burnt up with
unquenchable fire. Some men will inherit eternal
life ; some men will be punished with the second
death. Christ Himself, who came to save the world,
will say to some : " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into
the eternal fire."
This appalling element of Christian teaching was
certain to make a vivid impression on the minds of
all who received the Christian faith. From the eternal
destruction which menaced the impenitent they them
selves had been delivered by the infinite mercy of
Christ. The greatness of that deliverance was never
likely to be long absent from their thoughts. When
therefore Paul spoke of God's purpose "to sum up
all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the
things upon the earth" they could not misapprehend
his meaning. It would be understood that while
those who had incurred irrevocable exclusion from
the life of God were to receive the just punishment
of their sin and to perish, the rest of the moral
universe was to be organized into a perfect unity for
eternal ages of righteousness and glory.
It is not necessary for us to suppose that this
sublime conception of the consummation of all things
in Christ was revealed to the apostle by a super-

lect.vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 95
natural voice or in a supernatural vision. I think we
can see the path by which he may have been led
from the lofty levels of his own spiritual conscious
ness to those still loftier summits from which he saw
afar off the final destiny of the universe. The path
was illuminated for him by the Spirit of wisdom and"
revelation ; but it was not a path in the air ; as he
ascended from height to height he was sure of his
ground ; in a very true and deep sense every succes
sive discovery had its verification in his own life and in
his most certain and assured knowledge of Christ.
Shall we try how far the path is firm for our own
feet ? Our spiritual consciousness, though less rich
and deep than the apostle's, ought to be similar to
his ; and our knowledge of Christ, though less vivid
and less complete than his, ought to include the great
outlines of those truths and facts which constituted
the substance of his thought. Let us begin at the
beginning. Every Christian man that has reached
any maturity of Christian development is conscious
that the springs of his life are in Christ. Even those
of us who have only recently passed into the kingdom
of God have some elementary knowledge of this
great truth ; and as the years go on we have a
clearer and still clearer understanding of what Paul
meant when he said : " I live ; and yet no longer
I, but Christ liveth in me." J It is in the strength of
Christ that we do God's will ; our faith in God has
* Gal. ii. 20.

}6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vi.
its root in Christ's own faith in the Father ; it is the
peace of Christ which gives us peace ; and the joy
of Christ is ours. For each one of us the parable of
the Vine is verified in our own experience ; what we
believed at first on Christ's authority we come to
know for ourselves.
But we are not alone in this experience. What is
true of ourselves is true of other Christian people.
Christ's strength is theirs as well as ours ; Christ's
faith in the Father is theirs as well as ours ; the peace
and the joy of Christ are theirs as well as ours ; He
lives in them as well as in us ; they too are branches
of the great Vine. We can see in their temper, spirit,
and character, the indications of their union with
Christ. In the saints of other ages and of other
churches, in men who were disciplined by a civiliza
tion altogether unlike that by which we have been
disciplined, whose creed was different from ours, who
received with reverence and faith superstitions which
we regard with abhorrence, we discover a wonderful
kinship to what is most living in our own life. There
is a familiar accent in their speech ; their secret is
known to us ; the sorrows and the joys, the defeated
and the accomplished hopes, the struggles, the reverses,
the triumphs, the surprises, the paradoxes of their
inner life, are akin to experiences of our own. We
catch their meaning at a word. If with natural
reserve they mean to tell us only half their story, we
can supply the rest. The channels in which their
lives flowed were very different from the channels in

lect.vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 97

which our own lives are flowing, but the streams came
from the same eternal Fountain. By whatever ex
ternal, accidental, temporary differences they are
divided from us, they and we are one " in Christ."
Further, we are conscious that our relation to
Christ is not provisional and transient. Apart from
Him we can do nothing in this world ; apart from
Him we are sure that we should be able to dc
nothing in the world to come. To whatever trans
cendent wisdom, strength, righteousness and blessed
ness we may rise in the endless ages beyond death,
all bur perfection will be the manifestation of the
infinite resources of the life of Christ. For ourselves,
for other Christian people, we can hope for nothing
greater or diviner, through all eternity, than complete
union with Him. This will be the fulfilment of the
glorious purpose of the Divine love.
Thus far the path has been neither uncertain nor
difficult to travel. At no point has it been necessary
to invent mere speculative theories of the universe, or
of the nature and destiny of the human race. We
have relied on the most elementary truths contained
in the teaching of Christ, truths which are verified
and developed in the consciousness of ordinary
Christian persons. The church will be organized into
a perfect and immortal unity, and will find its perfect
and immortal blessedness in Christ ; and so the great
words of Christ will be accomplished : " The glory
which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them,
that they may be one even as we are one ; I in them,
II

98 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect.vi.
and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into
one. ... I will that where I am they also may
be with Me, that they may behold My glory which
Thou hast given Me, for Thou lovedest Me before
the foundation of the world."
By an adventurous and sublime movement of
thought Paul passes on to the conclusion that what
will be true of the church will be true of the whole
universe. When through the illumination of the
Spirit the church saw in Christ the power and
righteousness and glory of God, it also learnt that
Christ was the Creator of heaven and earth, that " all
things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made " ; x and that He was
also the eternal Word, in whom the mind and will
and heart of God were revealed to all God's moral
creatures. How was the relationship between Christ and the
universe to be conceived ? Had He made it as a
mechanic makes a machine? Did He stand apart
from it and watch it work ? When it was out of
His hands had He nothing more to do with it ?
This is not the relationship between Christ and
ourselves. His incarnation showed that there is a
certain kinship between Him and the human race ;
and our consciousness affirms that He is not only our
Creator, but the perpetual source and support of our
life and the ideal of our perfection. The relationship
1 John i. 3.

lect. vi.] THE RESTORA TION Ofi ALL THINGS. 99
of Christ to mankind was conceived by the apostle
as extending, though doubtless with infinitely varied
modifications, to the whole universe ; and in the
Epistle to the Colossians Christ is described as " the
image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation : for in Him were all things created, in the
heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things
invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or princi
palities, or powers ; all things have been created
through Him and unto Him : and He is before all
things, and in Him all things consist." x This remark
able passage, to quote words I have used elsewhere,
"contains Paul's theory of the relations between
Christ and the universe. (1) Christ 'the firstborn'
was, if I may venture to say it, the eternal prophecy
of creation. In Him the perfection and glory dwelt
from eternity, which in the creation have been
manifested in time. What the creation in its ideal
perfection was to be to the Father had, from eternity,
found a transcendent expression in Christ. (2)
When at last the universe was created Christ was the
very ground and root of its existence ; it was the
revelation of His thought ; its life was ' in Him.'
(3) Nor was the creative act the immediate act of the
Father ; the Divine power, if we may use words
which only remotely suggest the truth, travelled
through Christ; all things were created 'through
Him.' (4) Nor, again, was the universe created for
1 Col. i. 15, 16.

LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. VI.

itself ; its final cause and its consummate perfection
are to be found in Christ ; all things were created for
Him or ' unto Him.' (5) And apart from Him the
universe, as a universe, could not continue in exist
ence ; it would fall into disorder and sink back into
chaos ; for ' in Him all things consist.' " 1
The universe was created to reach its perfec
tion in Christ, and the eternal thought of God has
been moving through countless ages of imperfec
tion, development, pain, and conflict, towards this
great end. Crossed, resisted, defied, apparently
thwarted, by moral evil, the Divine purpose has
remained steadfast, has never been surrendered. Its^
energy has been wonderfully revealed in the incar
nation and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its
final triumph is secure. God will " sum up all
things in Christ, tlie things in the lieavens and the
things upon tlie earth" In Him the discords of the
universe will be resolved into an eternal harmony ;
its conflicts will end in golden ages of untroubled
peace ; it will find God, and in finding God will find
eternal unity and blessedness.
Paul's conception of the ultimate organization of
the universe itself, as well as of its relations to Christ,
has a profound interest. He believed that heaven

1 " The Atonement : the Congregational Union Lecture foi
1875." Page 407. The relation of Christ to the universe, and
especially to the human race, is developed at some length, pages
403-420.

lect.vi.] the restoration OF ALL THINGS.. ioi
and earth, thrones, dominions, principalities, and
powers are to be included in one perfect and eternal
unity. There is to be something more than an
immense and majestic confederation of the just and
good of all ages and all worlds. The loftiest ranks
of God's moral creatures and the most obscure are
to share a common life, and are to be one in Christ.
The final perfection and glory of creation are to
be the fulfilment of a law which is at present re
vealed in forms that perplex our understanding, and
sometimes almost break down our confidence in the
righteousness and love of God. For nearly all the
moral mysteries of the world originate in that com
munity of interest and life which extends from
generation to generation, and which involves us not
only in each other's sorrows but in each other's sins.
I am conscious of personal freedom. When I am
tempted to sin, it lies with myself to yield or to
resist. Earth and hell confederate could not force
me to do wrong. The guilt of my wrong doing is
mine, and altogether mine. And yet I do not stand
alone. The blood of a hundred generations is in
my veins, and the sins and virtues of my remotest
ancestors have affected the substance and structure of
my brain, the movements of my pulse, the strength
of my physical passions, the keenness of all my phy
sical sensibilities. I suppose that it may have been
harder for me to live a righteous life last week,
because an ancestor of mine in the time of King
John was guilty of habitual gluttony, and because

102 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect.vi.
another in the time of Henry VIII. was brutally
violent in his temper, and because another took the
side of the Crown in the time of the Commonwealth
and was drunk for a month to show his joy at the
return of Charles II., and because another was
covetous and miserly in the reign of George III. As
the result of the character and habits of our fore
fathers, some of us are easily kindled to furious
anger, some of us are cold and selfish, some of us
have to fight with sluggishness, some with grosser
and darker passions.
Nor is it only in our physical nature, which so
largely determines the development of our moral
life, that we are involved in the ill doing or well
doing of people whose names we never heard. Our
social condition and our moral environment have
been created for us by the wisdom and folly, the
virtue and the vice, of past generations. Children
are born paupers ; children are born criminals.
Hereditary paupers and hereditary criminals form
distinct races, separate from the rest of the com
munity, having their own physical peculiarities which
are transmitted from generation to generation, their
own traditions, their own social habits, their own
unwritten laws. For those who belong to these
races by birth it is hard to emerge and to live a
better life. Their desperate condition has been
aggravated by the neglect and indolence of society.
If during the last hundred years there had been
the same vigorous zeal for education that exists

lect.vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 103
now, if there had been a more discriminating and
less reckless administration of the public provision
for the poor, if our criminal laws had been wiser
and more righteous, if the relations between the
different classes of society had been adjusted more
equitably, hereditary pauperism and hereditary crime
would by this time have been almost extinguished.
The unfortunate persons who belong to these
degraded classes are not alone in their suffering.
The evils which rest most heavily on them extend to
all ranks of the state. Pauperism and crime impose
upon industrious and virtuous people burdens which
severely task their strength, and immense and
unknown losses which are a perpetual drain upon
their wealth. The moral injuries which are inflicted
on the community are still more serious. That free
and generous spirit of mutual confidence which is
necessary not only to the strength and peace of
society but to the development of the nobler and
more gracious forms of individual character, is de
stroyed. The natural pity of compassionate hearts
for poverty and suffering is chilled and repressed.
The most kindly men are afraid to relieve the worst
wretchedness, lest they should be encouraging and
perpetuating indolence and vice. There is mutual
distrust ; there is a general sense of social insecurity.
Other moral evils, still more flagrant, are the result
of the presence in the nation of large numbers of
hereditary paupers and hereditary criminals. The
vigorous independence of many who have sprung

104 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect.vi.
from an industrious parentage is lessened, and some
times destroyed, by the institutions and agencies
which are created to relieve hereditary misery ; and
the good morals of many, who in kindlier circum
stances would have been honest and exemplary
citizens, are contaminated by the vice and the law
lessness which surround them.
But these are only the more conspicuous illustra
tions of a universal law. The individual life cannot
be isolated from the life of the race ; we are one
with all mankind. We stand together, we fall
together. The law which the French call the
solidarite of the human race, and to which theology
has given a gloomy expression in the doctrine of
original sin, lies at the root of most of the moral
difficulties which through generation after generation
have driven men into scepticism and despair.
It may of course be replied that to this great
partnership of life and interest which includes all
nations and all ages, and from which no tribe how
ever isolated, no individual however resolved to live
a separate and lonely life, can altogether escape, the
human race owes nearly all its knowledge, its power,
its security, its material treasures, and its moral
progress. But it is not my immediate purpose to
vindicate the law which binds us together ; I want to
illustrate its constancy and its universality.
The law is not abrogated in the great movement
of the Divine love and power for the redemption of
mankind. We are not saved one by one. The

lect.vi.] THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. 105
ancient revelation of God's mercy came to the world
through prophets who had received a Divine illumina
tion not granted to the commonalty of mankind, and
in whose words men recognised a message from
heaven. The supreme revelation of the eternal love
and righteousness in Christ was made known to the
nations beyond the boundaries of Palestine by the
preaching of apostles, and it has been preserved for
later centuries in the records of evangelists. In the
extension of the knowledge of the history and teach
ing and laws of Christ from city to city, from land to
land, from every generation to the generation that
has followed it, God has relied upon the ministry of
human intelligence, devoutness, and zeal. He relies
upon that ministry still. We learn to trust Him
from what other men tell us of His pity, His grace,
and His power ; we learn to obey Him from what
other men tell us of His awful yet benignant
authority. The actual righteousness of other men is
a perpetual commentary on the true meaning of His
precepts ; their courage, their peace, and their joy
are a perpetual illustration of the true meaning of
His promises. He listens to us when we pray alone ;
but we receive a larger and more gracious blessing
when we pray with others. We can worship Him in
solitude ; but in the common worship of the church
we rise to a loftier joy in His glory, and His majesty
inspires us with a deeper awe. Every Christian man
is a sacrament and a means of grace to his brethren.
We are individually the dwelling place of the Holy

106 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vi.
Spirit, yet we are living stones in a mightier temple,
and are built upon the foundation of apostles and
prophets. We are all God's children, and therefore
the relations and charities of brotherhood unite us to
all our brethren. We are members of the body of
Christ, and " whether one member suffereth, all the
members suffer with it ; or one member is honoured,
all the members rejoice with it." l
And this same law, the law which is the origin of
the darkest mysteries of human life, the law which is
asserted in the Divine method of human redemption,
is to be illustrated in the blessedness and glory of
the universe, when the universe is finally restored to
God. Heaven and earth are to be restored to each
other as well as to Him. The knowledge of God
and the sanctity which have come to us in this world
of conflict and sin are to flow into the great stream
of pure angelic life ; and the joy, the strength, the
wisdom, and the security, alike of angels and of men,
will be indefinitely augmented. As yet, we and they
are like countries so remote or so estranged from
each other that there has been no exchange of
material or intellectual treasures. What the poverty
of England would be if we had been always isolated
from the rest of the human race we can hardly tell.
It is by the free intercourse of trade, and the still
freer intercourse of literature, that nations become
rich and wise. Sunnier skies and more luxuriant
I Cor. xii. 26.

lect.vi.] the restoration OF ALL THINGS. 107
soils give us more than half our material wealth, and
we send in exchange the products of our mines and
the works of our industry and skill. From sages
who speculated on the universe and human life in
the very morning of civilization, from poets whose
genius was developed in the ancient commonwealths
of Greece, our intellectual energy has received its
most vigorous inspiration ; and our religious faith
is refreshed by streams which had their springs in
the life of ancient Jewish saints and prophets, and
of Christian apostles who lived eighteen centuries
ago. What we hope for in the endless future is a still
more complete participation in whatever knowledge
and love of God, whatever righteousness, whatever
joy may exist in any province of the created universe.
Race is no longer to be isolated from race, or world
from world. A power, a wisdom, a holiness, a rap
ture, of which a solitary soul, a solitary world would
be incapable, are to be ours through the gathering
together of all things in Christ.
We, for our part, shall contribute to the fulness of
the universal life. To the principalities of heaven
we shall be able to speak of God's infinite mercy to a
race which had revolted against His throne ; of the
kinship between the eternal Son of God and our
selves ; of the mystery of His death and the power
of His resurrection ; of the consolation which came
to us in sorrows which the happy angels never knew ;
of the tenderness of the Divine pity which was shown

108 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vi
to us in pain and weariness and disappointment ; of
the strength of the Divine support which made in
constancy resolute in well doing, and changed weak
ness and fear into victorious heroism. And they will
tell us of the ancient days when no sin had cast its
shadow on the universe, and of all that they have
learnt in the millenniums of blessedness and purity
during which they have seen the face of God. The
sanctity which is the fruit of penitence will have its
own pathetic loveliness for righteous races that hfve
never sinned ; and we shall be thrilled with a new
rapture by the vision of a perfect glory which has
never suffered even temporary eclipse. Their joy in
their own security will be heightened by their gene
rous delight in our rescue from sin and eternal death ;
and our gratitude for our deliverance will deepen in
intensity as we discover that our honour and blessed
ness are not inferior to theirs who have never broken
the eternal law of righteousness. Our final glory will
consist, not in the restoration <f th^ solitary soul to
solitary communion with God, but in the fellowship
of all the blessed with the blessedness of the universe
as well as with the blessedness of God.

VII.
THE HOLY SPIRIT THE SEAL OF GOD'S HERITAGE
AND THE EARNEST OF OUR INHERITANCE.
' ' In Him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been
foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after
the counsel of His will; to the end that we should be unto the praise of
His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ : in whom ye also, having
leard the word of the *ruth, the gospel of your salvation, — in whom,
having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which
is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's- own
possession, unto the praise of His glory." Eph. i. 11-15.
PAUL has just said that it is the Divine purpose
to "sum up all things in Christ, the things in the
heavens and the things upon the earth." This is the
destiny of the universe. Unmeasured ages of imper
fection, conflict, sin, and suffering lie behind us ; and
it may be that there are unmeasured ages of imper
fection, conflict, sin, and suffering still to come. But
at last the whole creation is to illustrate and fulfil
the Divine thought, and is to reach its perfect unity
and ideal perfection in Christ.
That coarse conception of the Divine omnipotence
which assumes that a Divine purpose is never ob
structed or delayed, and that every Divine volition is
immediately accomplished, receives no sanction either
from the Jewish or the Christian Scriptures. It

no LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
receives no sanction from those discoveries of God
which are accessible through the physical universe
and through the moral nature of man. It looks as
though God did nothing at a single stroke, nothing
by an immediate and irresistible exercise of mere
force. It is His will that the summer should be
beautiful with flowers, and that the autumn should
bring the brown corn and the purple grapes ; but
flowers and grapes and corn are not commanded to
appear suddenly, out of nothing ; the Divine will
accomplishes itself gradually and by processes ex
tremely complex and subtle. The world itself came
to be a fit home for our race as the result of a history
extending over vast and awful tracts of time. God
intended that it should become what it now is ; but
His intention was accomplished by the action,
through age after age, of the immense forces which are
under His control. " Fire and hail, snow and vapour
and the stormy wind," have fulfilled His word. He
gave a commission to millions upon millions of living
creatures to build the limestone rocks. Through
untold centuries vast forests grew and perished, to
form the coal measures. Volcanic eruptions, frost
and heat, the slow movements of glaciers, the swift
rush of rivers, have all had their work to do in
bringing the earth which is our home into its present
condition. This seems to be the Divine manner of
working. The Divine purposes are not achieved
suddenly. God " fainteth not, neither is He weary."
Chaos with all its confusions is only gradually being

lect. vii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. in
reduced to order ; the great work is not completed
yet ; it will reach its term only when all things are
finally summed up in Christ.
The same law holds in relation ,to the moral and
spiritual universe. We see it illustrated within
narrow limits in the individual lives of good men.
They only gradually approach the Divine conception
of what they ought to be ; their perfection is not
consummated in an hour ; their knowledge of God
and of the will of God gradually widens and deepens ;
their moral and religious strength is very slowly
augmented. It is God's will that they should know
Him and know their duty, but they have to be
taught. It is God's will that they should be right
eous, but they have to be disciplined to righteousness.
The law is illustrated on a larger scale in the religious
history of the race. The great revelation of God in
Christ was not made in the earlier ages of the world.
There was a long preparation for it. God began
with the most elementary moral duties and with the
most elementary religious truths. He taught and
disciplined the elect race by picture lessons, by a
visible temple, a human priesthood, and a whole
system of external rites and ceremonies. There
were faint prophecies of the future redemption, but at
first they were so obscure as to excite only the most
vague and undefined hopes of a Divine deliverance
from the evils by which human life was oppressed ;
and when they became clearer and more vivid they
were easily misunderstood. One generation of saints

112 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
after another passed away, and the Divine purpose
was still delayed. And even when the Christ came
at last and the kingdom of heaven was set up
among men, the hopes excited by that transcendent
manifestation of God were not at once fulfilled.
After eighteen hundred years the final triumph
of the Divine righteousness and love seems still
remote. It is true as Paul says in the text that God
"worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will " ; but it is equally true that His thoughts move
slowly, or that to us they seem to move slowly,
towards their accomplishment. As yet the universe
is incomplete. We cannot tell what God means it to
be. Nothing in the heavens above or on the earth
beneath has reached its maturity. Paul declares, in
his Epistle to the Romans, that " the whole creation,"
meaning the visible physical universe, " groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now." In this epistle
and in the Epistle to the Colossians he tells us that
the power and blessedness and security of the princi
palities of heaven are not yet perfect ; the happy
spirits that surround the eternal throne are to be
organized into a higher unity in Christ, and in Him
they are to be brought into a new and nearer relation
ship to God. That the moral and spiritual develop
ment of our own race is still going on, that we are
still very far from the perfection which seems possible
to us, is only too apparent. The centuries are still
distant which will witness those fortunate generations

lect. vn.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. " 113
in which all the strength and glory of the physical,
the intellectual, and the moral life of man will be at
last revealed.
And so the question sometimes occurs to us,
whether we have not been born too soon. Is it not
possible that just as in the past history of the world
inferior and transitional forms of life have given
place to nobler and more enduring types, so we in
our turn may perish, having answered the purposes
of our existence by assisting the next generation to
approach a little nearer to the ultimate type of
human perfection ? Only the wheat will be gathered
into the garner of God ; the chaff will be driven away
by winds, or consumed in the eternal fires. Transi
tional and imperfect forms of life can have no place
in that universe of glory, in which the Divine power
and wisdom and goodness will be finally revealed.
What then is to be our destiny ?
The purpose of God has a majestic simplicity.
He will "sum up all things in Christ." Whoever,
whatever, can be made to express Christ's thought
perfectly, and perfectly to fulfil Christ's will ; who
ever, whatever, can be made one with Christ,
endures. Apart from Him all forms of life and all
forms of material existence perish. As age after age
drifts by, this law distinguishes Between the transient
and the eternal. It is as true of angels as of men,
as true of the material as of the spiritual universe,
that whatever branch abides in Him lives and bears
fruit, and that whatever branch does not abide in.
I

114 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
Him withers, and the withered branches are cast
into the eternal fires and burned. But all that are
in Christ have in Him the guarantee of immortal
perfection and blessedness.
The ". . . one far-off Divine event
To which the whole creation moves"
may be very distant, but we need not despair.
Being in Christ, according to Paul, we have been
made the " inheritance " of God. God lets go what
ever He cannot bring into permanent union with
Christ ; and whatever apparent strength it may have,
whatever loveliness, whatever glory, it passes away.
But being in Christ, we are God's eternal possession.
For a moment Paul seems to appropriate this great
distinction and blessedness to those who belonged to
the Jewish race, " to the end that we should be unto the
praise of His glory who had before hoped in Christ " ;
but the Ephesian Christians, who were for the most
part Gentiles, were also God's inheritance. They
had heard " the word of t/ie truth, the gospel of [their]
salvation," and " having believed" in Christ, "in Him"
they "were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise."
By giving them the Holy Spirit God had set His
seal on them, and given them the assurance that
they were His.
What Paul meant will become clear if we recall the
first occasion on which the Holy Spirit was granted to
those who had not been incorporated into the Jewish

lect. vii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 115
nation. A great Jewish church was founded in
Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and it included
proselytes as well as those who were Jews by birth.
Three thousand received Christian baptism in one
day ; but as yet neither the leaders of the church nor
the commonalty of the faithful had any suspicion that
the ancient institutions of Judaism were to pass away,
or that the obligations of the Mosaic law were relaxed.
Those who had received baptism and who confessed
that Jesus was the Christ met day after day in the
courts of the temple to worship God, and to rejoice
that at last the salvation for which their fathers had
hoped had come. Large numbers of Jews, loyal to
the traditions of Judaism, streamed into the church.
When the apostles were brought before the ecclesi
astical authorities they were not charged with
provoking the people to neglect the temple worship,
or to abandon any of the sacred customs of the
Jewish race ; their only offence was the boldness with
which they had maintained that Jesus was the Christ,
and that those who believed in Him would rise from
the dead. The number of those who believed soon
rose from three thousand to five ; and it still continued
to increase. Large numbers of the priests professed
their faith in Christ.
There can be little doubt that this rapid growth of
the church was largely owing to the fact that no ques
tion had arisen concerning the special prerogatives of
the Jewish people. The church at Jerusalem believed
in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and confidently hoped

m6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
that He would fulfil what they supposed to be the pre
dictions of ancient prophets, and the visions of ancient
psalmists, by conferring on the Jewish race boundless
wealth, supreme political power over all nations, and
a splendour surpassing all the magnificence of Rome
and of the vanished empires of the eastern world.
That the Gentiles were to share the greatness of the
descendants of Abraham, and share it without sub
mitting to the customs of the Jewish law, did not
occur to them. You remember how severe a shock
they received when they discovered their mistake.
In the city of Caesarea, lying on the coast of the
Mediterranean, about seventy miles north-west of
Jerusalem, there was living a devout Roman, an officer
in the Roman army. He had ceased to be an idolater,
but he had not become incorporated with the Jewish
race by submitting to the rite of circumcision. He had
a vision, and an angel told him to send for the apostle
Peter. Peter, after seeing a wonderful vision himself,
went to the house of Cornelius, preached the gospel
to him and to his Gentile friends ; and while Peter
was speaking " the Holy Ghost fell on all them which
heard the word." Why not ? Even John the Baptist
had said that Jesus was to bear the sin, not of the
Jews alone, but of the world ; and in the great com
mission which Christ had given to the apostles, just
before He ascended into heaven, He declared that
His authority extended over all mankind, and that
they were to make disciples, not merely of Jews and
Jewish proselytes, but of all nations, to baptize them

lect. VII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 117
all into the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, and to teach them the laws of the new
kingdom. As yet however the true genius of the
new Faith was not understood ; and in telling the
story of Cornelius Luke adds, " and they of the cir
cumcision were amazed, as many as came with Peter,
because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the
gift of the Holy Ghost." Peter saw what the next
step must be. Till now no heathen man had been
baptized ; the kinsmen and friends of Cornelius were,
like Cornelius himself, uncircumcised, and among
them it is very probable that there were some, perhaps
many, who till now had not even been worshippers of
the true God. But it was clear to Peter that since
they had received the Holy Ghost they had a right
to Christian baptism, heathen men as they were ; and
so they were baptized.
When Peter returned to Jerusalem his conduct was
challenged. His defence was irresistible ; after telling
the story of the visions and of his journey to Caesarea
he went on to say : " As I began to speak the Holy
Ghost fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.
And I remembered the word of the Lord, how that
He said, John indeed baptized with water ; but ye
shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. If then God
gave unto them the like gift as He did also unto us,
when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
I that I could withstand God? And when they
heard these things they held their peace, and glorified
God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also hath God

Ii8 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
granted repentance unto life." x The descent of the
Holy Ghost on Cornelius and his friends was a de
cisive proof that heathen men who believed held the
same rank as Jewish believers, that the divinest bless
ings and honours of the kingdom of God were theirs,
that they too belonged to the elect race and were
God's heritage. They were "sealed with the Holy
Spirit of promise!' Jewish Christians discovered that
the exclusive privileges of their race had passed away.
Gentile Christians themselves received the assurance
that all the prerogatives and all the hopes of God's
eternal kingdom were theirs.
But it was not merely on exceptional occasions like
this that the Spirit of God descended on those who
believed in Christ and so made it apparent that in a
new and glorious sense they had come to belong to
God. It is evident that the gift of the Holy Ghost
was assured by the apostles to all that confessed
Christ's authority. This gift was represented as a
large and necessary part of the Christian salvation.
To the crowds assembled on the day of Pentecost
Peter said : " Repent ye, and be baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission
of sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost." Nor was this supernatural gift limited to the
early years of the Christian Faith. Long afterwards
Paul found certain disciples at Ephesus, and there
appears to have been something in them that sug-
1 Acts xi. 15-18.

lect. vn.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 119
gested to the apostle a doubt whether they possessed
"the fulness of the blessing of Christ." He asked
them if they received the Holy Ghost when they
believed. They said they did not so much as
hear whether the Holy Ghost was given. In answer
to a further inquiry he learnt that they had received
John's baptism. Then he explained to them that
John was but the forerunner of Christ, and they were
baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. "And
when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy
Ghost came upon them and they spake with tongues
and prophesied." x Throughout the apostolic epistles
it is implied that the Holy Spirit made His home
with men as soon as they believed in Christ and
professed their faith in Him.
Writing to the Galatians, Paul says : " Christ
redeemed us ... . that we might receive the
promise of the Spirit through faith." 2 Writing to
the Corinthians he says : " Know ye not that ye
are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you ? " 8 In his second epistle to the
same church he reminds them twice that God has
given them "the earnest of the Spirit"4 He tells
the Christians at Rome that " if any man have not
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His " ; 5 and that
" the sons of God " are those who are " led by the
Spirit of God " ; 6 he also reminds them that the
1 Acts xix. 1-7. 2 Gal. iii. 13, 14.
8 1 Cor. iii. 16. * 2 Cor. i. 22 ; v. 5.
s Rom. viii. 10. 6 Rom. viii. 14.

120 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
Spirit himself bore witness with their spirit that they
were the children of God.1 Elsewhere he describes
" love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, meekness," as " the fruit of the Spirit." 2
Christian men are to " abound in hope, in the power
of the Holy Ghost." s " The love of God hath been
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which
was given us." i We have " access " in the Spirit to
the Father. 6 And Peter, writing to the elect who
were scattered abroad through the East, gives them
heart and courage in persecution by these inspiring
words : " If ye are reproached for the name of
Christ, blessed are ye ; because the Spirit of glory
and the Spirit of God resteth upon you." 6 Paul
charges the members of the churches of Galatia to
" walk in the Spirit," 7 and promises them that if they
do they will master the power of the flesh. He
charges the Ephesians to " be filled with the Spirit " 8
and to " keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace." 9 The Thessalonians are warned not to
"' quench the Spirit." 10
But to illustrate the great place which the Spirit of
God held in the thought and life of the apostolic
churches I should have to add quotation to quotation ;

1 Rom. viii. 16. 2 Gal. v. 22.
3 Rom. xv. 13. * Rom. v. 5.
6 Eph. ii. 18. 6 1 Pet. iv. 14.
? Gal. v. 16. 8 Eph. v. 18.
9 Eph. iv. 3. 10 1 Thess. v. 20.

lect. vii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 121
and even then I should give an inadequate impression
of the truth ; for His presence in the church and in
individual Christian men is implied where it is not
explicitly referred to, and penetrates the whole sub
stance of apostolic thought.
In the early church the access of the Spirit of God
to a man was commonly associated with the mys
terious gift of tongues, with the power of prophecy,
or with other manifestations of a miraculous kind.
It seems to be a law of the Divine action that
the beginning of a new movement in the religious
history of mankind should be signalised by super
natural wonders which bear emphatic testimony to
the new forces that are revealing themselves in the
spiritual order, and illustrate their nature. These
wonders gradually cease, but the loftier powers of
which they are only the visible symbols remain.
The miraculous manifestations of the Divine Spirit
have passed away, but it was the promise of Christ
that the Spirit should remain with us for ever.
I have spoken of the great place of the Spirit of
God in the thought and life of the apostolic churches ;
but He holds as great a place in the teaching of Christ.
Early in His ministry he began to speak of "the
Spirit which they that believed on Him were to
receive " j1 and in the last and greatest of the
discourses which He delivered to His disciples He
insists that it was expedient for them that He Him-
1 John vii. 39.

122 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
self should go away, because only after His death
and resurrection could the Spirit come to them.1
Through many centuries the Jewish nation had been
waiting for the advent of the Christ ; and now that
the disciples of our Lord knew that the Christ was
actually with them, they were told that they had
still to wait for another advent, the advent of the
Spirit, It was no vague spiritual influence of which
Christ was speaking, but a person. As Jesus Him
self had lived with them, the Spirit was to live with
them, and was to live with them for ever.2 Jesus
Himself had taught them as much as they were able
to learn ; the Spirit was to teach them all things, and
to bring back what Jesus had said to their remem
brance. He was to guide them into all the truth.3
He was to reveal the glory of Christ.4 He was to
be what Christ had been to them, and more ; a wise
Teacher, a strong Defender, a sure support. The
promises of the coming of the Messiah had been the
consolation and strength of Jewish saints in the
darkest and most calamitous periods of Jewish
history ; these promises of the coming of the Spirit
were the consolation and strength of the friends of
Christ after His ascension into heaven. For ten days
the apostles and their Christian brethren continued
to pray that the promises might be fulfilled ; and
then with " a sound as of the rushing of a mighty

1 John xvi. 7. 2 John xiv. 16, 17.
* John xiv. 25. '' John xvi. 13.

lect. vii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 123
wind" and with tongues of fire that rested on the
heads of all the faithful, the supreme hour came, an
hour not less wonderful than that in which Christ was
born, not less wonderful than that in which He died
for the sin of the world.
That, for the most part, we are so indifferent to
the presence of the Spirit of God is infinitely sur
prising. We repeat in another form the sin of insen
sibility of which the Jewish people were guilty when
our Lord Himself was visibly among them. Their
imagination was filled with the ancient revelations of
God to their fathers, with the. stupendous miracles
which broke the power of their Egyptian oppres
sors, with the manifestation of God in the clouds
and lightnings of Mount Sinai, with the inspiration
which had rested on a long line of prophets. The
past was sacred to them ; but they were so com
pletely under its control that they failed to recognise
the nobler disclosures of the righteousness and love
and power of God to themselves. And is it not the
same with us ? We look back upon the days when
the Son of God was teaching in the temple, and in
the cornfields and on the hills of Galilee ; we read the
story of His gracious miracles ; our hearts are touched
by the stainless purity of His righteousness and by
the tenderness and strength of His love; we watch
with pain and awe and gratitude His sufferings on
the cross ; and we feel in our heart of hearts that
those were the days in which heaven and earth met,
and in which God was near to man. The presence

124 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii
of the Spirit, — which Christ Himself declared was to
be something greater than His own presence, was to
bring clearer light and firmer strength, and completer
access into the kingdom of God, — does not fill us
with wonder, with hope, with exulting thankfulness.
If the Spirit, grieved by our indifference, were to
rebuke our sin He might speak to us in words not
unlike those in which our Lord Himself spoke to
the Jews of His own time : Think not that I will
accuse you to the Father ; there is One that accuseth
you, even Christ on whom ye have set your hope.
For if ye believed Christ, ye would trust in Me and
reverence Me, for He spake of Me.
It is true that in all evangelical churches there is
an acknowledgment, more or less serious, more or
less fervent, that it is by the power of the Spirit of
God that men are convinced of sin and drawn to
trust in Christ for eternal salvation. But while the
New Testament recognises very distinctly that work
of the Spirit which brings a man to Christ it empha
sises far more strongly the privilege and blessedness
of that presence of the Spirit which is assured to
those who already believe. And this presence is
something different in kind from the mere influence
which He exerts on those who are not yet in Christ.
He can, in mysterious ways which we are unable to
trace, touch the central springs of thought and passion
in men who have no faith. He can so reach their
intellect and their conscience as to enable them to
recognise the infinite majesty of God and His infinite

lect. vii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT. 125
love. These discoveries may shake their hearts with
fear, or inspire them with faith. But in all this the
Spirit is acting upon them from without : there are
times when He is near to them and makes His
power felt ; there are times when His action is sus
pended, and they are left to themselves. But His
relation to those that believe is of altogether a dif
ferent kind. It is not occasional and transitory.
Instead of reaching them from without, His light
streams forth from the very centre of their own life,
and His power comes to them from eternal springs
which are opened in the depths of their own spiritual
nature. It is necessary to receive the life of Christ
that the Holy Spirit may make us His home, and
when that life is ours He dwells with us for ever.
Paul has spoken of us in ver. 11 as being God's
"heritage" ; in ver. 14 we are described as anticipat
ing an "inheritance" for ourselves. The Jewish race
were regarded as God's heritage ; and, being God's
heritage, they had great distinctions and blessings.
It is the same with all Christians ; because we belong
in a very special sense to God. Our hopes are in
finite. The same Spirit, who is described as the seal
impressed upon us by God to make us for ever His
own, is also described as " an earnest " of the inherit
ance which is to be ours. His presence in us is the
beginning of the blessedness and glory to which we
are ultimately destined. It is the sure guarantee
that this blessedness and glory will be ours. If by
His Spirit God dwells in us now, we shall dwell in

126 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vii.
God for ever. And His Spirit dwells in us that He
may redeem us completely from all sin and infirmity,
and raise us to the power and perfection and
blessedness of the Divine kingdom. The ultimate
object of God in sealing us with His Spirit was " t/ie
redemption of [His] own possession, unto the praise of
His glory"
And now let me return for a few moments to the
truth which has occupied our chief attention in this
lecture. M. Godet says1 that the "distinction between the
preparatory operation of the Spirit upon man . . .
and His dwelling in man seems at present almost
effaced from Christian consciousness." That is a
strong statement It constitutes a serious indict
ment against the modern church ; for the efface-
ment of so great a truth as this must be the result of
grave infidelity to Christ and profane indifference to
the greatest blessings which He has secured for us
by His incarnation and death. Perhaps the words of
M. Godet might be somewhat more accurate if they
were slightly modified. I am not sure that Christian
men — I mean Christian men whose spiritual life is
deep and intense — fail to recognise the distinction
between what M. Godet describes as "the preparatory
operation of the Spirit upon man " and what he de
scribes as "His dwelling in man" ; but they suppose
1 " Commentary on the Gospel of John," vol. iii., p 141
(Clark's translation).

lect. Vii.] THE HOL Y SPIRIT. 127
that they cannot hope that the Holy Spirit will dwell
in them except after a long and faithful Christian
life. There must be, so they imagine, severe and
successful discipline of their moral life, victory over
their inferior passions, loyalty to all the precepts of
Christian righteousness, a perfect faith in God and in
the eternal kingdom of 'God, an ardent love for Him,
a deep and unbroken delight in communion with
Him ; and then the Spirit of God will come to them
in the fulness of His power and grace. But that
is another form of the old heresy which Luther
fought in the great days of the Reformation. Christ
came to redeem us, not to confer the blessings of His
kingdom on us when we have accomplished our own
redemption. Read Peter's words on the day of
Pentecost : " Repent ye, and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission
of sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost." Remission of sins and the gift of the Holy
Ghost were promised, not to works, but to faith.
They were to come — both were to come — from the
infinite grace of Christ to all that believed in Him,
and they were to come as the immediate response to
their faith.
The ancient promises are unrecalled. By earnest
prayer we may obtain from Christ the gift of the
Spirit, as we trust we have already obtained the re
mission of sins.

VIII.
THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT.
" For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ which is among you, and which ye show toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for yoit, making mention of you in my prayers ;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him."
—Eph. i. 15-17.
T)AUL'S thankfulness for what he heard about
-*- the faith and religious life of the Ephesian
Christians is one of the many proofs that his nature
was singularly ardent, generous, and sanguine. He
knew that there were some, perhaps many, of them
who were emerging only very slowly from the vices
of their old heathen days, else he would not have
thought it necessary to write what he has written in
the later pages of this epistle about the most element
ary moral duties. But it was his habit to think of
all that was fairest in the lives of Christian people.
There were grave faults, there were gross sins, in the
church at Ephesus ; but he had heard enough of
the church to be sure that it had not forgotten what
he had taught it eight or nine years before. The
faith of the church in Christ was still steadfast, and
the reality of that faith was still shown in their spirit

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 129
and conduct to "all saints" (ver. 15). Paul means
that they recognised the obligations which were
created by a common faith. They themselves were
loyal to Christ, and they regarded all Christians as
comrades and brethren; and therefore he ceased not
to "give thanks" for them (ver. 16). That is an
admirable temper. We are too much disposed to
impeach the sincerity and worth of a man's faith if
we see in him a single serious fault. In thinking
of communities of Christians we are so saddened
— sometimes so embittered — by their moral and re
ligious failures that we are unable or indisposed to
recognise in them any trace of the Divine hand,
any indication of the presence of the Divine life.
That was not Paul's way. He had a keen eye
for goodness ; whatever might be his sorrow on
account of the sins of Christian men, and however
sternly he rebuked them for their sins, he rejoiced
heartily in every manifestation, however faint, of a
genuine desire to do the will of God. He watched
the beginnings of a nobler life in his converts as
we watch the conflict between the dawn and the
heavy darkness of the night. In some of them the
rising glory was almost concealed by the dense
clouds of heathen ignorance, superstition, and vice ;
but he could see gleams of light trembling through
the gloom. Here and there between the broken
clouds there was the clear blue of a diviner heaven.
He rejoiced and gave thanks that the light of God
had risen upon the darkness ; not in a moment, but
K

130 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
gradually and certainly, the dim, cloudy, troubled
dawn would be followed by a bright and glorious
day. He not only gave thanks for the Ephesian Chiist-
ians: he prayed for them. He prayed that God
would give them " a spirit of wisdom and revelation"
that they might know God, and that knowing God
they might know the infinite greatness of the Christ
ian hope.
Paul has already reminded his readers that they
have received the -Holy Spirit, and in the preceding
lecture I endeavoured to illustrate the great place
which the gift of the Spirit held in apostolic preaching
and teaching. Men were urged to believe in Christ
that they might receive the Spirit, just as they were
urged to believe in Christ that they might receive
the remission of sins. They were told that if they
acknowledged Christ as their Prince and Saviour the
Spirit of God would live with them, as Christ Him
self had lived with His earthly friends; or rather,
would live in them, a perpetual Fountain of light
strength, righteousness, and joy. It was one of the
chief glories of the Christian gospel that it assured
every man that through Christ he might become the
temple of the Holy Spirit. And it is evident from
the apostolic epistles that Christian people had the
clear and certain consciousness that the promise had
been made good ; they knew that they had become
the home of the Spirit of God.

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 131
But the manifestations of the presence and power
of the Spirit differ in different men ; they differ
in the same man at different times. Some He
inspires with exceptional faith in God, others with
an exceptional passion for the salvation of men ;
some with a great joy in the Divine love, others
with a great reverence and awe for the Divine
righteousness. In some He creates a deep devout-
ness ; they live and move and have their being in
God ; they spend a great part of their life in con
scious communion with Him ; they are under the
control of His presence always ; by their prayers they
secure for themselves and for the church the largest
gifts of the Divine love. He disciplines others to a
vigorous and incessant activity in the service of God
and of mankind. In those whom He makes strong
for service the form of the service varies. In some
He breaks up the fountains of pity for human suffer
ing ; He kindles in others a fervent indignation
against injustice and oppression. He makes some
men preachers, others theologians, others reformers,
others philanthropists, others statesmen.
There are certain common elements in the life and
character of all Christians ; but these elements are
present in different men with a different energy. All
Christians have the spirit of prayer, but some Christ
ians are distinguished by the earnestness and faith
of their prayers. All rejoice in God, but in some the
joy rises to rapture. All have pity for the sorrows
of'men, but some are so mastered by their sympathy

132 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
and compassion that they give their whole life to the
service of the miserable. All Christians care, and
care a great deal, for the restoration of men to God,
but to some this seems to be the only work worth
doing : art, literature, politics, business, philan
thropy, the great studies of the theologian, the
perilous tasks of the ecclesiastical reformer, are re
garded with indifference.
If the development of our Christian life and
character is healthy as well as vigorous, the mani
festations of the Spirit in forms of power and service
most remote from our own will be watched with a
generous delight. " For even as we have many
members in one body, and all the members have
not the same office ; so we, who are many, are one
body in Christ, and severally members one of an
other." '
To some individual Christians, to some churches,
to some ages of the church, God has given more of
the "spirit of wisdom and revelation " than to others.
From none indeed is supernatural illumination alto
gether withheld ; for wherever there is real faith in
Christ, the Spirit of God must have granted some dis
coveries of Christ's supreme authority, infinite love,
and redemptive power : " no man can say Jesus is
Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." 2 But how immense
is the contrast between what Paul or John knew of
God and what is known of Him by a recent convert
1 Rom. xii. 4. 1 Cor. xii. 3.

lett. vni.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 133
to the faith from some heathen and barbarous race !
What he knows has come to him from that same
Spirit that flooded the minds of the great apostles with
Divine light, but to him the light is as yet very faint
and obscure, just enough to show him the path by
which to find his way home. These Ephesian Christ
ians had already received Divine illumination, or they
would not have been Christians at all ; but Paul
prayed that the Divine Spirit who dwelt in them
would make their vision clearer, keener, stronger, that
the Divine power and love and greatness might be
revealed to them far more fully. And perhaps in
these days, in which men are making such rapid dis
coveries in inferior provinces of thought, discoveries
so fascinating and so exciting as to rival in interest,
even for Christian men, the manifestation of God in
Christ, there is exceptional need for the church to
pray that God would grant it " a spirit of wisdom
and revelation " ; if He were to answer that prayer
we should no longer be dazzled by the knowledge
which relates to " things seen and temporal," it would
be outshone by the transcendent glory of "things
unseen and eternal."
The apostle's prayer raises the whole group of
questions which are connected with the two great
words Inspiration and Revelation, and for the sake of
clearness it may be well to remind you that these
two words represent two very different things. Reve
lations may come to men who are not inspired ; and
men may be inspired who are not entrusted with any

134 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
new revelations of the Divine thought and will.
When the Jewish race stood on the plain before the
cliffs of Sinai, and heard, as if from the very lips of
God, the ten commandments which were to be the
foundation of their national life, their national morals,
and their national religion, they received a Divine
revelation. They all received it. They had been
slaves a few weeks before ; they had the ignorance
and the vices of slaves ; they had lived among
heathen people, and though they had not quite lost
the tradition of the true God, the superstitions of
heathenism had infected their very blood. They
were not inspired. I suppose that only here and
there was a man who had any glimpse of the eternal
and the Divine ; but the revelation came to them
all. And when the crowd of Galileans listened to
the sermon on the mount I suppose that there were
among those that listened very few that had any
true understanding of what Christ meant. They
listened to one of the most wonderful revelations of
the mind and heart of God ever given to mankind ;
but they were not inspired.
God reveals Himself in actions as well as in
words. His deliverance of the Jewish people from
the oppression of the Egyptian monarchy and His
government of the Jews when they had reached the
land of promise were a protracted revelation. We
retain the ancient Jewish histories because they are
the record of that revelation. But all the men that
witnessed the escape of the Jews from Egypt were

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 135
not inspired ; nor were all the men inspired that saw
David placed on the throne instead of Saul, nor all
the men that saw him driven into the wilderness by
the revolt of Absalom, nor all the men that saw the
kingdom divided into two hostile states, nor all the
men that saw heathen armies desolate the sacred
soil and sweep off the population into exile. God
was revealing Himself in the deliverances and the
sufferings of the Jewish race ; but the men in whose
very presence that revelation was going on, the
revelation which gives its religious value to the
ancient Jewish histories, were not necessarily in
spired ; nor indeed did most of them discover any
thing of the real meaning of the wonderful events
they were witnessing.
The whole life of Christ was a revelation. His
miracles were revelations of the power and pity of
God. His gentleness, His anger, His gracious way
with penitent sinners, His stern and indignant con
demnation of hypocrites, were a prolonged revelation
of the very life of God. But all the men that saw
Christ's miracles were not inspired, nor all the men
who were touched by His goodness, or who trembled
while listening to His menaces.
By the Inspiration which was granted to Jewish
prophets they saw in the history of their nation —
as their uninspired contemporaries did not see — the
Divine laws which the history illustrated. They
learnt the thoughts of God from God's way of dealing
with themselves and their fathers. The history of

136 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. vm.
the nation was a succession of picture lessons which
made plain to them the conditions on which God has
made national prosperity depend the causes which ac
cording to Divine laws bring about national disaster
and ruin. They discovered in the history of the
nation illustrations of the Divine longsuffering and
mercy and truth, and from what they saw of God in
His relations to the Jewish people they passed on to
wider and loftier conceptions of the Divine kingdom
and its ultimate triumph over the sins and miseries of
mankind. The voices and the visions which came
to them were revelations ; but these had a very
secondary place in prophetic discipline and endow
ment. The supreme power of the prophet was that
"spirit of wisdom" which enabled him to see God
and the laws of God in the actual history of the elect
race, and to anticipate from the discovery of what
God had done in the past what He would do in the
future. The same clearness of vision enabled the
prophet to see in the rude virtues of some heathen
nations the assurance of their strength and greatness,
and in the splendid vices of others the certain omen
of their destruction.
The inspiration which was granted to apostles en
abled them to discover what was already contained
in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Special revelations were given
to them : like the vision which taught Peter that the
old distinction between Jew and Gentile had vanished
away ; like the visions and revelations of which Paul

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. i 137
speaks in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; like
the great apocalypse granted to John in Patmos ; but
the main substance of what they knew about God
and the Divine method of human redemption they
discovered in the history and teaching of Christ.
Their inspiration ^ enabled them to see what that
revelation of God really meant. The light which
fell upon it from heaven made the revelation clearer
and clearer to them as their Christian life went on ;
and so Paul's knowledge, as shown in this epistle,
is far wider and deeper than that which is shown
in his earlier epistles to the Thessalonians. The
great revelation was made in Christ ; the inspiration
of the apostles enabled them to see the truths and
laws which the revelation contained.
To take a rough, a very rough and very imperfect
illustration, the thought of God concerning the action
of great physical forces is revealed in the constitution
and history of the material universe; the genius of
the scientific discoverer, like the inspiration of the
prophet or the apostle, enables him to discover the
Divine thought which is implicated and expressed in
Divine facts.
And so the " spirit of wisdom " may also be called
the " spirit of revelation " ; for until the spirit of
wisdom is given the revelation is unintelligible. It
becomes an actual revelation when it is understood.
To the apostles inspiration was given in an ex
ceptional measure. They were appointed by the
Lord Jesus Christ to lay the foundations of the

138 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
Christian church. They had authority to teach all
nations in His name. Later ages were to learn His
mind from their lips. Theirs was a position of
unique responsibility, and their qualifications were
unique ; for in the Divine order the measures of
human duty and the measures of strength conferred
for the discharge of it are always equal. That the
apostles were inspired as other men are not, requires
no external proof. The proof that an exceptional
illumination was given to them appears in what they
saw of God and the thoughts of God. Their writings
are bright with a glory which rests on no other books.
For eighteen centuries saintly men, themselves taught
of the Holy Ghost, have striven — many of them with
all the vigour of genius and all the resources of
learning, and with the fresh aids to Christian thought
which have come from Christian history and the de
velopment of the Christian life under new and unex
pected conditions, — they have striven, I say, to reach
the frontiers of that truth which the apostles knew
and of which the apostles wrote, and they have con
fessed that at point after point their strength failed,
and that the apostles had passed into regions whhh
lay beyond them. This is the real ground on which
the special inspiration of the apostles has been ac
knowledged. It is certain that Paul and Peter and
John received an exceptional Divine illumination, be
cause what they have written has continued through
age after age to give exceptional illumination to the
church. Those who have eyes to see need no evi-

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 139
dence that the sun is shining except the sunlight ;
and this is the kind of evidence which sustains the
exceptional inspiration of the apostles. That evi
dence is stronger to-day than it ever was ; for after
eighteen hundred years of Christian speculation, of
Christian learning, of Christian controversy, after
eighteen hundred years during which an unbroken
succession of saints have been living in communion
with God, the writings of the apostles still shine
with a unique brightness.
But in kind the inspiration of the apostles was the
same as that which Paul prayed might be granted to
the Christians at Ephesus, the same as that which we
ourselves may hope to receive from God.
Supernatural revelation, as I have said, came to
the apostles on special occasions ; but these occasions
seem to have been rare, and in one case at least a
supernatural revelation only enabled an apostle to
anticipate a discovery which might have come to
him as the result of a deeper knowledge of the mind
of God as already revealed in Christ. The vision
which Peter saw at Joppa, and which gave him
courage to receive Cornelius into the church, con
veyed no fresh truth, no truth which was not already
contained in the revelation of God in Christ. To us
it is wonderful that any man who had known Christ
could have failed to see that He had come to seek
and to save the lost of all races and of all lands, and
to save them just as they were. But, whatever may
have been made known to the apostles by special

140 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
supernatural revelations, the substance of their faith
was what the illumination of the Spirit enabled them
to discover in Christ.
Apostolic revelations are not granted to us. In
spiration is not granted to us in the same measure in
which it was granted to the apostles, for our work
is inferior to theirs ; but it will be granted, if we seek
it, in whatever measure the exigencies of our personal
duties and of our work for others require.
The authoritative teaching of the Christian church
has never recognised with sufficient clearness and
firmness this glorious prerogative of the Christian
life. Theologians and ecclesiastical rulers have
dreaded the outbreak of fanaticism if all Christian
people were encouraged, or permitted, to hope for
the immediate illumination of the Holy Spirit. In
the Church of Rome His direct guidance has been
practically limited to councils, to popes, and to a few
eminent saints. In the great Protestant churches,
although it has been acknowledged that individual
Christians are taught of God, the anxiety to defend
the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures as the only
authoritative source of religious knowledge has led
to the virtual suppression of the truth that the
" spirit of wisdom and revelation " may come to the
commonalty of the church.
But we should never be afraid to accept the infinite
grace of God. In Luther's time men were afraid that
the doctrine of justification by faith would corrupt
the morals of the church, by relaxing the motives

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 141

to righteousness. Luther had the courage to believe
that error could never be friendly to holiness and that
truth could never be the ally of sin. He preached
the doctrine which many sagacious theologians re
garded with dismay, and it ennobled and invigorated
the morals of half Europe. A similar courage in
accepting and asserting the inspiration possible to
all Christians would not lessen but confirm the
authority of prophets and psalmists, evangelists and
apostles. The real danger arises from those mechanical and
superstitious conceptions of inspiration which would
have long ago disappeared had the great churches
frankly received the definite teaching of the New
Testament concerning the illumination of the Spirit
that is granted in varying measures to all Christians.
Excited and enthusiastic men have discovered that
the illumination of the Spirit is really promised to
all those who believe in Christ ; they have sup
posed that in the case of the apostles and evangelists
the illumination of the Spirit suspended the action
of all the ordinary faculties of the mind, that the
men who received inspiration in its highest forms
saw visions, heard voices, and were mastered by
irresistible impressions ; they have naturally inferred
that if they themselves were to receive the teaching
of the Holy Spirit He would manifest Himself in
the same abnormal ways. They have therefore
mistaken the wild fancies of a morbid imagination
and the waywardness of incipient insanity for the

142 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. viii.
light and teaching of the Spirit of Truth. They have
confounded inspiration, which is assured to all Christ
ian people, with revelations which have been granted
only to exceptional men in exceptional times, and
which are surrounded by exceptional guarantees of
their reality. A great truth which the leaders of the
thought and faith of the church refuse to acknow
ledge will almost certainly be grossly misunderstood
by ignorance and fanaticism.
Perhaps the safest description of the gift which
is promised to all Christians is that which is con
tained in the text. It is the " spirit of wisdom!' It
is not a blind impulse, resulting in a conviction hav
ing no intelligible grounds ; it is not an impression
having nothing to justify it except the obstinacy
with which we hold to it. When the Spirit of God
illuminates the mind we see the meaning of what
Christ said and of what Christ did. We simply find
what was in the Christian revelation from the begin
ning. The discovery is no private and personal
distinction. What we have seen in Christ, if our
vision is clear and true, other Christian men will
be able to see in Him for themselves. There is
nothing violent, nothing abnormal, in the experience
of those who are thus illuminated by the Holy Spirit ;
they simply obtain the more efficient use of a faculty
which is necessary to the integrity of human nature.
If I am asked how we are to distinguish between
what is revealed to us by the Spirit of God and what
we discover by the energy and penetration of our

lect. viii.] THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT. 143
own thought, I can only reply that the question
seems to me to rest on a misconception of the nature
of spiritual illumination. The " wisdom " which the
Spirit grants us is not a " wisdom " separable from the
ordinary activity and discernment of our own minds ;
it is not something alien to our own higher life ; it
becomes our own wisdom, just as the vision which
Christ miraculously restored to blind men was not
something foreign to them but their own. They saw
what before they had only handled, and the nobler
sense revealed to them what the inferior sense
could not make known ; they saw for themselves
what they had only heard of from others. The
reality of the supernatural work was ascertained by
the new discoveries it enabled them to make of
the world in which they were living. Analogous
effects follow the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
When the " spirit of wisdom and revelation " is granted
to us, " the eyes " of our heart, to use Paul's phrase in
the next verse, are " enlightened" — our own eyes, — and
we see the glory of God.
Apart from this illumination no true knowledge of
God is possible to man.

IX.

THE RESURRECTION AND GLORY OF CHRIST IN
RELATION TO THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH.
" Having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what
is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints \ and what the exceeding greatness of His power to usward
who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which
He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made
Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule,
and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come : and He put all
things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all
things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fillcth
all in all. 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 disobedience ; 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 children of wrath, even as the rest : — but God,
being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ
(by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with Him, and made us
to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages
to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness
ictvard us in Christ Jesus." Eph. i. 18. — ii. 7.
THERE is something in this passage to discourage
the Christian preacher. Paul knew that what
he was writing on the great subject that was kindling
his whole nature to a passion of enthusiasm and rap
ture would convey no real knowledge to the Ephesian

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 145
Christians unless the same Spirit that rested on him
rested on them. And therefore, at the outset of
that wonderful movement of thought which we are
now to consider he prayed that God would give them
" a spirit of wisdom and revelation " that they might
have a true knowledge of God. And if they were
to know the greatness of the Christian hope, the
future glory of the saints, the exceeding greatness
of the Divine power which was already revealing
itself in the Christian church, the eyes of their heart
must be Divinely enlightened. His own teaching
would be of no avail ; they must be taught of God.
It remains true that things eternal and Divine —
and these are the things about which every preacher
has to speak — can never be seen and known except
under the illumination of the Spirit of God. There
is. a "light which lighteth every man," and which is
sufficient to enable every man to apprehend the
elementary facts and rudimentary principles of God's
relations to mankind ; but as soon as we attempt to
pass to the higher provinces of Christian truth, the
light which is common to the race fails us and we
need a larger inspiration. We ourselves must be in
spired if we are to follow the teaching of inspired
apostles. There is something, I say, discouraging in this.
On most other subjects, if a speaker has a clear
understanding of the truths which he is trying to
illustrate, and if he has any faculty of exposition,
he can be tolerably sure of being able to make his
L

146 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. IX.
meaning plain to every intelligent listener. A
Christian preacher can have no such confidence.
But if there is something discouraging in this, there
is also something animating in it. It was not the
Divine purpose that the glories that were revealed
to apostles should be unknown to the commonalty of
the faithful ; and since these glories cannot be known
except by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this
inspiration will be given to all Christian men that
devoutly seek it.
Every man that believes in Christ receives not
merely the remission of sins, but the very life and
light of God. The life may be almost suppressed,
the light almost quenched, through moral and reli
gious carelessness, through neglect of the ethical and
spiritual laws of Christ, through infirmity of faith ;
but while we retain our union with Christ the life
and the light remain. When the Christian preacher
is conscious that his vision of truth is wanting in
clearness and brightness, and that he is unable to
express plainly and vividly even that which is plain
and vivid to himself, he may remember that those to
whom he is speaking have a diviner Teacher. He is
speaking to inspired men. The spiritual truths ot
which he can give only an inadequate and fragment
ary account are directly revealed to those who listen
to him, by the illumination of the Divine Spirit.
In attempting to make our own the truths con
tained in the passage which is now before us, I think
it will be well to begin with Paul's representation of

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 147
our Lord's resurrection and ascension to the Divine
glory.

The descent of the Son of God from His eternal
majesty to the infirmities and sorrows and tempta
tions of this mortal condition is so transcendent a
revelation both of the love of God and the possible
greatness and blessedness of man that we need not be
surprised that to many profound Christian thinkers
the incarnation has seemed to constitute the whole
of the Christian gospel. When we pass from the
incarnation itself to the atonement for the sin of
the world, which our Lord achieved by His death,
wonder is added to wonder, glory to glory, and it
seems impossible that any further revelation can
approach the infinite interest attaching to the birth
and the death of Christ. But even the atonement
did not end the succession of wonders which began
with the incarnation.
I will not dwell at length on the importance of the
Resurrection of Christ in relation to the revival of
the faith of Christ's original disciples, the founders
of the Christian church. But I must remind you that
if Christ had not visibly emerged from the darkness
and mystery into which He passed when He died, if
His body had remained in Joseph's sepulchre, if He
had not reappeared to His apostles and His other
earthly friends, it looks as if their faith would have
been destroyed.

148 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
"We hoped that it was He which should redeem
Israel " ; these words of the two disciples to whom
our Lord appeared on the road to Emmaus seem to
express the condition of mind of all the disciples
of our Lord during the gloomy interval between
His death and His resurrection. Their faith was
gone. Their Master — so it appeared — had been
crushed by His enemies. No vague and doubtful
visions created by an excited imagination, visions
seen by solitary persons in solitary places, could have
restored their confidence. The great Teacher whom
they had received as the Messiah had been crucified.
His crucifixion seemed to contradict all ancient pro
phecies. It was in violent contradiction to all their
own expectations and hopes. Apart from His visible
return to them, His return to them in circumstances
which would exclude all doubt that He had triumphed
over death, it is hardly conceivable that they could
have recovered their own faith in Him ; it is quite
inconceivable that they could have had the courage
to attempt to persuade other men that He was the
Christ. To His original disciples the shock of the
crucifixion was so appalling that, apart from His
resurrection, they could hardly have recovered the
legitimate impression of His earthly ministry.
But the resurrection of our Lord and His visible
reappearance are of immeasurable importance to our
selves. Apart indeed from His resurrection we might
still have seen adequate reason for believing that in
Jesus of Nazareth the Eternal Life was manifested in

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 149
a human character and in a human history. I have
admitted that the crucifixion was so severe a shock
to the faith of our Lord's earthly friends that had
they not seen Him again their faith in Him as the
Messiah would never have revived ; and it is hard, no
doubt, to conceive what our own religious faith and
life would have been if our Lord's history had closed
with His death and burial. But, for myself, I think
that if He had not predicted His resurrection from the
dead, and if we had had no knowledge of His resur
rection, the story of His earthly ministry would have
exerted, if not the same authority over me, yet the
same kind of authority that it exerts now. My con
science would have done homage to Him as the
eternal law of righteousness speaking through human
lips and visibly illustrated in a human life. The
sermon on the mount would still have been to me the
proclamation of the laws of a Divine kingdom, and
of that kingdom I should still have regarded Christ
as the Divine Founder. His unique declarations that
He was the Way to the Father ; that He was the
Truth, the eternal truth as contrasted with all the
shadows of reality which surround us in this visible
and transient universe ; that He was the Life, and
that only in union with Him can the perfect and
eternal life possible to human nature be achieved, —
would still, I think, have commanded my unfaltering
confidence. I should still have found rest of heart
and immortal hope in His assurance that His blood
was shed for the remission of sins.

150 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
But it seems to me that if, after His death, He had
never reclaimed and transfigured His physical nature,
I should have felt that in His earthly life there had
been only a transient alliance between the Divine
and the human, that He had manifested Himself in
a human form and a human history but had not
actually become man ; and that He had now with
drawn Himself from all human limitations into the
eternal glories of the infinite life of God, and was in
no sense a man any longer.
He would still have been my Prince, but He would
not have retained that nature which made Him
accessible to temptation and which sometimes made
it hard even for Him to keep the Divine law. He
would still have been my Saviour ; but He would
not have retained those human sympathies which do
so much to attract and confirm my faith in His pity
and His love. I should have had to appeal to a
Divine mercy and a Divine power which had been
revealed in the human Christ, but the human Christ
would have been lost for ever. The loss would have
been immense, and, as it seems to me, without any
compensations. The resurrection of Christ is the
assurance that this loss has not been inflicted upon
us : the human Christ is still ours.
But how is it that Paul speaks with such a passion
of emphasis of " the working of the strength of
[God's] might which He wrought in Christ when He
raised Him from the dead " ? The apostle seems
struggling with an idea too large for expression.

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 151
The Divine power manifested in the resurrection of
Christ appears to him so immense that he accumulates
epithet on epithet to describe it. What is the expla
nation of the extraordinary strength of the apostle's
language ?
Our Lord Himself raised the dead. He raised the
daughter of Jairus and the son of a widow at Nain.
He raised His friend Lazarus of Bethany after he
had been dead four days. These miraculous acts
were no doubt very wonderful ; but the writers of the
four Gospels record them without any expression of
astonishment, and there is not even a passing refer
ence to any one of them in any of the epistles. Why
should the resurrection of our Lord Himself have
been described by Paul with this vehemence and in
tensity of language ? Why should he have spoken of
it as if it were the great triumph of the power of God ?
The answer to these questions is to be found in
the unique character of our Lord's resurrection.
When the daughter of Jairus was brought back to
life, she returned to the same life that she had lived
before she died ; she was a child again in her father's
house. We know nothing of her later history ; but
if she lived many years she passed through all the
common experiences of the race ; she ate and
drank and slept ; she grew up to womanhood ; she
may have married ; she had the ordinary cares and
sorrows and joys of womanhood ; illness came to
her as it came to others, and at last she died a second
time and was buried. It was the same with the

152 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. IX.
young man at Nain. He went home with his
mother, continued to work at his trade, took once
more the place in the common ranks of men which
for a few hours had been vacant, lived and died like
other men. It vyas the same with Lazarus. He
came from his sepulchre to the quiet house in Beth
any from which his dead body had been carried,
and lived with his sisters as he had lived before.
There is no reason to believe that his intellectual
powers had received any sudden enlargement, or
that his moral life had risen to any extraordinary
heights of grandeur, or that in any other respect
he had become a very different man from what he
was before. He took up the broken threads of life
just where he had left them, and was the same man
that he had always been, except that the days of
death and the hour in which at the command of
Christ he returned to the common paths of men must
always have been recalled by him with a certain
ponder and awe.
But the resurrection of Christ was not a return
to the life which death had interrupted. It was the
beginning of a new life under altogether new con
ditions. The Resurrection was followed by the
Ascension. God " raised Him from the dead, and
made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all rule and authority and power and
dominion, and every name that is named not only in
this world, but also in that which is to come ; and He
put all things in subjection under His feet!'

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 153

I have the impression that many Christian people
impoverish these great words. During His earthly
life our Lord was in a position of absolute dependence
on the Father.1 Between His earthly humiliation
and the glory which He had with the Father before
the world was, the distance was immeasurable. He
took " the form of a servant," a slave ; and I think
that many Christian people have never caught
any glimpse of the transcendent change which has
now passed upon Him. They know indeed that His
sufferings are over, and that He has perfect blessed
ness in the perfect love of God. They suppose that
His present home is a world of great visible splen
dour, that His form is radiant with glory, and that
He is decorated with titles of supreme dignity. But
as during His earthly history He was one of ourselves,
although His person was Divine, so they imagine
that in heaven He is only one of the glorified ; the
first in rank, the centre of universal love and honour
and worship ; but nothing more. As He travelled
with men along the common levels of human life
when He was here; so they imagine He will travel
with us along the loftier levels of that glorious life

1 I do not mean to imply that " subordination," or in a very
true sense " dependence," may not be predicated of the present
relation of Christ to the Father. "Subordination" must, I
think, be predicated of the Eternal Word even before the
incarnation. But in Christ's earthly history His dependence
on God was like our own. It is this which I think has
ceased.

154 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
which we hope for on the other side of death, one
of ourselves, although endowed with a nobler right
eousness, with a larger wisdom, and a diviner joy.
His access to God must be nearer and more intimate
than ours, in heaven, as it was on earth. He must
have a clearer and fuller vision of God's thought.
But He will share with us through eternity the bless
edness of contemplating the glory of God and the
perpetual manifestations of God's infinite love and
righteousness. But this is not Paul's conception of Christ. Paul
attributes to Him a real and effective sovereignty
over all worlds, seen and unseen. He is not merely
surrounded with the pomp and circumstance of su
preme authority. He does not merely watch, with a
perfect sympathy of joy, the infinite activities of the
Divine life and the tremendous manifestations of
the Divine power, as a son might watch the suc
cessive triumphs of his father's heroism and his
father's genius. He Himself is Lord of all. He
controls and governs all the immense forces of the
material universe ; He controls and governs the more
immense and awful forces of the moral and spiritual
universe. He, the Christ whom men knew on earth,
He — and not another — He who was born at Beth
lehem, who was a child in the home of Joseph and
Mary at Nazareth, who grew in wisdom and stature,
who was tempted, who delivered the sermon on the
mount, whose arms enfolded little children, who was
betrayed by Judas, who was charged with treason

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 155
against Caesar and with blasphemy against God, who
was scourged, who was crucified, — He, and not
another, is Lord of all. This is the explanation of
the emphasis with which Paul speaks of the great
power of God that was manifested in the exaltation
of Christ. When He was on earth He sat by the
well and slept in the ship because He was weary ;
now His strength must never be spent. Although
He was filled with the Divine Spirit His knowledge
was limited by human conditions, not only in His
childhood but in His maturer years ; now His know
ledge must cover every province of the universe
of God. The incarnation was wonderful : that it
should have been possible for the Eternal Word who
"was in the beginning with God," and who "was
God," " by whom all things were made," to descend
from the eternal splendours of Divine supremacy and
to become man, is an infinite mystery. But that,
having become man and retaining His humanity, it
should have been possible for Him to reascend to
those heights of authority and glory is also an infinite
mystery. This, I repeat, is the explanation of the emphasis
and energy with which Paul dwells on the greatness
of the Divine power as illustrated in the resurrection,
ascension, and- glorification of Christ. During His
earthly life He was unequal to the great tasks of
supreme authority, just as He was unequal during
His childhood to the tasks of His public ministry.
By the natural growth of His intellectual and moral

156 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
nature in youth and manhood, by the discipline of
labour and sorrow, by fellowship with God, by the
inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit, He gradu
ally reached that mature wisdom, strength, and
righteousness which were necessary for His public
activity. But He still had " the form of a servant,"
and His powers were powers for service, not for
sovereignty ; for service indeed of unique moral
grandeur, but still for service. With His resurrection
and ascension into heaven there came an extension,
an expansion, an exaltation of the powers of Christ's
human nature which corresponded with His transition
from humiliation to the glory of the Father. " The
working of the strength of [God's] might " rendered
Him capable of a knowledge so immense, enriched
Him with a wisdom so Divine, inspired Him with a
force so wonderful, that Christ, the very Christ that
was born at Bethlehem and was crucified on Calvary,
became the real and effective Ruler of heaven and
earth. Do you say that the human nature of Christ can
not have been invested with this transcendent great
ness, and cannot sustain these transcendent activities,
— that the human Christ may share the honour and
blessedness of the Eternal Word, but that these im
mense powers must be attributed solely and exclu
sively to the Divine Person who assumed humanity
for the purposes of human redemption ?
I admit that they must be attributed to a Divine
Person ; but the Person of Christ was Divine during

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 157
His earthly life, as truly Divine then as it is now.
In Christ the eternal Son of God became man ; and
He has not ceased to be man. In Christ, a Divine
Person once made human nature the organ of a life
of perfect obedience ; in Christ, a Divine Person
now makes human nature the organ of supreme and
universal sovereignty. In Christ, the eternal Son of
God accepted all the limitations of human life, " taking
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of
men ; and being found in fashion as a man He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea
the death of the cross " ; and in Christ the Eternal
Word is now enthroned " above all rule and authority
and power and dominion,'' and God has " put all things
under His feet." Paul asserts this truth in another
epistle. After describing, in words which I have
already quoted, the voluntary humiliation of Christ,
he goes on to say : " Wherefore also God highly
exalted Him and gave Him a name which is above
every name ; that in the name," — not of the Eternal
Word or Son of God, — but "in the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things
on earth, and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father."1
The words of Christ Himself are decisive. Just
before His ascension He said to His apostles, "All
authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and

1 Phil. ii. 9-1 1.

158 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
on earth." It was not an otiose and oriental sove
reignty which He claimed, a sovereignty of luxurious
splendour and ease, separated from all the real and sub
stantial attributes of power. He spoke as one who was
about to rule as well as reign, and who knew that He
would have the power to do it.
And even before His death He had described the
forms in which His great power was to be exerted.
He had said that the hour is coming in which all
that are in the tombs are to hear the voice of the
Son of man and to come forth ; 1 that the Son of man
will come in His glory, and all the holy angels with
Him, and before Him shall be gathered all the
nations ; that He will divide the just from the unjust,
will condemn the lost to their irrevocable ruin, and
welcome the saved to their eternal blessedness.3 He,
" the Son of man," is to raise the dead and to judge
the world. He is not merely to witness the manifest
ation of the great power of God in the resurrection ;
the resurrection is to be His own work. He is not
merely to concur in the decisions of the perfect know
ledge and infinite righteousness of the Father ; He
Himself is to judge the human race. These great
claims are definitely made for Himself as " the Son of
man," and they are the complete assurance of the
truth that these amazing acts of wisdom and of
power are to be the acts of the very Christ that lived
among men. It is therefore legitimate to conclude
1 John v. 25-28. 2 Matt. xxv. 31 sea.

LECT. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 159
that all the other wonderful prerogatives and works
which He claims are prerogatives which illustrate the
dignity and the power, not merely of the Eternal
Word, but of the Christ in whom the Eternal Word
became man. He is the Way to the Father. He
gives eternal life. He is the permanent root of the
higher life of man, and apart from Him we can do
nothing. It is by Him that all saints are kept from
evil in this world. He returned to the Father that He
might prepare a place for them in the world to come.
The transcendent development of the powers of
Christ which Paul in this passage attributes to " that
working of the strength of [God's] might which He
wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead
and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly
places" was anticipated by our Lord before His death;
it was necessary to the great works which He said He
was to perform, and to the unique relations which He
said He was to sustain to the spiritual life of the race.
Paul's closing words are " dark with excessive
bright." The Christ who is thus exalted "far above
all rule and authority and power and dominion"
is not to be separated from those whose nature He
shares and whom He has redeemed from sin and
from eternal death. The supremacy of Christ is to
be asserted in His union with His saints. God gave
Him to the church " to be head over all things" He
is supreme in the church as well as in the rest of the
universe; and the church is "His body" in which all
the wealth and the energy of His life are revealed,

160 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
the perfect organ of His will, the very home of His
glory. And yet it is not in the church alone that the
power and glory of Christ are manifested. He gives
to the whole creation its substantial being ; apart
from Him it would be a phantom universe ; He is
the centre and support of universal law ; the spring of
universal life ; the author of all beauty and of all joy
and blessedness: He "filleth all in all!'
II.
And now Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians
that " the exceeding greatness of God's power " which
raised Christ from the dead had been revealed in
other forms. "YOU did He quicken when ye were dead
through your trespasses and sins" Human nature has
no enduring life apart from God. Separated from
Him "who only hath immortality" our nature not
only sinks into degradation, it is destined to " eternal
destruction." Death has begun in every man who by
his " trespasses and sins " has separated himself from
the eternal fountains of life that are in God. The
noblest elements of his nature are dead already, and
unless he is raised from the dead the death will extend
until he is completely and irrevocably destroyed.
There was a time, Paul says, when the Ephesians
were "dead" and he gives a terrible description of
their moral condition in those evil days. They lived
according to the customs and traditions of this world ;
not having the Divine life they could not live under
the control and inspiration of the laws and glories of

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 161
the Divine kingdom. They were confederate in their
moral temper and disposition with the great leader
of revolt against the authority and righteousness of
God. This evil power is described according to a
rabbinical tradition as having his home in " the air,"
beneath the happy seats of the saints and of the
angels who have kept their first estate, and yet above
the sphere of human life. The rabbinical conception,
when stripped of the wild conceits and fancies which
were associated with it, is an intelligible one ; the
awful representative of sin has powers immeasurably
above our own, and yet he can have no place among
the principalities and thrones of heaven ; he was
therefore supposed to reign in a sphere intermediate
between heaven and earth : he was " the prince of
the power of the air!'
Morally, he is described by Paul as the prince " of
the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience!'
The contrast between those who were in Christ and
those who were not was vividly present to the mind
of the apostle. The kingdom of God had been estab
lished on earth, and the Ephesian Christians had
passed into it ; but the old kingdom of evil to which
they had once belonged was still standing, and the
spirit of revolt was still working in those who had
not escaped from it.
And it was not only those who had been rescued
by Christ from heathenism that had once lived among
the sons of disobedience. Paul says, "we all" lived
among them ; we Jews as well as you Gentiles ; we
M

162 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
all " lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of
the flesh and the mind" governed, not by invisible and
eternal laws, not by the just and righteous will of
God, but by our own impulses and passions ; and
we were all "by nature children of wrath even as
the rest!'
This phrase is sometimes quoted as though it were
intended to affirm the dreadful doctrine that by our
mere birth we incur the Divine anger and that apart
from any voluntary wrong-doing we are under the
Divine curse. This appalling theory receives no
sanction from either the Old Testament or the New.
It is taught in the Westminster Confession, which
declares that by their sin Adam and Eve " became
dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and
parts of soul and body " ; that as they were " the root
of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed
and the same death in sin and corrupted nature con
veyed to all their posterity, descending from them by
ordinary generation " ; and that " every sin, both
original and actual, being a transgression of the right
eous law of God . . . doth in its own nature
bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound
over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and
so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual,
temporal, and eternal " ; and these words of Paul's
are quoted in support of the dogma. It is taught in
the Articles of the Church of England, which declare
that "original sin ... is the fault and corrup
tion of every man that naturally is engendered of

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 163
the offspring of Adam . . . whereby man is
very far gone from original righteousness, and is
of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh
lusteth against the spirit ; and therefore in every
person born into this world it deserveth God's wrath
and damnation."
This is not the doctrine either of Christ or of Paul.
In Paul's language nature is opposed to grace as the
natural is -opposed to the supernatural. Those who
are in a state of nature are living their own life with
out the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. " The light
which lighteth every man," and which, if they had
followed it, would have brought them to God, they
have gradually darkened until nearly every ray is
extinguished. They have broken the law written on
the heart, and instead of rising into that union with
God for which they were created, and in which they
would have achieved the perfection of their life, they
have by their own acts separated themselves from
Him and so have become "children of wrath." This
terrible destiny is, I repeat, according to Paul not
their inheritance by birth, but their inheritance by
choice. They are " dead through their trespasses and
sins." From this condition of nature all Christians have
emerged. " God being rich in mercy, for His great
love wherewith He loved us, even wJien we were dead
through our trespasses, quickened us together with
Christ and raised us up with Him and made us to sit
with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus"

1 64 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
The union between Christ and those who through faith
and the power of the Holy Spirit are one with Him
is so intimate and complete that in His resurrection,
in the measureless enlargement and glorification of
all the capacities and powers of His human nature,
and in His enthronement at the right hand of God,
they rise to new and diviner levels of life. The joy
and the glory of their Lord are theirs.
The great words of Christ, " Abide in Me and I
jn you," " I am the Vine, ye are the branches, he
that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth
much fruit," extend beyond the limits of this mortal
life ; as they are the assurance of the possibility in
this world of a righteousness transcending our own
strength, they are the assurance of the certainty in the
world to come of a glory transcending all imagina
tion and hope.

" Lord, in Thy people Thou dost dwell,
Thy people dwell in Thee ;
O blessedness unspeakable !
O wondrous unity !
One with Thee all Thy life they know,
And all Thou hast possess ;
In Thee they underwent all woe,
And wrought all righteousness.

They rose upon Thy rising day,
With Thee to heaven did soar ;
Thou livest evermore, and they
Shall live for evermore.

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 165
When Thou Thy kingdom shalt obtain
And put Thy glory on,
Thine endless reign shall be their reign,
The King and they are one." '
Now we can see why it was that when Paul prayed
that the illumination of the Holy Spirit might be
granted to the Ephesian Christians, that they might
know what is " the hope " which belongs to those that
are called of God, he went on to speak of the resur
rection and glory of Christ. " The exceeding greatness
of [God's] power to usward wlw believe " has been
already illustrated in " the working of the strength of
His might which He wrought in Christ wJien He raised
Him from tlie dead and set Him at His own right
hand in tlie heavenly places." God will confer on us
a greatness and a blessedness corresponding to the
greatness and blessedness which He has conferred on
Christ. No promises of " glory, honour, and immor
tality " can adequately represent the wonderful future
of those who are to dwell for ever in God ; but in the
ascent of Christ from His earthly humiliation to
supreme sovereignty, in the corresponding develop
ment of the intellectual and moral energies of His
human nature, we see how immense is that augment
ation of power and of joy to which we are destined.
We are not merely to escape from the sorrows, the
sins, and the temptations of our present condition ;
nor are we merely to carry with us to some fairer and
» " Golden Chain of Praise," by T. H. Gill.

£66 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
happier world our present capacities of knowledge, of
righteousness, and of bliss ; our whole nature is to be
expanded and enlarged by the great power of God.
III.
There is another aspect under which Paul presents
the eternal greatness and blessedness of those who are
in Christ. He describes them as God's " inheritance"
(chap. i. 1 8). The form of thought was suggested
by the unique relations of the Jewish race to God.
In the very earliest pages of their sacred books the
Jews were taught that the God who had revealed
Himself to their fathers was not a mere local and
national divinity, but the Creator of the heavens and
the earth, and yet the Jewish people were in a special
sense His own. This was the ground on which
prophets and psalmists appealed to God for protec
tion in times of national calamity, and for mercy in
times when the nation was guilty of flagrant sin.
Moses told the people that, when God menaced them
with destruction because of their offences, he prayed
to the Lord and said : " O Lord God, destroy not
Thy people and Thine inheritance which Thou hast
redeemed through Thy greatness, which Thou hast
brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand."
In his great song he said, "The Lord's portion is
His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance."
Solomon in his prayer at the dedication of the temple
urged the same plea in entreating God to show mercy
to the people even when through their sins they were

l*cr. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 167
suffering captivity : " Give them compassion before
them that carried them captive, that they may have
compassion on them ; for they be Thy people and
Thine inheritance, which Thou broughtest forth out
of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron. "
When foreign armies had invaded the country and
laid it desolate, a psalmist represented God Himself as
enduring loss and dishonour : " O God, the heathen are
come into Thine inheritance ; Thy holy temple have
they defiled ; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps."
The actual history of the Jewish race was a history
of shame as well as of glory ; the Divine ideal of
their national life was defeated by their perversity
and sin. And yet for a long succession of centuries
they enjoyed unique prerogatives. The laws which
lay at the foundation of their civil and ecclesiastical
institutions were Divine. They were delivered from
great national disasters by special interpositions of
the Divine hand. Divinely inspired prophets were
their ethical and religious teachers. Their temple,
their priesthood, their ritual, the exceptional laws
which regulated their personal life, were a Divinely
ordered discipline of faith and righteousness. And
at last it was among them that the Eternal Word
became flesh and laid the foundation of the kingdom
of God among men.
Those who are " in Christ " are God's eternal " in
heritance" ; all the resources of His wisdom and power
will contribute to the perfection of their righteousness,
their wisdom, and their joy ; and He will defend them

168 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. ix.
from all peril as He defends the foundations of His
own eternal throne. We are His, " that in the ages
to come He [may] show the exceeding riches of His
grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus " ;
and only the measures of His infinite power and in
finite love can determine " the riches of the gloiy of
His inheritance in the saints!'
The Christian gospel is a great appeal to the
hopes of mankind. The revelation of the love of
God in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ and
His death for the sin of the race, and the wonder
ful blessings with which the Christian life is enriched
even in this world, are but the assurance of other
manifestations of the Divine grace in the golden ages
of the endless future. We have only told half the
story of the Divine love when we have spoken of the
descent of the Son of God from His greatness and
majesty to the sorrows and conflicts of this earthly
life ; and that half of the story is incredible until we
make it clear that He came in order to lift up the
race to the heights of God. The true home of man
is in eternal light and eternal blessedness ; —
"And our life
Is not so sweet here or so free from strife,
Or glorious deeds so common, that if we
Should think a certain path at last to see
To such a place, men then should think us wise
To turn away therefrom and shut our eyes."
Perhaps if our own imagination were radiant with

lect. ix.] CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND GLORY. 169
the splendours of an endless life in God, if to our own
faith those splendours were never wholly concealed by
the dense clouds of earthly care and sorrow, and if
sometimes they broke through the clouds in triumph
ant floods of glory, if the gospel on the lips of the
church were thrilled with the passion of the exulting
hope of reigning with Christ on His throne as well as
touched with the pathos of the sad memories of His
cross, many a weary and troubled heart that now
listens to the gospel with languid interest would be
filled with a sudden rapture of wonder and joy, and,
having discovered the infinite possibilities of a life
in Christ, would surrender itself trustfully to His
authority and love.

Note. — After the larger half of this volume had been written
I met with the following passage in Canon Westcott's " Gospel
of the Resurrection," a book which with the companion volume,
" The Revelation of the Risen Lord," I earnestly recommend to
my readers : —
" The Epistle to the Ephesians and the writings of St. John
contain, in a Divine commentary on the Resurrection, of which
Christian history is the gradual and partial fulfilment, the com
plete solution of the greatest problems to which the thoughts
of men are now being turned, the solidarity of humanity and
the relation of our World to the whole Kosmos." (Notice to
the Second Edition.)

SALVATION BY GRACE.
" For by grace have ye been saved through faith ; and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, that no man should
glory." Eph. ii. 8.
TO a superficial criticism it may appear that this
epistle could not have come from the hand of
the apostle Paul. In the epistles to the Romans and
to the Galatians, which by universal consent were
written by him, there are certain characteristic words,
characteristic phrases, characteristic forms of thought,
which in the epistle to the Ephesians never appear.
The very symbol of the Pauline theology is the great
doctrine of justification by faith ; but in this epistle
the doctrine of justification by faith is not once
asserted. The word "justification" does not occur;
the specific idea for which the word stands does not
occur. The intellectual form under which the Christ
ian redemption is conceived is different from that
which is found in the earlier expositions of the
Pauline gospel.
With growing years there was a growth in Paul's
apprehension of the contents of the Christian revela-

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 171

tion. The illumination of the Divine Spirit which
rested on him from the first shone more and more
unto the perfect day. The intellectual forms in
which he conceived and expressed the truth which
came to him were determined partly by his personal
genius, by his intellectual culture and environment,
by his moral and spiritual history, his conflicts, fail
ures, and triumphs, partly by the varying aspects of
that great controversy which he had to maintain with
error and sin. When he wrote the epistles to the
Galatians and the Romans he was in the agony of
his struggle with those Christian teachers who were
endeavouring to perpetuate in the Christian church
some of the imperfect and transitory elements of
Judaism. The conflict did not really relate to the
mere external ceremonies of the ancient religion, but
to its ethical and spiritual methods. The Jewish
people had been trained to conceive of the relations
between God and man as based on law. There were
certain commandments to be kept, as the condition
of securing or retaining the prerogatives and hopes
which were the inheritance of the elect race. It was
hardly possible indeed for a devout and thoughtful
Jew to imagine that the great inheritance had been
earned by Jewish virtue or sanctity ; for there was no
proportion between the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and the glory which God had conferred on
them and on their descendants. The inheritance, as
Paul says in writing to the Galatians, was not the
reward of obedience to the law, it was the free

172 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. X.
promise of God to Abraham, who trusted in the
Divine righteousness and truth.1 But if a Jew was
not to forfeit his great position he had to obey care
fully a whole system of positive precepts.
And so the idea of law was one of the great
formative principles of Jewish religious life. The
Divine claims on the Jew were incessant, and they
met him everywhere. Not to satisfy them was to
incur guilt and penalty. How to escape the con
demnation of the law, how to stand right with it, or
in other words, how to be justified, was the constant
object of Jewish anxiety and effort.
And the conception of our relations to God which
was represented and enforced by Jewish institutions
was, as far as it went, a true conception. There is an
eternal law of righteousness, which is one with the
just and perfect will of God. This law we are under
infinite obligations to obey. If we obey it, we are
right at once with God and with the law ; if we
violate it, we are under condemnation. The author
ity of this majestic law is asserted by conscience :
while we are obedient conscience is at peace with us ;
as soon as we are disobedient conscience condemns us
When therefore the Jewish teachers insisted on the
authority of law, on the terrible results of breaking
the law, on the necessity of justification, they had
the conscience of men on their side, and they
were in harmony with one part of the eternal truth
1 Gal. iii. 18.

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 173
of man's relations to God. Any system of religious
thought which finds no place for this severe concep
tion is fatally deficient, is essentially false, and can
never train men to a perfect life. The relations
between man and God may be conceived and stated,
not adequately, not completely, but in part, in terms
of law.
And in controverting the heresies of Judaizing
teachers, whose strength was largely derived from
this element of truth in their teaching, Paul meets
them on their own ground, the ground familiar to
him. He too had been disciplined by Judaism. The
idea of law had become a part of the fibre of his
thought ; it had been the centre and root of his
whole religious life and action. He had been passion
ately anxious to be right with the law, to avoid
everything which it prohibited, to do everything
which it required. To be condemned or to be justi
fied, these were the supreme issues of life. And " as
touching the righteousness which is in the law " he
had been " found blameless."
' But an hour came when the law was revealed to
him in a new and august, but most awful, form, re
quiring a virtue quite beyond his strength, condemn
ing thoughts, dispositions, habits, which he could not
renounce. That was a terrible discovery. But he did
not, in his despair, deny the authority of the law
which demanded an impossible righteousness ; he
confessed that it was "holy, just, and good." Nor
did he try to persuade himself that his relations to

174 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. X.
God could not be properly represented in terms of
law ; this would have been antinomianism. His
mind still revolved round the old question which
this legal relation, to God suggests, How can a man
be justified ? and he found the answer to it in Christ.
We are to be justified by faith in Him.
That was a conception of the Christian redemption
expressed, to use the phrase I have used so often,
in terms of law. It is a forensic conception ; and
that forensic conception rests on a profound and
eternal fact. In the forgiveness of those who believe
on the Lord Jesus, and their release from the just and
awful penalties of their sin, the principles of the
eternal law of righteousness are not suppressed but
are asserted in the highest and most august form.
Those who believe in Christ are not merely forgiven,
— Forgiveness is the act of an authority which is above
law ; they are justified, — Justification is the act of an
authority which expresses and administers law. And
in his epistles to the Romans and Galatians Paul
illustrates and maintains the truth that we are not
merely forgiven for Christ's sake but justified by faith
in Him.
He meets the Judaizing teachers where they stand,
gives a real satisfaction to those demands of the
conscience and the moral nature which they were
endeavouring to satisfy by recalling the external
and symbolic institutions which had vanished away.
And when men's hearts are shaken with fears created
by the requirements of law, and when their whole

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 175
conception of their relations to God is based upon
the idea of His moral authority, the very substance
of the gospel is the assurance that according to the
principles of the spiritual order created by Christ we
are justified, not by works, but by faith. At such a
time and to such men the doctrine of justification by
faith is the truest, completest account of the contents
of the gospel of Christ.
But to Paul the doctrine of justification by faith
was not a final statement of Christian truth. It was
not a formula which could be used mechanically for
constructing schemes of Christian doctrine and which
made it unnecessary for him to recur to the actual
relations between God and the human race. The
theological method that draws out a long series of
conclusions from definitions was not Paul's method.
This method, with whatever logical skill and rigour
it may be handled, will result in the creation of a
theology which will have two great demerits. Be
ginning with a mere intellectual definition, every
deduction from it will have a technical and formal
character ; and every fresh deduction will be more
technical and more formal than that from which it
was drawn, till at last the remoter conclusions will
be wholly destitute of reality and life. The system
will be false as well as formal. For the method
assumes that the definition is not only true but
adequate ; and this assumption is always erroneous.
No definition contains a complete account of the
relations between God and man.

176 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. X.
The apostle would have been flung to the lions or
crucified rather than surrender his testimony to the
doctrine of justification by faith. It was the energy
with which he maintained this doctrine and the
vehemence with which he assaulted whatever teach
ing compromised or corrupted it, that made many
Christian Jews regard him with distrust and even
with hostility. It was this which made the syna
gogue in nearly every city that he visited, both in
Asia Minor and in Europe, the centre of a fierce
hostility against him which often broke out into
violence. But the thought of Paul retained its
freedom. He was not imprisoned within the walls
of any formula. He was continually recurring to
those Divine facts which no formula can completely
represent. His doctrine of justification by faith was
not a mere fetish. He could write a whole epistle, an
epistle dealing with the central glories of the Christian
revelation, and say nothing about justification by
faith from the beginning to the end of it.
Paul, I repeat, was not imprisoned within the walls
of a formula, but was continually recurring to facts.
It is true that our relations to God may be defined
in terms of law. He has sovereign authority, and we
are under the most stringent obligations to obedience.
He is the Moral Ruler of the universe, and we are His
subjects. His will is inseparable from the eternal law
of righteousness to which the conscience does hom
age and whose claim it enforces. Any account of
the relations between God and ourselves which does

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 177
not include this conception is not only defective but
fatally defective, is absolutely and ruinously erroneous.
But this conception does not exhaust the Divine re
lations to the human race. There are other relations
between God and man which cannot be expressed
in terms of law ; and it is with these relations that
Paul is dealing in this epistle. He says nothing
about Justification because he is not moving in that
region of law in which he vindicated the Christian
redemption against the Judaizers; the Fact which his
account of Justification by faith represented in one
form is represented here in another. His mind and
heart are filled with the Divine grace.
To some of us that beautiful word has been soiled
by unclean hands, tainted by contact with corrupt
and pernicious forms of religious thought. Grace has
been too often represented in forms which dishonoured
the righteousness of God, and were unfriendly to the
righteousness of man. In our modern religious lan
guage it occurs less frequently than in the language
of our fathers. But the word is too precious to be
surrendered. Among the Greeks it stood for all
that is most winning in personal loveliness, for the
nameless fascination of a beauty which is not cold
and remote but irresistibly attractive and charm
ing. It was also used for that warm, free-handed,
and spontaneous generosity which is kind where there
is no claim or merit, and kind without hope of re
turn ; a disposition lovely in itself, and winning the
admiration and affection of all who witness it. This
N

178 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x.
beautiful word, with all its beautiful associations, has
been exalted and transfigured in its Christian uses.
Grace transcends love. Love may be nothing more
than the fulfilment of the law. We love God, who
deserves our love. We are required to love our
neighbour, and we cannot refuse to love him without
guilt. But grace is love which passes beyond all
claims to love. It is love which, after fulfilling the
obligations imposed by law, has an unexhausted
wealth of kindness.
Grace transcends mercy. Mercy forgives sin, and
rescues the sinner from eternal darkness and death.
But grace floods with affection the sinner who has
deserved anger and resentment, trusts penitent trea
chery with a confidence which could not have been
merited by ages of incorruptible fidelity, confers on
a race which had been in revolt honours which no
loyalty could have purchased, on the sinful joy beyond
the deserts of saintliness.
The eternal righteousness of God is that which
constitutes His dignity and majesty, makes Him
venerable and august ; but His grace adds to His
dignity an infinite loveliness, to His majesty an in
effable charm, blends with the awe and devout fear
with which we worship Him a happy confidence, and
with our veneration a passionate affection.
Our salvation, — this is the central thought of the
Epistle to the Ephesians, — is the achievement of God's
grace. God's free, spontaneous love for us, resolved
that we who sprang from the dust, and might have

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 179
passed away and perished like the falling leaves after
a frail and brief existence, should share through a
glorious immortality the sonship of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love ; He blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
This was the wonderful idea of human greatness and
destiny which was formed by the grace of God.
According to the Divine purpose, which it lies with us
to accept or reject, the very righteousness of the Son
of God is to be ours, His access to the Father, the
eternal peace and blessedness of His own eternal life.
The race declined from the lofty path designed for
it by the Divine goodness. But as by the grace of
God Christ was to be the root of our righteousness
and blessedness, as the ground and reason of our
ethical and spiritual greatness were in Him, so in
Christ God has revealed the root, the ground, the
reason of our redemption. We have our redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses
according to the riches of God's grace. There is
nothing abnormal in the forgiveness of our sin being
the result of Christ's death ; all our possible righteous
ness was to be the fruit of the perfection and energy
of His eternal life.
The original idea of the Divine grace, according
to which we were to find all things in Christ and
Christ was to be the root of a perfection and glory
surpassing all hope and all thought, was tragically

180 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x.
asserted in the death of Christ for human salvation.
Our fortunes — shall I say it? — were identified with the
fortunes of Christ ; in the Divine thought and purpose
we were inseparable from Him. Had we been true
and loyal to the Divine idea, the energy of Christ's
righteousness would have drawn us upwards to
height after height of goodness and joy, until we
ascended from this earthly life to the larger powers
and loftier services and richer delights of other
and diviner worlds ; and still, through one golden
age of intellectual and ethical and spiritual growth
after another, we should have continued to rise
towards Christ's transcendent and infinite perfection.
But we sinned ; and as the union between Christ
and us could not be broken without the final and
irrevocable defeat of the Divine purpose, as separa
tion from Christ meant for us eternal death, Christ
was drawn down from the serene heavens to the
shame and sorrow of the confused and troubled life
of our race, to pain, to temptation, to anguish, to the
cross and to the grave, and so the mystery of His
atonement for our sin was consummated. In His
sufferings and death, through the infinite grace of
God, we find forgiveness, as in the power of His
righteousness and as in His great glory we find the
possibilities of all perfection.
Our union with Him is not dissolved. Through
His death we receive forgiveness, through His death
we die to the sin which brought the death upon Him ;
and in His resurrection and ascension we see the

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 1S1
visible manifestation of that eternal life which we
have already received, and which will some day be
manifested in us as it has been manifested in Him.
It is at the close of this sublime movement of
thought that the apostle asserts and re-asserts, with
an accent of triumph, that we have been saved by
grace. And if we have been saved by grace, then it
must be through faith and not by works ; for grace
and faith are correlative. If human salvation has its
origin in the infinite grace of God, if by that grace it
is carried through to its eternal consummation, then
our true position is one of immeasurable trust and
immeasurable hope. If on God's side everything is of
grace, then on our side there can be nothing of merit.
We have only to receive the infinite blessings of the
Divine love. We have to surrender ourselves to that
stream of eternal benediction which has its fountains
in the eternal depths of the Divine nature. We have
to make way for the free unfolding in our life and
destiny of the Divine idea and purpose.
The apostle is not content with stating the great
truth once for all. He states it affirmatively and
then negatively : then affirmatively again ; and closes
with a final negation. " By grace have ye been saved"
and to exclude the possibility of missing his meaning,
he adds *' not of yourselves" This is not enough :
"it is the gift of God"; nor is this enough; to make
it clear that the gift is absolutely free, he adds " not
of works, that no man should glory!' Even now he is
not satisfied ; the good works which are possible to us

182 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x.
cannot be the ground and condition of salvation ;
for they are its result : " We are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works which God
afore prepared that we should walk in them!' As the
branch is created in the vine, we are created in
Christ ; as the fruits of the branch are predetermined
by the laws of that life which it receives from the
vine, so our "good works" which are the result of
our union with Christ, are predetermined by the laws
of the life of Christ which is our life and the strength
of all our righteousness.
The doctrine of Justification by faith is here, but
is included in truths of a wider range and a loftier
order. We have passed from the region of law to
the region of the free personal relations between God
and those who were created to share the life and
glory of His Son. But in this region too our position
is one of dependence and of faith.
When the discovery of God's infinite grace has
once been made, and as long as the vision of it is
unclouded, this earthly life is touched with a celestial
brightness. God, the infinite and eternal God, does
not cease to be great, but His greatness is softened
with a tenderness which forbids all fear. He does not
cease to be our Moral Ruler, but His authority —
though not relaxed — has an infinite charm. Some
times a change passes upon our imaginative concep
tion of the Divine life. To many of us in our earlier
days the life of God was an ocean — an ocean which
no line could fathom, an ocean without a shore and

lect. x.] SALVATION BY GRACE. 183
without an horizon, without a tide and unvexed by
storms. There is something monotonous and oppres
sive in this sublime immensity ; through age after
age the infinite waters are never augmented, and they
neither ebb nor flow. That conception of God is
unfriendly to the vivid realization of His free, per
sonal life. It is a conception which trains us to think
of Him as an infinite force, governed by necessary
laws, rather than a living Person.
But when we discover the Divine grace, the life of
God is no longer an ocean but an infinite stream
flowing fresh from eternal fountains, bright with a
thousand gleaming lights, with rainbows of beauty
about it, and filling the universe with glorious music
as it flows. He is a living God. We find in Him a
spontaneous personal affection, an affection for in
dividual men, and not merely an infinite love ex
tending over the race as the sky bends over the
earth. Grace transcends law, and the energies of
the Divine nature are no longer governed by eternal
necessities of righteousness, nor even, if that con
ception is possible, by eternal necessities of love.
These necessities exist, but beyond them and above
them are free Divine volitions inspired by an infinite
affection. This discovery, under forms so fair, of the
personality of God exalts our own personal force, and
raises us at last to the perfection of personal freedom.
But this is rather what we hope for in those distant
regions of blessedness which lie beyond death than
what we can achieve while we are still environed by

1 84 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x.
mortal imperfection. It is enough if in some rare and
happy hours this wonderful vision is permitted to
assure us of the transcendent glory of our position
and destiny ; enough if when the vision has passed
away the remembrance of it adds something to the
courage and patience with which we endure our
transitory sorrows, something to the joy and vigour
with which we do the will of God.

XI.
CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP.
"For weareHis workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God afore prepared that we should walk in them." — Eph. ii. 10.
IN the next chapter of this epistle there is a noble
phrase which receives very much of its signifi
cance from the fact that Paul wrote it far on towards
the close of his life. He speaks of the " unsearchable
riches of Christ." I doubt whether the phrase would
have occurred to him in the earlier years of his
ministry ; if it had and we had found it in either of the
epistles to the Thessalonians, or in the epistle to the
Galatians, it would have meant far less than it means
here. For when he wrote to the Ephesians he had
been preaching about Christ for very many years,
and as the years passed by his knowledge of Christ
became broader and deeper ; but the phrase shows
that he still felt that, after all that he had said, very
much remained unsaid, and that after all he had
learned very much remained unknown.
" The unsearchable riches of Christ." I trust that
many of us understand Paul's mood when he wrote
those words. There is a very true sense no doubt in
J85

1 86 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
which we may say that the gospel is very simple.
We may write in half a dozen lines the supreme fact
which is the substance and heart of the whole of the
revelation which has come to us through Christ. But
year after year the wealth of the revelation is per
petually growing. Twenty or thirty years ago, when
we first discovered that we could trust in Christ for
eternal salvation, we said, and we had a right to say,
that we believed the gospel. To-day if we are asked
whether we believe the gospel we are rather inclined
to answer, Yes, as much as we know of it ; and we
are prepared to believe all the rest. The gospel is
very simple : " God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on
Him should not perish but have eternal life." That
is the simple gospel ; but its simplicity is the sim
plicity of the ocean or of the boundless heavens.
" The knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high,
we cannot attain to it." Not in this world, and I
suppose not in the next. Through the bright and
blessed ages of our immortal existence we shall
still be speaking of " the unsearchable riches of
Christ." In the text we have a part of the gospel which
is rarely apprehended by us in the first months or
years of our religious history. Some of you can per
haps remember when it came to you as something
surprising ; fresh as if it had just been spoken by the
lips of an angel who had left the throne of God
to bring you the news. For a long time you had

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 187
acknowledged Christ as your Prince and your Saviour,
and you knew something of the peace and something
of the strength which are the inheritance of all who
believe in Him ; but this transcendent fact that you
had been "created in Christ Jesus" was a startling
discovery, as wonderful as anything you learnt when
you found Christ or when Christ found you for the
first time. It may be that there are some of you
Christian people to whom this part of the gospel is
still like mountain heights concealed by mists and
clouds. God grant that the sunlight may soon be
strong enough to scatter all that conceals it, and to
reveal it to you in all its majesty. And although, as I
have said, this aspect of truth rarely comes to us early
in the Christian life, it may be that this is precisely that
part of the gospel of Christ which some of you who
are conscious that you are not Christians at all may
most need to learn. It is not quite clear that the
same elements of the gospel that come home to those
who have lived a very bad life and have forgotten
God altogether will also have supreme power for
those who are not far from the kingdom of heaven.
Perhaps one reason why some men do not believe the
gospel is that they have not often heard that part of
it for which their moral and spiritual history has
prepared them. Every man should hear in his own
tongue the wonderful works of God, and should hear
the works which will seem most wonderful to him.
It is possible to make void the gospel as well as the
law by our tradition.

188 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
" Created in Christ Jesus : " the words suggest far-
reaching speculations which I must not pursue just
now, about the Divine ideal of humanity and about
how* that ideal is suppressed by human folly and
sin ; they suggest inquiries about the ideal rela
tions of all men to Christ, relations which are
only made real and effective by personal faith in
Him. But Paul was thinking of those who by their own
free consent were in Christ, of those who, as he says,
had been "saved by faith." Of these it was actually
true that they were " God's workmanship created in
Christ Jesus."
How are we to get at the gospel which these words
contain ? Let us try.
Most of us I suppose who have any moral earnest
ness are at times very dissatisfied with ourselves ;
yes, with ourselves. We think it hard that we should
be what we are. We complain n6t only of the con
ditions of our life, which may have made us worse
than there was any need that we should be, but of
our native temperament, of tendencies which seem to
belong to the very substance of our moral nature.
We have ideals of moral excellence which are out of
our reach. We see other men who have a goodness
that we envy, but which is not possible to ourselves.
There is something wrong in the quality of our blood.
The fibre of our nature is coarse, and there is nothing
to be made of it. There is a wretched fault in the
marble which we are trying to shape into nobleness

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 189
and beauty, and no skill or strength of ours can re
move it.
The Calvinistic doctrine of original sin is incredible,
but there are times when we discover strange moral
facts about ourselves which drive us to a theory
almost as gloomy. Do none of you remember being
startled, say when you were five-and-thirty or forty,
at finding in yourselves faults and imperfections,
tendencies to forms of sin, of which you had never
seen any sign before ? And when they began to
appear, did none of you ever say to yourselves :
" Why these are the very things which I saw in my
father when he was about the same age ! Perhaps
he mastered them, perhaps he did not. When as a
child I noticed them in him they seemed to be alto
gether foreign to my own nature, but now that I am
touching the age at which they appeared in him they
are beginning to show in me " ? And is it not partly
the secret of the special sympathy we have with
many of the faults of our children that these faults
recall the faults of our own childhood and our own
youth? There is something infinitely saddening in
this. When we were young we fought with certain
sins and killed them, they trouble us no more ; but
their ghosts seem to rise from their graves in the
distant years and to clothe themselves in the flesh
and blood of our children. We might be ready to
impeach our parents, and to charge on them the
faults of temperament which make some forms of
virtue and righteousness so hard to us and some

190 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
forms of sin so easy ; but our lips are closed, for our
children in their turn may impeach us. This trans
mission, — I will not say of special tendencies to sin, — •
but of physical and moral conditions which make us
terribly accessible to special temptations to sin, appears
even when parents fight a good fight and win a
secure victory. When there is no moral resistance
to the vice which is akin to us the heritage of evil
is enlarged and made more appalling. Drunken
ness indulged in through two or three successive
generations will so enfeeble the moral capacity for
resistance to the vice as almost to extinguish moral
responsibility for it. Violence of temper indulged in
for two or three generations will approach very nearly
to insanity. By a beneficent law it seems as if this
awful accumulation of hereditary vice is soon arrested.
The race grossly infected with hereditary corruption
dies out Experience verifies the truth of the ancient
words that the iniquities of the fathers may be visited
on their children to the third and even to the fourth
generation, but there the entail ceases, the race
perishes ; but the entail of manly virtue, of sobriety,
of industry, of piety, is not cut off, the mercy de
scends through thousands of generations of them that
love God and keep His commandments.
There is no evading these truths. The facts on
which I am insisting form the materials of a large
part of the tragedy of our moral life. We are con
scious of our moral freedom ; we know we can resist,
and ought to resist, the temptations to which our

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 191
constitution exposes us. We are not fated to fall
under these particular perils, but we are fated to
struggle against them ; and this is what we resent.
Why could we not have had an easier destiny ? Why
were we condemned to perpetual conflict ? Why were
our possibilities of goodness limited by conditions
over which we had no control and which were never
open to our choice ? If the forces which are adverse
to our perfection were outside us, the case would be
changed ; but it is we ourselves who are at fault.
The evils we are fighting against were born with us,
and they grow with our growth and strengthen with
our strength.
And ours is not an exceptional wretchedness. The
special infirmities of men vary. One man finds it
hard to be just, another to be generous ; one man
finds it hard to be quiet and patient under suffering,
another to be vigorous in work ; one man has to
struggle with vanity, another with pride, another with
covetousness, another with the grosser passions of
his physical nature ; one man is suspicious by tem
perament, another envious, another discontented ; one
man is so weak that he cannot hate even the worst
kinds of wrong doing, the fires of his indignation
against evil never burst into flame ; another is so
stern that even where there is hearty sorrow for
wrong doing he can hardly force himself to forgive
it frankly. The fault of our nature assumes a thou
sand forms, but no one is free from it. I look back
to the ancient moralists, to Plato and to Seneca and

192 LEC TURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
to Marcus Antoninus, and I find that they are my
brethren in calamity. The circumstances of man have
changed, but man remains the same.
How are we to escape from the general, the uni
versal doom ? We want to remain ourselves, to
preserve our personal identity, and yet to live a life
which seems impossible unless we can cease to be
ourselves. It is a dreadful paradox ; but some of us
know that this is the exact expression of a dumb
discontent which lies at the very heart of our moral
being. Is there any solution ? Paul tells us what
the solution is, Christian men are " God's workman
ship created in Christ Jesus."
The Adam of the symbolic story contained in the
early chapters of Genesis reveals what God meant
man to be. The symbolic story of his fall reveals
how man came to be what he is. Adam stands for
the race, and represents the failure and defeat of the
Divine idea of human nature. But in Christ there is
a fresh beginning, and a new race comes from Him.
He becomes the actual and not merely the ideal root
of the life of those who, to use the apostolical phrase,
are "in Him." In many startling forms, the variety
of which is the witness to the transcendent greatness
of the spiritual fact they represent, Christ is declared
to meet the very want of human nature that I
have been endeavouring to illustrate. Let me hear
your trouble once more ; state it how you please ; do
not be afraid of exaggeration ; put it in the strongest
form in which your despair can utter itself.

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 193
Your whole life, you say, is at fault, through im
perfections of temperament and constitution which
came to you at your birth. Nothing could help you
except you could be born afresh. Granted ; " except
a man be born arjew he cannot see the kingdom of
God," and this new birth, not in any feeble meta
phorical sense, but in a sense most gloriously real and
transcending the metaphor instead of falling below it,
is precisely what is possible to you through Christ.
As your present life, which has been so miserable a
failure, came to you from your parents, and bears in
it the deep and ineffaceable impression of what your
parents were and of what their ancestors were, a new
life may come to you from Christ, the beginning of
that life being the new birth.
Put your trouble in another form : you tell me that
what you are is the result of the follies and vices of a
long line of progenitors, that as you bear in your com
plexion, your features, and even in curious tricks of
manner, their image and superscription, so your moral
qualities have come to you as an inheritance ; that
your ancestors first of all, and then your circumstances
and education, have made you what you are, and
that you wish to God they had made you something
very different. I will not quarrel with this way of
putting it. I will not ask for the qualifications of
your statement which I might press for ; let it be as
you have said ; you have been manufactured by your
birth and circumstances, and are dissatisfied with the
result. Then place yourself in God's hands, and you
O

194 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
shall be His "workmanship created in Christ Jesus to
good works!' Or to put it as St. Paul puts it elsewhere,
" if any man be in Christ he is a new creature." I
might go on for hours ; I do not think you can state
your case in any extreme way which has not been
anticipated by Christ and His apostles.
You say you cannot help yourself, and that your
ways of life are the natural fruit of what you are, that
thistles must grow thistles, that you cannot get
peaches from a crab tree. Let it be so ; but you may
be made a branch of the great Vine, and the nobler
life that is in Him will show itself in your character
in heavy clusters of righteousness and charity. You
say that there is no hope for you in this life, death
and only death can break up the villainous structure
of your nature. If you could die and begin again
you might have a chance, but that would be your
only chance. I do not object to that way of putting
it. " Are ye ignorant that all ye who were baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ? We
were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto
death ; that like as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, so we also might
walk in newness of life. . . . Our old man
was crucified with Him, . . . that so we should
no longer be in bondage to sin." J
Yes, we were made for this, for something higher
1 Rom. vi. 3-6.

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 195
than is within our reach apart from the reception of
the life of God. There are vague instincts within us
which are at war with the moral limitations which
are born with us. It is not merely the men who sink
into the foulest sins, the men who have no courage,
no vigour, no magnanimity in them, that are con
scious of a restless, eager, and sometimes passionate
attempt to transcend the measures of human righteous
ness. Nor is it the base and ignoble alone that find
themselves unable to touch the ideal of goodness by
which they are haunted. On mountain heights of
victorious moral achievement the stars are still
beyond our reach, and we have no wings to stretch
away to the sky ; our feet are still on the earth, how
ever high we may have the vigour and the constancy
to climb. Our aspirations, — to use a feeble word
which we heard incessantly five-and-twenty years ago,
and the disappearance of which from popular litera
ture and speech is perhaps a sign that the generous
ambitions of those times have sunk, — our aspirations
are after a perfect righteousness and a diviner order ;
but we cannot fulfil them. They will die out through
disappointment ; they will be pronounced impossible
unless we discover that they come from the fountains
of a Divine inspiration, unless we have the faith and
patience of the saints of old who waited, with an
invincible confidence in the goodness and power of
God, until the words of ancient prophecy were fulfilled
and more than fulfilled in Christ. The prophets of
the earlier centuries prophesied of the grace that was

196 LECTURES, ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
to come to later generations ; their prophecies were
dark and indistinct, and even to themselves almost
unintelligible. They inquired and searched dili
gently concerning the salvation which they knew
was to come, though they could not tell the time or
the manner of its coming. And these aspirations of
the individual soul are also prophecies ; by them the
Spirit of Christ is signifying to us the hopes which
are our inheritance ; they come from the light which
lighteth every man. But their fulfilment is not
reserved for others ; they may be fulfilled to ourselves.
All that we have vaguely desired is now offered us in
the glorious gospel of the blessed God ; in Christ we
become "His workmanship created in Christ fesus
unto good works!'
But is it all real ? Where are the proofs of it ?
Are Christian men themselves conscious of a redemp
tion as wonderful as the apostle describes ? Did I
not admit that this truth is rarely grasped by Christ
ian people in the early years of their Christian life ?
How should this be possible if they are really " God's
workmanship," " a new creation," if they are " born
again " through the power of the Holy Ghost ? Well,
there seems to be some sense in a reply which I saw
the other day to questions of this kind ; children, as far
as we know, do not feel how wonderful a thing it is to
be born ; at the time they do not think much about it ;
they have no knowledge of what it means and what
is to come of it. And this is often true, perhaps
generally true, of the second birth. We believe in

lect. xi. 1 CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 197
Christ, acknowledge Him as Prince and Saviour, trust
Him for the Divine life ; but we are born the second
time, as we were born the first time, without knowing
what has happened to us. All life in its beginnings
is weak and timid in its movements, and it is a folly
to attempt to worry it into a precocious activity. Be
patient ; the life will show its strength in good time.
All life has to create an organization for itself by
appropriating the materials within its reach. The
rude popular conception of Adam, that he was dust
one moment and the next a vigorous man of thirty,
is surrendered now. That is not God's way of creat
ing living things. It is certainly not the order of
the spiritual life. There is first the blade, then the
ear, then the full corn in the ear. The second
birth is followed by years of infancy. The Divine
life develops slowly according to the conditions of its
environment. It must have time to grow. Often
the soil is unkindly. Often the life is starved for
want of the means of strength. If the moral powers
have teen badly disciplined, if the moral habits are
very defective, and if the natural temperament is
hard, gross, brutal, it will be a long time before
the new and Divine force wins supremacy. There
will not be an immediate transformation of character.
The conscience is only gradually enlightened ; but as
the light comes it is welcomed, and the will is con
scious of being reinforced by a new power ; the early
struggles with moral evil are rewarded by a clearer and
larger knowledge of moral duty, and a Divine energy

198 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
sustains the endeavours to keep the Divine law. Still
the growth in goodness is slow. The robustness of
manly strength comes with the vigour of manhood,
not in the childhood of the religious life ; but still it
comes. There is no sudden outburst of the nobler
spiritual affections ; the passions of manhood are not
possible in childhood, and the spiritual affections of
a saint belong to the maturity of the saintly life.
But we are God's " workmanship created anew in
Christ Jesus." The branch is in the vine, though as
yet the leaf has hardly escaped from its sheath and
the flower is only timidly opening itself to the sun
and air. We are God's " workmanship." The Divine
idea is moving towards its crowning perfection.
Never let us forget that the life which has come to us
is an immortal life. At best we are but seedlings on
this side of death. We are not yet planted out under
the open heavens and in the soil which is to be our
eternal home. Here in this world the life we have
received in our new creation has neither time nor
space to reveal the infinite wealth of its resources ;
you must wait for the world to come to see the noble
trees of righteousness fling out their mighty branches
to the sky, and clothe themselves in the glorious
beauty of their immortal foliage.
And yet the history of Christendom contains the
proof that even here a new and alien life has begun
to show itself among mankind : a life not alien
indeed, for it is the true life of our race, but it is
unlike what had been in the world before. The saints

lect. xi.] CHRISTIAN MEN GOD'S WORKMANSHIP. 199
of every church, divided by national differences,
divided by their creeds, divided by fierce ecclesiastical
rivalries, are still strangely akin. Voice answers to
voice across the centuries which separate them ; they
tell in different tongues of the same wonderful
discovery of a Divine kingdom ; they translate every
man for himself into his own life the same Divine
law. We of obscurer rank and narrower powers read
their lives, and we know that we and they are akin ;
we listen to their words, and are thrilled by the accent
of home. Their songs are on our lips ; they seem to
have been written for us by men who knew the secret
we wanted to utter better than we knew it ourselves.
Their confessions of sin are a fuller expression of our
own sorrow and trouble than we ourselves had ever
been able to make. Their life is our life. As men
draw to men everywhere rather than to creatures of
inferior rank, naturally assuming the brotherhood
which springs from their common nature, so we draw
to Christian men everywhere. They and we are
brethren, whatever their church, whatever their creed.
We and they belong to a new race. A new type of
character has been created. Christ lives on in those
whose life is rooted in Him. It is not His teaching
merely, it is not the force of His example merely, that
has contributed this new moral element to the history
of mankind. It is wonderful with how little Christian
knowledge this new type of character is possible.
The instincts of the life received from Him count for
more than mere intellectual acquaintance with the

200 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xi.
Christian creed. Concerning some things there is no
need to give teaching to Christian men, as there is no
need to teach a primrose how to blossom or a black
bird how to sing. They are " taught of God to love
one another," they are " God's zvorkmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works"
And so as St. Paul says, " we are saved by grace,
not of works " ; the works, the characteristic works, of
the Christian life are the result of our salvation, not
its cause. The works are "prepared for us'.' They
are determined by the law of our new life. The fruit
of the branch hangs on it because the branch has
been grafted into the vine ; to ask for the fruit first
as the condition of the grafting would be to make the
blunder of those who insist on making amendment of
life the foundation of faith instead of insisting on
faith as the foundation of amendment. Christian
righteousness is not what God asks for as the con
dition of your forgiveness and restoration to Himself:
one of the greatest of His gifts to those whom He
pardons is the power to live righteously. We come
to Him that the tree may be made good, and that so
the fruit may be good too. We place ourselves in
His hands, that He may create us afresh, that through
the power of His Spirit we may have a new life. And
we do not assume our true position until we surrender
all things, virtues as well as vices, strength as well as
weakness, that we may make a fresh beginning, and
that the will of God may be perfectly accomplished
in us.

XII.
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
" WJierefore remember, that aforetime ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who
are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision, in the
flesh, made by hands ; that ye were at that time separate from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel 3 and strangers from the cove
nants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the
blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who made both one, and brake
down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the
enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances ; that He
might create in Himself of the twain one new man, so making peace ;
an<.l might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross,
having slain the enmity thereby : and He came and preached peace to you
that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh ; for through Him
we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father. So then ye are
no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the
saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner
stone ; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into
a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom ye also are builded together for a
habitation of God in the Spii it." Eph. ii. 1 1-22.
THE great truth which the apostle asserts in this
passage does not kindle in our hearts any enthu
siasm of wonder or of gratitude. That we Gentiles
should take equal rank with the Jewish people in the
kingdom of God, should share with them, in this
world and the next, all the blessings of the Christian

202 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
redemption, does not surprise us. For eighteen hun
dred years the Divine kingdom has appeared to be
ours rather than theirs.
But Paul was a Jew, and though he had become a
Christian he retained a vivid sense of the religious
supremacy which had been the pride and glory of his
race. Through many centuries the Jews had re
garded the uncircumcised heathen with contempt.
The poorest, the meanest, descendant of Abraham
was nearer to God who made the heavens and the
earth than the noblest of the Gentiles. For any man
who had Jewish blood in his veins and whose imagi
nation and passions had been fired with the glorious
memories and still more glorious hopes of the Jewish
people,, it was impossible to escape altogether from
the traditions of his race. In Paul these traditions
heightened the rapture with which he declared that
the Gentiles were heirs of " the unsearchable riches of
Christ." This amazing gospel was always fresh to him ;
there was a touch of strangeness in it to the last.
In the first half of this chapter he has been remind
ing the Ephesian Christians that they were raised
from the dead with Christ, the Jewish Christ;
that the Divine life which has been revealed in Him
is theirs ; that they share the security, the blessed
ness, and the glory of His eternal throne ; that in the
ages to come God will show the exceeding riches of
His grace in His kindness towards them in Christ
Jesus. And now he seems to feel how surprising it
is that he, a Jew, should be writing in this strain to

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 203
Gentiles, should be surrendering all the ancient pre
rogatives of his race, should be conceding to heathen
men all the glories of that kingdom which for sixteen
centuries had been the hope and strength and consol
ation of the descendants of Abraham.
Had the claims of the Jewish people been without
any foundation ? Had there been no real difference
between the elect nation and the rest of mankind ?
This was very remote from Paul's belief. Now that
the great thought of God concerning human redemp
tion had been accomplished, the distinction between
Jew and Gentile had disappeared ; but during the
long period of preparation and discipline the whole
heathen world was in a position of religious inferiority.
To the Jews themselves, however, had been revealed
the coming of a time, when their God would be
the Ruler not only of the Jewish people, but of
all mankind. In anticipation of that blessed age
Jewish psalmists had called upon the heavens to re
joice and upon the earth to be glad : " Make a joyful
noise unto the Lord, all the earth ; make a loud noise,
and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with
the harp ; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful
noise before the Lord the King. Let the sea roar
and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell
therein. Let the floods clap their hands ; let the hills
be joyful together before the Lord : for He cometh
to judge the earth, with righteousness shall He judge
the world, and the people with His truth."

204 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
What form this kingdom was to assume neither
poet nor prophet defined very closely. The imagi
native descriptions of the final reconciliation of heaven
and earth are full of splendour, of splendour as
dazzling as that of the clouds touched by the rising
glory of the dawn ; but how these glowing visions
were to pass into actual history it was impossible to
anticipate. This however was certain : a great
Prince was to appear among the descendants of
Abraham, and He was to reign on the throne of
David. He was to have " dominion from sea to sea
and from the river unto the ends of the earth." The
wild Bedouin of the desert, whom no conqueror had
been able permanently to subdue, were to bow before
Him ; and remote islands were to send Him tribute.
All kings were to do homage to Him, and all nations
were to submit to His authority. He was to be a
descendant of Abraham ; and yet, according to poetic
vision, He was to be exempted from the limitations
of mortality. Men were to fear Him " as long as the
sun and moon endure, throughout all. generations."
His name was to " endure for ever," was to be " con
tinued as long as the sun," and under His reign there
was to be universal righteousness and perpetual
peace. I
And because the Christ was to appear among the
Jewish people and was to be one of themselves, they
were formed into a Divine "commonwealth" organ.
ised under the laws of a Divine polity, a common
wealth separated by God Himself from the rest of

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 205^
the human race. Divine "covenants" were made
with them in which the great "promise " was renewed.
They were sustained through all the tragic vicissitudes
of their extraordinary history by this great " hope"
God Himself had His home among them ; their temple
was His palace ; they received revelations of His will
through inspired prophets ; their national fortunes were,
in a very exceptional sense, under His control.
In all these particulars there was an immense con
trast between the Jewish people and all heathen
nations. In those great and honourable privileges
which were conferred upon the Jews because the
Christ was to belong to the Jewish race, the Gentiles
had no share ; they were " separate from Christ."
It is true that in the original revelations made to
Abraham it was made clear that the blessings be
stowed upon him and his descendants were, in some
way, to extend to all mankind ; and it is also true
that this large and generous conception of the pre
rogatives of the Jewish people reappeared in the later
periods of Jewish history. Since all nations were to
be under the rule of the great Prince, all nations
were to share the security and peace and prosperity
of His benignant reign. It would have been natural
therefore, if from the very first the Gentiles had had
some organic relation to the Divine polity of the
chosen people. And Paul seems to suggest that this
would have been the fulfilment of the Divine idea.
But the Gentiles were " alienated from tlie common
wealth of Israel" as if, for some reason, the lines

206 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xn.
between Jew and Gentile had to be drawn deeper and
firmer than was originally intended.
According to the merciful purpose of God, the
supremacy of the Jews was to be the source of
religious benefit to those who were not Jews. The
Jews were to be a nation of priests, but other nations
were to be worshippers in the Divine temple. Super
natural revelations were made to the Jews, but Jewish
prophecy was to make the will of God known to all
mankind. The Divine method — this seems to be
Paul's thought, — was to maintain some real and inti
mate relations between the Jewish people and all
other races. But, perhaps because of the rapid de
velopment of idolatry and the increase of moral cor
ruption among the Gentiles, this could not be carried
into effect. The Gentiles were not " aliens " from the
commonwealth of Israel, persons who had never any
rights of relationship to that commonwealth ; they
were " alienated " from it ; the rights they once had
they had lost. Nor was this all. The national exist
ence of the Jewish people, their national history,
their national institutions, were a visible prophecy
and assurance of the ultimate establishment of the
kingdom of God among men ; by the alienation of
the Gentile nations from the commonwealth of Israel
they became strangers, foreigners, to "the covenants
of promise " ; they had " no Iwpe " of the final triumph
of the Divine righteousness and love ; for them the
final issues of the history of the world were dark,
troubled, uncertain ; their golden age was in the past

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 207
and was irrevocably lost, while the golden age of the
Jewish people was in the future. Even this does not
exhaust the contrast between the moral and religious
condition of the pagan races and the moral and re
ligious condition of the Jews. While the Living God
was revealing Himself in supernatural ways to the
elect nation, in the laws which He.gave for the con
duct of their national and personal life, in promises
and threatenings, in severe national chastisements and
in great national deliverances, in prophecies and in
miracles, no supernatural revelations of the same kind
came to the Gentiles. It looked as if God had for
saken them ; they were " without God in the world"
Paul did not indeed believe that their moral con
dition was as desperate as it seemed to be. Speaking
to the Athenians he said : " God made of one every
nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and
the bounds of their habitation : that they should seek
God, if haply they might feel after Him and find
Him, though He is not far from each one of us ; for in
Him we live and move and have our being ; as certain
also of your own poets have said, For we are also His
offspring." x In his speech to the people of Lystra Paul
blends the two truths, the truth that God had in some
sense left heathen races to themselves, and the truth
that revelations of His greatness and goodness still
remained with them : " We also are men of like
"^ l Acts xvii. 26-28.

208 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that
ye should turn from these vain things unto the living
God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea
and all that in them is ; who in the generations gone
by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways;
and yet He left not Himself without witness in that
He did good, and gave you from heaven rains and
fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and glad
ness." x Nor was it only in this outward and visible
manner that God asserted His authority among the
Gentiles. In Paul's epistle to the Romans he recog
nises that inward ethical revelation which God makes
to all mankind ; among the heathen there are those
who are loyal to the obligations of duty and who
" show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience bearing witness therewith."
But to Paul the moral confusion and the religious
desolation of the Gentiles were appalling. He be
lieved that they were enduring the just penalties of
their own sins and the sins of their ancestors. In
that terrible description of the heathen contained in
the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans he
attributes their vices to the Divine justice manifesting
itsolf in awful wrath. They had forsaken God, and
therefore " God gave them up in the lusts of their
hearts unto uncleanness," " gave them up unto vile
passions," " gave them up unto a reprobate mind."
That description is a terrible commentary on what he
1 Acts xiv. 15-17.

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 209
meant by the Gentiles being " without God in the
world." Everything was changed by the coming and the
death of Christ. " Now in Christ Jesus ye that once
tverc far off are made nigh i?i the blood of Christ."
By the Lord Jesus Christ the whole world had been
brought within the range of the grace and redemptive
power of God.
"For He is our peace." The question has been
raised whether Paul meant that Christ had brought to
an end the ancient separation of the pagan world from
"the commonwealth of Israel," and had thus estab
lished peace between the Jew and the Gentile ; or
whether, in addition to this, he meant that Christ had
brought to an end the deeper and more fatal estrange
ment between the human race and God.
Paul himself has made his meaning clear. As he
had just stated with such tremendous emphasis the
contrast which had existed for many centuries between
the religious position of the Jew and the religious
position of the Gentile, it was only natural that he
should declare that this contrast had now disappeared.
The external institutions of Judaism, "the law of
commandments contained in ordinances" had been the
" middle wall of partition " between the elect nation
and the rest of the world ; these institutions had
isolated the Jews from all pagan races, and had re
strained within the limits of the elect race the great
revelation of the righteousness and love of God ; and
the reason for the existence of these institutions P

210 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
ceased at the coming of Christ. He was the true
Temple, the true Priest, the true Sacrifice ; and He
came to found a spiritual kingdom in which descent
from Abraham was to confer no privileges. By bring
ing to an end the religious supremacy of the Jew,
Christ brought to an end the estrangement, the
" enmity," between Jew and Gentile. He created in
Himself " of the twain one new man, so making peace!'
But this was only part of His work. He came
that He " might reconcile them both in one body
unto God through the cross " ; and by that reconcilia
tion He made "peace," not only between Jew and
Gentile, but between earth and heaven.
And He "came and preached peace to you" the
Gentiles, " that were far off, and peace " to the
Jews, " to them that, were nigh." The image, as I
have said elsewhere,1 present to the apostle's mind is
that of an imperial power sending messengers to
provinces with which it had been at war, messengers
whose first business was to make known that the war
was over. And this reconciliation between God and
the human race had been accomplished " in the blood "
and "through the cross" of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through Him, and as the result of this reconciliation,
both Jew and Gentile have their " access in one Spirit
unto the Father." The restoration of the universe to
an eternal unity in Christ has begun ; the old division
1 " The Atonement : the Congregational Union Lecture
for 1875." Page 257.

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 211
between the descendants of Abraham and the heathen
world has disappeared ; in their religious life, all
Christians of all nations, whatever their temporary
. and external distinctions, are already one in Christ :
the Gentiles are " no more strangers " in the Divine
commonwealth, but "fellow citizens with the saints"
no more "sojourners" but "of the household of God!'
There is now rising a nobler and more majestic
temple than that which had been for many centuries
the centre of Jewish worship and the home of the
visible symbol of the Divine glory ; a temple of
which Christ Himself is the corner stone, and " the
apostles and prophets " of the new Faith " the founda
tion." Into this temple the Gentiles were being built
as living stones. " Each several building" — the church
at Ephesus, which was largely composed of Gentiles,
as well as the church at Jerusalem, which was almost
exclusively composed of Jews, — each Christian com
munity, is included in the immense plan, has its
relations adjusted to the rest of the great structure^
and in Christ being "fitly framed together groweth into
a holy temple in the Lord!' This process is described
as the work of the Divine Spirit. It is by His
teaching and by the inspiration of His strength
that we are " builded together for a habitation of
God!' The relations between the Old Testament and the
New, between Judaism and Christianity, are exciting
anxious interest. The controversies concerning the

212 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
authorship and the age of many of the ancient Jewish
books, controversies which have occupied a consider
able number of distinguished scholars during the
last forty or fifty years, have recently been forced on
the attention of ordinary Christian people. This
passage seems naturally to suggest the considera
tion of the position which it is our duty to assume in
relation to this question.
Paul recognises the Divine origin of the institutions
of Judaism. Their Divine origin is assumed through
out the New Testament. From the first page of
the Gospel of Matthew to the last page of the
Apocalypse of John it is always acknowledged
that God, who revealed Himself in Christ, and
Avho through Christ had achieved the redemption of
mankind, had through a long succession of centuries
revealed Himself to the Jews. This is not only
assumed, it is often explicitly asserted.
The reality of this ancient revelation is confirmed
by the contents of the sacred books of Judaism. You
may regard the early chapters of the book of Genesis
as a collection of mythical traditions ; you may offer
some natural explanation of the miraculous incidents
of the Exodus ; you may challenge the historical
trustworthiness and impartiality of the books of
Kings and Chronicles; you may contend that the
book of Deuteronomy was written in the time of
Josiah, and that the Levitical institutions were not
completely organised till the time of the exile ; it still
remains true that a supernatural and Divine glory

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 213
rested on the history of the Jewish race. For
many centuries Jewish prophets declared that the
universe bore witness to the one Supreme God.
In the earlier ages they may have been most
deeply impressed by the awfulness of His power ;
but to the devout Jew God was always the Moral
Ruler of men, and while in the greatest of heathen
empires the heavens were becoming, through one
generation after another, darker and darker with in
credible superstitions, among the Jews there were
brighter and yet brighter discoveries of the Divine
righteousness, the Divine pity, and the Divine love.
No external evidence is necessary to prove that the
psalmists and the prophets were illuminated and
inspired by the Spirit of God. Their happy trust in
the Divine goodness, their exultation in the Divine
righteousness, the agony of their penitence when
they had broken the Divine law, the pathos of their
appeals to the Divine mercy, are a sufficient proof
that they had heard the voice and seen the face of
God. Only the vision of the Divine glory could have
created the rapture of their joy ; only the loss of that
vision could have occasioned the bitter anguish with
which, out of the depths of a great despair, they cry
to the God who had forsaken them. And still, after
the lapse of so many centuries, after changes so vast
in the intellectual, the moral, and the religious life of
mankind, their words soothe our sorrow, quiet our
agitation, invigorate faith, and kindle the fires of
devout affection. We know that God revealed Him-

214 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
self to them, for through them God reveals Himself
to us.
No exceptional genius for religion can be attri
buted to the Jewish people, in explanation of the
contrast between the religious truth contained in their
sacred books and the religious knowledge of the rest
of mankind. For it is clear from the Jewish histories
themselves that down to the time of the exile the
nation had a passionate lust for every form of pagan
worship, and that neither the traditions of the great
events in their national life nor the menaces of
the prophets were sufficient to restrain them from
gross and licentious idolatry.
The rise, the growth, the enduring strength of the
great Jewish hope is another decisive proof that
Jewish Patriarchs, Psalmists, and Prophets received
light from the very presence of God. Through age
after age, when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were liv
ing the life of Bedouin chiefs on the plains of Syria,
a thousand years later when through the victories of
David and the peaceful reign of Solomon the nation
had touched the highest point of its secular gloiy, five
hundred years later still, when the exiles in Babylon
had just returned to their own land, prophet after
prophet, poet after poet, consoled the sorrows or
heightened the joys of their fellow countrymen by
the confident assurance that the time would come
when from among themselves would arise a right
eous Prince, who would be the Leader of a great
reformation and the author of a great redemption.

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 215
This lofty hope, so both psalmists and prophets
declared, was no mere dream of patriotic enthusiasm,
but rested on the strong promise of God. And
when Christ came He declared that the hope and
the promise were now to be fulfilled.
You cannot explain the religious contents of these
ancient Jewish books by any theories about the
monotheistic tendencies of the Semitic races. The
only rational explanation is that which is offered by
the repeated declarations of the books themselves,
that in some wonderful way " the word of the Lord."
came to the prophets of the Jewish people.
But it does not follow from this that Jewish
patriarchs, Jewish heroes, Jewish kings, who dis
played some great moral and religious qualities, ex
hibited a faultless morality deserving of our homage
and imitation. Nor does it follow that the ethical
knowledge even of those who were conspicuous for
their religious faith was very much in advance of the
ethical knowledge of their race and of their age.
Most intelligent Christian people have, I suppose,
come to see that it was impossible that the ethics of
the sermon on the mount should have been made the
law of conduct in the earlier ages of Jewish history ;
the larger revelation and the nobler morals are in-
dissolubly connected with each other.
It may however still be necessary to insist upon
what after all is a very simple and obvious truth, that
a loyal faith in the supernatural revelations made to
the Jewish race does not require us to believe that

216 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. XII.
every book that the Jewish people counted sacred
was assigned by them to its true date and its true
author, or that the accuracy of the historical contents
of these books is guaranteed by Divine inspiration.
We may receive with grateful reverence those dis
coveries of God which are contained in the Jewish
scriptures, we may be completely convinced that to
psalmists and prophets there came visions and voices
from the upper heavens ; and yet we may feel under
no obligation to acknowledge that the chronicles
which were kept of later Jewish history, and the
traditions which were preserved of the fortunes of
Abraham and his immediate descendants, are abso
lutely trustworthy.
I think that the speculations of some recent scho
lars on several of these questions are extremely pre
carious, and that some of their most remarkable
conclusions are extremely arbitrary. These ancient
books appear to me more remarkable the more
closely I study them ; they appear to me not only
to contain a unique history, but to possess ethical
and literary qualities which are also unique. I see
no reason for believing that the Jewish scholars by
whom they were arranged made any grave mistakes
either about the dates at which they were written or
about their authorship. But I claim freedom for
those who think differently. These are not questions
which can be peremptorily determined by an appea\
to the authority of Christ or of His apostles. They
recognise the Divine origin of the institutions of the

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 217

Jewish nation ; but they never invest with the Divine
authority the written history either of the institutions
or of the nation. They recognise the Divine origin
of the religious contents of the ancient Jewish
literature ; but on the critical questions concerning
the literature itself Christ and His apostles have
not spoken. These questions must be left to the
determination of critics.
I am glad to be able to sustain what I have said
on this subject by a quotation from an English
author whose clear strong sense gives great author
ity to his words. And perhaps his opinion will be
regarded of still greater value because he wrote be
fore the modern critical attack on the books of
the Old Testament had begun. The quotation is
from Archdeacon Paley's well known book on the
Evidences of Christianity.
Archdeacon Paley says :
" Undoubtedly our Saviour assumes the Divine origin of the
Mosaic institution ; and independently of His authority I con
ceive it to be very difficult to assign any other cause for the
commencement or existence of that institution, especially for
the singular circumstance of the Jews adhering to the unity
when every other people slid into polytheism ; for their being
men in religion, children in everything else ; behind other
nations in the arts of peace and war, superior to the most im
proved in their sentiments and doctrines relating to the Deity.
Undoubtedly also our Saviour recognises the prophetic cha
racter of many of their ancient writers. So far therefore we are
bound as Christians to go. But to make Christianity answer
able with its life for the circumstantial truth of each passage of
the Old Testament, the genuineness of every book, the informa-

218 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xii.
tion, fidelity, and judgment of every writer in it, is to bring, I
will not say great, but unnecessary difficulties into the whole
system. These books were universally read and received by
the Jews in our Saviour's time. He and His apostles, in
common with all other Jews, referred to them, alluded to them,
used them. Yet, except where He expressly ascribes a Divine
authority to particular predictions, I do not know that we can
strictly draw any conclusion from the books being so used and
applied, beside the proof, which it unquestionably is, of their
notoriety and reception at that time. In this view our scrip
tures afford a valuable testimony to those of the Jews. But the
nature of this testimony ought to be understood. It is surely
very different from what it is sometimes represented to be, a
specific ratification of each particular fact and opinion, and not
only of each particular fact but of the motives assigned for
every action, together with the judgment of praise or dispraise
bestowed upon them. St. James, in his epistle, says : ' Ye
have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the
Lord.' Notwithstanding this text, the reality of Job's history
and even the existence of such a person has always been
deemed a fair subject of inquiry and discussion amongst'
Christian divines. St. James's authority is considered as
good evidence of the existence of the Book of Job at that time,
and of its reception by the Jews, and of nothing more. St. Paul
in his Second Epistle to Timothy has this similitude : ' Now, as
Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist
the truth.' These names are not found in the Old Testament ;
and it is uncertain whether St. Paul took them from some
apocryphal writing then extant, or from tradition. But no one
ever imagined that St. Paul is here asserting the authority of the
writing if it was a written account which he quoted, or making
himself answerable for the authenticity of the tradition ; much
less, that he so involves himself with either of these questions
as that the credit of his own history and mission should depend
upon the fact whether Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses ot
not. For what reason a more rigorous interpretation should be
put upon other references it is difficult to know. I do not mean
that othe-- passages of the Jewish history stand upon no better

lect. xii.] JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 219
evidence than the history of Job, or of Jannes and Jambres (I
think much otherwise) ; but I mean that a reference in the New
Testament to a passage in the Old does not so fix its authority
as to exclude all inquiry into its credibility, or into the separate
reasons upon which that credibility is founded, and that it is an
unwarrantable as well as unsafe rule to lay down concerning
the Jewish history what was never laid down concerning any
other, that either every particular of it must be true or the whole
false." — (Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" Part III., chap. 3 )
The admirable sagacity of these words might have
saved many excellent Christian people from difficulties
which have almost destroyed their Christian faith.
And if these words were remembered by some whose
faith is untroubled they might prevent that passionate
and unreasonable hostility to free criticism which
menaces Protestant Christendom with divisions peril
ous both to religious belief and to religious life.

XIII.
THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL,
" For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of yon
Gentiles, — if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of
God which was given me to you-ward ; how that by revelation was made
known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby,
when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ ;
which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men,
as it hath now been, revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in tlie
Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles are felloiv-heirs, and fellow-members oj
the body, and fellotu-partakers oj the promise in Christ Jesus through the
gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace
of God which was given me according to the working of His power. Unto
me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach
unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and to make all men
see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been
hid in God who created all things ; to the intent that now unto the prin
cipalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known
through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal
purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord : in whom we have
boldness and access in confidence through our faith in Him. Wherefore
I ask that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which are your glory."
— Eph. iii. 1-13.
HAVING asserted the generous freedom of the
Christian redemption which confers upon
men of all races citizenship in the commonwealth
of the saints, makes them members of the household
of God, and builds them into one stately temple
consecrated by the Divine presence and glory, Paul

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 221
was about to address to the Ephesian Christians those
practical exhortations which are contained in the
fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of the epistle.
But he adds a pathetic urgency to these exhorta
tions by describing himself as " Paul the prisoner of
Jesus Christ" — the one whom Christ has put in
chains1 — " in behalf of you Gentiles " ; and this de
scription sets his imagination on fire, and awakens
in his heart a passion of gratitude. " A prisoner of
Christ" — he can desire no more honourable title ; " on
behalf of [the] Gentiles" — he can be appointed to no
more honourable service. It will be well, he thinks,
for the readers of his epistle to be reminded of the ,
"grace" which God had conferred on him in appoint
ing him to preach to heathen nations "the unsearchable
riches of Christ!' Not that they required to be in
formed of his special commission, for they knew it
already ; 2 there was hot a Christian church in any
part of the world that was ignorant of it.
God had made known to him " by revelation " the
great truth that "in Christ" the Gentiles were "fellow-
heirs and fellow-members of the body and fellow-partakers
of the promise" — of the great promise which through
so many centuries had been the consolation and
strength of Jewish saints; and "through the gospel"
1 Meyer, in loc.
- In the expression which Paul uses — " if so be that ye have
heard" — he does not imply that he thought his hearers might
perhaps be ignorant of his vocation to be the apostle of the
Gentiles. He assumes that they knew it.

222 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
they were to pass into the actual possession of their
blessedness (ver. 6). This was the Divine purpose
from the beginning ; and even Jewish prophets and
psalmists had seen that the heathen were to share in
the righteousness and peace and prosperity of the
kingdom of the Messiah, for this was essential to the
universality and grandeur of that kingdom ; but the
elevation of the heathen to the same height of dignity
as the Jew was " in otlier generations not made known
to the sons of men as it hath now been revealed unto
[God's] holy apostles in the Spirit" (ver. 5). It was
therefore a " mystery" — a Divine thought which had
been long unknown, but which had been at last
revealed. Paul says that the knowledge of this "mystery"
had come to him by "revelation" At Christ's
appearance to him when he was on his way to
Damascus he had been told that he was to preach
to the heathen. It was to them as well as to his
own countrymen that he was to be sent "to open
their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light,
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may
receive remission of sins and an inheritance among
them that are sanctified by faith in Me." x
But I am not sure that these words alone would
have made it quite clear to Paul that the religious
supremacy of the Jewish race, derived from Divine
institutions and Divine revelations, and consecrated
1 Acts xx vi. 17, 18.

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 223
by the sorrows and glories of more than two thousand
years, was now to pass away. Through the power and
grace of Christ the heathen might receive the remis
sion of sins and an inheritance among those that were
consecrated to God and made an " elect nation " ;
they might escape from the power of Satan and
so be liberated from a worse bondage than that
from which the Jewish people were delivered under
the leadership of Moses ; they might pass into a
kingdom diviner than that ancient commonwealth
which had received its laws and its polity from
Heaven ; and yet they might not take equal rank
with those who belonged to the sacred race. The
heathen that repented of sin and acknowledged
the authority of Christ might be among the com
monalty of the saved, and the descendants of Abra
ham might retain the prerogatives of nobles and
princes. Something beyond the general commission
to preach the gospel to the Gentiles was necessary
before Paul was likely to see that in the new temple
of God " the middle wall of partition " had been
broken down, and that in Christ Jew and Gentile were
now equally near to the inner sanctuary, and that
through their faith in Him they had the same " bold
ness" and the same "confidence" in their "access" to
God (ver. 12).
And even if Paul's original commission had been
more explicit and decisive, I should have been con
scious of dissatisfaction if the great truth that the
human race has been made really one in Christ

224 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii
rested exclusively on the authority of this wonderful
revelation. I believe in the reality and in the super
natural character of Paul's vision ; the glory which
shone round about him was the glory of Christ ; the
voice which he heard was the voice of Christ. But
it is not God's way to rest truths of this order on
the bare authority of supernatural visions and super
natural voices. And Paul's treatment of the great
truth both in this epistle and elsewhere shows that
to him it had other evidence than that which it
derived from the words which he heard in the great
crisis of his personal history.
To Paul the truth had in the very highest sense of
the word been " revealed" The illumination of the
Spirit had shone upon it and made it clear and cer
tain. It was involved in his whole conception of the
Divine method of redemption. It was in Christ —
not in Abraham — that God " blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places " ; it was in
Christ — not in Abraham — that God " chose us before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blemish before Him in love." The honour
which belonged to the descendants of Abraham was
a great honour as long as it lasted, but it had been
superseded by a diviner distinction conferred upon
all that were in Christ ; for in Christ God " fore
ordained us unto adoption as sons unto Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will, to the
praise of the glory of His grace." It was not on the
bare authority of a voice or a vision that Paul declared

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 225
that the Gentile had equal rank with the Jew in the
Divine kingdom ; the voice or vision might have as
sured him of the fact that the equality existed ; but
to Paul the equality was necessary, it was implicated
in what he knew of the relation of Christ to all that
were one with Him ; and therefore he says in the
Epistle to the Colossians (chap. iii. 11) that in Christ
"there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, free
man ; but Christ is all in all."
By what he had written in this epistle "in few
words " the Ephesian Christians could "perceive " his
" understanding in the mystery of Christ" He was not
merely entrusted with a Divine message, the terms
of which he was bound to repeat accurately ; he
understood the Divine thought and purpose. The
" mystery " had been made plain to him. He goes
on to say that the " mystery " had been revealed not
only to himself, but to God's "holy apostles and
propJiets in the Spirit!' In describing "the apostles
and prophets " of the new Faith as " holy " Paul does
not attribute to his apostolic brethren or to himself,
— for he too was an apostle, — any personal sanctity ;
he merely means to say that they are " consecrated "
persons ; and he has already attributed the same
consecration to all the Christians at Ephesus, they
are the " saints " as well as " the faithful in Christ
Jesus." The same revelation, the same illumination of
" tlie Spirit" had come to the rest of the apostles that
Q

226 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
had come to Paul himself. The question arises, why
to them any such revelation should have been ne
cessary. To Paul who had not been among the
personal friends of our Lord while He was on earth,
and who during the time that he was with Ananias at
Damascus after his conversion could have heard only
imperfect and incomplete reports of our Lord's teach
ing, the illumination of the Spirit might have been
necessary in order to enable him to apprehend the
" mystery." But why was this illumination necessary
to the other apostles ? Early in our Lord's ministry
they had heard Him say that " many shall come
from the east and the west, and shall sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven."1 Towards the end of His ministry they
had heard Him describe the coming of the Son of
man in His glory when " all the nations " shall be
gathered before Him and when He will say to
the righteous, to the righteous among the heathen :
" Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the king
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world." a
When He was told that certain Greeks who had
come to worship at Jerusalem at the feast of the
passover wished to see Him He answered : " The
hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified
. . . Now is the judgment of this world, now shall
the prince of this world be cast out. And /, if I be
1 Matt. viii. 11. 2 Matt. xxv. 31-34.

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 227
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
Myself." !
In His conversation with the Samaritan woman
which I suppose John heard, and which, if he did
not hear it, had come to the knowledge of the apostles
through the report of the woman, Christ had distinctly
declared that the sanctity of the institutions of
Judaism was about to pass away : " The hour cometh
when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall
ye worship the Father . . . The hour cometh
and now is when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and truth ; for such doth the
Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit ;
and they that worship Him must worship in spirit
and truth."3 The temple was the centre of the
religious and national life of Judaism, the visible
symbol and guarantee of the sacredness of the elect
race ; when the Jewish temple ceased to be sacred,
the sacredness of the Jewish race was lost. In the
great commission given to the apostles immediately
before our Lord's ascension He recognised no dis
tinction between Jew and Gentile, and gave no hint
that Jewish believers were to have a higher rank or
larger blessings in His kingdom than the rest of man
kind. " All authority," He said, " hath been given
unto Me in heaven and on earth," the whole human
race were His subjects; and therefore they were to
" make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them
1 John xii. 32. * John iv. 21-24.

228 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I commanded you." *
These passages are only illustrations of the large
ness and universality of the aims of Christ as illus
trated in His own words ; and we should have
thought that the apostles would have learnt from
Him, without any subsequent revelation, that in the
new kingdom the old distinctions between the Jews
and the rest of mankind were to have no place. But
it is clear from the history in the early chapters of
the Acts of the Apostles that this was an aspect of
our Lord's teaching which even the apostles had not
understood ; an impressive warning that we ourselves
may miss the meaning of the very plainest words of
Christ. It was the vision which Peter saw in a
trance at Joppa that gave him courage to go to the
house of Cornelius at Csesarea and to preach the
gospel to him and to his guests. "Ye yourselves
know," said the apostle to the Roman soldier and " his
kinsmen and his near friends," "how that it is an un
lawful thing for a man that is a Jew to join himself
or come unto one of another nation ; and yet unto
me hath God showed that I should not call any man
common or unclean." 3 And then Cornelius told the
story of the vision which he himself had seen and
which had led him to send for Peter : " Four days
ago, until this hour, I was keeping the ninth hour of
1 Matt, xxviii. 20. 2 Acts x. 28.

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 229
prayer in my house ; and behold, a man stood before
me in bright apparel, and saith, Cornelius, thy prayer
is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in
the sight of God." x In the presence of the double
vision Peter made a great discovery and expressed
it in the memorable words : " Of a truth I perceive
that God is no respecter of persons ; but in every
nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteous
ness is acceptable to Him."2 But even then the
Christian Jews who were with Peter, and who had
heard the account of the visions which had come to
him and to Cornelius, did not suppose that heathen
men who had not received circumcision were hence
forth to be equal with themselves in the Divine
kingdom. For the narrative in the Acts, after giving
a summary of Peter's discourse, goes on to say :
" While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost
fell on all them which heard the word. And they
of the circumcision which believed were amazed, as
many as came with Peter, because that on the Gen
tiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For they heard them speak with tongues and mag
nify God." 3 The victory of the new spiritual freedom
over the exclusiveness of the ancient faith was not
yet secure. When Peter went back to Jerusalem
his conduct at Cassarea was challenged by some of
the Jewish Christians. He had to tell the story of

1 Acts x. 30, 31. 3 Acts x. 34, 35.
3 Acts x. 44-46.

230 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
his vision at Joppa and of the vision of Cornelius
and of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius
and his friends ; and he closed the story with the
decisive question : " If then God gave unto them the
like gift as He did also unto us, when we believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could
withstand God ?" 1 Judaism died hard. For a gene
ration large numbers of Jewish Christians regarded
with bitter hostility the release of the Gentile converts
from the obligations of the Mosaic law, and cherished
for their " uncircumcised " brethren the traditional
Jewish scorn. But "the apostles and prophets"
were convinced that with the new age the old institu
tions had passed away. The illumination of the
Spirit completed the revelation which had begun in
supernatural visions ; and when Paul, some years
later, met the leaders of the Jewish church at Jeru
salem they received him frankly and acknowledged
that he had a Divine commission to preach to the
heathen his large and generous gospel.
I doubt whether Paul would have chosen to be the
apostle of the Gentiles had the choice been left to
himself. Never, even to the last, does the moral and
religious condition of the Gentile world appear to
have caused him as much distress as the moral and
spiritual condition of his own race. There is no
passage in his epistles which reveals an agony of
earnestness for the conversion of the heathen like that
1 Acts xi. 1 6.

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 231
which he felt for the conversion of the Jews, and
which breaks out in the pathetic passage in the
Epistle to the Romans : " I have great sorrow and
unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that
I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's
sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh." l When
he was first called to the apostleship he might natu
rally have thought that his true work was to preach
the gospel to Jews. Was he not one of themselves,
a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless in
his observance of all their sacred laws ? Had he not
spent his youth in accumulating Jewish learning ?
Was he not perfectly familiar with all the intricacies
of Jewish speculation ? Was not the method of
Jewish thought his own ? The struggles through
which he himself had passed on his way from the old
Faith to the new, would they not enable him to enter
into the very heart of his countrymen who would
have to pass through similar struggles ? All the most
passionate forces of his nature made him long to
bring his own people to Christ But when it became
clear that Christ meant him to preach the gospel to
the heathen he frankly accepted the commission. At
first it may have seemed to him the less noble task.
But as years went on, his imagination as well as his
heart became completely filled with the grandeur of
his vocation. When, during his imprisonment in
Rome, he wrote this epistle his conception of his
1 Rom. ix. 2, 3.

232 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
work was loftier than ever. He had caught the spirit
of the imperial city. His soul had expanded beyond
the traditions of his people. He was haunted by
visions of conquests more remote than had ever been
achieved by the Roman arms and of an empire more
extensive than that which was governed from the
palace of the Caesars. He saw that the kingdom of
Christ included all nations, effaced the ancient limits
which had divided race from race, imposed upon all
mankind the authority of the same righteous laws,
granted to all men the same security, the same rights,
the same freedom, the same access to God in this
world, the same glory in the world to come. And he
saw that he had been elected by Christ to take a chief
part in founding this universal empire. He had been
chosen to pass beyond the frontiers of Judaism and to
declare to all nations that the Lord Jesus Christ had
not come to confer exceptional prerogatives on a
single race, but to restore the whole world to the light
and life and blessedness of God. He could conceive
of no greater office. He was amazed by the contrast
between the grandeur of his commission and his own
unworthiness : " Unto me who am less than the least of
all saints is this grace given, that I should preach
among the Gentiles tlie unsearchable riches of Christ!'
His enthusiasm was still further heightened by
the conviction that the regal spirits that dwell in the
light of God were watching from their thrones the
gradual accomplishment of that Divine purpose which
was to be finally fulfilled in the restoration of the

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 233
human race to unity in Christ. Even to " the princi
palities and the powers in heavenly places " there was
a new and wonderful revelation of "the manifold
wisdom of God," in the extension of the kingdom of
God from the Jews to the Gentile world, and in
the triumph of the Divine love over the divisions, the
sorrows, and the sins of mankind.
In what way this makes known the wisdom of God
Paul does not explain. To ourselves with our modern
habits of thought it may seem that " the manifold
wisdom of God " is illustrated in the tribute which the
church has received from all ages and from all
nations. It was not in Judaea alone that the hand of
God was controlling the course of national history
during the ages which preceded the coming of Christ.
The separation of race from race, by mountains and
seas, by differences of language, by differences of civil
ization, had resulted in the growth of many types of
national character. Every distinct type had some
unique qualities, some unique form of power, some
unique virtue, some unique grace. Had there been a
premature breaking down of the divisions which
separated nation from nation, the development of the
resources of human nature would have been less rich
and varied. But at last the hour came for the emerg
ing of a higher and completer form of life in which
were to be blended the final results, purified and
transfigured, of all the discipline to which the several
races of mankind had been subjected. The faith of
the Jews, the philosophy of the Greeks, the political

234 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
virtues of the Romans have all contributed to enlarge
and deepen the thought and life of the church. In
future generations the mighty streams of India and of
China, which still flow apart, will find their way into
the common channel. The church is the heir of the
genius, the heroism, the virtues, the sufferings of all
the ages of human history. But this is a modern
conception, and is remote from Paul's method of
thought1 His words in this place recall a memorable passage
in the Epistle to the Romans. He has been warning
the Gentile Christians against exulting over the fall
of the Jews ; has been maintaining that though, as
the result of the crimes of the Jewish people, the
glory which had once rested upon them had passed
to the Gentiles, the Jews had not been finally for
saken and that at last they would obtain mercy. But
it is evident that to the apostle the ways of God
were surrounded with darkness and mystery. How
it could have happened that when the kingdom of
God was established on earth the children of the
kingdom should have excluded themselves from it,
and that its glories should have become the inherit
ance of the heathen, he could not understand. The
future was as mysterious as the present. For the
time was to come when the Jews were to learn from

1 But it appears very conspicuously in Clement and in other
great teachers of the Alexandrian church. Clement was in
some senses of the word a " modern."

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 233
Gentile faith and zeal to acknowledge the sove
reignty of the Jewish Christ. He knows that God is
ordering the course of the world's affairs wisely, but
the Divine ways are beyond his comprehension. He
exclaims : " O the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God ; how unsearchable
are His judgments, and His ways past finding out." x
It was now several years since he wrote those
words, and perhaps the great problem which he states
rather than solves in the earlier epistle was beginning
to be clearer to him. But whether or not he himself
had found any solution of it he was still confident
that in the way in which the Gentiles had come to
have so great a place in the Divine kingdom there
was a wonderful illustration of " the manifold wisdom
of God '' ; and he believed that what was obscure to
himself would be open and plain to "the principalities
and the powers in heavenly places."
The enthusiasm with which the apostle speaks of
preaching the gospel to the heathen is contagious.
His words burn on the page, and our hearts take fire
as we read them. What was the secret of this ex
ultation in the gospel and in his commission to make
the gospel known to all mankind ? The question is a
large one, and I shall not attempt a complete answer
to it ; but considerable light is thrown upon it by the
contents of this epistle.
1. Paul had a vivid intellectual interest in the
1 Rom. xi. 33, 44.

236 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
Christian gospel. To him it was a real revelation
of the most wonderful and surprising truths concern
ing God and the relations of God to the human race.
It urged his intellectual powers to their most stren
uous activity. It never lost its freshness. It was
never exhausted. From the beginning of his apo
stolic ministry to its close, if we may judge from those
of his epistles which have been preserved in the New
Testament, the boundaries of that immense kingdom
of truth which was revealed to him in Christ and by
the illumination of the Spirit of Christ were always
advancing. In this epistle he has travelled far
beyond the limits which he reached in the Epistle to
the Romans.
I believe that in all the great movements of re
ligious reform that have permanently elevated the
religious life of Christendom there has been a renewal
of intellectual interest in the Christian revelation.
Some forgotten aspects of the gospel have been
recovered ; the theological definitions which had for
a generation or two been a sufficient expression of
the results at which human speculation had arrived
concerning the great facts of revelation have been
challenged and discredited, and' the mind of the
church has been brought into immediate contact
with the facts themselves ; the methods which had
determined the construction of theological systems
have become obsolete, and the work of reconstruc
tion has tasked the genius and the learning of the
leaders of Christian thought ; the central principles

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 237
of the gospel have received new applications to
individual conduct and to the organization of social
life ; in all these ways a fresh and keen intellectual
interest has been excited in Christian truth, and the
intellectual interest has deepened moral and spiritual
earnestness. If at the present time the religious life of the
church is languid, and if in its enterprises there is
little of audacity and of vehemence, a partial ex
planation is to be found in that decline of intellectual
interest in the contents of the Christian Faith which
has characterized the last hundred or hundred and
fifty years of our history.
There has been, no doubt, a very vigorous interest
in critical questions and questions of apologetics ;
but these questions lie on the extreme edge of the
territory of Christian thought ; they raise contro
versies which are very remote from the central and
inspiring elements of the Christian gospel. There
has also been a great interest in the historical and
external aspects of the life of our Lord and the
work of His apostles ; but the geography of the Holy
Land, the crimes of the family of Herod, the func
tions and powers of the sanhedrim, the opinions and
customs of the Essenes, the rivalries of the Pharisees
and Sadducees, the laws of Roman municipalities and
Roman colonies, though they afford some subsidiary
aids to the illustration of the narratives of the New
Testament, render us very little service in apprehend
ing the substance of the Christian revelation.

238 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
 .  ¦
We must renew the intellectual interest of the
church in the Christian revelation itself — not in its
"evidences" merely, not in the historical circum
stances of the age in which Christ appeared, not in
the modes of life and thought which prevailed among
the people who listened to His teaching and witnessed
His miracles — if we are to recover the ardour, the
vehemence, and the passion of Paul. The intellect
has its rights, as well as the conscience and the
heart ; and if religious truth does not meet the just
demands of the intellect as well as of the moral
nature, it will be regarded with languid interest and
will at last be either silently abandoned or rejected
with open hostility and scorn.
2. The heart and imagination of Paul were filled
with the infinite and eternal blessings which were the
inheritance of the human race in Christ. For human
sin there was the Divine forgiveness. For human
weakness in its baffled attempts to emancipate itself
from the tyranny of evil habits and evil passions
there was Divine redemption. For human uncertainty
and doubt in the presence of the great problems of
life and death there was the illumination of the Spirit
and free access to God. For restless discontent at
the limitations of human virtue there was the pos
sibility of a transcendent righteousness through union
with the life of the Eternal Son of God. Paul be
lieved in " the unsearchable riches of Christ."
We shall never recover his enthusiasm as lone as
we dwell chiefly on the external and incidental

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 239
benefits which follow the acceptance of the Christian
gospel. M. Condorcet, in his Life of Voltaire, speaks of the
defenders of religious faith as having been reduced
by Voltaire to what he describes as " the humiliating
necessity " of relying on the argument derived from
its political expediency. The phrase was justly
chosen. It is a humiliation to which the apologists
of Christianity should never have stooped. In stoop
ing to it they surrender their whole case.
To defend our assertion of the awful authority of
God by urging that where this authority is recognised
the difficulties of human governments are lessened,
and a readier obedience is secured for human laws ;
to apologise for trying to persuade men of the irt-
finite love revealed in the incarnation and the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ by pleading that we are giving
consolation and patience to the poor, whose miseries
and discontent might otherwise be a peril to the
institution of property and to the stability of the
state ; to argue that in speaking to men of judg
ment to come, and in urging them "by patient
endurance in well doing to seek for glory, honour,
and immortality," we are strengthening the obliga
tions of those common virtues which contribute to the
wealth of nations ; — this is treachery to our cause. To
urge a similar defence of Christian missions to the
heathen is equally ignoble and equally fatal to the
intensity and fervour of Christian zeal.
It is true, no doubt, that by the influence of Christ-

240 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiii.
ian missionaries barbarous races have been civilized,
have been trained to habits of industry, have come
to live in better houses and to wear better clothing ;
have even — and this I have sometimes heard alleged
as a strong reason for generous contributions to a
missionary society — have even become customers for
the goods of Manchester, Birmingham, and Bradford.
But with what amazement, with what immeasurable
contempt, Paul would have listened to arguments
like these ! If the gospel of Christ is true, these in
cidental advantages which follow the triumph of the
Christian Faith are petty and insignificant when com
pared with the infinite blessings which Christ has
brought within the reach of all mankind.
As a Christian minister at home I decline to have
the value of my work estimated by the extent to
which it lightens the work of the police and dimin
ishes the cost to the ratepayers and the nation of
maintaining workhouses and jails.
As an adyocate of Christian missions to the
heathen, I decline to have the value of missionary
faith and heroism measured by the annual value of
the new markets in Africa and the Pacific for English
hardware and cotton goods. Give to every cluster of
miserable huts in Central Africa and in the islands of
the South Pacific the material wealth and splendour
of the foremost cities of Europe ; transform their
savage chiefs into cultivated statesmen ; let their
people be trained to discuss the philosophy of Plato
and to admire the majesty of the genius of ^Eschylus;

lect. xiii.] THE GRACE GIVEN TO PAUL. 241
let them become famous for their brilliant discoveries
in science ; let them create a literature with an
original grace, beauty and dignity : and all this would
be as nothing compared with what you have done
for them, in bringing them home to God, in assuring
them of the tenderness and strength of the love of
the Father whom they had forgotten, in opening to
them the fountains of eternal life and eternal right
eousness, in making them the heirs of eternal glory.
This was Paul's faith ; and this faith was, in part, the
source of his invincible energy and his passionate
enthusiasm.

R

XIV.
FILLED UNTO ALL THE FULNESS OF GOD.
" For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every
family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you,
according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with
power through His Spirit in the inward man ; that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith ; to the end that ye, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what
is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love oj
Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness
of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto
Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations
for ever and ever. Amen" — Eph. iii. 14-21.
PAUL'S description of God as "the Father, from
whom every family in heaven and on earth is
named" is unique. Unfortunately the charm and the
force of it cannot be represented in an English trans
lation. The Greek word represented by "family " is
used to denote not only a family, but a clan, a tribe,
a nation, a race — any number of men who are
thought of as the descendants of one father.1 We
have no analogous word in our own language, and
therefore the felicity of Paul's expression cannot be
1 They are a narpia as coming from one narrip.

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 243
transferred into English. What he means is this : —
You have a name for those who belong to the same
family, the same tribe, the same nation, the same
race, by which you describe them as the descendants
of a common ancestor, — a name which implies that
their unity is not the artificial creation of human law,
but consists in their relationship to a common father ;
this name bears witness to the relationship of all the
families and tribes of men, and of all ranks and orders
of angels, to the eternal Fountain of all created life.
God is the true Father of all races in heaven and on
earth ; and the unity of a family, a tribe, a nation, in
its common ancestor, has its original and archetype in
the unity of angels and men in Him.1 This great and
noble conception of the unity of heaven and earth
in God is characteristic of that form of Christian
theology which is illustrated in this epistle and in
the epistle to the Colossians. It appears elsewhere 2 ;
but in these two epistles, which were written about
the same time, it is developed with extraordinary
boldness and with a vehement and glorious elo
quence. As yet, according to Paul's conception, the
1 Angels were, I suppose, conceived of by Paul neither as iso
lated individuals nor yet as a multitude of individuals charac
terized by a monotonous uniformity of powers and perfections.
He thought of them as grouped together in ranks, orders, and,
if I may venture to use the word, " nationalities," distinguished
by differences like those which are created among ourselves by
differences of descent. Hence he could by analogy speak of
them as "families '' in heaven.
2 e.g. i Cor. xv. 24.

244 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
Divine idea is unfulfilled. Its orderly development
has been troubled, thwarted, and delayed by sin, by
sin in this world and in other worlds. But it will be
fulfilled at last. In Christ " were all things created,
in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and
things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers ; all things have been created
through Him and unto Him"1; and in union with
Christ, the eternal Son of God, heaven and earth will
be restored to the eternal Father.
There are two great prayers in this epistle. The
first is in the first chapter. It seemed to Paul that
the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible
for men to see the glory of it unless they were taught
of God, and therefore after his lofty account of God's
purpose to bring the heavens and the earth into an
eternal unity in Christ, he tells the Christians at
Ephesus that he was continually praying that God
would give them " a spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him," and that the eyes of their
heart might be enlightened that they might know the
hope to which God had called them, and " the glory
of His inheritance in the saints." Spiritual illumi
nation is necessary if we are to know the contents of
the Christian gospel ; for the gospel reveals invisible
and eternal things lying far beyond the frontiers of
the common thoughts of men.
The second prayer takes another form. Its central
1 Col. i. 16.

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 245
idea is strength. Strength is necessary as well as
Light. We cannot know the gospel unless its glories
are divinely revealed to us ; and the spiritual energy
necessary to receive it and to hold it fast must also
come from God.
" / bow my knees unto the Father from whom every
family in heaven and on earth is named that He would
grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye
may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in
the inward man!' By " the inward man " Paul means
our central and highest life ; and he prays that the
life itself — not any particular function of it — may be
strengthened. Life is a mystery in its lowest as well
as in its loftiest forms, but I suppose that we all
attach a more or less definite conception to words
which describe life as vigorous or feeble. When
we say that a man's physical life is energetic we do
not mean to say that any particular organ is strong,
that he has great muscular force, can lift heavy
weights and walk long distances ; we mean to de
scribe something which appears to us to lie within
and beneath the physical organisation, and which
inspires the whole. When we speak of a man's
intellectual life as strong or weak we do not mean
that some particular faculty is admirable or the re
verse of admirable ; a particular faculty may be
singularly vigorous, and yet the man may give us
the impression of intellectual feebleness ; a particular
faculty may be very deficient in vigour, and yet he
may give us the impression of intellectual strength.

246 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
If we say that a man is remarkable for his intel
lectual energy, we think of him as having in the very
centre of his intellectual life a free and inexhaustible
fountain of force and activity. It is the same in
the spiritual life. There is a certain imperfection in
many of us which I do not know how to describe
except by saying that, though at times particular
spiritual faculties may appear to be vigorous,
the central life is weak. There are men whose
zeal for the evangelization of the world is often
very real and very fervent, but who give us no im
pression of spiritual strength. There are others
who are often inspired with a passion for Christian
perfection, but in them too there appears to be no
real vigour. There are others who seem spiritually
weak, though their vision of spiritual truth is very
keen and penetrating. There are others who seem
capable of very lofty devotion, — of awe, of vehement
religious emotion, of rapture in the Divine love and
in the hope of glory, honour, and immortality, and
who yet give us the impression that they are wanting
in those elements of life which constitute spiritual
energy. In every one of these cases, to use language
which suggests rather than expresses the truth, the
vigour is not derived from the central fountains of life,
but from springs that are more or less distant from
the centre. The man himself is wanting in force,
though there are spiritual forces at work in him.
Those of us who are conscious that this is our con
dition should pray to God that we " may be strength-

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 247
ened with power through His Spirit in the inward
man" It has been questioned whether the next clause in
the prayer, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith" is merely explanatory of the first, or
whether it describes another and a higher blessing.
Did Paul mean that we must be " strengthened
through [God's] Spirit in our inward man " in order
that Christ may dwell in our hearts ? Or did he
mean that the power of the Divine Spirit is never
separated from Christ, is indeed dependent on the
life and presence of Christ, and that to have spiritual
strength is really the same thing as to have Christ
dwelling in us ?
The question may be settled, I think, by an
appeal to the experience of Christian people.
There are times when Christ comes to us and
when the heart is animated with the blessed hope
that He has come to remain with us for ever. We
have already learnt that apart from Him we can
do nothing, and now all things are possible to us.
The new heavens and the new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness are ours, and we live in
the light of God. Evil passions die down, and evil
habits seem to fall away from us like the chains
of Peter at the touch of the angel. Christ brings
with Him a clearer knowledge of God and of duty ;
a firmer purpose to keep the laws of the kingdom of
heaven ; a new ardour of affection for all Christian
men ; a more generous charity for all mankind ; a

248 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
more intense delight in righteousness ; a deeper
joy in the infinite love of God ; a more vivid hope
of immortality. We are lifted by His presence
above ourselves, and into a fairer world than this.
These are the Divine hours of life.
But in our relations to Christ we are not passive.
If He is to " abide " in us we must " abide " in Him.
He comes at the free impulse of His infinite mercy,
but He does not make His home with us unless, if
I may venture to use the phrase, we have strength
to detain Him. And many of us are conscious that
we have no firm hold of Christ. He comes to us
with blessings which surpass all our hope and all
our thought, but we let Him go. How it is we
<.-an hardly tell, but in a few days or weeks all our
blessedness is over.
The apostle suggests the explanation. Christ can
" dwell " in our hearts only " through faith " ; and
faith, though in its beginning the cry of helpless
weakness and the birth of despair, is in its maturer
forms the expression of the noblest strength. It is
the result of the concurrent action of all the higher
forces of the spiritual life in their most intense
energy. The reason, the will, and the conscience,
memory and hope, love, reverence, awe, joy, and
gratitude, are all of them blended in a great and
perfect faith. To raise the soul to this height and
to keep it there, it is necessary that we should " be
strengthened with power through [God's] Spirit in the
inward man"

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 249
On the other hand it is equally true that apart
from Christ we have no strength at all. To suppose
that until we are strong we cannot have access to
the life and righteousness and peace which are ours
in Him is contrary to the whole current of Christian
thought and Christian experience. God has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, and only as
we are in Christ can any of these blessings be ours.
The power and grace of the Spirit cannot come to
us while we are " apart " from Him.
But when Paul prayed that Christ might "dwell"
in the hearts of the Christians at Ephesus he was
thinking of something far greater than that kind of
union with Christ which is the condition of even
the lowest forms of spiritual life. The whole em
phasis of the clause is thrown on the word " dwell!'
There is an abiding presence of Christ in the heart
which is a perpetual manifestation of the infinite love
of God, and brings with it the very righteousness and
blessedness of heaven, a presence which fills the
whole life with a glory unbroken by clouds, and that
does not change with rising and setting suns, but
is like the glory of the city of God of which it is
said that " there is no night there." This presence
is possible only where there is a great faith, and for
a great faith there must be a great strength, a
strength which is given to the inward man through
the power of the Divine Spirit.
The apostle has not yet touched the loftiest bless
ings which he desires for the Ephesian Christians.

250 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
As the result of the strength which he prays that
they may receive through the Spirit, and of the
permanent presence of Christ in their hearts, the root
of their life will be in love, as the roots of a tree
are in the soil, and the foundations on which their
whole life is built will be laid in love ; they will be
"rooted and grounded in love" Love will not be
an intermittent impulse, or even a constant force
struggling for its rightful supremacy over baser
passions ; its authority will be secure ; it will be the
law of their whole nature ; it will be the very life of
their life.
And then they will "be strong to apprehend with
all the saints what is the breadth and length and height
and depth of the love of Christ which passeth know
ledge!' The words recall the question which we have
just considered. For Christ to dwell in the heart
we must be strengthened by the Spirit of God ; and
yet unless Christ dwells in the heart spiritual strength
is impossible. And so, to apprehend the love of
Christ, we must be filled with love ; and yet it is the
apprehension of Christ's love by which love is inspired
and perfected.
The difficulty in the second case, as in the first,
vanishes in the light thrown upon it by Christian
experience. It is by the knowledge of Christ that
we begin to love God ; with the growing love we
become capable of receiving a larger knowledge ;
and every fresh accession of knowledge enriches,
invigorates, and expands the love. " He that loveth

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 251
not knoweth not God ; for God is love." " The Life
is the Light of men." For that great knowledge of
the love of Christ of which Paul is thinking, a great
love is necessary.
This knowledge, though so wonderful, is not re
garded by Paul as a privilege too lofty, a preroga
tive too Divine, for the commonalty of the church.
The best and highest things in the kingdom of God
are not reserved for a few elect and princely souls.
There are gradations of power in the Christian
church and varieties of service. But the knowledge
of the loVe of Christ in its " breadth and length and
depth and height" is accessible to "all the saints"
It is like the visible heavens which bend over the
monotonous plains of human life as well as over
its mountains, and flood with the same splendour the
cottages of peasants and the palaces of kings. The
heavens are always near, and they are equally near
to all men, as near to the poor as to the rich, to
barbarous as to civilized nations, to the obscurest
as to the most illustrious of mankind. It is the
same with the knowledge of the love of Christ. No
genius or learning can give us any exclusive property
in it. The open vision of its glory is not reserved
for those who can leave the common paths of men
and live in silence and solitude on mountain heights
of contemplation. To no prophet or apostle was a
knowledge of the love of Christ ever given that we
ourselves may not receive. To apprehend " what is
the breadth and length and height and depth and to

252 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
know the love of Christ" — this was all that Paul could
ask for himself; he asks it for the Christians at
Ephesus ; and he describes it as the common blessed
ness of " all the saints'.'
And yet " it passeth knowledge." When Paul
speaks of the love of Christ the fire in his heart
nearly always bursts into flame. Its " breadth "
cannot be measured, nor its " length" nor its "height"
nor its "depth" Immensity is the only adequate
symbol of its greatness.
But the energy of the love has been revealed. It
has been revealed by Christ's infinite descent, for us
sinners and our salvation, from His eternal glory to
the limitations of man's earthly life ; from eternal
peace and eternal joy to hunger and thirst and
weariness and pain ; from the sanctity of heaven to
contact with the evil passions and with the evil lives
of men ; from the immortal honours with which
angels and archangels surrounded His throne to the
kiss of Judas, to the slander and malice of the priests,
to condemnation for blasphemy, to the death of a
criminal on the cross ; from His infinite blessedness
with the Father to the desolation of that awful hour
in which He cried, "My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me ! " Revealed ? No ! For the
heights of Divine majesty from which He came rise
far beyond the limits of our keenest vision, and we
cannot sound the depths of darkness into which He
descended to achieve our redemption. The love of
Christ "passeth knowledge."

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 253
It is to be measured not merely by what He en
dured for us, but by the energy of the eternal
antagonism between good and evil. In His infinite
righteousness He regarded our sin with an abhorrence
which our thoughts can never measure, and yet the
energy of His love transcended the energy of His
righteousness, or, rather, blended with it, and trans
figured just resentment into pity ; and under the
power of this glorious inspiration- infinite righteous
ness, which abhors sin, became infinite mercy for the
race that had been guilty of sin, and so restored us
to life, to holiness, and to endless joy. The love of
Christ "passeth knowledge!'
Nor was the revelation of His infinite love, which
though revealed can never be known, exhausted in
His incarnation, or in His earthly ministry, or in
His death which atoned for the sin of the world.
He has risen from the dead and ascended to glory,
but He has not forsaken the race He came to save,
nor has He withdrawn to Divine realms of untroubled
peace remote from the darkness, the confusion, the
storms of this present evil world. The kingdom of
heaven is founded on earth, and He, its Prince, is
here. Unseen He has been present with those in
every generation who have asserted His authority
over all nations and who have entreated men to
receive from His love the remission of their sins and
eternal life in God. Their sorrows and their joys,
their reverses and their triumphs, have been His.
The hostility which surrounded Him during His

254 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
earthly life has been prolonged during the eighteen
Christian centuries, has extended from country to
country, from race to race, has assumed vaster pro
portions, and is still undiminished. The fierce and
reckless cruelty of Herod has reappeared in the
persecutions which have tried the faith and loyalty
of innumerable saints. Secular governments, resent
ing His claims to a throne diviner than theirs, have
flung His people to the lions and burnt them at the
stake. At the bidding of corrupt priests and of
popular fury, judges as base and cowardly as Pilate
have condemned to death those whose only crime
was loyalty to the truth and to Him. On one day
the common people, stirred with a passion of en
thusiasm by some great display of His power and
goodness, have surrounded Him with shouts of
Hosanna and have hailed Him as their King ; on
the next they have rejected Him as an impostor,
covered Him with infamy, clamoured for His de
struction. Within the church itself there has been
wide and persistent neglect of His plainest laws ;
and its spirit has often seemed altogether alien from
His own. There has been fierce contention as to
who should be the greatest, keen personal ambition
for the highest places in the kingdom of heaven.
How often has self confidence as lofty as Peter's
< been followed by as deep and as shameful a fall !
How often, in hours of darkness and danger, have
many who really loved Christ forsaken Him and
fled ! How often have those who were elect to

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 255
great responsibilities in the church, and great honours,
betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver ! How
often has the kiss of the traitor come from the lips
of a friend ! But there is no need to appeal to the
gloomy history of Christendom. We ourselves can
recall a vacillation in His service which at the be
ginning of our Christian life we should have regarded
as impossible ; high resolutions broken almost as
soon as they were formed ; hours when love for Him
kindled into enthusiasm, followed by base disobedi
ence to His commandments. Our own history,
it is to be feared, has been the history of great
multitudes besides. And the love of Christ has not
only been unquenched ; its fires have never sunk.
We cannot measure the awful vastness of human
sin, but His mercy infinitely transcends it. His
love, like His power, faints not neither is it weary.
Through generation after generation He continues
to appeal to the world with pathetic entreaty to re
ceive eternal redemption. Through generation after
generation He continues to confer upon the church,
notwithstanding revolt, ingratitude, and treachery,
blessings which are beyond the desert of a saintly
perfection. His love "passeth knowledge"
We are even now only in the early dawn of the
supreme revelation ; the Divine morning will become
brighter and brighter through one millennium of
splendour after another, and will never reach its noon.
In the resurrection of Christ and His ascension to
the throne of God He has illustrated the immense

256 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
expansion and development possible to human
nature, and His resurrection and glory are the pro
phecy of our own. Through ages without end,
inspired with the life of Christ and sustained by the
exceeding greatness of the Divine power which
wrought in Him when God raised Him from the
dead, we shall ascend from height to height of
righteousness, of wisdom, and of joy. From age to
age with unblenched vision we shall gaze upon new
and dazzling manifestations of the light in which
God dwells ; with powers exalted and enlarged we
shall discharge nobler and yet nobler forms of
Divine service ; with capacities expanding with our
growing delight we shall be filled with diviner and
yet diviner bliss ; eternity will still lie before us,
stretching beyond the farthest limits of vision and of
hope ; and through eternity the infinite love of
Christ will continue to raise us from triumph to
triumph, from blessedness to blessedness, from glory
to glory. His love "passeth knowledge"
And yet we are to know it, to know it by the
illumination of the Spirit of God. And the know
ledge, according to Paul, is to invigorate, enrich, and
perfect our higher life, or, to use his own phrase, by
the knowledge of " the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge " we are to " be filled unto all the fulness
of God!'
Perhaps it would be well to leave the phrase in
its vague sublimity without any attempt to explain
it. As it stands, it appeals to the imagination, touches

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 257
lofty sentiment, and seems to suggest a grandeur
belonging to worlds as yet unvisited by human
thought. But though the phrase stands for an idea
which passes beyond the limits of all definitions, the
idea will be better apprehended if we attempt to get
an exact conception of the phrase, and we may reach
this conception by the aid of an illustration.
There are plants which we sometimes see in these
northern latitudes, but which are native to the more
generous soil and the warmer skies of southern lands.
In their true home they grow to a greater height,
their leaves are larger, their blossoms more luxuriant
and of a colour more intense ; the power of the life
of the plant is more fully expressed. And as the
visible plant is the more or less adequate translation
into stem and leaf and flower of its invisible life, so
the whole created universe is the more or less ade
quate translation of the invisible thought and power
and goodness of God. He stands apart from it.
His personal life is not involved in its immense
processes of development ; but the forces by which
it moves through pain and conflict and tempest
towards its consummate perfection are a revelation
of " His eternal power and Godhead." For the Divine
idea to reach its complete expression, an expression
adequate to the energy of the Divine life, we our
selves must reach a large and harmonious perfection.
As yet we are like plants growing in an alien soil
and under alien skies. And the measures of strength
and grace which are possible to us even in this mortal
S

258 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xiv.
life are not attained. The Divine power which is
working in us is obstructed. But a larger knowledge
of the love of Christ will increase the fervour of every
devout and generous affection ; it will exalt every
form of spiritual energy ; it will deepen our spiritual
joy ; it will add strength to every element of right
eousness ; and will thus advance us towards that
ideal perfection which will be the complete ex
pression of the Divine power and grace, and which
Paul describes as the "fulness of God"
It might seem that after a prayer like this the
apostle would have paused and wondered whether
he had not been asking for what lay beyond all
hope. But no. He began by invoking blessings on
}he Ephesian Christians " according to the riches
of [God's] glory." From the first his prayer was
measured, neither by the necessities nor the deserts
of those for whom he was interceding, but by the
infinite greatness of the Divine perfections. And
now that the intercession is ended he acknowledges
in a burst of glorious praise that the power of God
immeasurably transcends the limits of his prayer.
" Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abund
antly above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh in us, unto Him be the glory in
the church and in Christ Jesus x unto all generations
for ever and ever"

1 " For not outside of Christ, but in Christ, as the specific
element of faith in which the pious life-activity of the Christian

lect. xiv.] THE FULNESS OF GOD. 259
moves — does he praise God." — Meyer, in toe. True and just
as far as it goes, but does it go far enough ? In Christ God is
revealed to the universe, but in Christ — in a very true sense —
the universe is revealed to God ; and the perfection of Christ is
the final expression of that created perfection from which God
receives glory.

XV.
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
"I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of
the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness,
with longsufifering, forbearing one another in love ; giving diligence to
keep the unity of tHe Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and
one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling ; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all,
and through all, and in all. But unto each one of us was the grace
given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he
saith, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts
unto men. (Now this, He ascended, what is it but that He also descended
into the lower parts of the earth ? He that descended is the same also that
ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.") And
He gave some to be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ;
and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the
work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ : till we
all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ : that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro
and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in
craftiness, after the wiles of error ; but speaking truth in love, may grow
up in all things into Him, which is the head, even Christ ; from whom
all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint
supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part,
maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love."
— Eph. iv. 1-16.
IT is with a faint shock of surprise, almost of dis
appointment, that we pass from the third chapter
of this Epistle to the early verses of the fourth. The
transition from Paul's lofty and impassioned account

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE' CHURCH. 261
of the present glory of the church and of its infinite
hopes to these exhortations to " lowliness" " meek
ness," " longsuffering," and mutual forbearance, is
sudden and unexpected. Our imagination has been
set on fire ; the invisible and eternal world by
which we are environed has been revealed to us ; the
clouds which conceal the infinite future from mortal
vision have broken, and we have seen the endless ages
which are our inheritance in Christ ; our hearts are
throbbing with fervent affection at the discovery of
" the breadth and length and height and depth " of
" the love of Christ which passeth knowledge " ; and
the apostle's prayer that we " may be filled unto all
the fulness of God "-"dark with excessive bright "-
has made us tremble with wonder and joy at the
greatness of our destiny. That he should charge us
to " walk worthily of the calling wlierewith [we] were
called " is only natural. It was Paul's characteristic
manner to connect faith and righteousness, to rest
the obligations of human duty on the revelations of
Divine love. But I think that we should hardly have
expected him in this place to enforce virtues of so
quiet and unambitious a kind as "lowliness," "meek
ness," "longsuffering," "forbearance."

" I tlierefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to
walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called!'
These words, after all that has gone before, thrill us
like the tones of a trumpet. If it had been left to

262 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.

ourselves to expand the general exhortation into
practical details, we should have insisted perhaps on
the duty of cultivating a magnanimity corresponding
to the greatness of our position and the greatness of
our hopes. We might have argued that those who
have received such a "calling" should exhibit a
certain stateliness of character, a lofty indifference
not only to the baser pleasures of life but to power
and fame. Or we might have urged that with such
a "calling" Christian men should be inspired with
a passionate zeal for the honour of Christ, should
have strength for heroic tasks and fortitude for
martyrdom. This would be to " walk worthily of
the calling wherewith [we] were called"
But instead of appealing to us in this lofty tone
Paul exhorts us to humility, to meekness, and to long-
suffering ; and this suggests a principle of great value
in the discipline of the spiritual life. There are
certain forms of religious excitement with which
imagination has more to do than faith. Beginning,
as we think, with God, we soon lose sight of Him
and of our dependence upon Him, and are occupied
with dazzling dreams about the grandeur of our own
spiritual life and its possibilities of power, of right
eousness, of honour, and of glory. These unreal and
transient delights it may, for a time, be hard to dis
tinguish from a religious experience which is created
by a real and immediate vision of God and of unseen
and Divine things. The test, though we may be
reluctant to apply it, is extremely simple. Religious

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 263
excitement originated by direct contact with God
will always enlarge and exalt our conception of God's
greatness, and will deepen our sense of dependence
on Him. The heart may be flooded with a shining
sea of religious emotion ; the imagination may be
glowing like the heavens at sunset with purple and
golden splendour; but as emotion becomes more
intense and as our conceptions of the Christian life
become more and more glorious, the infinite greatness
of God's righteousness and power and grace will
inspire us with deeper wonder and awe. On the
other hand, religious excitement created by the
imagination, though it may fill us with devout and
beautiful sentiment, though it may suggest lofty
ideas of moral and spiritual perfection, and inspire
a vehement and chivalrous desire to translate these
ideas into conduct, will leave us with a new sense of
our own greatness rather than with a new sense of
the greatness of God.
The "lowliness" the humility, which Paul incul
cates, is a characteristically Christian virtue. Only
occasionally does it receive recognition from heathen
moralists, but it has a large place in the Old Testa
ment Scriptures and a still larger place in the New.
Christ Himself was "lowly in heart." He had de
scended from Divine heights, and knew the immea
surable distance between God's infinite greatness
and the limitations of human life. In " taking the
form of a servant " He had also taken the spirit of
a servant ; He had come, not to do His own will or

264 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
to seek His own glory, but to do the will of God and
to seek the glory of God. Having become man, He
was absolutely dependent on the Father ; and^lowli-
ness of heart is the immediate result of the con
sciousness of dependence on God and of the vision
of God's majesty. It is deepened, in our case, by
the consciousness of sin.
That the representations of the dignity of the
Christian calling and the glory of the Christian hope
contained in the first three chapters of this Epistle
should be immediately followed by an exhortation
to humility is, therefore, in harmony with a deep
philosophy of the spiritual life. We have received
immeasurable blessings, we have been raised to won
derful honours, we are hoping to share with Christ
Himself infinite blessedness and glory ; but all that
we have has come from the eternal thought and
purpose and love of God ; all that we hope for will
be conferred by His grace and " the exceeding great
ness of His power." The wealth is not ours ; it is a
Divine gift : the^strength is not ours ; it is the inspi-
'•-4
ration of the Divine life : the dignity is not ours ; it
is conferred on us by the free unpurchased love of
God, because we are in Christ. We live in palaces
of eternal light and righteousness, and among the
principalities and powers of heaven ; but our native
home was in the dust, and this transfigured, eternal,
and glorified life was not achieved by our own
strength, it has come to us from God. We are
nothing ; God is all.

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 265
Humility, "lowliness" is disciplined by prayer, by
communion with God, by the vision of Divine and
eternal things ; by meditation on God's righteousness
and our own sin, on the greatness of God and the
limitations of all created life, on the eternal fulness
of God and our own dependence on Him ; on the
blessings which God has made our inheritance in
Christ and the dark destiny which would have been
the natural and just result of our indifference to God's
authority and love.
Where there is "lowliness" there will be "meek
ness" the absence of the disposition to assert per
sonal rights, either in the presence of God or of men.
Meekness submits without a struggle to the losses,
the sufferings, the dishonour which the providence
of God permits to come upon us. It may look with
agitation and distress upon the troubles of others,
and the miseries of mankind may sometimes disturb
the very foundations of faith ; but in its own sorrows it
finds no reason for distrusting either the Divine right
eousness or the Divine goodness. It is conscious of
possessing no merit, and therefore in the worst and
darkest hours is conscious of suffering no injustice.
The same temper will show itself in relation to
men. It has no personal claims to defend. It will
therefore be slow to resent insult and injury. If
it resents them at all, the resentment will be a
protest against the violation of Divine laws rather
than a protest against a refusal to acknowledge its
personal rights. There will be no eagerness for great

265 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
place or high honour, or for the recognition of
personal merit ; and therefore, if these are withheld,
there will be no bitterness or mortification.
Where there is " lowliness '' there will be " meek
ness"; and " meekness" is one of the elements of
"long-suffering!' Paul is thinking of the mutual re
lations of those who are in Christ, and his words imply
that there will be large occasions for the exercise of
this grace in the conduct and spirit of our Christian
brethren. We are not to assume that all those who
are honestly loyal to Christ will keep His precepts
perfectly, or that in all those who have received
the Divine life the baser elements and passions of
human nature have been extinguished. Our Christian
brethren will sometimes treat us unjustly. They will
judge us ignorantly and ungenerously. They will
say harsh things about us. They will be incon
siderate and discourteous. They will be wilful,
wayward, selfish. They will make us suffer from
their arrogance, their ambition, their impatience,
their stolid perversity. All this we have to antici
pate. Christ bears with their imperfections and
their sins ; we too have to exercise forbearance. In
forbearance, meekness and love are blended. We
may say of either that it " suffereth long and is kind,
. . envieth not . . . vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of
evil ; . . . beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things."

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 267
The apostle finds in the Divine idea of the church
an additional obligation to the exercise of the graces
on which he is insisting ; for in requiring us to give
" diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace " he is simply urging a fresh reason for
"lowliness," "meekness," " longsuffering" and mutual
forbearance. The church is one. When the apostle wrote this
Epistle there were societies of Christians — churches —
in Rome, in Corinth, in Thessalonica, in Philippi,
in Colosse, in Ephesus, in the cities and towns of
Galatia, in the Syrian Antioch, and in Jerusalem.
There were less famous churches in other cities.
They stood apart from each other ; every separate
church had authority over its own affairs, main
tained its own discipline, elected its own bishops
and deacons, organised its own worship. As yet
there was no confederation of these independent
societies under any central ecclesiastical authority.
Their unity was not constituted by an external
organisation but by their common possession of the
Spirit of God, and it is therefore called by the apostle
"the unity of the Spirit!' He has spoken of the
unity of the church in the earlier part of the Epistle.
The exclusion of the pagan races from "the common
wealth of Israel" had ceased; "the middle wall of
partition" which separated them from the sacred
court in which the elect nation had nearer access to
God had been broken down. There was now one
city of the saints, of which all Christian men of every

268 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
nation were citizens ; one household of God in which
they were all children ; one holy temple " built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone," into the
sacred walls of which they were all built "for a
habitation of God in the Spirit." He has asserted
this unity in a still bolder form ; for after speaking
of the glory of Christ, who sits at the right hand of
God, "far above all rule and authority and power
and dominion, and every name that is named not
only in this world but also in that which is to come,"
he described the church as " the body " of Christ, the
organ of His life and thought and will, " the fulness
of Him that filleth all in all."
And now he returns to this great conception. The
" body " of Christ, he says, is " one " ; the " Spirit "
of God who dwells in it is " one " ; and in harmony
with this unity of the "body" of Christ and this
unity of the "Spirit" who dwells in it, the great
"hope" of all Christian men, of all who have been
called into the Divine kingdom and have obeyed the
call, is "one."1 There is "one Lord" only one —
Christ Jesus the Prince and the Saviour of men ; "one
faith" — not a common creed, but a common trust
in Christ for eternal righteousness and eternal glory ;
"one baptism" and only one, the same rite by which

1 The hope according to Paul is a hope arising from the
Divine calling (see chap. i. 18), and it was in the power of this
hope that they were called.

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 269
Christ visibly claims men as belonging to the race
for which He died and over which He reigns, is
administered to all. There is "one God and Father
of all" we all worship before the same eternal throne,
and in Christ we are all the children of the same
Divine Father ; His sovereignty is absolute and
supreme — He is "over all"; the power of His life
penetrates the whole body of Christ — He is " through
all" ; and His home is in all Christians — He is "in
all!' What is true of the Holy Catholic Church, which
consists of all that are in Christ, of all races, in all
lands, is true of every separate society of Christians.
According to the Divine idea — an idea which must
in some measure be realized or else the society is
not a church at all — every separate society of Christ
ians is an organic unity: it is "one body" the temple
of "one Spirit" and its members have "one hope";
they all have "one Lord" are united to Him by "one
faith" have received " one baptism " ; they worship
"one God and Father of all, who is over all, and
through all, and in all."
But the Divine unity of the church is impaired,
the Divine idea is not perfectly realized, if any of us
by personal ambition, by arrogance, by a disposition
to take offence, by yielding to a spirit of resentment,
separate ourselves from other Christian men. Our
quarrel is not a mere personal affair; it does not
affect merely those whose anger we provoke by our
wilfulness and self assertion, or whose wrongs against

270 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
ourselves we refuse to forgive. We are committing
an offence against the body of Christ; we are
marring the perfection of its unity. Give diligence
therefore " to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace!' II.
The obligations of this duty are strengthened by
a second conception of the church. It is the body
of Christ, and each member has its own appointed
functions ; each member not only receives life and
vigour for itself, but has to serve the whole body
and to contribute to its vigour and perfection.
" Unto each one of us was the grace given according
to the measure of the gift of Christ." The grace was
given, as the apostle shows in subsequent verses, that
we may each do our part towards " the building up
of the body of Christ" ; and our function is measured
and determined by the light and power we receive
from Christ for discharging it.
The development of this truth is interrupted by
a quotation from Psalm lxviii. 18 : " Wherefore he
saith" — or the psalm saith — "when He ascended on
high He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men."
The psalm was a war song, written and sung in cele
bration of some great victory; whether won by David
as suggested by the traditional heading of the psalm,
or by some later hero, is not certain.
The conqueror is represented as returning in
triumph to the hill of God, to Mount Zion, the

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 271
strong fortress of the elect race, and leading in pro
cession a train of captives. There, on the secure and
consecrated heights, the psalm describes him as re
ceiving gifts, the tribute which expresses the homage
and allegiance of the vanquished, and the submission
of those who had rebelled against his authority.1 But
Paul gives another turn to the description : Christ, he
says, who ascended to glory, "gave gifts unto men "
instead of receiving gifts from men. The original
historical meaning of the passage hardly admits of
question ; and that meaning is very obviously not the
meaning which Paul attributes to it. Nor do we gain
any help by appealing to the Septuagint ; for the
Septuagint is faithful to the grammatical sense of
the Hebrew and represents the conqueror as receiving
instead of conferring gifts. Are we to suppose that
Paul intentionally varied the words in order to adapt
them to his purpose, just as we sometimes vary
the terms of a quotation from a well known poet, and
by the very variation give it fresh point and force?
Or is the variation to be attributed to a lapse of
memory? Neither of these explanations is quite
satisfactory. It is only when the words which we are
quoting are familiar that we give them fresh point
and force by a startling change intended to adapt
them to our purpose ; and as most of the Ephesian
Christians were Gentiles they would not be very
familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. That Paul's
1 See Delitzsch, in loc.

272 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x\.
memory failed him is also unlikely ; the conception
of the conqueror receiving tribute from his vanquished
enemies is so vividly represented by the psalmist
that it is extremely improbable that Paul could have
forgotten it and supposed that the conqueror was
represented as conferring gifts. Curiously enough
the Chaldee Targum on the Psalms — a Jewish ex
pository paraphrase — gives the same sense to the
words that Paul gives. But the earliest of the
Targums was not written and published till about
two hundred years after Christ. It therefore seems
probable that in this quotation Paul has preserved
a remembrance of his student life in the schools
of Jerusalem. The rabbinical tradition, which was
fixed in the Targum long after Paul's death, may
have represented an earlier form of the Hebrew text
than that which we possess in our present Hebrew
Bible or than that which was used by the translators
of the Septuagint. Or perhaps rabbinical exposition
had assigned to the passage the sense in which Paul
used it.1 But as the quotation was simply intended
to enrich the illustration of the apostle's thought, and
as it may be removed altogether without lessening
the real force of his appeal, the decision of the
question is of no practical importance.
If we are to suppose that all the imagery of the
quotation had an exact and definite meaning for Paul
when he applied it to the resurrection and ascension
1 See Meyer, in loc.

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 273
of the Lord Jesus Christ, then it is probable that by
the captives whom the conqueror is represented as
leading captive, Paul meant all those evil and hostile
powers that Christ overcame for us by His death and
His return to life and glory.
The comment on the quotation is quite in Paul's
manner. He " goes off at a word." He had spoken
of Christ as ascending ; but when Christ ascended
He returned to His true home ; to have ascended
He must have previously descended ; and Paul says
that He " descended" into " the lower parts of the
earth" to those dark regions of mystery beneath the
earth which the Jews supposed were the regions of
the dead ; "He that descended " to those deepest
depths "is the same that also ascended" to heights
beyond all height, "far above all the lieavens " ; He
touched the lowest deep of humiliation, and rose to
the loftiest height of glory, " that He might fill all
things!' And now Paul returns to his main thought which
he had expressed in ver. 7 : " unto each one of us was
tlie grace given according to the measure of the gift of
Christ!' To himself, although in his own judgment he was
" less than the least of all saints, was this grace given,
to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ" " The grace" given to Paul was his apostolic
commission and authority to preach Christ to heathen
nations. It was his habit to describe his apostolic
ministry as " tlie grace '' which God had given him.
T

274 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
In his account of his famous conference with the
apostles at Jerusalem he says : "when they saw that I
had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncircum-
cision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circum
cision, . . . when they perceived the grace that was
given to me, James and Cephas and John . . . gave
to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship,
that we should go unto the Gentiles." 1 In writing
to the Romans he appeals to his apostolic authority
and office as " the grace that was given " to him : " For
I say, through the grace that was given to me, to every
man that is among you, not to think of himself more
highly than he ought to think." 2 He was speaking,
not as one Christian man to another, but with the
authority of an apostle of Christ. He tells the
Corinthian Christians that it was as an apostle that
he had laid the foundation of their Christian life and
faith. He came to them not as an unofficial preacher
of the gospel, animated by personal zeal, but with the
authority of a special commission : " according to the
grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise
master-builder, I laid a foundation ; and another
buildeth thereupon." 3
" The grace" was a form of service; the free love
of God had appointed him to a function of trans
cendent honour. But not him alone : " For even as
we have many members in one body, and all the

1 Gal. ii. 7-9. = Rom. xii. 3.
' s l Cor. iii. 10.

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 275
members have not the same office ; so we who are
many are one body in Christ, and severally members
one of another. And having gifts differing according
to tlie grace that was given to us, whether prophecy
let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith ;
or ministry let us give ourselves to our ministry," etc.1
The gifts differ according to "the grace," the yapLa-
jLara according to the %a/3t?, the powers according
to the function. But it might also be said that the
function is determined by the powers which are given,
the particular office of service by the particular facul
ties for service, the x^P^ by the xaPl'Ti1"aTa> " the
grace" by the gifts. And this is what is actually
said in this passage : " unto each one of us was the
grace given according to the measure of the gift of
Christ" Our function, the kind of service we are
able to render to the church, varies " according to the
measure " of the wisdom and the strength of the
Divine life and Divine inspiration given us by Christ.
There is something infinitely beautiful in this use
which Paul made of the word "grace." To be
appointed to render a special service to men was to
receive a special favour from God. It is more blessed
to give than to receive ; the Son of man came not to
be ministered unto but to minister.
And this description of office and service in the
church as a grace given by God is in harmony with
the whole representation of the church which appears
1 Rom. xii. 4-7.

276 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [user. xv.
in the New Testament. The relations between every
Christian man and the whole body of Christ are of
such a kind that whatever light, or power, or right
eousness comes to an individual comes to the whole
church. If " one member is honoured, all the mem
bers rejoice with it." In Christ we have no separate
and private rights. When Christ blesses any Christ
ian man He blesses all Christians. Where the deepest
wisdom is given, the clearest knowledge of God, the
firmest faith, the most ardent love, the brightest hope,
there Christ completes the blessing by appointing
to the most responsible service. " He," a strong
emphasis is thrown upon the word, "He gave some to
be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ;
and some, pastors and teachers!' Paul begins with the
ministry which is highest in rank, and descends by
regular gradations to the ordinary ministry of the
church. It is usually said that " the chief characteristics of
an apostle were an immediate call from Christ, a
destination for all lands, and a special power of
working miracles"1; but this is an incomplete account
of the essential elements of apostolic authority and
service. These characteristics might have belonged
to the ministry of men who, during the earthly life
of the Lord Jesus Christ, had acknowledged His
Divine mission, but who never saw Him after His
resurrection from the dead. It was the special func-
1 Ellicott, in loc.

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 277
tion of apostles to bear witness to the authority of
the Lord Jesus Christ over all nations, and to the
actual establishment of the kingdom of God upon
earth. It was therefore necessary that they should
have seen the risen and glorified Christ ; should be
able to declare, on evidence of an exceptional and
supernatural kind, that though unseen He is always
near. It was necessary that they should have seen in
Christ the translation of human nature into new and
higher conditions of life. It was necessary that for
them the gates which separate the earthly from the
heavenly life should be unclosed, the veil which con
ceals from mortal vision the Divine and eternal world
by which we are environed drawn aside. There were
others, no doubt, to whom this wonderful apocalypse
was granted and who received no apostolic commission,
but apart from this the qualifications of Peter, James
and John for delivering their apostolic testimony
would have been incomplete. They were apostles
not merely because they had been Christ's nearest
friends and elect servants during His earthly life,
but because He " showed Himself alive [to them]
after His passion by many proofs, appearing unto
them by the space of forty days, and speaking the
things concerning the kingdom of God." x Paul, who
had not been among the disciples of Christ before the
crucifixion and who persecuted the church after
Christ had ascended into heaven, declared that he
1 Acts i. 3.

278 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
was " not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles."
The essential thing was to have known, not the
earthly, but the heavenly Christ ; and he too had
" seen the Lord."
" Prophets " were men who, under the special in
spiration of the Holy Spirit, had a keen insight into
the things of God. Their higher reason received
exceptional illumination, so that they saw, as
ordinary Christian men could not see, the Divine
ideas which had been revealed in Christ, and which
were still being revealed in the relations of the
Christian life to God, and in the Divine government
of the church.
" Evangelists " were, in our modern phrase, " mis
sionaries." Their work was to effect the conversion
of men by preaching the gospel, and so to bring
iiem into the fellowship of existing churches, or
to found new churches where no churches already
existed. The ministry of "pastors and teachers " was then
as now a ministry to the church itself. There were
teachers who were not pastors, but all pastors were
required to be " apt to teach." As pastors they had
a real but undefined authority over the church ;
they had control over the conduct of worship ; they
were exceptionally responsible, both for the purity
of the faith of the church and the purity of its
morals. They discharged their principal pastoral
duties by the instruction ' they gave to the church in
its ordinary assemblies ; and as this function of

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 279
teaching was so important a part of their ministry,
Paul describes them here as "pastors and teachers,"
giving a double title to the same office.
Paul then describes the object for which Christ has
given to the church these various ministries. Apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, are given
for " tlie perfecting of the saints " ; they are given to
render to the church all kinds of service, " unto the
work of ministering" ; they are given for " the building
up of the body of Christ!' Their work is to be con
summated when all Christian men reach the same
perfect faith in the Son of God and the same full
and sure knowledge of Him ; when they touch the
ideal maturity of the Christian life, and every one of
them becomes a "full-grown man" and in the com
plete development of Christian righteousness attains
"unto tlie measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ" x illustrates the energy of the life of Christ
in his own personal perfection.
Paul says that as yet Christian men are very far
from this great ideal. They have not reached manly
maturity, or perfect faith in Christ, or a full and sure
knowledge of Him ; but apostles, prophets, evan
gelists, pastors and teachers have been given to
them by Christ that they " may be no longer children,
tossed to and fro" as by stormy waves, "and

1 The meaning of the phrase " the fulness of Christ" receives
illustration from the discussion, page 257, of the similar phrase,
!' the fulness of God." \

2So LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
carried about" like a rudderless ship driving helplessly
away from her true course, swept now in this way and
now in that " with every wind of doctrine!' That is
a representation of the Christian thought and life of
many of the members of the early churches ; it is
also a representation of the Christian thought and
life of too many of those who aire in the membership
->f the churches of our own times. To control and to
rorrect this inconstancy of opinion, to develop this
immaturity of character into manly vigour, was the
object of all the ministries of the church in apostolic
days, and it is still the object of every ministry
given to the church by Christ Himself. Not brilliant
declamation but solid instruction is the chief business
of every man that has received " grace " to be a
minister to the church ; and his end will be, not to
excite transient religious sentiment, however beautiful,
or to stir vehement passion, but to discipline men to
moral and spiritual strength. And the true " pastors
and teachers " of the church will not be content to
limit themselves within the province of the evangelist.
It is not enough to extend the area of the church and
to multiply converts ; " pastors and teachers " are
called to " the perfecting of the saints " in the know
ledge of Christ and in the practice of righteousness.
Paul then describes in new terms the object of the
ministries which Christ has given to the church. It
is that Christian men "speaking the truth in love
may grow up in all things into Him which is the Head,
even Christ!' It was not in the power of the revisers

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 281
of our translation to represent in a single English
phrase the full force of the word which they have
rendered "speaking the truth" Both this and the
alternative rendering, "dealing truly," which they
have given in the margin, are inadequate. The
current of Paul's thought makes it certain, I think,
that he attached to the word a great intensity of
meaning. Truth was to be the life of the life of all
Christian men. The revelation of God in Christ was
to penetrate and inspire their whole activity. Truth
was to become incarnate, personal, in them ; they
were not only to hold fast to it, they were not only
to speak it, they were to live it. And they were to
live it " in love!' Truth was to be the central and
vital force, " love " its atmosphere and environment.
And then the whole development of their life, its de
velopment in thought, in moral conduct, in the varied
activity of emotional energy, in religious endeavour,
in worship, would be a continuous approach to the
ideal perfection of Christ, and would make their
union with Christ more and more intimate. They
would "grow up in all things into Him which is the
Head, even Christ. "
There has been a great deal of discussion as to
what Paul meant by our growing up into Christ.
How, it has been asked, can the body be described
as growing up into the head ? The conception has
appeared to some commentators so impossible that
they have put very violent pressure on Paul's
language in order to modify it. The explanation

2S2 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv
appears very obvious. Paul was much more anxious
about conveying his meaning than about preserving
the consistency of his metaphor. All Christian
growth is a growth towards the transcendent per
fection of Christ and a growth into union with Him.
That the body does not " grow up into " the head
Paul knew quite well ; but Christian men do grow
up into Christ, and, as he wanted to say this, he
dropped his metaphor and said it. And so, in the
next verse, he describes Christ as the centre and
source of all the activity and growth of the church.
No such relation as this can be strictly said to exist
between the head and the rest of the body ; but Paul
uses his metaphor to convey his meaning, and when
the metaphor will not help him he lays it aside.
At this point Paul passes from his account of the
object for which Christ has given to the church its
official ministries ; and in the next verse announces
the truth that not only the official ministers of the
church but all its members have to contribute to the
growth and perfection of the body of Christ. From
Christ "all the body, fitly framed and knit together
through that which every joint supplieth according to the
working in due measure of each several part, maketh
tlie increase of the body unto the building up of itself
in love!'
This is the final illustration of what Paul meant
when he said " unto each one of us was the grace
given according to the measure of the gift of Christ."
Every Christian man, however narrow the range of

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 283
his knowledge, however inconsiderable his powers,
however obscure his position in society or the church,
receives life and light and strength from Christ, not
merely for himself, but for others. He may have no
office in the church, but he has his function, which
he cannot leave undischarged without injuring the
growth of the body of Christ. He may have neither
the capacity nor the opportunity for undertaking
what we specifically call " Christian work," but he
may fulfil his function with admirable fidelity and
may, according to the measure of the power given to
him, augment the moral and spiritual force, elevate
the righteousness, and enrich the Divine joy of all
his Christian brethren. III.
And now we are in a better position to understand
the strength of the motives with which Paul sustains
his exhortation to give " diligence to keep the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace." We are ministers,
every one of us, to the perfection of the body of
Christ. We are all necessary to each other. " The
eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee :
or again the head to the feet, I have no need of
you." Even " those members of the body which
seem to be more feeble are necessary." Every man
receives service ; every man renders service. It is
only by " the working in due measure of each several
part " that the body of Christ can be built up to its
full stature and full vigour.

284 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
I — as the minister of this church — hold my own
place and discharge my own functions. By solitary
thought and prayer, by meditation on whatever God
has revealed of Himself and of His invisible and
eternal kingdom, I have to discover, not for my own
sake merely but for yours, the greatness of the
Christian redemption, the fountains of Christian joy
and Christian righteousness, the unchanging laws of
the Divine kingdom for the government of Christian
conduct. By contact with the life of men, by famili
arity with private and public affairs, I have to dis
cover what are the moral and religious perils which
menace your Christian integrity, and what are the
special forms of virtue and of grace which in your
actual circumstances will most adequately illustrate
your fidelity to Christ. The deacons of the church
and the deaconesses have also their places and their
functions ; the teachers in the schools have theirs ;
those who are engaged in mission work have theirs.
But, as I have said already, those who occupy no
office and who cannot undertake any definite tasks
in connection with any of the organisations of the
church are also " necessary " to the life and power of
the whole of this Christian community. By their
devoutness, their uprightness, their charity, their zeal,
they may add immeasurably to the force of the
church and have a large share in its triumphs.
In a life otherwise commonplace there is sometimes
illustrated in a very impressive form the full meaning
of some precept of Christ, to which the common

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE vHURCH. 285
ethics of the church have given no adequate recogni
tion ; and such a life may, within the range of its
influence, effect a most real and substantial ethical
reformation. An integrity and an industry which
have nothing heroic in them may sometimes act like
a tonic on men whose moral nature is deficient in
original vigour, and whose moral environment has
been unfriendly even to the common virtues. Cheer
fulness in poverty, in physical infirmity, in a life
destitute of all the common sources of happiness,
has sometimes rebuked the discontent of those who
with a thousand reasons for joy suffer themselves to
be vexed by trivial annoyances and worried by trivial
cares. When the faith of the scholar falters it some
times receives a sudden inspiration of vigour by the
discovery in some poor and narrow life of a beauty
and splendour which could have come only from
heaven. In times when great trouble has embittered
the heart both against God and man, the rude sym
pathy of a nature with no grace or beauty in it
except that which it has derived from fellowship with
Christ, sympathy roughly expressed or hardly ex
pressed at all, will sometimes give wonderful vividness
and reality to the tenderness of the Divine com
passion. We come to understand God's laws by
seeing how other men obey them, and God's promises
by seeing how other men trust them. In the great
struggle between God and the sin of the world, every
man that stands firm in the ranks of the army of
light gives other men courage to stand firm too. Be

286 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
righteous, and you make righteousness easier to some
other Christian man, perhaps to many other Christian
men. Let your faith be strong, and even though you
may say little about it you will make the faith of
other men stronger. Be devout, and in ways that you
cannot trace you will check irreverence and deepen
the awe with which your Christian brethren worship
God. Love men, and you will diffuse within the limits
of your influence the spirit of Christian charity, and
how far that spirit may extend who can tell ? Fire
kindles fire, and when fire is once kindled it burns
and spreads. Care for the salvation of men, and you
will do something towards maintaining and strength
ening the evangelistic zeal of the whole church.
That we may render and receive this mutual service
it is plainly necessary that we should all cultivate that
temper which will " keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace." What benefit, for example, would it
be possible for you to receive from my ministry if you
and I were separated from each other by distrust and
hostility, either on your side or on mine ? Suppose
that I had the impression, true or false, that I was
being treated unjustly and unkindly, either by the
church generally or by any of its members ; suppose
that I refused to forget or to forgive this treatment ; it
is certain that there would be an element of bitterness
in my preaching which would poison the blood of the
church ; and instead of contributing to your health
and vigour I should be inflicting on you immeasurable

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 287
harm. Suppose.on the other hand, that the resentment
were on your side ; that you were provoked by my
arrogance, ambition, vanity, wilfulness, or obstinacy ;
or that when you were listening to me within these
walls you were always recalling with a sense of injury,
harsh, ungenerous, reckless words I had spoken about
you elsewhere ; it is equally certain that while this
condition of mind lasted you would be incapable of
receiving any good from my ministry.
The same principle governs your relations to each
other. The " unity of the Spirit " must be kept " in
the bond of peace," if all the body of Christ " fitly
framed and knit together through that which every
joint supplieth, according to the working in due
measure of each several part," is to grow in right
eousness, in the knowledge of Christ, and in Divine
joy. You can receive no good from your Christian
brethren, you can confer no good upon your Christian
brethren, if you are separated from them by real
or imaginary wrongs. There must be cordial mutual
affection and mutual trust, if the members of a
church are to increase in moral strength and in
religious fervour. You cannot yield to a spirit of
hostility against any individual Christian without
lessening the intimacy and happiness of your re
lations to the whole church. Among the many
profound and noble words of Marcus Aurelius the
following have always seemed to me exceptionally
deserving of being constantly remembered: "A
branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of

zS8 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS.' [lect. xv.
necessity be cut off from the whole tree also. So
too a man, when he is separated from another man,
has fallen off from the whole social community.
Now as to a branch, another cuts it off; but a man
by his own act separates himself from his neighbour
when he hates him and turns away from him, and
he does not know that he has at the same time cut
himself off from the whole social system. Yet he
has this privilege certainly from Zeus who framed
society, for it is in our power to grow again to that
which is near to us, and again to become a part
which helps to make up the whole." x
The principle is more strikingly illustrated in our
relations to the church than even in our relations
to society. A Christian man has received injury
from another, a real injury ; ht gives way to his
resentment ; he maintains that his resentment is
just ; he refuses to forgive. All this may be true ;
but his separation from the man who has wronged
him ends commonly in most tragic results. For a
time his moral and religious character seems to have
1 " M. Aurelius Antoninus" : George Long's translation, p. 187.
The rest of the paragraph is very worthy of being quoted :
" However, if it often happens, this kind of separation, it makes
it difficult for that which detaches itself to be brought to unity
and to be restored to its former condition. Finally, the branch,
which from the first grew together with the tree, and has con
tinued to have one life with it, is not like that which after being
cut off is then engrafted, for this is something like what the
gardeners mean when they say that it grows with the rest of
the tree, but that it has not the same mind with it."

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 289
received no harm ; the leaves on the branch are
still fresh and bright, and the fruit is sound and
wholesome. But gradually the leaves fade and the
fruit loses its freshness. He is a branch " cut off"
not only " from the adjacent branch," but " from the
whole tree." In separating himself from his Christian
brother he has separated himself from Christ ; and
" if a man abide not in [Christ] he is cast forth as
a branch and is withered ; and they gather them and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
You imperil your own life by yielding to the moral
resentment provoked by injustice or unkindness,
Do you say that the injury is real and intolerable ?
If the injury were not real you would have nothing
to forgive ; if it were not a grave injury your forgive
ness would be worth very little as a proof of your
loyalty to Christ. Give " diligence to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace." " Be ye kind
one to another, tender hearted, forgiving each other,
even as God also in Christ forgave you." " If ye
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men
their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses." " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
shall be called sons of God."
In the presence of the divisions and controversies
of Christendom the representation of the Unity of
the church contained in this chapter suggests the
gravest and most anxious questions. Is the Unity
a Divine idea which has never yet been realized ?
U

290 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
Or has it been lost ? If lost, who was responsible
for the catastrophe? Has the responsibility been
inherited by modern churches ? Should there be
an endeavour, a serious, earnest endeavour, made
with " all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering "
and with mutual forbearance, to bring to an end
the theological and ecclesiastical strife by which
great religious communities are separated from
each other ? Should Nonconformists and Anglicans
consider how they can include all the Christian life
of England in one undivided church ? Should
Protestants and Romanists confer on the measures
which are necessary for healing the schism of
the Reformation and restoring unity to Western
Christendom ? And, after more than a thousand
years of hostility, ought there to be an attempt to
bring together the east and the west in one great
and august confederation ?
These questions raise a false issue. The unity
of the church, according to Paul's conception of it,
is a unity of life not of external organisation. It
is the creation of the Spirit of God, not of ecclesi
astical statesmanship. It actually exists, notwith
standing differences of polity and differences of
creed. Christian men belong to different churches,
but "the body" of Christ is "one"; "one Spirit"
dwells in them ; they have " one hope " of eternal
righteousness and glory ; they acknowledge and serve
"one Lord"; their "faith" in Him is "one"; they
have received " one baptism " ; they worship " one

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 291
God and Father of all, who is over all, and through
all, and in all."
The unity does not merely exist ; it has been
manifested through all the Christian centuries ; it
is manifested still. It has been manifested and is
manifested still in a remarkable unity of doctrine.
The immense majority of those who have called
themselves Christians have believed that the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God ; that
in Christ the Eternal Word became flesh ; that Christ
died for the sins of men, and that we receive re
mission of sins through Him ; that to enter the
kingdom of God it is necessary to receive the life
of God ; that holiness is a fruit of the Spirit ; that
there is a judgment to come ; that the doom of the
impenitent is irrevocable ; that those who arc in
Christ will inherit eternal righteousness and eternal
joy in God.
The unity of the church has been manifested in a
common ideal of ethical perfection. In all churches
the gentler virtues — humility, meekness, patience
— have been rescued from neglect or dishonour ; and
in all churches an active compassion for poverty,
pain, misery, and sin has been made a large part of
the service which man owes to God.
The unity of the church has been manifested in
a new and original type of the religious life, which
notwithstanding local, temporary, and accidental
variations, has been the same in all Christian countries
from the earliest Christian centuries down to our own

292 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xv.
time. The prayers of the church, its hymns, its de
votional manuals, the sorrows and the joys of saints,
are all penetrated by the same spirit, and bear witness
to a unity which is unbroken by differences of race,
of language, of civilization, by differences of theo
logical creed and differences of ecclesiastical connec
tion. The saints of all lands and of all generations
are akin.
This is the unity which we should endeavour to
" keep " " in the bond of peace." The obligations of
charity, the obligations to mutual service, which are
created by common membership of the body of
Christ, may sometimes require us to protest and
to protest vehemently against the errors into which
great churches have been betrayed, the superstitions
which great churches have sanctioned. The hand
would be disloyal to the foot if it shrank from ex
tracting a thorn, though the very effort to extract it
might cause the foot to throb with sharp pain. And
for the Protestant to be silent concerning the errors
which impair the religious strength of Roman Catholi
cism would be treachery — not to truth merely, nor
to Christ merely — but also to his Roman Catholic
brother. The truth which has been revealed to me
is no private estate of mine ; it has been revealed
to me for the sake of all my Christian brethren.
But I can render no service to those for whom I
feel no love. Controversy should be one of the
highest and fairest expressions of charity. I must
speak — not to wound but to heal ; to rescue from

lect. xv.] THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 293
error, not to cover with ridicule and contempt. I
must speak — not with the desire to win a personal
triumph but with the hope of bringing my brother
into the light in which I am already living, into the
same freedom and the same joy. If in controversy
there is no hostility against those from whom we
differ ; if, instead of hostility, there is deep and
fervent affection for them, controversy, instead of
provoking strife and schism, will contribute to that
" unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God " in which the unity of the church will be
finally perfected.

XVI.
THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN.
" This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk
as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in
their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignor
ance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart ; who
being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness to work all un-
cleanness with greediness." — Eph. iv. 17-19.
THERE is a startling contrast between the earlier
and the later chapters of this Epistle. In the
earlier chapters Paul describes the Christians at
Ephesus as " saints," as " the faithful in Christ Jesus,"
as having been raised from the dead with Christ, as
sitting with Christ " in the heavenly places," as God's
" workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God afore prepared that we should walk in
them." They are "of the household of God," a
temple "built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets ... for a habitation of God in
the Spirit."
As if they were already familiar with all the
elementary principles of the Christian gospel, he
speaks to them of the eternal thoughts of God which
are gradually being fulfilled in the history of the

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 295
human race, and which are to reach their final
accomplishment in the ascent of the whole universe
— heaven and earth, angels and men — to perfect and
eternal union with God in Christ.
And now to the persons whom he has described by
these sacred titles, and to whom he has spoken of these
Divine mysteries, he gives a succession of precepts
relating to the most elementary moral duties. He
thinks it necessary to warn them against the basest
and the coarsest vices — against lying and thieving,
against foul speech, against drunkenness, against
gross sensual sins.
The difficulty is not to be evaded by the suggestion
that while many of the members of the church at
Ephesus were devout and saintly, some of them were
still mere heathen, having no real faith in Christ and
no spiritual life. It is clear that these precepts, which
imply the possibility and the existence of such gross
immoralities in the character and conduct of those to
whom they are addressed, were meant for the very
same persons that Paul had described as " saints,"
as " the faithful in Christ Jesus " ; for the considera
tions by which the precepts are enforced imply that
persons who were guilty of these immoralities really
believed in Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of
men, had received the remission of sins and the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The access of the Divine life does not at once and
in a moment change a man's moral temper and habits.

296 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
The ethical laws which had a real obligation for him
before his conversion, though he may have kept them
imperfectly, are re-enforced by motives of immense
power, and he receives the aid of the Spirit of God
in obeying them ; what he knew and felt to be wrong
before he discovered the righteousness and love of
God he will avoid ; but the urgency and pressure of
the Divine authority will not be felt immediately in
every province of the moral life. Moral distinctions
which were faint will not at once become vivid.
Moral distinctions which were not recognised at all
will not at once become apparent.
The Christians at Ephesus had been breathing
from their childhood the foul atmosphere of a most
corrupt form of heathenism ; they were breathing it
still. In the community which surrounded them the
grossest vices were unrebuked by public sentiment.
Many of them had been guilty of these vices before
their conversion, and were conscious neither of guilt
nor of shame. When they came into the church they
did not escape at once from their old heathen habits ;
there was not a sudden elevation of their whole moral
life to a higher level.
We surely need not be astonished at this. We
constantly see the same thing among ourselves.
When a man becomes a Christian he becomes a
better man, but the ethical change is not immediate,
is not complete. A rough and violent temper is not
at once softened into gentleness. Selfishness does
not at once expand into generosity. The suspicious

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 297
man does not at once become trustful ; or the vain
man modest ; or the proud man humble. If a man
is covetous before his conversion the passion for
money is not at once extinguished ; and even after
its fires have sunk, the evil habits which the passion
had formed may remain for many years and may
only gradually wear away. A man who has been
accustomed to lie through cowardice does not at
once become courageous enough to be always per
fectly truthful ; a man who has been accustomed to
lie through vanity will be surprised, again and again,
into boastful exaggeration which will sometimes pass
into positive falsehood. Where there has been a
habit of loose and reckless talking, a certain measure
of intellectual as well as of moral discipline will be
necessary in order to form a habit of exact truthfulness.
The indolent workman will not become conspicuous
at once for his uniform and unflagging industry. The
clerk who before his conversion was often too late at
his desk in the morning, and who was habitually care
less at his work, will not become at once a model of
punctuality and accuracy to the whole office. Masters
that have been hard with their men will only gradually
learn to be generous and kindly. Tradesmen that
have not been very scrupulous in the conduct of their
business will not at once discover that they have to
carry on their business for the public benefit rather
than for their own. Politicians that have engaged
in public life . at the impulse of personal ambition
will not immediately suppress the desire for personal

298 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
authority, for distinction while they live, and for
enduring fame ; it will take them time to accept
political life as simply affording them great oppor
tunities for serving Christ by serving the nation.
The Ephesian Christians, when they acknowledged
the authority of God and trusted in His love and
power for eternal redemption, did not at once escape
from the spirit and habits of their old life ; nor did
we. Their old life was more gross and foul than
ours, and their life in the church was therefore
stained with grosser and fouler sins ; but we too
have brought the ethics of the world into the king
dom of God. Sometimes indeed, when the supreme
revelation comes to a man, many of his vicious habits
fall away from him at the touch of Christ, as the
chains of Peter fell at the touch of the angel. And
sometimes after a Christian man has been trying for
years to rid himself of a disposition, a temper, a
habit alien from the spirit of Christ, the gracious
lightning of heaven falls on it suddenly and blasts it
to the very roots. But, normally, Christian righteous
ness is achieved slowly. A Divine life is given to us,
but the life has to grow. " Love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,
temperance " are " the fruit of the Spirit " ; and the
fruit is not ripened in an hour or a day.
There will however be real ethical progress wher
ever there is genuine loyalty to Christ. There will
be a persistent effort to do the will of God as far as
the will of God is known. With this fidelity there

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 299
will be a steady increase of ethical knowledge. The
ethical ideal will gradually become loftier. By in
fluences which we cannot trace, the prevailing temper
of a Christian man will become more like the temper
of Christ. He will be drawn beyond the reach of
many temptations by the new and nobler interests
of the Divine kingdom ; other temptations he will
have the strength to master. The Divine life will
perish if it is so obstructed by evil tempers and evil
habits that it cannot grow. Its growth will gradually
bring about a complete moral transformation.
But we must not assume that this transformation
will come of itself, or as the result of the exclusive
cultivation of the spiritual affections. Moral culture
is necessary for moral perfection.1 And Christian
people who are troubled because, notwithstanding all
their prayers and all their meditation on eternal
things, their faith in God is infirm, their love for
Him cold and inconstant, and their hope of eternal
glory very dim, would do well to consider whether
their spiritual failure may not be explained by their
defective morality. Paul told the Ephesian Christians
that unless they renounced their vices they would be
eternally lost ; " for because of these things cometh
the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience " ;
1 On the grave defects, theoretical and practical, of evangelical
Christianity in relation to ethics, see Sermons II., III., IV., V.,
and VI. in the " Evangelical Revival," by the author. (Hodder
and Stoughton.) On the necessity of the education of the
conscience see especially Sermon IV.

300 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
and our own moral offences, though less flagrant than
theirs, may be equally pernicious to the growth of the
Divine life and may expose us to equal peril.
Paul strengthens the authority and adds to the
solemnity of his ethical exhortations by the manner
in which he introduces them. He is not speaking
for himself and in his own name, but " in the Lord"
In charging them to break with their old life he is
vividly conscious of Christ's abhorrence of sin and
Christ's delight in righteousness. He is conscious
too of the strenuous urgency with which Christ
authoritatively commands all that acknowledge Him
as their Prince and Savi our to " depart from all
iniquity." What he has to say is not a matter of
mere personal conviction, which might be open to
discussion and about which different men might
have different opinions; he is a witness, and is de
livering his testimony. He is speaking therefore
with a grave sense of responsibility, and with a clear
recognition of how much depends upon his speaking
truthfully : " This I say therefore and testify in the
Lord, that YE no longer walk as tlie Gentiles also
walk!' The brief account which follows of the ethical con
dition of the heathen world should be compared with
the fuller and more elaborate passage in the second
half of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
In both descriptions the gross ethical corruption of
heathen nations is attributed to their ignorance of
God and of Divine and eternal things ; and the

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 301
ignorance is represented as the result of their moral
unfaithfulness to the light which they had once had.
The law which is constantly illustrated in the history
of individual men is declared to have been illustrated
in the history of those great races which had sunk
into gross idolatry and gross vice. Where there is
irreverence for the Divine majesty and disobedience
to the Divine law the vision of God becomes fainter ;
as the vision of God becomes fainter the restraints
of the Divine righteousness are lessened, irreverence
and disobedience become more and more flagrant, and
at last the vision of God is lost altogether.
The description of the heathen both here and in
the Epistle to the Romans is to be taken as repre
senting their general condition, and we must not
suppose that Paul meant to affirm that the gross
moral ignorance and the gross moral corruption were
universal. There were heathen men that had not
fallen so far. " The law written in their hearts " had
been obeyed, and was therefore not effaced. There
were heathen men of whom it could not be said that
"they loved the darkness rather than the light, for
their works were evil " ; and therefore " the true
light, even the light which lighteth every man," was
shining in them still, though they did not know that
it had come into the world in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
But, speaking broadly and generally, heathen men
had lost the knowledge of God and had lost the
knowledge of the steadfast and eternal laws of

302 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
righteousness ; and this is what Paul means when
he says that they were walking "in the vanity of
their minds" We are environed by an invisible,
Divine, and eternal world. It does not lie far away
from us in the remote future, but surrounds us now
as the starry heavens surround the common earth.
There is a faculty in us which, when inspired and
illuminated by the Spirit of God, enables us to see it
When once that world is revealed to us our whole
conception of human duty and of human destiny is
changed. We discover that the pleasures and pains
of this brief and transitory life, its poverty and its
wealth, its honours and its shame, are of secondary
importance, that there is a kind of unreality in them
all, that they are external to us, that they are
rapidly passing away. In this life indeed it is im
possible for us not to be affected by them ; and they
have their place in the discipline of our righteous
ness. But our horizon has widened, and we see
beyond them. We discover that it is only the larger
world which has been revealed to us by Christ that
is real and enduring ; and that compared with its
august and glorious realities " things seen and tem
poral" are but passing shadows. We see that the
true life of man is the eternal and Divine life by
which he is related to what is eternal and Divine ;
that the true honour, the true wealth, the true wis
dom, the true happiness of man are found in that
eternal and Divine kingdom.
But Paul says that heathen races are living among

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 303
things seen and temporal, not among things unseen
and eternal. The faculty by which they should be
brought into contact with what is real and enduring
is impaired, so that it mistakes shadows for sub
stances, dreams for realities ; they " walk in tlie
vanity of their mind" And as no light reaches
them from the infinite and eternal world, they are
" darkened in their understanding"
Darkness and death go together. Man was so
created that the root of his perfection is in God.
His truest and highest life is a life that has its
springs in the life of God. But where the knowledge
of God is lost the life of God is lost. Heathen men
are living in regions of moral darkness in which the
life of God cannot be theirs. They are separated,
estranged, " alienated from the life of God because of
the igfiorance that is in them." But the ignorance is
not a mere intellectual defect involving no moral
fault ; they are " alienated from the life of God . . .
because of the liardening of their heart!' Their in
creasing moral insensibility was the real cause of
their ignorance ; and their ignorance and moral in
sensibility were the causes of their alienation from
the life of God.
What kind of men they had become through this
hardening of their heart Paul describes in words
which it is not possible to read without a sense of
horror. They were " past feeling!' They had ceased
' to be sensitive to the obligations of truth, of honesty,
of kindness, of purity ; and to the guilt of falsehood:

304 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
of injustice, of cruelty, of sensual sin. They com
mitted the grossest vices and were conscious of no
shame. Their imagination was no longer fascinated
by the beauty and nobleness of virtue. No sentiment
of personal dignity checked the indulgence of the
foulest and most disgraceful passions. They had
no reverence for the purer and loftier traditions of
better times. They were untouched by the censure
and scorn of the wiser and nobler of their con
temporaries. All the inducements that draw men
to virtue and all the restraints that hold them back
from vice were destroyed. They were "past feeling!'
Their sin was therefore gross and habitual. They
were not betrayed into sin, against their better pur
poses ; they were not merely overcome now and
then by the violence of their passions ; they were
not mastered by some malignant power against
which they struggled in vain ; nor were their worst
excesses followed by any remorse. They sinned
deliberately, and without any protest from their
reason or their conscience or any purer and more
generous affections in their moral life. " They gave
THE MS EL VES up"— it was their own act, done
with set purpose and with the consent of their whole
nature — "they gave THEMSELVES up to las-
civiousness," — to a life in which there was a wilful,
reckless, wanton defiance of all moral restraints.
Vice, by their own choice and intention, was not
to be an occasional incident in their life, it was to
be their main business, the employment at which'

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 305
they were to " work " ; and as some men have
an insatiable desire for money, these men had an
insatiable desire for every kind of impurity, "they
gave THEMSEL VES up to lasciviousness, to work
all uncleanness with greediness"
It is a horrible picture. But Paul was describing
the men among whom he had lived and among whom
the Christians at Ephesus were living still. The
morality of the Greek cities of Asia Minor was so
base and so foul that we wonder that the fires of God
did not descend to destroy them. Is it surprising
that with such a moral environment the Christians
at Ephesus, who a few years before had been heathen
men themselves, required the ethical teaching con
tained in the later chapters of this Epistle ?
In the churches founded in heathen countries by
modern missions we should expect to find the same
moral corruptions that stained the life of the church at
Ephesus. Heathen men who have been habitual
liars will not discover the obligations of truth as soon
as they are converted ; nor will the sensual become
pure, nor the cruel gentle, nor the indolent indus
trious. The terrible entail of the vices of many
generations cannot be cut off at once ; a new social
life and a new social sentiment must be created,
before a complete moral reformation can be ex
pected. To ourselves the ethical condition of the Ephesian
Christians is profoundly suggestive ; perhaps I ought
to say that it is very alarming. English society is
X

306 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvi.
free from the gross, the sensual, the brutal vice which
infected the great heathen cities .of Asia Minor.
There is a strong public sentiment on the side of
truthfulness, honesty, temperance, purity, industry,
self control, kindliness, and public spirit. We inherit
these virtues from our parents ; we have been dis
ciplined to them by all the complex influences that
have contributed to form our character. In a very
true sense they are natural to us, and we practise
them without effort.
And so it is assumed that when a man receives the
life of God there is no reason for any great change in
his moral habits. There may be defects of temper
which have to be corrected, and in some of the de
tails of moral conduct he may recognise the necessity
for amendment ; but if he has lived among good
moral people he takes it for granted that in working
out his own salvation he has to think almost ex
clusively of his spiritual life ; his moral character is
already what it should be. He attends public wor
ship more frequently than before ; secures more time
for private prayer, for religious thought, for reading
the Bible and other religious books; he tries to
increase the fervour of his love for God and the
steadfastness of his faith in God ; he takes up some
kind of religious work. About moral discipline he
thinks very little. About the necessity of recon
structing his whole conception of moral duty, adding
to it new elements, resting it on new foundations, he
thinks still less. The results of this grave error are

lect. xvi.] THE IMMORALITY OF THE HEATHEN. 307
most disastrous. The ideal of the ethical life is no
higher in the church than it is in the world.
But if the morals of the church, as a whole, are not
distinctly in advance of the morals of society as a
whole, if when a man becomes a Christian his moral
life is not governed by nobler laws and inspired with
a new generosity and force, the power of the church
will be seriously impaired, and its triumphs will be
only occasional and intermittent. At times a great
passion of religious enthusiasm may enable it to
count its converts by thousands ; but the fires of en
thusiasm soon sink, and for its permanent authority
the church should rely on steadier forces.
In heathen countries, although the morality of
Christian converts may be grossly defective, it is in
advance of the morality of the mass of their fellow
countrymen. The darkness of their old life is about
them still, but their faces are towards the light. In
countries described as Christian there should be the
same difference between the morality of those that
are in Christ and the morality of those that are not.
The revelation of the Divine love and the Divine
righteousness, of our kinship to God, of the glorious
immortality which is the inheritance of all that have
received the Divine life, should ennoble our ideal of
every moral virtue, and should inspire us with a more
ardent passion for moral perfection.

XVII.
THE CHRISTIAN METHOD OF MORAL REGENERATION.
" But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard Him, and
were taught in Him, even as truth is in Jesus : that ye put away, as
concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxeth
corrupt after the lusts of deceit ; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of
your mind, and put on the new man, which after God hath been created
in righteousness and holiness of truth." Eph. iv. 20-24.
IN the preceding verses Paul has described the
gross moral corruption of heathen society. To
that society the Ephesian Christians had belonged.
He might have said to them what he said to the
Christians at Corinth : " neither fornicators, nor idol
aters, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And such were some of you"
For wherever the gospel was preached, it not only
gave new hope and courage, new light and strength,
to those who were already trying to practise the
virtues which the natural conscience honours and
enforces ; it found its way to the very worst and the
most depraved of mankind. Indeed it is clear from
the precepts which follow in the latter part of this
chapter and in the next, that/some of the Christians
308

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 309
at Ephesus had not completely escaped from the
common vices of heathenism./ There were the most
urgent practical reasons why the apostle should
remind them of the Christian method of moral re
generation. That they should continue to live the life
they had lived before they became Christians, the
life which heathen men were living still, was impos
sible. " Ye " — he places them in emphatic contrast
with their fellow citizens who were outside the
Christian church and who had not received the
Christian Faith — " Ye did not so learn Christ." He
means that they did not " learn Christ " in such a way
as to suppose that they could continue to he guilty
of lying, of theft, of drunkenness, of sensuality, and
all the vices of heathenism. The knowledge of
Christ which they had received might be imperfect,
but it did not leave them ignorant of the necessity
of righteousness. For, as the apostle hopes and
believes, they had not merely listened to human
teachers whose conception of Christian truth might
be false and who might be unable to convey the
truth they knew to others; Christ's own voice had
reached them ; when they became Christians they
" heard HIM."
Truth, the highest truth, the truth it most concerns
Christian men to know, is " in Jesus" Truth can
never be rightly known when separated from Him.
All real and effective teaching must be in harmony
with truth as truth is in Him. But this was precisely
the teaching which the apostle trusts had been given

310 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
to the Ephesian Christians. For they themselves
were " in Him " and " were taught . . . even as
truth is in Jesus." The expression of the apostle's
thought is very condensed. Here, as in many other
passages in his epistles, he assumes that the minds of
his readers are already charged with Christian ideas.
Every phrase is a symbol that stands for a whole
province of Christian doctrine.
Paul now proceeds to develop the truth which he
assumes that the Christians at Ephesus had " heard "
from Christ ; the truth which as they were " in
Christ" they had been "taught"; the truth which
all Christians find in Him : " that ye put away, as
concerning your former life, the old man, which waxeth
corrupt after the lusts of deceit ; and that ye be renewed
in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man
which after God liath been created in righteousness and
holiness of truth!' This is what I described just now
as the Christian method of moral regeneration. It
includes three distinct processes : (i) the renunci
ation of the previous moral life ; (2) the constant
renewal of the higher and spiritual life by the power
of the Spirit of God ; (3) the appropriation of the
righteousness and holiness of that new and perfect
humanity which God created in Christ.
There must be, first, the renunciation of the
previous moral life. Paul told the Ephesian Christ
ians that "as concerning [their] former manner of
life " they had been taught that they must "put away
. . . the old man which waxeth corrupt after the

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 311
lusts of deceit." The ethical change was not to be
partial but complete. To amend some of the details
of conduct was not enough ; they had to part with
all their previous moral habits and to retain nothing
of their previous moral personality.1
But this complete moral revolution is not accom
plished either by one supreme effort of our own will
or by any momentary shock of Divine power. It
must be carried through in detail by a long, laborious,
and sometimes painful process of self discipline. The
process lasts as long as life lasts. / For with the
changing years there is a change in the forms of
moral evil which have to be resisted and put away
from us. We may have won a complete victory over
the sins to which we were liable in youth and early
manhood ; but in mature life and in old age we dis
cover that fresh tendencies to sin emerge, tendencies
the presence of which in our nature we had never
suspected. The earlier triumphs make the later
triumphs easier, but do not release us from the hard
necessities of battle. y
Self examination is necessary. Our moral habits
must be compared, one by one, with the command-

1 The "former manner of life" concerns the whole moral
nature of man before his conversion, and the requirement to
" ¦trut away the old man " affirms that the converted man is to
retain nothing of his pre-Christian moral personality, but as
concerns the pre-Christian conduct of life is utterly to do away
with the old ethical individuality and to become the new man."
—Meyer, in loc.

312 LECTURES 0" THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.

ments of Christ, and their conformity with the genius
and spirit of Christian ethics must be patiently and
honestly tested./ We must contrast our own manner
of life, in its details, with the manner of life of
other Christian men in whom we recognise a noble
righteousness and charity. In the humblest and
obscurest of our Christian brethren we may often
discover virtues which bring home to us how in
completely we have mastered our inferior and baser
self. The imperfections in other men which provoke
our resentment may make more vivid to us our own
imperfections. The resentment itself, by its bitter
ness and impatience, may reveal to us a vanity, a
wilfulness, and an impatience which we thought we
had subdued. By these and by other means we may
learn how much of "our former manner of life" still
lemains in our spirit and conduct and what moral
evils have still to be "put away!' y
There must be self discipline as well as self
examination. Self reproach, penitent confession,
prayers for deliverance from an evil habit, are not
enough. Repentance is incomplete where there is no
reformation ; and for moral reformation there must
be personal effort as well as reliance on the Divine
grace. We must "work out [our] own salvation."
If we discover that we have fallen into habits of
careless speaking, and that with no deliberate in
tention to deceive we are frequently conveying false
impressions, we must call these habits by their right
name ; careless and inaccurate speaking is falsehood.

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 313
We must watch our words so as to check the sin.
We must speak less. We must think before we
speak. We must submit to the humiliation of cor
recting the false impressions which we have created
by our carelessness. If we find that we judge men
hastily and harshly, condemn them on inadequate
evidence, draw injurious conclusions from facts of
which perhaps we have an imperfect knowledge, we
must break the habit of rash judgment, must be
silent about the conduct of other men till we are
sure that we are right, and even when we are sure
that we are right ask ourselves whether there is any
obligation resting upon us to pronounce any judg
ment at all. If we find that we are disposed to
indolence we must try to discover whether we are
yielding to any forms of physical indulgence which
are unfriendly to vigorous and persistent industry,
and avoid them. If sometimes we are betrayed into
excessive drinking we must consider whether our
moral safety does not require us to abstain altogether
from the kinds of drink that are perilous to us.
These are but illustrations of a general law.
Habit after habit must be broken if we are to "put
away as concerning [our] former manner of life the
old man which is corrupt according to the lusts of
deceit!' We have passed into a new world and we
know things as they are ; but there was a time
when the eternal realities of the universe were not
revealed to us and when our moral nature was under
the control of false conceptions of human life and

314 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
human destiny. These false conceptions exerted a
pernicious influence on the desires and impulses of
our moral life ; and " the lusts of deceit" the passions
which were developed into vigour before we knew
the truth concerning ourselves, the world, and God,
corrupted our whole moral nature, introduced into
it the elements of disease, poisoned its blood, im
paired its fibre. It is not in a single limb or a single
organ that we are affected ; the very springs of life
are foul ; corruption has already set in. We must
" put away " our old self. The whole structure of
our former moral character and habits must be
demolished and the ruins cleared away, that the build
ing may be recommenced from its very foundation.
" The old man is corrupt after the lusts of deceit!' x
The Christian method of moral regeneration in
cludes a second process, of another and a very
different kind. The truth which the apostle assumes
had been taught to the Ephesian Christians required
them to " be renewed in the spirit of [their] mind!'

1 Writing to those who had become Christians in manhood,
the apostle naturally spoke to them of the necessity of re
nouncing their " former manner of life," the morality of their
heathen days. The same exhortation would take a different
form when addressed to persons who received the Christian
faith and were "born of God" in their early life, and who are
therefore happily free from the sad memory of many years of
flagrant indifference to the Divine authority. But in them
too there is an "old man," a baser nature, a morality formed
by the current opinions and prevalent habits of the world ; and
they have to put it away.

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 315
In his representation of the moral ruin of the
heathen he described them as walking " in the vanity
of their mind." By the "mind" he meant what we
sometimes describe as the higher reason, a faculty
which is at once speculative and practical. It
apprehends the higher forms of truth and so de
termines the laws of life and conduct. In heathen
men this regal faculty had been so impaired by the
ascendancy of the lower elements of their nature that
it mistook shadows for substances, earthly clouds for
the everlasting hills of the kingdom of God. Those
eternal things which are the ultimate foundation of
the laws of human conduct were unknown ; and
until they are known it is impossible to achieve a
high and perfect form of morality.
The "spirit" which is that element of our life
which comes to us direct from God and by which we
are akin to God, restores to the " mind" its soundness
and health, the clearness of its vision, and its practical
force and authority. In this high region of our nature
Paul finds the springs of moral regeneration. It is by
the discovery of the invisible kingdom of God that we
learn the laws by which we are to be governed in the
external and accidental relations of this transitory
world. In sailing across the troubled ocean of life, with
its changing winds and unknown currents, we steer by
the stars. Strength as well as light comes to us from
invisible and eternal things ; from the immeasur
able love of God, from the glory of His perfection,
from the knowledge that He is our comrade in every

3i6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
conflict with sin, that He is troubled by our defeats
and rejoices in our victories, from the hope of dwelling
for ever in His eternal peace and righteousness and
joy. But if we are to be under the constant control of
that spiritual universe by which we are environed,
there must be a constant renewal of the spiritual life.
It is not enough that, once for all, we have been
born of God. Paul assumes that the Ephesian
Christians were regenerate of the Holy Spirit. Re
generation must be followed by renewal. The Divine
life given in the new birth must be fed from its eternal
springs, or the stream will soon run shallow, will
cease to flow, will at last disappear altogether. We
must " be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind"
The constant renewal of the spiritual life is the
work of the Spirit of God ; but we are not the merely
passive subjects of His grace. It is our duty to
" be renewed" We are required to form the moral
and spiritual habits which render possible, and which
secure, the fresh access from day to day of Divine in
spiration. There should be an habitual remembrance
of the power and goodness of the Spirit, whose com
ing has more than compensated for the loss of the
earthly ministry and visible presence of Christ.
There should be habitual trust in Him as the Giver
of light, of strength, of joy, and of righteousness.
There should be habitual prayer for His teaching and
His strong support. We should think much of God,
and our thoughts of Him should be determined and

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 317
controlled by the revelation of Himself in Christ, who
is the " Truth " as well as the " Way " and the " Life."
Relying on the illumination of the Divine Spirit,
our thoughts should dwell constantly on the relations
of human life to God and on the thoughts of God
concerning human duty and destiny. We should
"mind" — not "earthly things" — but things heavenly
and Divine ; for our citizenship is in heaven, our
riches, our honour, our blessedness, our home are
there. By such means as these we shall secure for the
Divine life given in regeneration constant freshness
and the vigour of immortal youth ; from day to day
we shall " be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind!'
For the completion of our moral regeneration a
third process is necessary ; we have to "put on the
new man, which after God hath been created in right
eousness and holiness of truth!'
In the incarnation of the Eternal Word in Christ,
in Christ's life, death, and resurrection, there was
not merely a development of pre-existent powers and
capacities of humanity which had been latent, but a
new creation. Human nature felt once more the touch
of the Divine hand, and was raised to new heights of
spiritual energy and perfection by the Divine life and
power. Humanity was created afresh in Christ,
created "after God" in the image of the Divine
perfection ; and that image consists in " righteousness
and holiness of truth"
"Righteousness" is the conformity of conduct to
those eternal laws which have their glorious iliustra-

3i8 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
tion in the moral perfection of the Divine nature.
It covers our relations both to man and God. It
includes the discharge of all the claims of an ideal
law. "Holiness" according to the ordinary use of the
word, emphasises the religious element in righteous
ness, and describes human perfection as based upon
Divine laws. But in this place I think that we are to
conceive of a perfection determined by something
higher than any laws, whether human or Divine ; a
perfection formed and inspired by the immediate
vision of God, and by participation in the life of God.
The " righteousness " is a righteousness " of truth"
and the "holiness" a holiness " of truth." Heathen
men were under the control of false and misleading
conceptions of human life, of man's present condi
tion, and of his eternal destiny. They had lost the
vision of real and eternal things, and lived among
shadows. Their moral life was corrupted by "the
lusts of deceit." The perfect humanity which God
has created in Christ is raised above tie region of
shadows, and is in direct contact with the universe of
Divine and eternal realities. Its righteousness does
not consist in conformity to the laws of an imperfect,
a transient morality, but in conformity to the eternal
laws of the Divine kingdom ; its holiness is not an
external and technical sanctity, but the reflection of
the holiness of God Himself. The new humanity
created in Christ bears the image of God in " right
eousness and holiness of truth!'

lect. xvii.] MORAL REGENERATION. 319

This humanity we are required to "put on." And
the moral process by which we "put on the new man "
corresponds closely to the moral process by which we
" put off the old man." As we cannot disengage
ourselves from all the moral habits of our old life
by a supreme act of will, neither can we by a
supreme act of will appropriate and make our own
the righteousness and holiness of the humanity of
Christ. To " put off the old man " there must be
persistent and painful effort ; and persistent if not
painful effort is necessary to "put on the new man!'
We are to "put on " Christ. We are to make our
own every separate element of His righteousness and
holiness. We are to make His humility ours, and
His courage, His gentleness, and His invincible in
tegrity ; His abhorrence of sin, and His mercy for the
penitent ; His delight in the righteousness of others,
and His patience for their infirmities ; the quiet
submission with which He endured His own sufferings,
and His compassion for the sufferings of others ; His
indifference to ease and wealth and honour, and His
passion for the salvation of men from all their sins
and all their sorrows. We are to make His perfect
faith in the Father ours, and His perfect loyalty to
the Father's authority; His delight in doing the
Father's will ; His zeal for the Father's glory. The
perfection at which we have to aim is not a mere
dream of the imagination, but the perfection which
human nature has actually reached in Christ.
It is sometimes alleged that our faith in the

320 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
Divinity of Christ destroys the value of His example,
and that it is only those who believe that He was a
man and nothing more who can attempt, with any
hope of success, to imitate His perfections. But it is
precisely because Christ is Divine that I have the
courage to make His life the law of mine. His cha
racter so far transcends all the common measures of
human righteousness that if He were only a man I
should regard Him with wonder and admiration, but
with despair. I should suppose that He had a unique
genius for moral and spiritual perfection. For me
to attempt to imitate "Hamlet" or "Paradise Lost"
would be insane presumption, for I have not the
intellectual genius of Shakspere or Milton, and since
Shakspere and Milton were men like myself they can
not make their genius mine. And if Christ were
only a man He would be unable to inspire me with
that genius for righteousness which alone would
account for His transcendent perfection. But He is
Divine. His human perfection was really human,
but it was the translation into a human character
and history of the life of God. He is living still. The
fountains of my life are in Him. It is the eternal
purpose of the Father that as the branch receives and
reveals the life which is in the vine I should receive
and reveal the life which is in Christ. When there
fore I attempt to "put on" Christ, or to make my own
the perfect humanity which God created in Him, I
am not attempting to imitate a perfection which in
its spirit and form may be alien from my own moral

lect. xvu.J MORAL REGENERATION. 321
temperament and character, and which may be alto
gether beyond my strength ; I am but developing a
life and energy which God has already given to me.
If I am in Christ the spiritual forces which were illus
trated in the righteousness and holiness of Christ's
life are already active in my own life.
But these forces are not mere instincts which act
blindly and unintelligently ; they require the control
and direction of the reason illuminated by the Spirit
of God. They do not render moral effort unneces
sary ; they make moral effort in its most energetic
form possible, and they achieve their triumph by sus
taining a vigorous and unceasing endeavour after
moral and spiritual perfection.
Christ is the prophecy of our righteousness as
well as the Sacrifice for our sins — the prophecy, not
merely the example or the law, of our righteous
ness ; for He came down from heaven to give the
very life of God to man, and in the power of that life
all righteousness is possible. The prophecy has been
fulfilled in every generation since He ascended to the
Father, and in every country in which the Christian
Faith has been preached. It has been the custom of
Christian apologists to vindicate the Divine origin
of the revelations contained in our sacred books, by
recalling the ruin which fell upon mighty empires
that were menaced with the judgments of God. The
fallen temples and palaces of Nineveh and Babylon,
of Karnac and of Thebes, are declared to be the
enduring demonstration of the Divine commission Y

322 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvii.
of the prophets of the ancient Faith. I prefer to
appeal to the fulfilment of a prophecy of a more
gracious and wonderful kind. The Lord Jesus Christ
announced that He had come to give to the human
race a new and diviner life, and strength to achieve
a diviner righteousness. And we see that these great
words have been accomplished. He has originated a
new and nobler type of moral character and a new
and nobler religious Faith. He Himself has been
the root of the new ethical and spiritual life which
has revealed its strength and its grace in Christian
nations. His own unique perfection has been repeated,
in humbler forms, in the lives of innumerable saints.
The Vine has sent forth its branches into all lands,
and men of every variety of civilization and of cul
ture, of every variety of moral temperament and
moral character, have illustrated the characteristic
qualities of Christ's own righteousness. In Him a
new humanity was created. He is the Head of a new
race. We ourselves are conscious that through Him
we have passed into the kingdom of God, are under
the authority of its august and eternal laws, and that
if our union with Him were more intimate we should
have strength to achieve an ideal perfection.

XVIII.
MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS.
" Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his
neighbour : for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin
not : let not the sun go down upon your wrath : neither give place to the
devil. Let him that stole steal no more : but rather let him labour,
working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have ivhei'eof
to give to him that hath need. Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your
mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may
give grace to them that hear. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in
whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and
wrath, and anger, and clamour, and railing, be put away from you,
with all malice : and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving
each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you. Be ye therefore
imitators of God, as beloved children ; and walk in love, even as Christ
also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to
God for an odour of a sweet smell. But fornication, and all unclean-
ness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh
saints ; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not
befitting : but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know of a surety,
that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an
idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let
no man deceive you with empty words : for because of these things cometh
the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore
partakers with them ; for ye were once darkness, but are now light in the
Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all good
ness and righteousness and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the
Lord ; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather even reprove them ; for the things which are done by them in
secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are
reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is mad.'
manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that steepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee. Look therefore
323

324 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xvm.
carefully how ye wain, not as unwise, but as wise ; redeeming the ti?ne,
because the days are evil. ¦ Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand
what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunken with wine, wherein
is riot, but be filled with the Spirit ; speaking one to another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your
heart to the Lord ; giving thanks always for all things in the name oj
our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father ; subjecting yourselves one
to another in the fear of Christ. '' Eph. iv. 25 — v. 21.

WHILE reading these precepts we seem to have
descended very far from the great words
about the eternal purposes of God in relation to the
perfection and glory of the human race, and the
ultimate restoration of the whole universe to perfect
unity in Christ, with which the Epistle begins. We
have passed from heaven to earth, from the serene
heights ot eternity to the confusions of time, from the
sanctity of the life of God to the foulness and dark
ness of the worst forms of human sin.
But unless we retain a vivid impression of the
earlier chapters of the Epistle, with their great dis
coveries of the Divine ideal of the righteousness,
the honour, and the blessedness of human nature,
we shall fail to apprehend the loftiness of these moral
precepts and we shall miss the force of the appeals
by which they are sustained. For although these
precepts are directed against very gross vices, Paul
is inculcating no common morality, and the motives
with which he endeavours to inspire and strengthen
obedience are drawn from sources lying far beyond
the limits of ordinary moral teaching.
The "wherefore" (ver. 25) with which the series of

lect. xvhl] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 325
precepts begins attaches them immediately to the
words we were considering in the last lecture. The
Ephesian Christians had " heard " Christ ; they were
" in Him," and what they had been taught was truth
"as truth is in Jesus." They had learnt that they
must renounce their old moral life and their old moral
habits ; that from day to day their higher life must
be renewed by the power and grace of God ; and
that they must make their own that new and perfect
humanity which was the image of God " in righteous
ness and holiness of truth." But this — which I called
the Christian method of moral regeneration — implies
all that Paul had said about the great thoughts of God
concerning the human race. The general precept
requiring those who had sunk into the grossest vices
to make the moral perfection of Christ their own
is only the practical application of the truths which
Paul has illustrated in the earlier part of the Epistle.
God "hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places in Christ ; even as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blemish before Him
in love : having foreordained us unto adoption as sons.
through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will, according to the glory
of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the
Beloved." In Christ we were made God's " heritage,"
in Christ we were "sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise which is an earnest of our inheritance,"
" The exceeding greatness of [God's] power to us-

3=6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
ward who believe" is "according to that working
of the strength of His might which He wrought in
Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made
Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places."
It was this Divine power that quickened us when we
were dead through our trespasses and sins, and raised
us up with Christ, and " made us to sit with Him in
the heavenly places, in Christ." "We are [God's] work
manship created in Christ Jesus for good works which
God afore prepared that we should walk in them."
We must believe all these great and wonderful things,
or else we shall have no courage to accept the Lord
Jesus Christ as the law of our righteousness and to
attempt to rise to the height of His perfection.
Paul began with God's great purpose that the life
and power and glory of Christ should be ours. Since
this is God's purpose, he has reminded the Ephesian
Christians that they must "put on the new man
which after God hath been created in righteousness
and holiness of truth." And now, descending to the
details of conduct, he says : —
" Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth
each one with his neighbour: for we are members
one of another" We are "in Christ," members
of the body of Christ, and therefore "members
one of another" To be guilty of falsehood is for
the eye to deceive the hand, or for the ear to
deceive the foot. The ground on which Paul rests
the duty of truthfulness shows that he was think
ing of the intercourse of Christian people with

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 327
vach other. But if the Ephesian Christians were
restrained from falsehood in their intercourse with
each other by a vivid remembrance of the fact that
they were "members one of another " — if this element
of their religious faith became an effective law of
conduct in the church — it would be as impossible for
them to lie to heathen men as to lie to their Christian
brethren. For if they were "members one of another"
it was because they were all members of the body of
Christ. They were the visible revelation to men of
the invisible life of Christ. They were the organs of
His will. He was working through their hands,
speaking through their lips. They were under grave
obligations to each other ; they were under graver
obligations to Him. For them to lie, whether to
heathen man or to Christian, would be to offer
violence to Him who was the very life of their life ;
it would be to implicate Christ, who is the Truth, in
the shame and dishonour of falsehood.
" Be ye angry and sin not." Anger in itself is not
sinful. Christ, whose perfection is the root and law
of ours, was sometimes angry. It would be sinful not
to be kindled to indignation by baseness, treachery,
cruelty, and hypocrisy. But anger must not be
suffered to break out into violence. It must be kept
within the control of conscience and of reason. It
must not be poisoned by malignity, or degenerate
into revenge. And the heat, the agitation, of it must
be soon repressed.
Anger itself, a deep, serious, moral resentment

32S LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
against a grave moral offence, may continue. There
are cases in which it ought to continue. If I ought
to regard an offence with moral indignation to-day,
it is quite clear that I ought not to meet the man
who has been guilty of it to-morrow, as though he
were blameless. The moral resentment will remain
unless he has repented of the wrong. But in the
first moments of great anger there is wrath ; we are
excited ; the blood is hot ; we are exasperated. And
while this lasts we are especially accessible to the
temptation of those evil spirits of whose malignant
power Paul has more to say later on in the Epistle.1
He therefore says, "Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath, neither — by letting the passionate agi
tation continue — give place to the devil!' We are the
body of Christ, a holy temple, and should fortify
ourselves against every approach of the spirit of
wickedness. There were men in the Ephesian church who had
lived by theft, and Paul's words show that he thought
that some of them might be thieving still.2 He is not
satisfied with charging them to give up stealing, and
to earn their own living by honest labour. If they
worked for themselves merely, this would not be to
" put on " Christ, for the law of Christ's life was
charity. He therefore says : "Let him that stole — and
' Chap. vi. 12 seq.
2 Why did the Revisers retain, "Let him that stole"'}
'O Kkiitrav is a man that is stealing now. They might at least
have translated, " Let the thief thieve no more.''

lect. xviii ] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 329
is stealing now — steal no more; but rather let him
labour, working with his hands — those hands with
which he stole — tlie thing that is good, that he may
liave to give to him that needeth."
The conversation of some of them was unfriendly
to a healthy, vigorous, and generous morality, and to
a pure and energetic religious life. It was like meat
which had begun to go bad. It did men harm instead
of good ; it did not* invigorate health but occasioned
disease. It was a hindrance to the purifying and en
nobling work of the Spirit of God, and it grieved Him.
Conversation of this kind was to be given up ; and they
were to take advantage of all the accidental circum
stances of life to say things that would contribute to
the strength and development of Christian character.
" Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but
such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it
may give grace to tliem that hear. And grieve not the
Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the
day of redemption." If He is grieved, the assurance
of their final redemption will be lost
The remembrance of God's great mercy to them
selves was to make them gentle and loving to others.
" Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour,
and railing, be put away from -you, with all malice!'
This will be to " put away the old man." But to
" put on the new man," which after God is created
in righteousness and holiness of truth, there must be
something more : " be ye kind one to another, tender
hearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ

33° LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii
forgave you. Be ye therefore imitators of God, and
walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave
Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for
an odour of a sweet smell"
Paul then places " covetousness" avarice, a lust for
wealth, in the same rank as offences which come
from lusts of a fouler kind : "But fornication, and all
itncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named
among you, as becometh saints!' The vices are so
gross that they ought to disappear, to disappear so
completely that their very names shall go out of use.
" Filthiness " — impurity of act or speech, "foolish
talking" and "jesting" are also to disappear, and to
disappear as completely as covetousness and the
grosser vices. They are " not befitting"; they do
not harmonize with the character, the prerogatives,
and the destiny of saints. " Foolish talking" is the
talk of a fool, of a man that is insensible to the graver.
aspects of human life. The great discoveries of God
and of eternity, of our own present relations to God
and of our future glory, which have come to us
through Christ, exert their power on the mind as
well as on the heart and on outward conduct. They
give a certain intellectual nobleness even to unculti
vated and simple men. They inspire self respect
and dignity. As the pride of the Roman people was
justly offended when they saw an emperor descend
into the arena with charioteers and gladiators, so
the finer feeling of the Christian church is justly

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 331
offended when Christian men indulge in buffoonery
and play the fool. This is " not befitting!' It should
have no place among Christian people, and to find
pleasure in such folly is also below the dignity of
those who live near to the throne of God.
In condemning "jesting" Paul does not mean to
insist that the conversation of Christian men should
be always grave and serious. The mind needs rest
as well as the body. There is a time to play as well
as to work. Amusement has its legitimate place in
the intellectual life ; and if the mind is subjected to
an incessant strain its strength will be broken down.
The bright flashes of wit and the pleasant gleams of
a kindly humour may be as beautiful and as harm
less as the play of the sunlight among the trees or on
the ripples of a mountain stream. The "jesting"
which Paul describes as " not befitting " is the kind
of conversation that reaches its. perfection in a civil
ized, luxurious, and brilliant society which has no
faith in God, no reverence for moral law, no sense of
the grandeur of human life, no awe in the presence of
the mystery of death. In such a society, to which
the world is the scene of a pleasant comedy in which
all men are actors, a polished insincerity and a
versatility which is never arrested by strong and
immovable convictions are the objects of universal
admiration. The foulest indecencies are applauded,
if they are conveyed under the thin disguise of a
graceful phrase, a remote allusion, an ingenious
ambiguity. There is a refinement to which, not vice

332 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
itself, but the coarseness of vice is distasteful, and
which regards, with equal resentment the ruggedness
of virtue. This is the kind of "jesting" that Paul
so sternly condemns. It is destructive both of faith
and of morality. The tongue was made for nobler
uses. Instead of "foolish talking" and "jesting"
there should be " giving of thanks."
The apostle warns his readers that these sins, if
not forsaken, will end in the loss of all their glorious
hopes ; and again he places covetousness among gross
sensual sins. Indeed he singles it out for emphatic
condemnation. The Ephesian Christians had come
out of heathenism, and to them the service of false
gods was the one sin which represented the dark and
evil life from which they had been delivered by the
power and grace of God. Between themselves and
their idolatrous fellow citizens they thought that there
was an infinite distance. But Paul tells them that
"the covetous man " is "an idolater" still ; he is unre
deemed from his old heathen life, and has no place in
the Divine kingdom. " For this ye know of a surety,
that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous
man which is an idolater, liath any inheritance in the
kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you
with empty words, for because of these things cometh
the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience!'
He charges them not to share the sins of those
who are menaced with the Divine wrath ; for if they
share the sins they will share the doom. "Be not ye
therefore partakers with them. For ye were once

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 333
darkness — as they are still — but are now light in
the Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the
light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth)
proving what is well pleasing to the Lord," learning
by actual obedience to the precepts and Spirit of
Christ what kind of a life Christ delights in.
Nor will it be enough if they themselves renounce
heathen vices, and illustrate in their own character
the " goodness and righteousness and truth " which
are "the fruit of the light." The light which has
transfigured their own life is to reach and trans
figure the life of others. " Have no fellowship with
the unfruitful works of darkness — works which yield
no honour or blessing — but rather even reprgve them"
There is an awful need for this reproof, for the
secret vices of the heathen are so horrible that a pure
minded man shrinks from naming them, "for the
things which are done by them in secret it is a shame
even to speak of"
But to the men that commit these vices it is neces
sary to speak of them, though we may refuse to speak
of them to others. If they are to be convicted of
their guilt and brought to penitence, the enormity of
their offences must be made plain and brought home
to them ; " all things when they are reproved are made
manifest by the light!' And if they really discover
the true character of their sin, if the light reaches
them, they will cease to sin. Darkness when it is
shone upon is darkness no longer ; "for everything
that is made manifest is light"

334 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
And, quoting very freely the words of the prophet
Isaiah (chap. Ix., ver. i), Paul reminds the Ephesian
Christians that Christ Himself came to give us light.
" Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and
arise from tlie dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee!'
In carrying the light of God into the secrecy and
darkness which concealed the grossest vices of
heathenism, they would be doing the very work of
their Lord.
Paul now returns to the laws which should regulate
the conduct of the Ephesian Christians themselves.
In ver. 8, 9, he had charged them to " walk as child
ren of light, . . . proving what is well pleasing
to the Lord." He now says that if they are to do
this they must closely and accurately consider their
moral habits, and must know how they are living.
There must be active thought, not merely about
speculative questions, but about conduct, and about
their own conduct. Whatever other knowledge might
be beyond their reach, they must not miss the know- .
ledge of themselves and of their own moral life. In
this lies the difference between wisdom and want of
wisdom. " Look therefore carefully how ye walk ; not
as unwise but as wise." With this vigilance directed
to conduct there should be alertness of mind to re
cognise, in the constant flux and vicissitude of human
affairs, varying opportunities for doing the will of
God ; and as these opportunities occurred they were
to use them at whatever cost. They were to " redeem
the lime."

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 335
There was the greater need for this alertness, and
for this resoluteness to let slip no chance of doing
God's will, because the moral corruption which sur
rounded them was unfriendly to Christian righteous
ness. This increased their obligation to live right
eously : for by their righteousness they were to
offer a continual protest on behalf of the Divine
authority which other men had forgotten. They
were to " [redeem] the time because the days [were]
evil" And again he insists on the duty of culti
vating practical Christian wisdom : " Wherefore be
ye not foolish, biit understand what the will of the
Lord is."
Paul closes this series of miscellaneous moral pre
cepts by a precept against drunkenness. This precept
follows very naturally what he has said about the
necessity of wisdom. For even a wise man when he
is drunk becomes a fool ; the light of reason and of
conscience is quenched, and the blind impulses of his
physical nature are left without control. Some men
take drink in excess to deaden their sensibility to
trouble, to lessen the pain of distressing memories or
distressing fears. With them it acts as an opiate.
But Paul was thinking of those who drink to excess
because intoxication, at least in its early stages, gives
them excitement. It exalts the activity both of their
Intellect and of their emotion. Thought becomes
more vivid and more rapid. The colours of imagi
nation become more brilliant. Their whole physical
nature becomes more animated. The river of life,

336 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
which had sunk low and had been moving sluggishly,
suddenly rises, becomes a rushing flood, and over
flows its banks. This is the kind of drinking which
betrays men into violence and profligacy. "Be not
drunken with wine" for in drunkenness there is " riot"
dissoluteness, release from all moral restraint.
The craving for a fuller, richer life, for hours in
which we rise above ourselves, and pass the normal
and customary limitations of our powers, is a natural
craving. Paul indicates how it should be satisfied :
" Be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be
filled with the Spirit" Forsake the sins which
render it impossible for the pure and righteous Spirit
of God to grant you the fulness of His inspiration ;
keep the channels open through which the streams
that flow from Divine and eternal fountains may
find their way into your nature ; and then the
dull monotony of life will be broken, and hours of
generous excitement will come. The grey clouds
will break, and the splendours of heaven will be
revealed ; the common earth will be filled for a little
time with a great glory. Harmonies such as never
fell on mortal ear will reach the soul. The limita
tions which are imposed upon us in this mortal con
dition will for a time seem to disappear. Your vision
of eternal things will have a preternatural keenness.
Your joy in God will be an anticipation of the blessed
life beyond the grave. And, looking back upon these
perfect hours, you will say, whether we were in the
body or out of the body we cannot tell.

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 337
But some men drink, not so much for the sake of
personal excitement, as for the sake of good fellow
ship. They never drink much when they are alone ;
and when they are in company they drink to excess
because, as the heat of intoxication increases, it seems
to thaw and dissolve all reserve ; conversation flows
more freely, and becomes more frank ; mind touches
mind more closely ; lives which had been isolated
from each other blend and flow in a common channel.
Perpetual isolation is as intolerable as perpetual
monotony. We were not made to live a separate
and lonely life. This is the secret of our delight in
listening to a great orator addressing a great assem
bly. If it were possible for him to touch the same
heights of eloquence when speaking to us alone we
should be less moved. We like to lose our indi
viduality in the crowd ; sharing their thought, our
own thought becomes more vivid ; sharing their pas
sions, our own passion becomes more intense. It is
hard to explain the mystery ; but we are conscious of
it ; the poor and narrow stream of our own life flows
into the open sea, and the large horizon, and the free
winds, and the mighty tides become ours. We have
all known the same delight while listening in a crowd
to a great singer or a great chorus. The craving for
this larger life in the society of other men is as
natural as the craving for excitement ; and Paul tells
the Ephesian Christians that instead of trying to
satisfy it by drinking with other men they should
satisfy it by common worship and by sacred song.
Z

338 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
The church was to have its festivals as well as its
days of sorrowful humiliation and agonising prayer.
They were to " speak to one another in psalms and
hymns," and in "songs" which came to them from
the inspiration of the Spirit of God. The genius of
the poet and of the singer was to be consecrated to
the service of the church; 'as well as the genius of the
orator. Their singing was not always to be worship ad
dressed to God ; they were to sing to each other as
well as to Him. As the preacher speaks to the
church, so those who have the gift of song are to sing
to the church : to sing pathetic songs about the
Divine pity, to soothe sorrow ; triumphant songs
about the love of God, to fill the heart with joy ;
songs about God's power, to give new energy to
courage ; songs about the glory of heaven, to trans
figure hope into rapture ; songs about the infinite
grace of Christ and His death for our salvation, to
flood the soul with a passion of affection.
There is another kind of singing in which those who
have not the rare and beautiful gift of song may
take part ; while they are silent they may be " singing
and making melody with [their] heart to the Lord."
Thirdly, the life of every member of the church is
to flow into one great stream of thanksgiving to
God for all His goodness and grace. Whether in
prayer or in hymn, we are to celebrate His infinite
love and to bless Him for the blessings whiqh He has
bestowed upon us all, "giving thanks always for all

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 339
things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God,
even the Father!'
For the full joy of the festival, for the perfection
of this union with each other, there must be the sup
pression of self assertion, there must be the oblivion
of personal interests and personal claims ; we must
lose our own life in the larger life of the church, our
brethren must be more to us than ourselves — "sub
jecting [ourselves] one to another in the fear of Christ!'
The festivals of the church with their worship and
sacred song are to give a noble satisfaction to that
craving for a common life which men endeavour to
satisfy in a base and ignoble form by drunkenness
and riot.
In reviewing these precepts I think that our first
impression must be one of surprise at the lofty forms
of virtue which Paul requires from men who had sunk
into the grossest vices. In precept after precept
he illustrates the great principle with which he began.
He charges them not only to put away the vices of
a most" corrupt heathenism but to put on the very
perfections of Christ The transition is to be from
the deepest moral debasement to the very highest
levels of righteousness. The existence or the pos
sibility of- any intermediate form of morality is not
recognised. They are to put away lying ; but it is not enough
that they should cease to be guilty of deliberately
and intentionally conveying a false impression, they

340 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.

are to take great care that the impression their words
convey is exact and true. Their truthfulness is to
be the truthfulness of the eye and the ear to the hand
and the foot. Men are members one of another.
What I know, I know, not for my own sake but for
the sake of other men, just as the eye sees or the ear
hears, not for itself but for the whole body. The
obligations of charity re-enforce the authority of truth
fulness. We are not to think of our own honour or
our own interest in what we say, but simply of the
interest of our neighbour ; and so neither vanity nor
selfishness will be permitted to impair our precise.
accuracy. This will secure not only truthfulness but
candour. A keen observer of human life has de
scribed a man as having " an innate love of reticence
. . . a talent for it, which acted as other impulses
do, without any conscious motive." l There are people
who may not injure others by saying what is false,
but who may inflict injury almost as grave by not
saying anything. The same great consideration to
which Paul appealed in order to discipline the
Ephesians to truthfulness would discipline them to
the highest form of that virtue, would not only deliver
them from habits of falsehood but make them candid
and frank. The eye conceals nothing which it sees,
and which it is the interest of the body to know.
The man who is guilty of theft is of course to cease
thieving. But this is not enough. There may be

1 Description of Tito, in "Romola.''

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 341
honesty with the most intense selfishness. Paul trans
figures labour, and requires those who were stealing,
to work that they may be able to give.
It is not enough that men whose conversation has
been morally and religiously pernicious should avoid
" corrupt " speech ; their words are to build up the
religious life and strength of other men, and are to be
channels of Divine grace. Men who have been guilty
of bitterness and malice against those who have
wronged them, who have clamoured against them and
railed against them, are to imitate the very mercy of
God, to " be kind to one another, tender hearted, for
giving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave "
[them]. Their lives are to be inspired with the love
and gentleness of Christ. Instead of foolish talking
and cynical heartless insincerity, there is to be the
" giving of thanks.!' Those who were guilty of sensual
sins were not only to forsake these sins but were to
rescue other 1 men from them, were to have that
Divine purity which would enable them to reprove
deeds which " it is a shame even to speak of," were
to shine, as the light of God, on those who were
committing the darkest and foulest vices, and so to
change sinners into saints. Drunkards are not only
to become sober but to be filled with the Holy Ghost,
and from the lips which had sung wild and coarse
songs of riotous excess are to come psalms and
hymns and songs inspired by the Spirit of God.
Christian faith and Christian morals are inseparable.

342 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
The most wonderful mysteries of the Christian reve
lation have a direct relation to conduct. When the
apostle charges the Ephesian Christians to " put away
as concerning [their] former manner of life the old
man which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit
. . . to be renewed in the spirit of [their] mind,
and to put on the new man which after God hath
been created in righteousness and holiness of truth,"
it. is plain that he assumes that they knew and be
lieved what he had said to them about their having
been elected in Christ before the foundation of the
world, about their having risen with Him in His
resurrection to a new and Divine life, about their
being God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
good works. And the particular precepts which we
have been considering in this lecture are sustained by
sanctions and motives derived from the invisible and
spiritual universe.
It is interesting and instructive to notice that these
sanctions and motives are derived from the most
gentle and gracious as well as from the most terrible
aspects of the Christian revelation, and that truths
which are regarded by some as belonging to the
region of the most unpractical mysticism are invoked
as a protection from coarse vices and a support to
common virtues. To restrain and repress the malig
nant passions, and to encourage kindness and tender
ness of heart, Paul reminds the Christians at Ephesus
of the infinite mercy of God who had forgiven their
sins, of the perfect love of Christ, and of His sacrifice

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 343
for human redemption. To check their "corrupt
speech " he warns them that it will " grieve . . . the
Holy Spirit of God in whom [they] were sealed
unto the day of redemption." To enforce the
obligations of truthfulness he tells them that as they
were members of the body of Christ they were
" members one of another." ¦ To strengthen his pre
cept against drunkenness he reminds them that it
is possible for them to be filled with the Holy
Ghost. To quench the flames of a sudden and
violent anger a sharper and more peremptory motive
was necessary, a motive that would act in a moment ;
and he therefore warns them that if they do not
control and suppress their wrath they will " give
place to the devil." Those who are guilty of the
grosser sins which debase the whole moral nature
and harden the conscience and make men insensible
to motives which appeal to the loftier and more
generous elements of the moral life have to be dealt
with more sternly. Covetousness and sensual sins
require to be cowed with terror. They will not
yield to any nobler force. They are the vices of a
slavish nature, and those who are guilty of them must
be lashed by the Furies. They are told that unless
these vices are forsaken they can have no " inherit
ance in the kingdom of Christ and of God ... for
because of these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the sons of disobedience."
It may be objected that this exclusive appeal to
religious motives to enforce moral duties is inade-

344 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
quate and even illegitimate ; that, as I have myself
said elsewhere, " for the education of the conscience
we need moral teaching that is really moral, and
not religious ; teaching that appeals to the natural
conscience by natural means ; that trains the mind
to recognise for itself the righteousness of right
actions, right habits, • and right dispositions ; that
insists on the obligation to do right because it is
right, without appealing to the Divine authority and
to the penalties and rewards of sin and righteous
ness."1 " Corrupt speech " ought to be regarded with
loathing, and we ought to recoil from it without
remembering that it will grieve the Holy Spirit of
God. Lying in itself ought to be regarded with
stern moral condemnation ; and in order to be loyal
to truth it ought not to be necessary for us to re
member that we are members of the body of Christ
and therefore members one of another. And we
¦should be restrained from gross sensual sins by our
love of purity, not merely by dread of the wrath
of God.
The principle on which this objection rests is sound,
and deserves far more consideration in the Christian
church than I fear it has received. But as an ob
jection to Paul's method in this Epistle it cannot be
sustained. i
In the education of those whose moral life is not

1 " The Evangelical Revival, and other Sermons." (Hodder
and Stoughton.) Page 53.

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 345
already corrupt, and whose conscience is not already
hardened, there should be a careful cultivation of
"a genuine love of righteousness for its own sake,
a deep hatred of wrong doing, a sense of the re-
pulsiveness of moral evil and of the infinite love
liness of goodness, a dread of the moral shame and
of the moral humiliation which must come from a
neglect of duty, a strong passion for the honour of
victory over temptation." The natural conscience
should be " educated to see for itself the infinite and
eternal gulf between right and wrong, and educated
to see for itself the moral motives for right doing.
The moral affections to which righteousness appeals
should be trained to energetic activity."1 Paul
himself in writing to the Christians at Philippi
followed this very course. Without enforcing the
precept with any religious sanction he said to them :
" Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatso
ever things are of good report ; if there be any
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these
things." 2 But the fine moral discernment and the
delicate moral sensitiveness to which words like
these appeal had no existence among those Ephesian
Christians for whom the precepts we have been con
sidering were necessary. Paul had to speak to them
in quite another tone.
1 "Evangelical Revival," p. 54. 2 Phil, iv 8.

346 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect.xviii.
The vision of conscience becomes clear and its
authority firm by the practice of virtue. But these
men had been under no moral restraints. They had
lived in vice, and did not recognise the wickedness
and shamefulness of their evil life. But they had
religious faith, and in their religious faith was the
only security for their moral regeneration. If Paul
could restrain them from gross sensual sins by
menacing them with the Divine wrath, they would
gradually come to regard these sins with loathing.
Fear in itself has no moral quality ; but it may
shelter the soul from the access of those vices which
make the growth of the moral life impossible. If
Paul could restrain them from "corrupt speech" by
the menace that it would " grieve the Holy Spirit
of God," they would gradually come to regard
" corrupt speech ", with disgust Some of the re
ligious motives to which he appeals had a direct
tendency to develop ethical perfection. The re
membrance of the Divine mercy to ourselves softens
the severity of revenge, sweetens the spirit of bitter
ness, and makes us merciful and kind to other men.
And while these religious sanctions were of a kind
to rescue from vice men in whom the nobler elements
of the moral life had suffered appalling degradation,
they also, as I have already shown, suggest an ideal
of moral perfection fairer and diviner than the natural
conscience ever discovers when not invigorated and
exalted by religious faith.

lect. xviii.] MISCELLANEOUS MORAL PRECEPTS. 347
About a hundred years after this Epistle was
written the fortunes of the Roman empire were
under the control of a man who represents the
loftiest morality of paganism. In Marcus Aurelius
the severe virtues of stoicism were softened with a
humility, a gentleness, and a sadness which gave to
them an ineffable beauty and charm. Those who
held the highest offices in the state shared his noble
and generous philosophy. The whole power of the
Roman world was in the hands of men who professed
a doctrine which required a very lofty moral per
fection. Some of them at least — and among these
the emperor was conspicuous — were zealous and
patient in practising the precepts which they gave to
other men. There had been for many years a move
ment for the reformation of manners and the eleva
tion of the moral life of the empire. Under Marcus
Aurelius the movement culminated. The emperor
himself, before leaving for his great campaign in
central Europe, delivered a succession of public
addresses on morals to the Roman people.
But stoicism, with all the resources of the civilized
world on its side — wealth, learning, genius, eloquence,
supreme political power — was a failure. Christ
ianity, with all the resources both of the civilized
and the uncivilized world against it, won great and
enduring triumphs, created a new epoch in the
history of the human race. M. Renan, in contrast
ing these two movements, has touched the critical
difference between them. Christianity attempted

348 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xviii.
the reformation of morals by an appeal to the super
natural.1 And whenever the supernatural in the Christian
revelation is suppressed or concealed, whenever it
does not hold the chief place, the moral power of
Christianity is broken. The earth is kept in her orbit
by the attraction of the sun which rules her from
heaven ; and man is rescued from vice and disciplined
to virtue by the righteousness and love of God. The
laws of human duty come from those eternal and
Divine things by which human life is environed ; and
the life and vigour for the noblest forms of human
perfection come from Divine and eternal fountains.
Human nature can never bear the image of the Divine
righteousness until it is penetrated, inspired, and
transfigured by the Divine Spirit. Christian faith
is the root of Christian morality.
' Marc.-Aurile. Preface, page I.

XIX.
WIVES AND HUSBANDS.
" Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wif?, as Christ also is the head of the
church, being himself the saviour of the body. But as the church is sub
ject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and
gave Himself up for it; that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by
the washing of water with the word, that He might present the church to
Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing ;
but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands
also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own
wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church ; because we are members
of His body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh. This
mystery is great ; but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.
Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as him
self; and let the wife see that she fear her husband." Eph. v. 22-33.
A LARGE part of this Epistle is occupied with
the duties which arise from membership of the
Christian church, that Divine society which is the
visible revelation of the invisible kingdom of God.
The true Christian life is not an isolated life. To
live always alone, among Divine and eternal things,
is a false ideal of moral and religious perfection ;
and the attempt to reach this ideal impoverishes the
development of righteousness and narrows the Divine

35° LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
commandment which is " exceeding broad." We
belong to the city of God and are " fellow-citizens
with the saints" ; the noble duties of citizenship rest
upon us. We have to discharge offices of affection
and of service to those who have been received with
ourselves into the Divine "household." We are
" members of the body of Christ."
To Paul the Divine kingdom was more real as
well as more enduring than the empire. He has
been illustrating the duties which those who belong
to it owe to each other, and has also shown how its
laws are tp purify and elevate individual morals.
And now he passes to those institutions which
existed before the Christian church was founded,
and which, as they belonged to the Divine order
of human life, it was no part of the object of the
Christian church to suppress. Marriage, the family,
the organisation of industry, are necessary not only
to the physical existence of the race, but to the de
velopment of those social affections and the exercise
of those social virtues which constitute a large part of
human morality. In this Epistle Paul says nothing
about the State ; but elsewhere he recognises it as a
Divine institutioh for the repression of violence and
wrong ; "the powers that be are ordained of God." 1
He does not approach the consideration of any of
these institutions as a Christian politician, or as a
Christian jurist, or as a Christian social reformer. In

1 Rom, xiii. i.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 351
Paul's time the church was not strong enough to re
construct the framework of human life and to bring it
into harmony with the eternal laws of righteousness
and with the genius of the Christian Faith. As yet
society was pagan, and a pagan society must have
pagan institutions. The political, social and
domestic organisation of a people can never be
far in advance of their morality. As the Christian
Faith extended its authority over individuals it
gradually modified customs, laws, and institutions.
Its influence was felt first in the family, which
lies nearest to the life of ,the individual. It
then began to act on the organisation of society ;
alleviating the severities of slavery and ultimately
abolishing it ; providing for the relief of human
misery, by establishing homes for fatherless and
motherless children, hospitals for the sick, retreats
for the aged and the destitute, refuges for strangers.
Charity to the poor was honoured as the most ac
ceptable form of service that could be rendered to
God. The laws of the empire, which had already
lost something of their ancient rigour and austerity
under the influence of a lofty and generous philosophy,
were still 'further softened under the influence of the
new Faith. They'became more equitable and more
humane. Personal rights were surrounded with new
guarantees ; the control of the state over individual
life became less exorbitant, and the area of personal
freedom was enlarged. .,
But the time for these changes had not yet come.

352 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
Paul accepted the institutions of society as they
stood, and endeavoured to teach the Ephesian Christ
ians how they were to inspire the existing forms of
social organisation with a new and diviner life.
He begins with marriage. He has just said that
we are all to subject ourselves " one to another in
the fear of Christ"; a fear which has no terror in
it but which restrains waywardness and subdues a
hard and rugged nature to gentleness and courtesy.
And the general law which should govern the conduct
of all Christian people to each other in the church
is declared to be the law which should govern the
conduct of wives to 'their husbands in the family.
Miss Cobbe in her excellent lectures on the duties
of women has an interesting discussion on the vow
to " obey " which is required from the wife in the
marriage service of the Church of England ; she says
that " some people tell us that it is incumbent on a
woman to take and keep this vow, because she is
exhorted by St. Paul to 'obey her husband in the
Lord.' " Miss Cobbe objects to the vow ; and as to
Paul's authority she says that she is " too far outside
the pale of orthodoxy to consider a moral problem
to be solvable by a text" ; Y but she reminds those
who quote this passage to enforce the obedience of
wives, that Paul also commands slaves to obey their
masters ; and she argues that if the apostle's authority
1 " The Duties of Women." By Frances Power Cobbe.
(Williams and Norgate : 1881.) Page 102.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 353
cannot be quoted now to sustain the authority of
masters over slaves it cannot be quoted to sustain
the authority of husbands over wives.
About the direction which the apostle gives to
slaves to obey their masters I shall have something
to say in a future lecture. Meanwhile I can suggest
to Miss Cobbe a far more satisfactory way of dis
posing of the direction which the apostle is supposed
to have given to wives. He never said that they
were to " obey."
It is quite true that there are passages in Paul's
Epistles in which he recognises and does not con
demn the social inferiority assigned to women by
Greek civilization. It is equally true that he does
not recommend women to break out into revolt
against the injustice from which they suffered, but
to think more of their duties than of their rights.
It has been by reminding mankind of their duties
rather than of their rights that the Christian Faith
has gradually undermined some of the most ini
quitous institutions and customs of ancient heathen
ism. But there was a delicacy and refinement of
sentiment in Paul, and, notwithstanding the passages
to which I have referred, there was a certain
chivalrous feeling in him towards women, which
prevented him from saying that a woman was to
" obey her husband." He had discovered a mystery
iind a sacredness in marriage which prevented him
from saying it. The relations between husband
and wife seemed to him to be of a kind not to be
A A

354 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.

represented by bare authority on the one side and
mere obedience on the other.
He has said that all Christian people are to subject
themselves one to another in the fear of Christ ; and
without changing the word, indeed without repeating
it, he goes on to say that this precept should govern
the conduct of wives to husbands.1 To slaves he
said " obey," " be obedient " ; to wives he used a
word which he had just employed to describe the
conduct which we owe not merely to those who have
a right to command, but to our equals in the church.
The precept forbids a spirit of self assertion and
an anxious struggle for personal rights. It requires
the exercise of that charity which " vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself un
seemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh
not account of evil, . . . beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things." 2
Wives are to "be in subjection unto [their] own

1 In Titus ii. 5 the Authorised Version reads that wives are to
"be obedient to their own husbands," but the Revisers have
rightly given the more gracious word " being in subjection to
their own husbands." No doubt the word which Paul uses to
describe the duty of wives might also be applied, and was
actually applied by himself (Tit. ii. 9), to describe the duties of
slaves ; but it also admitted of the less severe use, and could
be employed to enforce the spirit of courtesy and self suppres
sion which we owe to our equals.
2 1 Cor. xiii. 4-7.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 355
husbands1 as unto the Lord" ; they are to show
their reverence for Christ by obeying this law ; even
when they may think that their husbands have for
feited all claims to their "subjection" they are to
remember that Christ's claims are unimpaired. Just
as servants are required to make their work for their
earthly masters part of their service to Christ, so wives
are to regard their " subjection " to their husbands
as part of their subjection to Christ ; to refuse this
subjection is to revolt against Christ Himself.
And now Paul platonizes. To him all the duties
of this transitory life rest upon eternal laws, earthly
institutions are the shadows and symbols of heavenly
things, and the constitution of the visible world is the
revelation of an invisible and Divine order. Marriage
is not the creation of an arbitrary law. It has its
roots in the eternal and ideal relations between tha
Son of God and the human race, relations which are
actually realized in the church. " For the husband
is the head of tlie wife, a* Christ also is the Head of
the church." The human institution indeed is an
imperfect representation 01 the Divine mystery on
which it is based. For Christ is not only the Head of
the church, He is " Himself the Saviour of the body"
and there is nothing analogous to this relationship in
the relationship between the husband and the wife.

1 " Your own husbands : those specially yours, whom feeling
therefore as well as duty must prompt you to obey." — Ellicolt,
in loc. But Paul did not say " obey."

356 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
"But" Paul goes on to say, although there is this
great difference, "as the church is subject to Christ, so
let the wives also be to their husbands in everything!'
Marriage is transfigured. In the light which Paul
throws upon the institution, everything that is base
and servile in the " subjection " on which he is insist
ing passes away. The "subjection" is a subjection
to Christ. It is the " subjection " of the church of
Christ to its Head. It is a " subjection " which is un
conscious of the demands of external law, because in
the energy of a perfect love all the demands of law
are exceeded. It is a " subjection " to which service
is freedom and to which the refusal of the oppor
tunities of service would be intolerable slavery, a
forcible repression of all the most vigorous and most
spontaneous impulses of the heart.
Upon husbands Paul imposes a greater obligation
than upon wives. " Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for
it " ; the love is to be large, free, faithful, patient,
and generous, like the love of Christ for those whom
He has redeemed ; and like the love of Christ it is to
be ready to accept the last extremities of self sacri
fice. The devotion of " subjection " which Paul
requires from wives is a devotion corresponding to
that of the church to Christ ; the devotion of love
which he requires from husbands is a devotion cor
responding to that of Christ to the church, a devotion
which did not shrink from the shame and sharp
agonies of the crois.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 357
In the presence of a devotion like this a wife will
have no occasion to think of personal rights ; she will
receive more than she could claim. And even if the
devotion is imperfect she will be content to receive
less from love than she might demand from law ; and
she will wait for love to grow stronger. When there
is an attempt on either side to define the duties of
marriage in terms of justice instead of discharging
th^m under the inspiration of affection, when the
husband begins to fix the limits of the self sacrifice
which the wife has a right to demand, when the wife
begins to fix the limits of the subjection which the
husband has a right to enforce, the institution has lost
its ideal glory, it has fallen from its true place among
the stars of heaven, and is already soiled with earthly
dust In a true and perfect marriage both husband
and wife are " not under law but under grace."
Paul then describes the purpose for which Christ
" gave Himself up " for the church ; He "gave Him
self up, . . . that He might sanctify it, having
cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that
He might present the church to Himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish"
There are three distinct movements in Paul's
account of the purpose for which Christ died. In
the order of time baptism comes first. " He gave
Himself up for [the church] that He might sanctify
it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the
word!' Baptism is the visible symbol and assurance

358 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
of our separation from this present evil world, from
the sin and guilt of the race. It is a glorious gospel
expressed in an impressive rite. It declares that we
do not belong merely to the visible and temporal
order, but to that Divine kingdom of which Christ is
the Founder and King. Baptism is associated with
the "word" which explains the symbol and ex
presses its meaning. But when " the word " has
thrown light on the symbol and revealed what it
stands for, there are some to whom the symbol itself
is richer in meaning, more pathetic, more forcible,
than " the word" which has illustrated it. Indeed
a Divine " Word" is found in the symbol, and it is
this which distinguishes the two sacraments of the
Christian Faith from all ritual observances invented
by the church itself and from all acts of worship.
The sacraments are not divinely appointed forms for
the expression of our faith in God or our love for
Him ; they are the expressions of Divine thoughts,
they are the visible symbols of Divine acts. To add
to their number is therefore impossible.
In early times, before baptism had been degraded
into an incantation and a spell, it was natural and
safe to speak of it as cleansing men from sin and
regenerating them ; for all Christian men knew that
the rite was only the symbol of that Divine power
which really cleanses and regenerates. They knew
that all baptized persons were not regenerated and
cleansed. The " word " of God, when spoken, may
be spoken without producing any beneficent moral

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 359
and spiritual results ; and the " word " of God when
associated with a sacramental act, when expressed by
means of it, may be equally ineffective.
Baptism when administered to a child is a declar
ation that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ
has atoned for its future sins, that apart from its own
choice the child . belongs to Him, and that by the
purpose and will of God the child is blessed with all
spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. Baptism does not
make these great things true ; it declares that they
are true ; they are as true before baptism as after
wards. But the child in subsequent years may be
disloyal to the Prince who has claimed it as His
subject. It is not an alien from the Divine common
wealth, but it may be guilty of revolt and incur
forfeiture of the wealth and grace conferred upon it
in Christ, exile from the kingdom of life and light,
and so may suffer eternal destruction. Baptism
when administered to an adult, after a profession of
personal faith, is a visible assurance of the same great
blessings that it assures to a child. It does not
confer on him the blessings of the Christian redemp
tion, but declares that they are his.1 If his faith
is genuine he will receive the declaration with im
measurable joy. He will look back upon the day of
his baptism as kings look back upon the day of their
coronation. He will speak of the hour when he was

1 Cornelius and his friends received the Holy Ghost before
baptism.

360 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
cleansed " by the washing of water with the word."
But kings are not made kings by being crowned ;
they are crowned because they are already kings ;
their coronation is only the assurance that the power
and the greatness of sovereignty are theirs j1 and it
is not by baptism that we are made Christ's inherit
ance ; it is because we are Christ's inheritance that
we are baptized.
In the order of time, sanctification follows baptism.
" Christ gave Himself up for [the church] ; that He
miglit sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing
of water with the word." Christ died that in His
death human sin might die, and that He might give
us perfect righteousness, purity and holiness.
And the ultimate end of His death was that He
might receive us to the eternal blessedness and glory
of His heavenly kingdom ; " that He might present
the church to Himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing ; but that it should
be holy and without blemish"
This account of the ends for which Christ died

1 The rite receives a great accession of interest when it is
administered to infants, since they can have made no appeal to
the Divine grace. The great facts that the sin of the world
has been atoned for apart from our choice and irrespective of
our penitence ; that Christ is the King of men, not by their
own consent but by Divine appointment ; that the infinite
blessings of the Christian redemption have their origin in
God's eternal purpose and grace, not in our righteousness or
faith ; are then most emphatically and impressively asserted.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 361
is usually treated as though it were a digression
in which Paul had lost sight of his immediate
practical purpose; but it really adds great force
to the precept on which he is insisting, and it re
plies by anticipation to the reasons which might
be urged for denying the obligation to obey it.
For as wives might plead that it was unreasonable
and unjust to require them to "be in subjection"
to husbands who were rough, coarse, selfish and
tyrannical, so husbands might plead that it was
unreasonable and unjust to require them to love
with a perfect and self sacrificing love wives who
had grave faults which made them unlovable. With
that exquisite delicacy which is so often illustrated
in Paul's writings, he says nothing to wives about
the possible faults of their husbands ; that is a topic
on which wives should rarely if ever consent to
be spoken to ; but by charging them to be in
subjection to their husbands " as unto the Lord" he
reminds them that in an ideal Christian marriage
the measure of the wife's subjection is to be deter
mined by the infinite claims of Christ on her devo
tion, and that these claims are not lessened by the
husband's imperfections. And with an equally ex
quisite delicacy he says nothing to husbands about
the possible faults of their wives ; that is a topic
about which a high-minded husband will rarely, if
ever, permit a stranger to speak to him ; to listen
to the remotest allusion to it is to be guilty of a
certain disloyalty. But, in describing the objects for

362 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.

which Christ gave Himself up for the church, Paul
reminds husbands that it was not because the church
was free from fault, was free from even gross sins,
that Christ loved it so well ; He saw its sins, they
troubled Him, and yet He loved it. He died for
the church, not because its perfection had inspired
Him with an immeasurable love for it, and because
He was willing to endure any suffering to avert
from it undeserved calamity ; but because His love
for it was so strong that He did not recoil from
any shame or anguish to deliver it from its sins
and from the sorrows which were the just conse
quences of its sins. "Even so ought husbands also
to love their own wives " ; the imperfections of wives
do not release husbands from the duty of loving
them, but may develop the strength of love and
give occasion for the noblest acts of self sacrificing
devotion. And now Paul gives another reason for this love.
He has said that husbands ought to love their own
wives even as Christ loved the church, and he adds
that they ought to love their wives "as their own
bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
for no man ever hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth
and ckerisheth it, even as Christ also the church;
because we are members of His body!' He quotes
some remarkable words from the second chapter of
Genesis to show that according to the .Divine ideal
of marriage the life of the husband and the life
of the wife should be blended into a perfect unity ;

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 363
and that a man must relax or dissolve whatever
ties, and qualify or renounce whatever interests, pre
vent this ideal from being realized. Even the ties
of blood and the nearest natural relationships must
give place to this supreme and unique claim : " For
tius cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife, and tlie twain shall become
one flesh!' There is something wonderful in this
ideal of the human relationship ; and to Paul, with
his strong and passionate imagination, with his
ardent affections, and with his power of sympathy
which made the sorrows and joys of strangers his
own, this perfect blending of the currents of two
separate lives, into one channel, this enlargement of
the personality of each by its inclusion of the person
ality of the other, must have seemed all the more
wonderful because he had elected to live a solitary
life. But to him the human relationship was the symbol
of something more wonderful still ; and while the
words of the quotation from Genesis are on his lips
and he is dictating them to the friend who is writing
the epistle for him, I think I see a look of dreamy
abstraction come over his face, showing that his
thoughts have passed from earthly to heavenly
things. He is in the presence of the transcendent
unity of Christ and the churcn. He is thinking
of how Christ forsook all things that He might
make us for ever one with Himself, that our earthly
life might become His and that His Divine life

364 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
might become ours. Forgetting that he was writing
about marriage he exclaims " the mystery "—the open
secret of the unity of Christ and His people, the
Divine purpose which from all ages had been hid in
God but was now revealed — "the mystery is great"
And then, suddenly descending from these heights
and remembering that he was writipg about mar
riage, he adds, to prevent the exclamation which had
broken from him from being misunderstood : " but
I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.
Nevertlieless" — to leave that high topic and to return
to the subject which had for a moment been forgotten,
and to bring it to a close, — "do ye also severally
love each one his own wife even as himself ; and let
the wife see that she fear her husband!'
I shall now consider very briefly one or two of
the grave controversies about marriage which have
agitated Christendom, and shall then discuss at
greater length some of the more practical aspects of
the subject as illustrated by the teaching of Paul.
It is clear, I think, that the exaltation of celibacy
as though it were, in itself and always, the nobler and
more Christian state of life is inconsistent with the
Christian conception of marriage contained in this
passage. For, according to Paul, marriage enriches
the Christian life 'with new duties, and therefore
affords new opportunities for illustrating devotion
to Christ. In her " subjection " to her husband the
wife can manifest a form of devotion to Christ which

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 365
can have no place in the life of an unmarried
woman ; and the husband in his self sacrificing love
for his wife has an opportunity for the imitation of
Christ which never falls to an unmarried man. The
Romish preference for celibacy rests upon a false
ethical idea. The ethical perfection of celibacy is
simpler ; the ethical perfection of marriage richer and
more complex.
On the other hand, it is not clear that those
Protestant moralists can sustain their position who
maintain that " marriage is a duty, and the most
universal duty incumbent on us." 1 Dr. Luthardt is
nearer the truth when he says that " marriage is a
vocation." 3 But vocations vary. The special form
of life in which a man is divinely called to render
service to God, and to reach the characteristic type
of moral and spiritual perfection for which he was
"created in Christ Jesus," is determined for him by
the circumstances of his country and his age, by the
general condition of the church and of the world, by
his social position, by his material resources, by the
claims of his kindred, by his physical vigour and
constitution, by his native intellectual power, by his
intellectual discipline, by his moral temperament and
those original qualities and forces of his moral life

1 " Apologetic Lectures on the Moral Truths of Christianity."
By Ch. Ernst Luthardt. (Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark.) Page
114. 2 Ibid.

366 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
which are not suppressed but transfigured by the
power of the Holy Spirit, by the ethical and spiritual
influences which, apart from his own choice, have
contributed to form his character.
Celibacy may be the vocation of some of us, not
marriage. When the profession of the Christian
faith exposed men to the loss of property, to social
obloquy, to imprisonment, and to death, Christian
men and women might conscientiously shrink from
marriage, because it would add fresh impediments to
courageous fidelity, and would strengthen induce
ments to apostasy. Paul, who in this epistle glorifies
marriage, recommends celibacy in another epistle for
these very reasons. In times which are not harassed
by persecution both men and women may be con
scious of having received a vocation which they
would have to resist, or to which at least it would
be impossible to surrender themselves with unquali
fied and unreserved devotion, if they assumed the
responsibilities of marriage. A man, a woman, may
be under imperative obligations to care for an infirm
and lonely parent, or for a brother or a sister who is
suffering from incurable disease ; and to discharge
these obligations it may be necessary to live a single
life. Some of the most beautiful forms of self sacri
fice the world has ever seen have been inspired by
this devotion to duties created by the ties of natural
kinship. A man that is conscious of possessing a
genius for scientific discovery or for scholarship may
see that if he marries he must spend a large part of

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 367
his time and strength in earning an income for the
support of his wife and children. His own wants are
simple He is content to live a hard life if only he
can use his rare gift for the glory of God and the
service of mankind. In his genius and poverty he ,
recognises a Divine vocation to celibacy. A woman
may have a noble literary faculty, and may shrink
from the household cares which might prevent her
from putting forth all her strength. She is content
to lose much of the joy of life- in order to be faithful
to the trust she has received from Heaven, and she
believes that her true vocation is to live alone. Both
men and women may sometimes be called to forms
of religious work which leave neither heart nor
strength for the claims of marriage. They are con
sumed with a passionate enthusiasm which excludes
the possibility of an intense personal affection, and
-complete devotion to .their work is inconsistent with
the large and constant claims of a home. Marriage
may be "the most universal of all earthly vocations" ; a
but it is a vocation, not a universal duty. Celibacy
is not a sin. Most men and women are "called" to
marriage, but not all.
Paul's representation of the Christian ideal of
marriage implies that when Christian people marry
they are bound to regard their mutual vows as irre
vocable. Life is to blend so completely with life that
1 Luthardt. Page 114.

3CS LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix,
to recover a separate personal existence must seem
impossible. Christ declared that only the one
supreme offence against its obligations can dissolve
the relationship. The tendencies of modern legis
lation in England and elsewhere are unfriendly to this
austere conception. The tendencies of some modern
forms of speculation are still more unfriendly to it.
But if marriage could be legally dissolved for any
reasons short of the crime by which its bonds are
violently broken, a large part of the moral discipline
which it is intended to confer would be lost.
There is nothing however in this representation of
marriage which precludes the lawfulness of separation
in cases in which men and women discover that in
their marriage they have committed a tragic mistake.
If the ideal cannot be realized, if there can be no
approach to it, then, whatever other reasons may
properly prevent an open rupture, there is nothing
in Paul's teaching to enforce a common life which is
the occasion both of misery and of sin. If on the
husband's part there is an abnormal brutality and
selfishness which make it impossible for the wife to be
"in subjection" to him "as unto the Lord" ; if on the
part of the wife there is a bitterness and hostility
which make it impossible for the husband to love her
" even as Christ also loved the church," to love her as
he loves himself ; then I do not see what remains for
them but separation. They are really separated al
ready. The two have not become one, cannot become
one; the same roof may cover them, but the ideal of

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 369
marriage has been finally abandoned. The moral
interests of society require that even then the mar
riage should not be dissolved ; but the moral interests
of the husband or of the wife or of both may require
that they should be allowed to part
It is to be hoped that the cases in which a violent
and irreconcilable antagonism between husband and
wife justifies separation are extremely rare ; and
separation should never be thought of except as the
desperate remedy of desperate evils. But there may
be estrangement where there is no antagonism. The
ideal unity of married life may be lost where there
is no active conflict and no suppressed hostility.
Husband and wife may fall apart from each other
without knowing how. Their intellectual interests
and their moral sympathies may come to flow in new
channels. New circumstances may stimulate into
vigorous activity moral elements which were latent
when they were first married. That there should be
great intellectual and moral changes, both in men
and women, after marriage is in many cases inevit
able. These changes add greatly to the charm and
animation of married life when they do not impair
its unity. They relieve it from the monotony which to
many of us would be intolerable if husband and wife
after living together for twenty years were just what
they were on their wedding morning. I suppose indeed
that there are dull people to whom the growing years
bring no such changes, and who have no craving for
B B

370 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.

freshness and variety. But where there is a free,
energetic life on either side, these intellectual and
ethical developments are certain to come, and in a
happy marriage they strengthen mutual affection and
confidence. They make life a succession of pleasant
surprises. Year after year the husband discovers in
the wife, the wife discovers in the husband, some new
and unsuspected power and grace. As their know
ledge of each other increases they have all the delight
of travelling in a country which had never been ex
plored before ; there are new rivers to trace to their
sources and new mountains to climb ; there are new
flowers and new trees.
But this vigorous, vivacious kind of life has its
perils as well as its pleasures. Its changes may
diminish mutual interest, even if at first they do not
diminish mutual affection ; but the diminution of
mutual affection is likely sooner or later to follow the
diminution of mutual interest Against both these
evils husband and wife should maintain constant
vigilance. I suppose that men are in more danger
than women. Women live a more quiet and mono
tonous life, and their intellectual and moral s sym
pathies are likely to remain steady. Men, who are in
freer contact with the excitements of the world, are
likely to become absorbed in fresh interests which
have no attraction for their wives, and by insensible
degrees these alien interests may become so imperious
as to destroy the mutual sympathies which are neces
sary to a perfect marriage. Friends who share the

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 371
husband's passion for his new pursuits have a charm
for him that he does not find at home. But women
are not free from peril. I think I have sometimes
seen the gradual transfer of interest from a husband
to children ; the affection of the mother has been too
strong for the affection of the wife ; and the birth
of children, which should bind husband and wife
together more closely than before, is sometimes the
beginning of estrangement.
A still more serious cause of estrangement some
times emerges when a woman, after her marriage,
begins to live a Christian life. The discovery of God
fills her heart. Her chief thoughts are drawn to
Divine and eternal things. She is constantly wanting
to attend religious services in which her husband feels
no interest and to which he will not accompany her.
Sometimes she makes new friends, who, her husband
feels, are more to her than he is ; he thinks that she
finds more pleasure in their society than in his own ;
and he knows that there are whole provinces of her
life about which she speaks with the freest confidence
to them and about which she is silent to him.
The mischief ought to be arrested as soon as it is
discovered. It is impossible for her to close her eyes
or her heart to the new glories which have been re
vealed to her ; but she should resolve that in her new
faith she will find new motives to perfect wifely
loyalty. If she is conscious that by her frequent
attendance at religious services she is being separated
from her husband, she should attend religious services.

372 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
less frequently, and rely for religious strength and
light upon her solitary communion with God. She
should resolutely withdraw from the friends in whom
she is beginning to feel a deeper interest than in her
husband. Her religious faith does not release her
from her duties as a wife, but surrounds them with
new and more august sanctions. Her life has risen to
heights to which her husband does not follow her ; but
she should resolve that except in those Divine regions
his life and hers shall be divided by no rival interests.
Both for men and for women life may be made or
marred by marriage. In many cases indeed it seems
to lead neither to romantic joy nor to tragic misery ,
it neither exalts nor degrades the moral ideal. But
in many it gives to life its noblest strength and its
most perfect delight ; in many it is the shipwreck both
of happiness and of character. Some of the con
ditions which are necessary to its ideal perfection have
been already suggested. Where neither husband nor
wife has religious faith, though the divinest form of the
relationship cannot be reached, their married life may
have a great deal of heauty and a great deal of hap
piness. But there is grave peril if there is religious
faith on one side and not on the other ; for in the
central elements and forces of life there is antagon
ism between them. They are not agreed about the
supreme laws of conduct, about the chief ends of
human existence ; and this want of agreement is likely
to lead sooner or later to grave practical difficulties.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 373
Even before these difficulties emerge their union is
incomplete. For what is of supreme interest to one
is regarded by the other with indifference. On one
subject, and that the most sacred, there will be no
confidences between the one that has faith and the
one that has not. Into the innermost sanctuary of
the heart of the husband the wife will never enter ;
or into the innermost sanctuary of the heart of the
wife the husband will never enter. There is a rent
in the unseen foundations on which their common
life is built, and the whole structure is insecure.
Husband and wife live in separate worlds. The
central estrangement may lead to disastrous results.
There is another obvious reason why for a perfect
marriage a common faith in Christ is necessary. In
the ideal which Paul describes, an ideal which kindles
the imagination and makes the heart throb with
delight, husband and wife contribute to the security,
the perfection, and the happiness of each other's
Christian life. They are one ; and the faith of each
is a defence to the faith of the other. They are one ;
and the streams of Divine joy reach them through a
double channel. When the heart of either is glowing
with the fervour of devout affection, the heart of the
other will catch fire. When the heart of one is filled
with the light of God, the heart of the other will
receive some of the glory. For the wife, the duty of
" subjection '' will become easy, it will cease to be
thought of as a duty, if she recognises in her husband
the likeness of Christ ; and the love of the husband

374 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
for the wife will more nearly approach the love of
Christ for the church, if he recognises in her the
outlines of a saintly perfection. This glorious ideal
cannot be approached unless both husband and wife
are in Christ. The ideal is deliberately renounced by
those who seek or accept a marriage where this con
dition is not satisfied. They consent to live on a
lower level. They have caught sight of a heavenly
vision, and are disobedient to it. They deliberately
expose their own religious life to the gravest peril.
But there is an inconsiderate religious enthusiasm
which supposes that where there is a common reli
gious faith there is everything that is necessary for
a perfect married life. This is a ruinous mistake.
A common religious faith is the sure and strong and
adequate foundation of the common life of the
church, but not of the common life of the home.
The common life of the church is a life among
unseen and eternal things ; and in those lofty regions
intellectual and social differences vanish and are for
gotten. In that Divine world, a world in which
those who are in Christ are already living, " there
can be neither Jew nor Gentile, there can be neither
bond nor free, there can be no male and female " ; x
for all are one in Christ. But in marriage the life
of the husband and the life of the wife should be
one from base to summit ; life should blend with
life through all the gradations of human interest,
1 Gal. iii. 28.

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 375

power, affection, and hope, from the lowest earthly
levels to the loftiest heights of heaven.
In an ideal marriage husband and wife should find
in each other a unique personal charm, and should be
drawn together by strong mutual attraction. There
should be something in each to touch the imagina
tion and to command the esteem, as well as to inspire
the love, of the other.
They should have strong intellectual sympathies.
I do not mean that an astronomer royal should
marry no woman that is not a profound mathema
tician ; or that an oriental scholar will be unhappy if
his wife cannot read Sanscrit. Nor do I mean that
a woman who has a genius for music should refuse a
lover who does not share her passion for Beethoven
or Wagner. The common life of husband and wife
is extended and enriched if there are wide provinces
of intellectual interest familiar to each, which are
almost unknown to the other. But there should be
some ground where they can meet as equals. There
should be no great disparity in their culture, whatever
disparity there may be in their knowledge. Or if in
one there is inferior culture the inferiority should be
more than compensated by native intellectual alert
ness and vigour.
There should be ethical as well as intellectual
sympathy, and perfect ethical sympathy is not
always secured by a common religious faith. Early
associations, habits, and training usually leave per
manent results in the moral habits; and there are

376 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xix.
differences in the original moral fibre of different
people which do not disappear even under the influ
ence of the most admirable moral discipline or the
most intense religious earnestness. A marriage will
be very remote from ideal perfection, if there is a
delicate moral sensitiveness on one side and not on
the other ; a nice sense of honour on one side and
not on the other ; on one side great moral refinement,
on the other great moral coarseness ; on one side a
i poetic moral enthusiasm, on the other an unimagina
tive dulness. These wide ethical contrasts may exist
even where there is genuine and earnest religious
faith. They are fatal to that perfect blending of life
with life which is necessary to an ideal marriage.
To some of you, what I have said may appear to
bar the gates of marriage against large numbers
of the best men and the best women. You may say
that if they must not marry beneath their intellectual
and moral rank many of them will not be able to
marry at all. That may be true. And while I have
no desire to encourage young men and women to
sacrifice real and substantial happiness in the
romantic pursuit of an ideal perfection rarely to be
attained in human life, I am prepared to say that
both for men and for women celibacy is better than
a marriage to which their conscience, their judgment,
and their heart do not completely consent A mar
riage in which there is no ardour of mutual affection,
in which there is no strong intellectual and moral
sympathy, is a marriage only in name ; and a mar-

lect. xix.] WIVES AND HUSBANDS. 377
riage in which there is religious faith only on one
side is far more likely to lead to the extinction of
faith where it exists than to the creation of faith in
the heart which is destitute of it.
It is said that for cultivated women of the middle
classes the difficulties in the way of marriage have
greatly increased during the last thirty years, and are
still increasing. The fact should be frankly recog
nised. It constitutes a reason for endeavouring to
arrest that excessive expense in the style of living
which is one of its principal causes ; and it also con
stitutes a reason for opening to educated women
offices and professions which have been closed against
them. No woman should be forced, for the sake of
a home and a living, to accept a man who is intel
lectually and morally greatly her inferior. At what
ever cost, she should be loyal to her conscience and
preserve her personal dignity. Marriage is a voca
tion ; for a woman to make it a mercenary contract
is to degrade the institution, to degrade herself, and
to inflict what may be an irreparable wrong on the
man she marries. The loftiest path is not only the
most honourable ; it is also the safest ; it is freest
from base troubles, and freest from moral perils.
Marriage at its best is the nobler and the happier
state. But if a woman cannot have it at its best, let her
decline to have it at all. In her solitary life she may
achieve a lofty personal perfection ; she may confer im
measurable benefits upon others ; she may win strong
affection ; and may enjoy a tranquil happiness.

XX.
CHILDREN AND PARENTS.
" Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. Honour
thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise),
that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
And. ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but nurture them
in the chastening and admonition of the Lord." Eph. vi. 1-4.
IN the preceding lecture we considered the duties
of wives and husbands ; we have now to consider
the duties of children and parents.
I.
Paul assumes that the life of children may be a
life in Christ Children are to " obey " their parents
"in the Lord" ; and parents are to "nurture" their
children " in the chastening and admonition of the
Lord!' I sometimes meet with men and women who tell
me that they cannot remember the time when they
began to love and trust and obey Christ, just as they
cannot remember the time when they began to love
and trust and obey their parents. If we had a more
vivid and a. more devout faith in the truth that every
Christian family is according to God's idea and
purpose a part of the kingdom of heaven, this happy
378

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 379
experience would be more common. The law of
Christ is the rule of human conduct in childhood
as well as in manhood ; and as in Christ's kingdom
grace precedes law, the grace of Christ is near to
a child in its very earliest years to enable it to keep
the law, and the child's earliest moral life may be
a life in Christ. Christ's relationship to men cannot
be a relationship of authority merely. His authority
is the authority of One who has assumed our nature
and died for our sins. He is our Prince that He may
be our Saviour.
These truths are assumed in the precept that
children are to "obey" their parents "in the Lord!'
Every child, apart, from its choice and before it is
capable of choice, is environed by the laws of Christ.
It is equally true that every child, apart from its
choice and before it is capable of choice, is environed
by Christ's protection and grace in this life and is
the heir of eternal blessings in the life to come.
Christ died and rose again for the race.
Children may " obey " their parents " in the Lord"
before they are able to understand any Christian
doctrine ; they may discharge every childish duty,
under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, before they
have so much as heard whether the Spirit of God has
been given ; they may live in the light of God before
they know that the true light alvyays comes from
heaven. And as men and women, who are consciously
relying on God to enable them to do His will, ap
propriate God's grace and make it more fully their

3S0 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.
own by keeping His commandments, so the almost
unconscious virtues of devout children make the life
of Christ more completely theirs. Like Christ Him
self, who in His childhood was subject to Joseph and
Mary, as they advance in stature they advance in
wisdom and in favour with God and men.1 This is
the ideal Christian life.
The difficulties of obedience are usually greatest
in the troubled years between childhood and man
hood ; and not unfrequently these difficulties are
increased rather than diminished when during these
years the religious life begins to be active. To a
boy or girl of fifteen the discovery of God sometimes
seems to dissolve all human relationships. The
earthly order vanishes in the glory of the infinite and
the Divine. There is also a sudden realization of
the sacredness and dignity of the personal life, and
whatever authority comes between the individual
soul and God is felt to be a usurpation.
At this stage in the development of the higher
life the first commandment is also the only com
mandment that has any real authority. " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," seems to
exhaust all human duty ; and life has no place
for any inferior obligations. I have 3 very deep
.sympathy with those young people who are trying,
' Luke ii. 51, 52.

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 381
and trying very unsuccessfully, to adjust what seem
to them the conflicting claims of the seen and the
unseen, of earth and heaven. They have to remem
ber that we live in two worlds, that both belong to
God ; and that we do not escape from the inferior
order when the glory of eternal and Divine things
is revealed to us. We still have to plough and to
sow and to reap ; to build houses ; to work in iron
and brass and silver and gold. The old world with
its day and night, its sunshine and its clouds, its
rain and snow, its heat and cold, is still our home.
In things seen and temporal we have to do the will of
the invisible and eternal God, and to be disciplined
for our final perfection and glory.
As God determined the laws of the physical
universe, so He determined the limitations of human
life and the conditions under which human duty is to
be discharged. The family, the state, and the church
are Divine institutions ; and the obligations which
they create are rooted in the will of God. The
family and the state belong to the natural order,
but they are not less Divine in their origin than* the
church, nor are their claims upon us less sacred.
In the family, the parents by Divine appointment
exercise authority, and children are under Divine
obligations to obedience. The ends for which the
family exists are defeated if authority is not exercised
on the one side, if obedience is not conceded on the
other ; just as the ends for which the state exists are
defeated if rulers do not assert and enforce the law,

382 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.
if subjects habitually violate it. Children are to obey
their parents, "for this is right " : right, according to
the natural constitution and order of human affairs ;
right, according to the laws of natural morality ;
right, according to the natural conscience and apart
from supernatural revelation. But in the discharge
of this natural duty the supernatural life is to be
revealed. Children are to obey their parents " in the
Lord," in the Spirit and in the strength of Christ
Obedience to parents is part of the service which
Christ claims from us ; it is a large province of the
Christian life.
It is not enough that children obey their parents
in those things which would have obligation apart
from parental authority. To be truthful, honest,
kindly, temperate, courageous, industrious, are duties
whether a parent enforces them or not. They may
be sanctioned and sustained by parental authority,
but to discharge duties of this kind may be no proof
of filial obedience ; a child may discharge them with
out any regard to the authority of his parents. It is
when the parent requires obedience in things which
are neither right nor wrong in themselves, or which
appear to the child neither right nor wrong in them
selves, that the authorityof the parent is unambiguously
recognised. A parent may require obedience in
things of this kind for the good of the child himself;
for the sake of his health ; for the sake of his intel
lectual vigour and growth ; for the sake of his moral

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 3S3
safety ; or for the sake of his future success in
life. Before the parent's authority is exerted the
child is free ; but afterwards, whether the child sees
the wisdom of the requirement or not, he is bound
to obey.
Or parental authority may be exerted for the sake
of the family generally. Regulations intended to
secure the order of the household, to prevent con
fusion, to lessen trouble, and to lessen expense, are
often felt by young people to be extremely irksome.
The regulations appear to be unreasonable, and to
have no other object than to place vexatious restraints
on personal liberty. Sometimes, no doubt, they are
really unwise and unnecessary. But children are not
the most competent judges ; and in any case it is the
parents, not the children, that are responsible for
making the rules. The parents may be unwise in
imposing them ; but the children are more than
unwise if they are restive under them and wilfully
break them. To submit to restraints which are seen
to be expedient and reasonable is a poor test of
obedience ; the real proof of filial virtue is given when
there is loyal submission to restraints which appear
unnecessary. There is less difficulty when a child is required to
render personal service to a parent. The obligation
is so obvious that unless the child is intensely selfish
the claim will be met with cheerfulness as well as
with submission. Affection, gratitude, and a certain
pride in being able to contribute to a parent's ease

3S4 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect xx
or comfort, will make obedience a delight. To be of
use satisfies one of the strongest cravings of a gene
rous and noble nature, and the satisfaction is all the
more complete if the act of service involves real
labour and a real sacrifice of personal enjoyment.
The duty of obedience to parents, which is a
natural duty, a duty arising out of the natural con
stitution of human life, was enforced in Jewish times
by a Divine commandment. And this commandment
had a place of special dignity in Jewish legislation ;
it was " the first commandment with promise." Paul
was not thinking of the Ten Commandments as if
they stood apart from the rest of the laws which God
gave to the Jewish people, or else he would have
said that this was the only commandment that was
strengthened by the assurance of a special reward to
obedience. He meant that of all the Jewish laws
this was the first that had a promise attached to it.
The promise was a national promise. It was not an
assurance that every child that obeyed his parents
would escape sickness and poverty, would be pros
perous, and would live to a good old age ; it was a
declaration that the prosperity, the stability, and the
permanence of the nation depended upon the rever
ence of children for their parents. The discipline of
the family was intimately related to the order, the
security, and the greatness of the state. Bad child
ren would make bad citizens. If there was a want of
reverence for parental authority, there would be a

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 385
want of reverence for public authority. If there was
disorder in the home, there would be disorder in the
nation ; and national disorder would lead to the
destruction of national life. But if children honoured
their parents the elect nation would be prosperous,
and would retain possession of the country which it
had received from the hands of God.
The greatness of the promise attached to this
commandment, the fact that it was the first com
mandment that had any promise attached to it,
revealed the Divine estimate of the obligations of
filial duty. And although Jewish institutions have
passed away, the revelation of God's judgment con
cerning the importance of this duty remains. And
the promise with which it was sanctioned is the
revelation of a universal law. The family is the germ
cell of the nation. If children honour their parents,
men and women will be trained to those habits of
order and obedience which are the true security of
the public peace and are among the most necessary
elements of commercial and military supremacy ;
they will be disciplined to self control, and will have
strength to resist many of the vices which are the
cause of national corruption and ruin.
The commandment which Paul quotes requires
children to "honour" their parents; "honour" in
cludes obedience and something more. We may
obey because we are afraid of the penalties of dis
obedience ; and in that case the obedience though
c c

3S6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx;
exact will be reluctant, without cheerfulness and
without grace. We may obey under terror, or we
may obey from motives of self interest We may
think that the man to whom we are compelled to
submit is in. no sense our superior, that he is at best
our equal, and that it is mere accident that gives
him authority over us. But children are required to
remember that their parents are their superiors, not
their equals; that they have to "honour" parental
dignity as well as to obey parental commands, that
honour is to blend with obedience and to make it free
and beautiful.
To " honour" I repeat, is something more than to
" obey." The child that honours his parents will
yield a real deference to their judgment and wishes
when there is no definite and authoritative command ;
will respect even their prejudices ; will chivalrously
conceal their infirmities and faults ; will keenly
resent any disparagement of their claims to con
sideration ; will resent still more keenly any assault
on their character.
In a family where this precept is obeyed, parents
will be treated with uniform courtesy. There is a
tradition that whenever Jonathan Edwards came into
a room where his children were sitting they rose as
they would have risen at the entrance of a visitor.
Forms of respect of this kind are alien from modern
manners ; but the spirit of which they were the ex
pression still survives in well-bred families, I mean in
families which inherit and preserve good traditions, to

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 387
whatever social rank they may belong. Nor is it to
parents alone that children should show this spirit
of consideration and respect ; brothers and sisters
should show it to each other ; and both among the
rich and the poor it may be taken as a sure sign of
vulgarity, inherited or acquired, if courtesy is re
served for strangers and has no place in the life of
the family. Children are to "honour" their parents,
and if they honour their parents they are likely to
be courteous to each other. II.
But Paul had a sensitive sympathy with the wrongs
which children sometimes suffer and a strong sense
of their claims to consideration. Children are to
"obey" and to "honour" even unreasonable, ca
pricious, and unjust parents ; but it is the, duty of
parents not to be unreasonable, capricious, or unjust.
His precept is addressed to "fathers," because, I
suppose, he held fathers specially responsible for the
general government and discipline of the house. It
applies of course to both parents. " Fatliers, provoke
not your children to wrath!'
Parents are sometimes wanting in "courtesy to
children as well as children to parents, speak to them
roughly, violently, insultingly — and so inflict painful
wounds on their self respect. Parents sometimes
recur with cruel iteration to the faults and follies of
their children, faults and follies of which the children
are already ashamed, , and which it would be not

3SS LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.
only kind but just to forget. Parents are sometimes
guilty of a brutal want of consideration ; they allude
in jest to personal defects to which the children
are keenly sensitive, remind them mockingly ci
failures by which they have been deeply humiliated,
speak cynically of pursuits in which their children
have a passionate or romantic interest, and contempt
uously and scornfully of companions and friendj
that their children enthusiastically admire and love.
Parents are sometimes tyrannical, wilfully thwarting
their children's plans, needlessly interfering with their
pleasures, and imposing on them unreasonable and
fruitless sacrifices.
It sometimes happens that, through a fatal defect
of temper or of sympathy, parents who have many
noble qualities are guilty of this conduct. They
have large and generous views for their children, and
shrink from no labour or self denial in giving these
views effect ; and they wonder that their children
have little love for them, treat them with disrespect,
and regard home with fear and even with abhorrence.
When the children are grown to manhood and woman
hood they may remember with penitence. their failure
in filial duty ; but they will also feel that the fault
was not all on their side. In childhood and youth
great and substantial services do not compensate for
incessant irritation and annoyance. Parents who
desire to be loved and honoured and cheerfully
obeyed should lay to heart the apostle's warning :
"provoke not your children to wrath!'

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 389
Then follows the positive precept, " but nurture
them in tlie chastening and admonition of the Lord!'
This covers the whole province of Christian educa
tion, and a full exposition of it would require a
volume. I can only illustrate the general principles
on which the precept rests.
1. The precept implies- a real and serious faith
on the part of the parents that their children belong
to Christ and are under Christ's care. Christian
education is not a mission to those who are in
revolt against Christ. The " nurture " is to be " in
the chastening and admonition of the ,Lord." The
children are Christ's subjects, and have to be trained
to loyal obedience to His authority. The Christian
redemption is theirs by their birth into this world, and
the object of Christian education is to prevent them
from forfeiting it. Their earliest impressions of God
should assure them that God loves them with an
infinite and eternal love, and that He has "blessed
[them] with every spiritual* blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ." It is no part of the duty of
parents to "dedicate their children to Christ," to
use a common phrase, as though the children were
not His already and before any act or wish of the
parents ; the parents have received the charge of
their children from Christ, and have therefore to
" nurture them in the chastening and admonition of
the Lord!'
I sometimes fear that we have not yet wholly
escaped from that appalling heresy which excludes

39°

LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.

children from the Divine kingdom and the Divine
love until they have discovered for themselves the
majesty of God's authority and have appealed to the
Divine mercy for the remission of sins and the
gift of eternal life. This terrible heresy teaches
children that by their birth they are " children of
wrath," that the awful fires of the Divine anger
were burning around them during their infancy, and
that the flames have become fiercer with their growing
years. It teaches them that while the dearest human
love came to them unsought and before they had the
power to seek it, they have to win for themselves by
penitence and faith a share in the love of God.
For ourselves we believe in a nobler gospel. We
love God because God first loved us. " The living
God ... is the Saviour of all men," though
" specially of them that believe." l It was because
" God loved the world," ~ — the whole world, little
children as well as men and women,— that the Son
of God became man and endured for us pain, sorrow,
temptation, agony, and death. "Jesus Christ the
Righteous ... is the propitiation for our sins, and
not for ours only but also for the whole world." 3
When a child is born it is born to an inheritance in the
infinite love of God and in the infinite blessings of the
Christian redemption. It comes under the sovereignty
of Christ, for by Divine appointment Christ has " all

1 i Tim. iv. lo. " John iii. 16.
3 I John iii. 2.

lect. vx.j CHILDREN AND PARENTS.

authority " " in heaven and on earth." x The great
truths which are affirmed in infant baptism are the
true root of a Christian education.
2. The education of which the apostle is thinking
is practical rather than speculative ; it has to do with
life and character rather than with knowledge.
Knowledge of religious truth has its value. It
is the noblest kind of knowledge. It has a great
place and function in the development of the higher
life and in the control of conduct. The simplest,
which are also the most august, religious truths should
be learned by children in very early years from the
lips of their mothers. But many Christian parents
are not capable of giving systematic instruction in
Christian doctrine and duty. Even where the know
ledge exists there is not always the faculty for com
municating it For instruction of that kind provision
should be made by the Sunday school and tha
church. By "the chastening . . . of the Lord" the
apostle means the Christian discipline and order of
the family, which will form the children to the habits
of a Christian life. "Chastening" is not chastisement,
though chastisement may sometimes be a necessary
part of it. The order of a child's life is determined
by its parents, and is to be determined under Christ's
authority, so that the child may be trained to all
Christian virtues.

1 Matt, xxviii. 18.

392 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.
In the earlier years of childhood this training will
be, in a sense, mechanical. The child will not
know why certain acts and habits are required of it,
or why other acts and habits are forbidden. There
will be no appeal to the child's conscience or reason ;
the parent's conscience and the parent's reason will
assume the responsibility of guiding the child's
conduct Indeed the training should begin before
the child is capable of understanding the grounds on
which the discipline rests. And even when the
capacity begins to show itself a wise parent will not
desire to hasten its development. A child of six or
seven ought not to be worried by questions of con
science ; and it is probably a healthy thing if for
several years later the moral virtues are practised
without reflection and self consciousness. In most
Christian families what has been described as "the
pre-ethical state" ends far too soon. Naturalness
and freedom of character are lost ; joyousness, which
is a virtue of childhood, is clouded : and the strong-
foundations of morality are loosened by the premature
activity of conscience. The burden and mystery of
life should not be laid on a child's heart too soon.
But during these years the child should be dis
ciplined to habits of obedience, industry, courage,
temperance, self control, truthfulness, and kindness,
so that when the grave temptations of life begin the
child may find that the victory has been half won.
3. If it is the duty of a child to obey, it is the
duty of parents to rule. There can be no obedience

lect. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 393
where there is no authority ; and if a child is not
disciplined to obedience it suffers a moral loss which
can hardly ever be completely remedied in later
years. There are men and women of excellent
native disposition and whose general character is
admirable, but who are like horses or dogs that
were not well broken in when they were young.
You are never quite sure of them. They cannot
work well with others. They are wilful and way
ward. They are restive and impatient under the
most necessary restraints. They are carried away
by their impulses. Nothing holds them. They
were not well governed by their parents, and are
now unable to govern themselves.
The religious as well as the moral life is injured
by the relaxation of parental rule. Obedience to
the personal authority of parents disciplines us to
obey the personal authority of God.
4. Children should be trained to the surrender of
their own pleasure and comfort to the pleasure and
comfort of others. Parents who have sacrificed them
selves without reserve to their children's gratification
are sometimes bitterly disappointed that their children
grow up selfish. They wonder and feel aggrieved
that their devotion receives no response, that their
children are not as eager to serve them as they have
been to serve their children. On the other hand,
parents who with equal affection have made them
selves, not their children, the centre of the family
life, seem to have been more fortunate. Not self-

394 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx

ishly, harshly, or tyrannically, but firmly and con
sistently, they have required their children to take
a secondary position. The comfort of the children
and their pleasures were amply provided for, but the
children were not led to think that everything in the
house must give way to them, that all the sacrifices
were to be made by their parents, none by them
selves. They were trained to serve, and not merely
to receive service. This seems to be the truer dis
cipline of the Christian spirit and character.
5. In relation to the higher elements of the Christ
ian life, to those elements which are distinctively
Christian and spiritual, more depends upon the real
character of the parents than upon everything be
sides. In relation to these the power of personal
influence is supreme.
If the parents really obey the will of Christ as
their supreme law, if they accept His judgments
about human affairs and about the ends of human
life, if they live under the control of the invisible
and eternal world, the children will know it and are
likely to yield to the influence of it. But if the
parents, though animated by religious faith, are not
completely Christian, if some of their most con
spicuous habits of thought and conduct are not pene
trated by the force of Christ's spirit and teaching,
the children are in great danger ; they are as likely
to yield to what is base and worldly in the life of
their parents as to what is Divine.
Ths real religious discipline of a family, I repeat,

lect. xx. J CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 395
depends mainly upon the religious character and
spirit of the parents. If, notwithstanding their
Christian faith, they care too much for wealth, for
pleasure, for social success, they will not discipline
their children to be loyal to Christ and to care for
things eternal and Divine.
The " admonition " of the Lord completes the
" chastening." To quote Archbishop Trench's ex
cellent definition, " it is the training by word, by
the word of encouragement when no more is wanted,
but also by the word of remonstrance, of reproof, of
blame, where these may be required ; as set over
against the training by act and by discipline." 1
I suppose that, under God, the primary condition
of a successful Christian education is that the parents
should care more for the loyalty of tlieir children to
Christ than for anything besides, more for this than
for their health, their intellectual vigour and bril
liance, their material prosperity, their social position,
their exemption from great sorrows and great mis
fortunes. Their loyalty to Christ must be cared for,
not because it will be a defence and guarantee of
the moral virtues and a protection against vices which
might end in disgrace and ruin, but for its own sake
and for Christ's sake. Only when our children have
found eternal righteousness and eternal life in Him,

1 " Synonyms of the New Testament."

396 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xx.
has the trust we have received from Him been suc
cessfully discharged ; only then have our children
discharged their supreme duty and achieved their
supreme blessedness.
But there is a second condition of success. Parents
should expect their children to be loyal to Christ.
The children are the subjects of Christ by birth,
and it should never be assumed that when they reach
the years of moral freedom and moral responsibility
they will be certain to revolt against Christ's authority.
Why should they? They are born into the Divine
household, — why should it be taken for granted that
they are certain to leave home and go into a far
country and there waste their substance in riotous
living ? The true ideal of human nature is something
fairer and better than this. The Spirit of God may
control and direct the whole stream of human life,
from the moment it leaves its source until it reaches
the ocean.
We should expect our children to be loyal to
Christ. We expect them to be truthful and honest,
and this expectation is one of the principal causes
of their truthfulness and honesty ; if in our words
and conduct we implied that we were very doubtful
whether they would be honest and tell the truth, we
should do very much to make them thieves and liars.
Children, even more than men and women, respond
instinctively to a generous confidence and rise to the
expectations which are formed of them.
We have the strongest grounds for expecting that

LECT. xx.] CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 397
their hearts will be touched by Christ's infinite love
and that the will of Christ will have supreme
authority over their conduct. Everything is in favour
of it. This is the eternal purpose of God, and for
the fulfilment of that purpose we may rely upon " the
exceeding greatness " of His " power," and on " the
unsearchable riches of His grace." We ourselves are
but the ministers of a higher Will ; if we are loyal to
Christ and dwell in Him, the discipline of the home
is not ours, it is the " chastening and admonition of
the Lord," — and Christ Himself is with us to give it
effect. God forbid that I should say a word to add
bitterness to the sorrow of those whose children have
broken away from the control of Christ. The will
of a child is free, and cannot be absolutely determined
by any earthly authority or even by the light and
power of the Spirit of God. But when parental
affection, parental example, and the atmosphere
and discipline of the home are on the side of Christ
— when the strongest and tenderest human influences
are blended with the gracious energy of the Divine
Spirit — when earth is confederate with Heaven — we
ought not to fear defeat. We ought to expect that
children who are brought up in " the chastening and
admonition of the Lord" will illustrate in their
childhood the beauty and grace of the Christian life,
and that when they reach the strength and joy of
Christian manhood they will be unable to recall a
time when they were not living in the light of God.

XXI.
SERVANTS AND MASTERS.
" Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your
masteis, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
Christ ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but as servants
of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing
serz'lce, as unto the Lord, and not unto men : knowing that whatsoever
good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord,
whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto
them, and forbear threatening : knowing that both their Master and
yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons zvith Him."
— Eph. vi. 5-9.
THERE are many indications in the New Testa
ment of the extreme anxiety of the apostles to
prevent any collision between the Christian church
and the secular order of society. Peter charge?
Christian people to " be subject to every ordinance
of man, for the Lord's sake : whether it be to the
king as supreme ; or unto governors, as sent by him
for vengeance on evil-doers, and for praise to them
that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well
doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men : as free, and not using your freedom for a cloke
of wickedness but as bondservants of God. Honour
all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour
398

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 3-9
the king." x Paul, in several of his epistles, insists
with equal energy on the same duty. Writing to the
Christians in Rome he says : " Let every soul be in
subjection to the higher powers ; for there is nc
power but of God ; and the powers that be art
ordained of God." a To obey the law, to pay all
taxes and tolls, to concede to public authorities
customary courtesy and respect, are moral duties
which must be discharged " for conscience sake,"
and not merely to avoid punishment3 He tells
Timothy that " supplications, prayers, intercessions,
thanksgivings," are to be made for all men ; for
kings and all that are in high place.4 He charges
Titus to remind Christian people that they are " to
be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be obe
dient." 5 The urgency and frequency of these pre
cepts indicate that the apostles were alarmed at the
temper with which some of their converts regarded
the political order and institutions of society. In the
church Christ was honoured as the true King of men,
and it was not unnatural that Christian people should
suppose that since they were in Christ's kingdom they
were released from the obligations of secular law and
owed no allegiance to secular rulers. What authority
had the legislation of heathen governments for men
who were under the laws of Christ, and who were to

1 1 Pet. ii. 13-17. 2 Rom. xiii. i,
3 Rom. xiii. 5-7. * I Tim. ii. 1, 2,
6 Tit. iii. 1.

400 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxi,
give account to Him of the deeds done in the body ?
How could men who were loyal to Christ be also
loyal to heathen rulers who regarded the claims of
Christ with derision ? Questions of this kind were
likely to be discussed at church meetings with a
great deal of animation and vigour, and they might
have produced the most disastrous results.
Slavery was a still more dangerous topic. There
were large numbers of slaves among those who had
received the new Faith, and they had learnt from
Christ that all men are brethren. They were slaves,
but they were the sons of God ; they had received
the life of God, they were hoping for everlasting
glory. It was intolerable that they should be the
property of heathen masters ; and in some respects
it was still more intolerable that they should be the
property of Christian masters. We can imagine that
Christian slaves when they met each other were
likely to discuss tlieir wrongs in the light of the
Christian gospel ; and we can also imagine that the
authority of masters as well as the authority of
heathen rulers would be debated with great heat and
excitement in the meetings of the church.
Paul takes the institutions of society as they stand,
and defines the duties of those who acknowledge the
authority of Christ. He teaches that the state is a
Divine institution as well as the church. Political
government is necessary to the existence of human
society ; a bad government is better than no govern
ment at all. Governors might be unjust ; but Christian

lect. xxt.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 401
people, with no political authority or power, are not
responsible for the injustice, nor are they able to
remedy it. Government itself is sanctioned by God,
and submission is part of the duty which Christian
people owe to Him.
Domestic and industrial institutions are also neces
sary for the existence of society. By the Divine
constitution of human life we have to serve each
other in many ways, and if the service is to be
effective it must be organised. In apostolic times
slavery existed in every part of the Roman empire.
It was a form of domestic and industrial organisation
created by the social condition of the ancient world.
It was the growth of the history and mutual relations
of the races under the Roman authority. To prac
tical statesmen in those days it would have seemed
impossible to organise the domestic and industrial
life of nations in any other way, as impossible as it
seems to modern statesmen to organise commerce on
any other principle than that of competition. Christ
ian people were not responsible for its existence, and
had no power to abolish it. Their true duty was to
consider how, as masters and slaves, they were to do
the will of Christ
Paul transfigures the institution. He applies to it
the great principle which underlies all Christian
ethics ; Christ is the true Lord of human life ; what
ever we do we are to do for Him ; we are all His
servants. Slaves live in the eye of God. They are
to do their work for Him. All that is hard, all that
D D

*02 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. XXI.
is ignominious, in their earthly condition is suddenly
lit up with the glory of Divine and eternal things.
" Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the
flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling" —
" with that zeal which is ever keenly apprehensive of
not doing enough " 1 — " in singleness of your heart"
with no double purpose, but with an honest and ear
nest desire to do your work well, "as unto Christ!'
This will redeem them from the common vice of
slaves ; if they accept their tasks as from Christ, and
try to be faithful to Him, they will not be diligent
and careful only when their masters are watching
them, " in the zvay of eye-service, as men-pleasers" but
will be always faithful " as servants of Christ, doing
the will of God from the heart!' They will cherish no
resentment against their earthly masters, and will not
serve them merely to avoid punishment, but, regard
ing their work as work for Christ, will do it cheerfully
with real kindliness for those whom they have to
serve, " with good will doing service, as unto the Lord
and not unto men!' Their earthly masters may deny
them the just rewards of their labour, may fail to
recognise their integrity and their zeal, may treat
them harshly and cruelly; but as Christ's servants
they will not miss their recompence ; they are to
work, " knowing that whatsoever good thing each one
doeth" that very thing " shall he receive again from
the Lord, whether he be bond or free!' No good works
1 Meyer, in Inc.

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 403
will be forgotten ; the rewards which are withheld on
earth will be conferred in heaven.
Masters are to act towards their servants in the
same spirit, and under the government of the same
Divine laws. " Ye masters, do the same tilings unto
them!' As slaves are warned against the special
vices of their order, and charged to do their work
not reluctantly but "with good will," " not in the way
of eye-service, as men-pleasers," but " from the
heart," so masters are warned against the special vice
of which masters were habitually guilty ; they are not
to be rough, violent, and abusive, but are to "forbear
threatening!' They are reminded that their authority
is only subordinate and temporary ; the true Master
of their slaves is Christ, and Christ is their Master
too ; He will leave no wrong unredressed. Before
earthly tribunals a slave might appeal in vain for
justice, but " tliere is no respect of persons with Him'.'
These precepts, may be met with the objection that
slavery was a cruel tyranny, and that no moral duties
could be created by social relations which were an
outrage at once on human rights and on Divine laws:
the masters had one duty, and only one — to emanci
pate their slaves ; the slaves were grossly oppressed,
and were under no moral obligations to their masters.
But the objection is untenable. The worst injuries
may be inflicted upon me by an individual or by the
state, but it does not follow that I am released from
obligations either to the man or to the community

404 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. x\i,
that wrongs me. I may be unjustly imprisoned,
imprisoned by an iniquitous law or by a corrupt
judge ; but it may be my duty to observe the regu
lations of the jail ; I ought not to be in prison at
all, but being there it may be my duty neither to try
to escape nor to disturb the order of the place. And
though a man ought not to be a slave at all, he may
be under moral obligations to those who hold him in
slavery. So, on the other hand, I may be a jailer,
and may have prisoners under my care who, in my
belief, have committed no crime, and yet it may be
my duty to keep them safely. To take an extreme
case : the governor of a jail may be fully convinced
that a man in his charge who has been condemned to
be hung for murder is innocent of the crime, but if he
were to let the man escape he would be guilty of a
grave breach of trust.
We may say of slavery what John Wesley said of
the slave trade, that it "is the sum of all villanies "
and yet a servile revolt may be a great and flagrant
crime. While the institution exists and a real and
permanent improvement in the organisation of society
is impossible, it is the duty of the slave to bear his
wrongs patiently.
Circumstances may be easily imagined in which the
position of a master, if he be a Christian, would be in
some respects more difficult than that of a slave.
Some of the miserable creatures whom he owns may
have lost, or never possessed, the energy, the fore
thought, the self reliance, the self control, necessary for

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 405
a life of freedom. In the organisation of society there
may be no place for them among free citizens. To
emancipate them would be to deprive them of a
home, to give them up to starvation, to drive them to
a life of crime. In such circumstances a Christian
master might think it his duty to retain his authority
for the sake of society, and for the sake of the slaves
themselves ; but would resolve to use his power with
as much gentleness and kindness as the hateful
institution permitted.
But it may be further objected that there are no
indications in the New Testament that the apostles
saw the hatefulness of the institution or desired its
disappearance. They certainly did not denounce
it. I suppose that if Paul had been asked for his
judgment on it he would have said that slavery was
part of the order of this present evil world. If he
had been pressed more closely and asked to say
whether he thought it just or not, he would pro
bably have answered that in a world which had for
gotten God, and was in open revolt against Him, all
the relations between man and man were necessarily
thrown into disorder. It was not slavery alone that
violated the true and ideal organisation of human
society; the whole constitution of the world was evil ;
and no great and real reform was possible apart from
the moral and religious regeneration of the race.
When the golden age came, and the love and power
of Christ had won a final victory over human sin, the
order of the world would be changed. Under the

406 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxi.
reign of Christ tyranny, slavery, war, and poverty
would be unknown. Meanwhile and in the actual
condition of mankind the work of the Christian
church was not to assault institutions, but to try to
make individual men loyal to Christ. It was not
Christ's plan to effect an external revolution, but
to change the moral and spiritual life of the race.
It is very probable that the apostles themselves
did not estimate adequately the disintegrating and
transforming power ot the principles and spirit of the
Christian Faith. It soon became apparent that
Christian men cannot regard with indifference institu
tions which are flagrantly cruel and unjust With the
changing spirit of nations, Christianity has changed
their institutions too. The new principles it has
promulgated and the new dispositions it has inspired
have revealed themselves in civil and criminal legis
lation, in the usages of war, in new forms of national
life. At what moment it may become a duty to
insist on the readjustment of the political and social
institutions of a people — when, for example, a nation
which has been civilized by the influence of Christian
missions should abolish arbitrary government and
slavery and other forms of injustice — is a question of
political ethics and political philosophy. There may
be evil in delay as well as in precipitancy, for though
no real moral progress is secured by the mere destruc
tion of bad institutions while the spirit of a people
remains unchanged, bad institutions perpetuate the
injustice and cruelty in which they originated.

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 407
How Paul was likely to deal with slavery in indi
vidual cases is shown in his graceful and beautiful
letter to Philemon. We know too little of the cir
cumstances to be able to form a judgment upon the
reasons which led Paul to send Onesimus back to
his master, but there is not the slightest ground to
suppose that the apostle would have required every
fugitive slave to return to slavery. From the con
tents of the letter it may be inferred that Onesimus
had been guilty of very bad conduct towards Phile
mon,1 and had probably robbed him. Onesimus was
conscious of grave fault, and desired to return
to his master, and Paul sent him back with a
letter in which affectionate courtesy to the mastei
is blended with overflowing love for the slave.
Paul speaks of the comfort which he had re
ceived from the voluntary attentions of Onesimus,
describes him as his " child," as his " very heart" ;
is confident that Philemon will receive back the
fugitive, not merely " as a servant, but more than
a servant, a brother beloved," specially dear to
Paul, still more dear to Philemon himself. For what
ever loss Philemon had suffered from the misconduct
of Onesimus Paul makes himself responsible — " if he
hath wronged thee at all, or oweth thee ought, put
that to mine account ; I Paul write it with mine own
hand, I will repay it." But the apostle, remember.
in"- Philemon's obligations to him, felt certain that the

1 "Who was aforetime unprofitable to thee." (Ver. 11.)

408 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxi.
fulfilment of the promise would never be claimed :
" I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me
thine own self besides." He does not mention eman
cipation, but suggests it in a way so gracious that
Philemon could not have missed his meaning or
resisted his appeal. " Having confidence in thine,
obedience I write to thee, knowing that thou wilt do
even beyond what I say." And then he adds, " pre
pare me also a lodging ; for I hope that through youi
prayers I shall be granted unto you." The prospect
of seeing Paul in Colosse, and of receiving him as a
guest, would make Philemon so happy that I think
we may take it for granted that he resolved at
once to give Onesimus his liberty. Perhaps too, as
Dr. Lightfoot suggests, " there is a gentle compulsion
in this mention of a personal visit to Colosse. The
apostle would thus be able to see for himself that
Philemon had not disappointed his expectations." 1
That letter illustrates perfectly the spirit and atti
tude of the Christian Faith in relation to the institution
of slavery. Great as were the wrongs of the slave, he
must not avenge them by wronging his master.
Onesimus went back to Philemon voluntarily, and
went back, as is clear from the letter, with the inten
tion of compensating by faithful service for whatever
injury and loss his master had suffered from his mis
conduct. But Philemon was to receive him as a
1 " St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon."
Page 411.

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 409
"bi other beloved." The slave and the master were
to sit together at the table of Christ ; in the church
they were equals ; the slave as well as the master was
a son of God ; the same Divine life was in both ; they
had received the same supernatural illumination ; they
were heirs of the same eternal glory. When masters
began to regard their slaves in this way the horrible
cruelties of slavery would be at once arrested, and
emancipation was only a question of time. The
Christian gospel invested the slave with such
dignity that the church soon discovered that if the
will of God was to be done on earth as it is in heaven,
if the secular order was to be brought into harmony
with the Divine kingdom, slavery must cease to exist.
It became an honourable Christian work for masters
to emancipate their slaves, and for the chuich to
raise funds to buy the freedom of those whom their
owners refused to liberate. There has gradually been
created in Christian countries an ethical sentiment
which had no existence in the pagan world, and
slavery has come to be regarded with indignation and
abhorrence. It may seem that this subject has no practical
interest for ourselves ; for we are not slaves and we
do not own slaves. But the principles which are
expressed in the precepts of the apostle are of endur
ing and universal authority ; if they were remembered
and loyally practised they would work a wonderful
change in the lives of very many of us.

410 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxi.
We arc happily free from the curse and crime of
slavery ; but even the social order of England, which
we are accustomed, very inconsiderately, to call a
Christian country, does not perfectly realize the ideal
of social justice. There are no slaves among us, but
there are tens of thousands of Christian people who
feel and have a right to feel that their lot is a very
hard one. They are inadequately paid for their
work ; they are badly fed, badly clothed, badly
housed. They are never free from anxiety, they are
always on the edge of misery and of ruin. They are
without any hope of improving their condition. If by
self denial and forethought they are able in good
times to save a little from their poor wages, illness,
depression of trade, and loss of work soon sweep their
little store away. They have to endure harsh and
unkindly treatment from men whose control they
cannot escape.
But their position is not worse than the condition
of slaves in apostolic times, and they should resolve
with the help of Christ to obey the apostolic law.
Let them do their laborious and ill-paid work as
work for Christ. Let them look above and beyond
their earthly masters to Him ; cherishing no resent
ment against the men who treat them roughly and
tyrannically, but "with good will doing service as
unto the Lord and not unto men." Let them never
yield to the base temptation to work badly because
they are paid badly ; their true wages do not come
to them on Friday night or Saturday morning ; they

lect. xxi.] SERVANTS AND MASTERS. 411
are Christ's servants, and He will not forget their
fidelity. How often I have heard men say that they
would not mind hard work if they only got well paid
for it ! and they sometimes say that they would not
mind hard work if they were treated with kindness
and consideration, as men not as brutes. Let them
remember that Christ is their true Master, that who
ever else may fail to honour honest work He will not
fail, and that " whatsoever good thing each one doeth,
the same shall he receive again from the Lord."
Masters have not yet escaped from their old vice.
Their position of power encourages an arbitrary and
despotic temper, and those who employ a few men
seem to be in just as much danger as those who
employ hundreds and thousands. They are to be not
only just but courteous. They are to remember that
the relations between the master and his workmen,
the merchant and his clerks, the tradesman and his
assistants, are accidental and temporary. They have
all one Master in heaven, and to Him the supreme
question in reference to every man's life is not
whether he is rich or poor, whether he rules or serves,
but whether by justice, industry, temperance, and
kindliness he is trying to do the will of God.
The great revelation which has come to us through
Christ abolished slavery ; it ought to lift up our whole
social and industrial life into the very light of God,
and to fill the works, the warehouses, and the shops
of this great town with the very spirit which gives
beauty and sanctity to the palaces of heaven.

XXII.
THE WAR AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS.
" Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood,
bat against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-
rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places. " — Eph. vi. 10-12.
PAUL closes the long succession of precepts ex
tending over the whole of the second half of
this Epistle with a passage of vehement and magni
ficent rhetoric, the grandeur and fire of which are
likely to be lessened by any attempt at exposition.
The Christian church, the kingdom of God on
earth, is engaged in a great war. All Christian
people are enrolled in the army and are called to
active service. The conflict is not "against flesh
and blood," against visible and human foes, perse
cuting governments, unjust magistrates, violent mobs,
but against invisible and superhuman powers, ani
mated with a deep and irreconcilable hatred of God
and of righteousness. God alone can give us the
strength and the arms which are necessary to defend
ourselves, to support our comrades, and to destroy

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 413
the enemy. "Be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of His might. Put on the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of
the devil."
Paul believed in the existence and the formidable
power of evil spirits, the enemies of God and of the
human race. He believed that the crimes of wicked
men were not to be attributed exclusively to them
selves, but in part to the temptations of the devil,
and that the best and noblest men were accessible
to his malignity. This belief retained its place in
the creed of the Christian church till very recent
times. I suppose that it retains its place in the
creed of most of us still ; but it has lost its old
force and exerts no effective control over the ethical
and spiritual life. It is among those beliefs which,
as the result of the changes which, during the last
two or three hundred years, have passed upon
the intellectual and moral life of Europe, have be
come obsolete, beliefs which, to quote the accurate
language of Mr. Lecky, have perished " by indiffer
ence not by controversy," have been "relegated
to the dim twilight land that surrounds every living
faith ; the land not of death, but of the shadow of
death ; the land of the unrealized arid the in
operative." x
Against the existence of evil spirits, against the
1 Leck/s " History of Rationalism," page xxi.

414 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxii.
possibility of their exerting a malignant influence
on the moral and spiritual life of mankind, nothing
has ever been alleged, as far as I am aware, that
has any force in it. Some people appear to suppose
that they have said enough to justify their disbelief
when they have recited the grotesque and incredible
legends, the monstrous and childish superstitions,
about the devil, which laid so firm a hold on the
imagination and the fears of Europe in the middle
ages ; or when they have illustrated the history
and growth of analogous legends and superstitions
among savage or half civilized races. But they
could justify atheism by a precisely similar line of
reasoning. The mythologies of Greece and of Scan
dinavia are incredible ; their original and central
elements are obviously nothing more than the pro
duct of the imagination under the excitement of
the glories and the terrors, the majesty and the
beauty, of the visible universe. But because these
mythologies are incredible shall I refuse to believe
in the living God, the Creator of the heavens and
of the earth, the God that loveth righteousness and
hateth iniquity ? The attributes and deeds attri
buted to Kali, the black and blood-stained goddess,
with her necklace of human skulls, fill me with
horror and fierce disgust ; but is this horror, this
disgust, any reason for withholding my faith from
the revelation of God's infinite love in the Lord
Jesus Christ ? Many false, childish, dreadful things
have been imagined and believed about invisible

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 415
and Divine powers ; but this does not prove that
there is no God. Many monstrous and absurd
things have been imagined and believed about in
visible and evil spirits ; but this does not prove that
there is no devil.
Three hundred years ago men received popular
stories about grotesque and malicious appearances
of evil spirits without evidence and without inquiry.
It was the habit of the age to believe in such things ;
men believed, in the absence of all solid reasons for
believing. And now we disbelieve, without evidence
and without inquiry, what Christ Himself and His
apostles have told us about the devil and his
temptations. It is the habit of the age to disbelieve
in such things ; we disbelieve, in the absence of solid
reasons for disbelieving. We do not care to investi
gate the question. We go with the crowd. We think
that everybody cannot be wrong. We regard with
great complacency the contrast between our own clear
intelligence and the superstitions of our ancestors.
But when we are challenged to state our reisons
for refusing to accept what Christ has revealed on
this subject, we have nothing to answer except that
other people refuse to accept it ; and our aricestors
had just as good an apology for accepting the
superstitions of their times, everybody accepted
them. It is not quite clear 'that there is any good
ground for our self complacency ; the belief of our
ancestors was as rational as our own disbelief.
The subject is confessedly difficult, obscure, and

4i6 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxn.

mysterious ; but there is nothing incredible in the
existence of unseen and evil powers, from whose
hostility we are in serious danger. We know
too little of the invisible world to declare that the
existence of such powers is impossible. To claim
omniscience is, to say the least, a violation of
modesty. Give the faculty of vision to the blind,
and they see the sun and the clouds and the moon
and the stars, of whose existence they had known
nothing except by hearsay ; give a new faculty to
the human race, and we might discover that we are
surrounded by " principalities " and " powers," some
of them loyal to God and bright with a Divine glory,
some of them in revoLt against Him and scarred with
the lightnings of the Divine anger.
The moral objections to the existence of evil
spirits can hardly be sustained in the presence of
the crimes of which our own race has been guilty.
It is not a rare but a common thing for men to
be impatient of any limitations of their freedom.
To be controlled by a higher will is resented as a
personal humiliation. There have been vast num
bers, who have revolted against the law of right
eousness revealed to the conscience, as well as
against the Divine authority revealed to faith ; and
the revolt has sometimes become passionate and
fierce. Men have hated righteousness as they ought
to hate sin ; they have been the zealous propagandists
of vice ; they have committed with insolent ostenta
tion the foulest wickedness ; they have had a horrible

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 417
delight in dragging other men down into the same
depths of moral infamy. They have hated God, and
in their frenzy they have denounced His govern
ment of the universe — if indeed He governs it ; they
have declared that if He exists, He is a tyrant and
no God ; and that it is the duty of mankind to make
open war against Him. If such enormous wickedness
may exist among men, if men may commit crimes
so gross and so violent, if wicked men may put forth
their whole strength to induce others to become as
wicked as themselves, why should we regard it as
incredible that other races may have broken loose
from the moral control of God, and may be eager
and vehement in inciting universal revolt against
Him ? There may be other worlds in which the
inhabitants are as wicked as the most wicked of
ourselves ; we cannot fell. We may be surrounded
— we cannot tell — by creatures of God, who hate
righteousness and hate God with a fiercer hatred
than ever burned in the hearts of the most profligate
and blasphemous of our race. And they may be
endeavouring to accomplish our moral ruin, in this
life and the life to come.
If there is any evidence that we are menaced by
this peril it is our duty, instead of dismissing the
subject with a light jest, to consider the evidence
seriously. The Lord Jesus Christ, who revealed God as He
was never revealed before, and who brought life and
immortality to light, was not silent on this awful
E E

418 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxii.
subject. He Himself must have given to His disciples
the account of His temptation in the wilderness, and
He told them that He was "led up of the Spirit into
the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil."1 He
warned Peter of his approaching danger : " Satan
asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat ;
but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail
not ; and do thou, when once thou hast turned again,
stablish thy brethren." 3 In explaining the parable
of the sower, Christ said that " when any one heareth
the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not,
then cometh the evil one and snatcheth away that
which hath been sown in his heart." 3 In explaining
the parable of the wheat and the tares' He said
that "the enemy" that sowed the tares is "the
devil." 4 When His seventy disciples returned from
their mission, the story of their success filled His
heart with joy ; it was the prophecy of the final
triumph of the Divine kingdom, and He said, " I saw
Satan fallen as lightning from heaven." B When His
supreme hour was near, and a voice came from
heaven to give- Him strength and firmness to meet
His agony and His death, He said: "Now is the
judgment of this world ; now shall the prince of this
world be cast out, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw
all men unto Myself" ;6 the race was at last to have

1 Matt. iv. i. s Luke xxii. 31.
3 Matt. xiii. 19. * Matt. xiii. 39;
« Lukex. 18. « John xii. 31.

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 419
its true King. He describes the eternal fire, in which
wicked men and their wickedness are to perish, as
"the fire which is prepared for the devil and his
angels." x
The teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is sustained
by the apostles, by all the apostles. James writes :
" Be subject therefore unto God ; but resist the devil,
and he will flee from you." 2 Paul declares that " the
god of this world hath blinded the minds of the
unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory
of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn
upon them." 3 In this Epistle he warns the Ephesian
Christians that if they yield to the excitement and
violence of uncontrolled passion they will "give
place to the devil."4 He tells the Christians at
Corinth to beware of men who will come to
them with false teaching and with false claims to
be apostles of Christ ; and to give urgency to his
warning, he adds : " Even Satan fashioneth himself
into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore
if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers
of righteousness."5 Peter speaks of our "adversary
the devil" whom we are to withstand, "stedfast in
[our] faith." 6 In a brief epistle John has no less
than six or seven references to this dark and evil
power. " I write unto you, young men, because ye

1 Matt. xxv. 41. 2 James iii. 7.
3 2 Cor. iv. 4. * Eph. iv. 26.
0 2 Cor. xi. 14. ' 1 Pet. v.

420 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxii.
have overcome the evil one. ... I have written
unto you, young men, because ye are strong and the
word of God abideth in you and ye have overcome
the evil one." x " Cain was of the evil one, and slew
his brother."3 "We know that whosoever is begotten
of God sinneth not; but He that was begotten of God
keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not"3
"The whole world lieth in the evil one."4 " He that
doeth sin is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth from
the beginning. To this end was the Son of God
manifested, that He might destroy the works of the
devil."5 "In this the children of God are manifest,
and the children of the devil : whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth
not his brother." 6
To these passages I might add many others.
Some of them, if they stood alone, might be regarded
as mere rhetorical personifications of the contagious
and destructive power of moral evil ; but many of
them will not submit to any such attenuation of their
meaning ; and taken together they seem to me to
constitute a decisive proof that our Lord Jesus Christ
warned men of the hostility of unseen and evil spirits
who were His foes and the foes of all mankind. The
warnings are contained in His own discourses ; they
are repeated in the epistles of those whom He com-

2 i John ii. 13, 14. 2 1 John iii. 12.
• I John v. 18. * 1 John v. 19.
' 1 John iii. 8. • 1 John iii. 10.

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWnRs. 421
missioned to lay the foundations of the Christian
church. It may be suggested that as He spoke the language,
He thought the thoughts, of His country and His
time ; that as His contemporaries believed in the
existence of evil spirits, He also believed in their
existence. But it was not for Him to mistake
shadows for realities in that invisible and spiritual
world which was His true home and which He had
come to reveal to man. It was not for Him to
imagine that His kingdom was menaced by enemies
that had no existence except in the dreams of
popular superstition. It was not for Him to suppose
that by His death on the cross and His ascension
into heaven He would dislodge and dethrone a prince
whose power and malignity were only the fantastic
product of a gloomy imagination. It was not for
Him — the Judge whose lips are to pronounce the
sentence which will secure eternal life and blessed
ness or doom to eternal death — it was not for Him
to warn men that He will condemn them to eternal
fire prepared for the devil and his angels, if there
is no devil to destroy and if there are no evil angels
to share his destruction.
Nor can we believe that Christ Himself knew that
evil spirits had no existence and yet consciously and
deliberately fell in with the common way of speaking
about them. The subject was one of active con
troversy between rival Jewish sects. In using ftie
popular language Christ took sides on this very

422 LECTURES. ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxii.
question with the one sect against the other ; that
He should have supported controverted opinions
which He knew to be false is inconceivable.
And, in addition to the immediate and polemical
demand upon Him ' for revealing the truth on this
subject, there was a stronger claim. He came to us
with glad tidings, with tidings of God's infinite love
and of the blessed and glorious life beyond death.
He was eager to give us perfect freedom and perfect
joy. It would have been a relief to the men of His
own time, it would have been a still greater relief to
men of subsequent ages, to have been told that when
they had reckoned with " the world " and " the flesh "
they had done with all their enemies. The shadow
and the terror of the belief in evil spirits had already
fallen on the mind and heart of the race ; if the
shadow had been projected by superstition, and if the
terror had been imaginary, it surely belonged to
Him to liberate us from our fears. But His teaching,
instead of contradicting the common belief, gave it
authority. Instead of assuring men that they had
nothing to dread from " principalities " and " powers "
and " the spiritual hosts of wickedness," He described
the devil as the active foe of the Divine kingdom,
warned the chief of the apostles of the approach of
Satanic temptation, and told His disciples that He
Himself had been tempted by the devil in the
wilderness. Our belief in the existence of evil spirits and in
the danger to which their hostility to God and to

lect. xxii.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 423
righteousness exposes us, rests on the teaching of the
Lord Jesus Christ ; but it has been the common
conviction of Christian men that the teaching of
Christ is confirmed by our religious experience. Evil
thoughts come to us which are alien from all our
convictions and from all our sympathies. There is
nothing to account for them in our external circum
stances or in the laws of our intellectual life. We
abhor them and repel them, but they are pressed
upon us with cruel persistency. They come to us
at times when their presence is most hateful ; they
cross and trouble the current of devotion ; they
gather like thick clouds between our souls and God,
and suddenly darken the glory of the Divine
righteousness and love. We are sometimes pursued
and harassed by doubts which we have deliberately
confronted, examined, and concluded to be absolutely
destitute of force, doubts about the very existence
of God, or about the authority of Christ, or about
the reality of our own redemption. Sometimes the
assaults take another form. Evil fires which we
thought we had quenched are suddenly rekindkd
by unseen hands ; we have to renew the fight with
forms of moral and spiritual evil which we thought
we had completely destroyed.
There is a Power not ourselves that makes for
righteousness ; light falls upon us which we know is
light from heaven ; in times of weariness strength
comes to us from inspiration which we know must
be Divine ; we are protected in times of danger by

424 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxn.
an invisible presence and grace ; there are times when
we are conscious that streams of life are flowing into
us which must have their fountains in the life of God.
And there are dark and evil days when we discover
that there is also a power not ourselves that makes
for sin. We are at war, the kingdom of God on earth
is at war, with the kingdom of darkness. We have to
fight "against the . principalities, against the powers,
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the
spiritual hosts of wickedness in tlie heavenly places! 'l
And therefore we need the strength of God and " the
armour of God." The attacks of these formidable
foes are not incessant ; but as we can never tell when
" the evil day " may come, we should be always pre
pared for it. After weeks and months of happy
peace they fall upon us without warning, and with
out any apparent cause. If we are to " witlistand"
them, and if after one great battle in which we have
left nothing unattempted or unaccomplished for
our own defence and the destruction of the enemy2
we are still " to stand" to stand with our force un-
1 It seems remarkable that Paul should describe evil spirits
as being " in the heavenly places " ; but as we are there, we
should be inaccessible to them unless they were there too.
But the time will come when " the Son of man shall send forth
His angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast
them into the furnace of fire." (Matt. xiii. 41.)
2 This seems to be the meaning of the phrase "having done
all" ; the word which is represented by the phrase implies the
great difficulty of the task which is perfectly accomplished.

lect. xxn.] PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS. 425
exhausted and our resources undiminished, ready
for another, and perhaps fiercer engagement, we must
" be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His
might," and we must " take up the whole armour of
God!'

XXIII.
THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD.
' ' Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Stand
therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the prepara
tion of the gospel of peace ; withal taking up the shield of faith, where
with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God." — Eph. vi. 13-17.
IN the illustration of Paul's description of the
Divine armour, expositors have shown an in
exhaustible, and perhaps a not unprofitable, in
genuity. For purposes of edification his account of
every separate part of the armour deserves the
closest and most careful consideration. But Calvin,
when he puts aside with a certain touch of scorn
the expository method of some commentators and
preachers, shows the masculine good sense which
nearly always distinguishes him. " Nothing," he says,
" can be more idle than the extraordinary pains which
some have taken to discover the reason why right
eousness is made a breastplate instead of a girdle.
Paul's design was to touch briefly on the most im-
426

LECT. xxiii.] THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD. 427
portant points required in a Christian, and to adapt
them to the [military] comparison which he had
already used."1
But though the passage is rhetorical the rhetoric
is the rhetoric of truth and not of mere imagination
and passion. If we consider the sources of the
strength and security of the Christian life we shall
discover that there is not only strict propriety but
profound truth in the description of " righteousness "
as a " breastplate " and of " salvation " as a " helmet,"
of " the word of God " as a " sword," and of " faith "
as a '" shield."
It is very characteristic of Paul that he should
give the first place to " truth" He is thinking of
the truth concerning God and the will of God which
comes to us from God Himself through His revelation
in Christ and through the teaching of the Spirit ; for
all the elements of Christian strength are represented
in this passage as Divine gifts. Truth appropriated
and made our own gives energy, firmness, and de
cision to Christian life and action, relieves us from
the entanglement and distraction which come from
uncertainty and doubt, gives us a complete command
of all our vigour. It is like, the strong belt of the
ancient soldier which braced him up, made him
conscious of his force, kept his armour in its place,

1 Calvin, in loc. In I Thess. v. 8 Paul describes "faith and
love," not "righteousness,'' as the "breastplate" of the
Cnristian.

428 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiii.
and prevented it from interfering with the freedom
of his action. " Stand therefore, having girded your
loins with truth"
He gives the second place to " righteousness!' In
the conflicts of the Christian life we are safe, only
while we practise every personal and private virtue,
and discharge with fidelity every duty both to man
and to God.
"Righteousness" is the defence and guarantee of
righteousness. The honest man is not touched by
temptations to dishonesty ; the truthful man is not
touched by temptations to falsehood ; habits of in
dustry are a firm defence against temptations to
indolence ; a pure heart resents with disgust and
scorn the first approaches of temptation to impurity.
The separate virtues of a perfect character are
necessary to each other, and through a single vicious
habit or tendency we may be betrayed into many
kinds of sin. Vanity and cowardice make us acces
sible to temptations to untruthfulness ; covetousness
on the one hand and reckless extravagance on the
other may be the means of destroying our integrity ;
intemperance may lead to violence and licentiousness.
The practical obedience to Christ which is possible
to us through the power of His Spirit is a protection
against temptations which might destroy our very
life. It is like the " breastplate " which the soldier
wore to protect the vital parts of the body. In
anticipation of the fierce assault of the "spiritual
hosts of wickedness " we are to arm ourselves with

lect. xxm.] THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD. 429
perfect conformity to all the precepts of Christ ; we
are to " stand . . . .having put on the breastplate of
righteousness!' Paul gives the third place to what he describes as
"the preparation of the gospel of peace!' When we
have received with hearty faith the great assurance
of the remission of sins through Christ, we are
released from the gravest anxieties and fears. We
have escaped from care about the past, and are free
to give our whole strength to the duties of the
present and of the future. The discovery that God
is at peace with us gives us confidence and inspires
us with alertness and elasticity of spirit. We are not
merely ready, we are eager, for every good work.
We are like men whose feet are well shod : they can
stand firm and they can run ; they are prepared to
resist the shock of the enemy's assault and to attack
and pursue him when the assault is repelled. We
are to " stand . . . having our feet sliod with the
preparation" — the readiness — "of the gospel of peace!'
The fourth place is given to "faith" There are
a thousand perils against which faith in the right
eousness and love and power of God is our only
protection. The immense and awful gloom which
has rested upon the human race through a long
succession of dreary centuries sometimes provokes us
to desperate resentment, and we are ready to curse
God and die. There are hours when the gloom
seems without relief. The traditions of a golden
age in which men lived in innocence and happiness,

tfo LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiii.
under sunny skies which were never darkened by
storms, reaping golden harvests which were never
ruined by blight, unvexed by cares, unstained by
crimes, are idle dreams. The past was full of misery.
The hopes which men cherish of a golden age to
come seem to us nothing more than the illusions of
a sanguine imagination which, finding the present
misery of the world intolerable, endeavours to solace
itself with the vision of a remote and impossible
future. Through age after age hunger, weariness,
wasting disease, racking pain and unconsoled sorrow
are the doom of millions of mankind. Brutal ignor
ance and degrading vices are transmitted from
generation to generation. Here and there in the
universal darkness a few elect souls are fired with
an enthusiasm of compassion for human wretched
ness and of indignation for human wrongs ; the fires
kindle in thousands and tens of thousands of hearts ;
it seems as if the hour of retribution and of deliver
ance had come. But the fires are soon burnt out :
the light is extinguished ; the blackness of night
returns ; infinite hope sinks into infinite despair.
Sometimes fierce thoughts of God are forced upon
us by the cruel disappointments and protracted
troubles of our personal life. If we could see that
our calamities were "the chastening of the Lord,"
and were likely to subdue our sins and to invigorate
our righteousness, we might be patient and trustful.
But many of our sorrows seem aimless. They are
not discipline but torture. They seem to make us

lect. xxiii.] THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD. 431
worse rather than better ; they are of a kind, so we
are ready to think, which might have been purposely
selected to destroy whatever germs of goodness are
in us, and to excite to unnatural activity every latent
tendency to evil. We lose the child, the wife, whose
love softened our heart and was the chief earthly
support of the virtues which we find it hardest to
practise. We are treated harshly and basely by the
friends whom we had perfectly trusted, and their
treatment of us makes it impossible for us ever to
trust the affection or the honour of men again. The
results of years of hard industry, of thrift, of self
denial, are destroyed, just when we were hoping for
some relief from the strain of anxiety and incessant
labour, and when we were meaning to use our
ripened experience in the service of society or the
church. Or perhaps our distress comes from other
causes. We have set our hearts upon knowing God's
will and doing it ; we have had a large, an un
measured confidence in the power of God's grace.
We thought that heaven would come down to earth,
and that we should anticipate in this mortal life the
blessedness of our immortality. The Divine promises
seemed to assure us of this perfect holiness and joy.
But every hope has been disappointed. There has
been neither peace nor righteousness. We have found
that "the spiritual hosts of wickedness" have
assaulted us in " the heavenly places," and wounded
us cruelly. We were not safe, so it seemed to us, even
in God. Instead of the peace we hoped for, there

432 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiii.
has been agitation and war ; instead of the uniform
victory over sin, frequent and shameful defeat.
Or the Christian work into which we have put our
whole strength has been a dreary failure. Instead of
reaping the harvests which others have sowed — and
this was what the words of Christ, as we interpreted
them, encouraged us to expect — our own harvests
have had no sun to ripen them, or have been spoiled
by destructive floods, or have been set on fire by
relentless foes. Everything has gone against us.
When the misery of the world oppresses us, or we
are crushed by the misery of our personal life, terrible
thoughts about God pierce through every defence
and fasten themselves in our very flesh, torturing us,
and filling our veins with burning fever. We writhe
in our agony. If by any chance we hear about " the
unsearchable riches " of God's grace, we listen, not
only uncomforted, but sometimes with a passion of un
belief. " Grace ! " we exclaim, " where is the proof of
it ? Is there any pity in Him, any justice, any truth ? "
In these hours of anguish we are like soldiers
wounded by the "darts" with burning tow fastened
to them, or with their iron points made red hot, which
were used in ancient warfare.
We should have been safe if, when " the evil day "
came, it had found us with a strong and invincible faith
in God ; this would have been a perfect defence ;
and apart from this we can have no secure protec
tion. Take up " the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one!'

i.ect. xxiii.] THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD. 433
The fifth place is given to " salvation!' We are
insecure, unless we make completely our own the
great redemption which God has achieved for us in
Christ. Our thoughts are to extend over the whole
range of the blessings which God has conferred upon
us in Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection, and
ascension into heaven. These blessings include not
only the remission of sins, but victory over all the
powers of evil, and eternal blessedness and glory.
They are to be accepted with courageous trust,
though there are times when they seem to transcend
all the measures of hope. They are to be regarded
as our certain inheritance by the free gift of the
Divine grace, an inheritance which can never be
alienated and can never be impoverished. If we
have mean and narrow conceptions of the Divine
redemption, or if we think that it lies mainly with
ourselves whether we shall secure " glory, honour, and
immortality," we shall be like a soldier without a
"helmet" unprotected against blows which may be
mortal. But if we have a vivid apprehension of the
greatness of the Christian redemption, and if our hope
of achieving a glorious future is rooted in our con
sciousness of the infinite power and grace of God, we
shall be safe. We are to "take the helmet of salvation. '
But all these are arms of defence. Have we no
weapons for attacking and destroying the enemy?
Are the same temptations and the same doubts to
return incessantly and to return with their force
F F

434 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiii.
undiminished ? The helmet, the shield, the breast
plate, the belt, may be a protection for ourselves ; but
we belong to an army and are fighting for the victory
of the Divine kingdom and for the complete destruc
tion of the authority and power of the " spiritual hosts
of wickedness " over other men ; it is not enough
that our personal safety is provided for.
We are to fight the enemy with " the word of God"
Divine promises are not only to repel doubts but to
destroy them. Divine precepts are not only to be a
protection against temptations, but to inflict on them
a mortal wound and so to prevent them from troubling
us again. The revelation of God's infinite pity for
human sorrow and of His infinite mercy for human
sin, of the infinite blessings conferred upon men by
Christ in this world and of the endless righteousness
and glory which He confers in the world to come —
the Divine "word " to the human race — is the solitary
power by which we can hope to win any real and
enduring victory over the sins and miseries of man
kind. We are to take " the sword *' which the Spirit
has given us, " the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God."
And now Paul drops his metaphor. Unless God
personally stands by us we can hope for neither per
sonal safety nor for any victories over the powers of
evil. We are therefore to pray both for ourselves
and for others. But the consideration of this subject
must be reserved for the next lecture.

XXIV.
PR A YER ; INTERCESSOR Y PR A YER ; CONCL USION.
" With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the
Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for
all the saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me
in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the
gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains ; that in it I may speak
boldly, as I ought to speak. But that ye also may know my affairs, hozv
I do, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord,
shall make known to you all things : whom I have sent unto you for this
very purpose, that ye may know our stale, and that he may comfort your
hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our
Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness." Eph. vi. 18-24.
PRAYER, which is of supreme necessity both for
our own defence and for the destruction of the
kingdom of darkness, cannot be properly described as
part of the defensive armour which we are to wear or
as one of the weapons which we are to wield. It is
an appeal to the Divine strength and to Divine grace.
To speak of "the power of prayer," as though
prayer itself were a spiritual force, is misleading. In
prayer, human weakness invokes Divine protection
and Divine support. We pray, because our position
in relation to God is a position of absolute depend
ence. Apart from Him we can do nothing.
435

436 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxn*.
And in the spiritual life no system of secondary
laws comes between Him and us. In the inferior
provinces of our activity we are environed by the
unchanging order of the physical universe ; the
Divine energy is voluntarily limited by natural laws ;
without any direct appeal to God we can command
physical forces by a knowledge of the fixed methods
of their action. But the higher life is a perpetual
miracle. In the spiritual universe the Divine will
works freely, and we have to do, not with forces
which act under the restraint of fixed laws, but with a
personal Will. God is the Fountain of our life and of
our strength ; but the streams flow, not under the
compulsion of necessity, but according to His free
volitions. We therefore pray that the life and the
strength may be ours.
Our dependence upon God is constant, and there
fore our prayers should be constant. With the
chances and changes of life our necessities are
infinitely varied, and our prayers should be equally
varied. Our opportunities for prayer are not always
the same ; sometimes we must pray alone, sometimes
we can pray with others ; sometimes our prayers must
be brief, sometimes they may be prolonged.
And we shall never pray with a true knowledge
of our own wants or of the wants of others, and
with a clear apprehension of the great power and
love of God, unless we have the illumination and
gracious aid of the Divine Spirit.
We are therefore to " stand " ready for the great

lect. xxiv.] PRAYER. 437
conflict, not only armed with the whole armour of
God, but " with all prayer and supplication} praying
at all seasons in tlie Spirit."
We are to be constantly cherishing the conscious
ness of our dependence on God, and constantly on
our guard against whatever would destroy or enfeeble
the spirit of prayer, " watching thereunto in all per
severance" With this persistency and vigilance on our own
behalf there is to be solicitude for our comrades in
the great army of God. We are to pray for them
as constantly as for ourselves, "watching thereunto
in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints"
Paul adds a special request that the Ephesian
Christians would pray for himself, that a Divine word
might be given to him when he might have to make
his defence as an apostle of Christ and to declare the
truths and facts of the Christian Faith. I suppose
that even Paul's vision of Divine and eternal things
was clearer at some times than at others, and that
the " boldness" — the confidence, the vigour, the free
dom — with which he was able to state what he saw
and knew, varied. Great opportunities might be
coming to him for bearing testimony to Christ ; and
he was anxious that when they came he might speak
under the inspiration of Divine wisdom and Divine
1 " Prayer " is the generic word, and includes every kind of
address to God ; " supplication " is more specifically a petition
or request, and is used of petitions and requests addressed to
men as well as to God.

438 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiv.
strength : " that utterance may be given unto me, in
opening my mouth} to make known with boldness the
mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador
in chains, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to
speak" Habitual intercession for others is one of the surest
correctives of the . tendency to regard prayer as
deriving its chief value and importance — not from
the fact that God listens to us when we pray and
gives us what we ask for — but from the influence
which devotional thought, the confession of sin and
of weakness, the grateful acknowledgment of God's
goodness, and the contemplation of God's eternal
majesty and glory, exert on our own spiritual life.
None of us can escape altogether from the prevail
ing temper of our time. Those of us who think that
we are least affected by the currents of contemporary
thought feel their power. The tendency to eliminate
the supernatural element from the spiritual as well
as the physical universe is affecting the whole life of
the church. Christian people can understand that
when they pray their devotional acts exert a reflex
influence on their own minds and hearts ; but to
expect a direct answer from God requires a vigorous
faith ; and to this faith I fear that many of us are
1 " /;/ opening my mouth" i.e. when I have to speak ; and
the phrase suggests that he was thinking of having to speak on
occasions of special gravity.

lect. xxiv.] INTERCESSORY PRA YER. 439
unequal. If Christian men are in trouble they are
conscious that their hearts are lighter after they have
spoken to God about it, just as their hearts are
lighter when they have spoken about it to a friend ;
and they suppose that this kind of relief is all that
they have a right to look for. They pray for
stronger faith, and they suppose that it is by their
own thoughts about God and His great goodness,
thoughts which are made more vivid by the act of
prayer, that their faith is to be strengthened. Or if
they pray that their love for God may become more
ardent, they imagine that it is by the very excite
ment of praying for it that the result is to be ob
tained. They think that their prayer will be in
effective if, while they pray, their hearts are not
flooded with emotion ; they are satisfied if the
emotion comes, and if, to use their own words, they
"feel better" when the prayer is over.
It is no doubt true that religious thought and
communion with God purify, invigorate, and ennoble
the soul ; but if when we pray we think only or
chiefly of the effect of prayer upon ourselves, instead
of thinking of its effect in inducing God to grant us
what we pray for, we misapprehend the nature of
the act. When your child comes to you hungry
or thirsty, and asks for food or drink, the child
expects you to do something in answer to its request.
It does not suppose that the mere act of asking will
satisfy its hunger or quench its thirst ; and so when
we ask God for spiritual wisdom and strength we are

440 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiv.
not to imagine that the mere asking will make
us wiser and stronger. God teaches us and God
strengthens us, in answer to our prayer.
While this defective theory must impair the reality
and lessen the earnestness of prayer for ourselves,
it is likely to prevent us altogether from praying for
others. If we suppose that the great object of prayer
is to soothe or excite the soul by its reflex influence,
we shall see no use in praying for other people, unless
they are present to hear us pray ; and then we shall
think more of the immediate effect on their hearts
of what we say to God than of the blessings which
God will give them in answer to our intercessions.
The habit of praying for others will discipline us
to pray for ourselves in a right way ; it will train
us to believe that blessings come direct from God
in answer to our prayers.
The duty of praying for others is frequently in
culcated in the New Testament It is one of the
obligations arising from that great law which makes
it impossible for any of us to live an independent and
an isolated life. We are members of one body ; if
one member suffers all the members suffer with it ;
if one member is strong and healthy all the members
share the health and strength. We are not fighting
a solitary battle. We belong to a great army, and
the fortunes of a regiment in a remote part of the
field may give us an easy victory or increase the
chances of our defeat. We are to offer supplication
for " all the saints." Paul himself asked for the inter-

T.ECT. xxiv.] INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 441
cessions of the Ephesian Christians. He knew that
by their prayers they might secure for him a clear
ness and a vigour of thought and a fearlessness of
spirit which apart from their prayers he might not
possess ; and we cannot tell how much of his energy,
fire, and courage, came to him in answer to the
prayers of unknown and forgotten saints.
We often deplore the want of vigour and zeal in
the work of the church. Why is it not more vigorous
and more zealous ? If there are times when Sunday
school teachers are conscious that they have no heart
for teaching, whose fault is it ? If there are times
when those who visit the homes of the poor are
troubled that they have no Divine " word " on their
lips likely to quicken the conscience of the irreligious
or to console the misery of the wretched, whose
fault is it? Is it their fault alone ? No; it is ours
as well as theirs.
You come to listen to me on Sunday and I have
nothing to say that adds vigour to faith, or fervour
to love, or that enlarges your knowledge of duty or
of God. It is plain that during the week I have had
no clear vision of spiritual truth, or that, if I have,
the vision has faded away. You are naturally dis
appointed, perhaps discontented. It is partly my
fault. But is it not possible that the fault is as much
yours as mine? If you had prayed for me with
earnestness and faith, might not the vision of God
have come to me and the revelation of spiritual truth
and the baptism of fire? In the absence of your

442 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiv.
intercessions God may have given me truth for my
self but not for you. Suppose that in the course of
a few weeks after the Ephesian Christians received
this epistle Paul had been called to appear before
the Roman emperor and that his courage had failed ;
or that if his courage had not failed, no wise and
vigorous and penetrating words had occurred to him
in defence of the honour of Christ and in illustration
of the glory of the Christian redemption. The
Ephesian Christians when they heard of his failure
would have wondered how it could have happened
that the great apostle had even momentarily lost his
fearlessness and his power. But if they had forgotten
to pray that " utterance '' might be given to him " to
make known with boldness the mystery of the
gospel" the apostle's failure might have been the
result of their neglect.
There are Christian people whose life is so far
removed from excitement, agitation, and peril, that
they seem to have no opportunities for winning great
moral victories ; their powers are very limited, and
they are not appointed to tasks of great difficulty
and honour. Let them resolve to have their part in
the righteousness of their comrades who face the
fiercest dangers, and in the fame of the very chiefs
and heroes cf the great army of God. Let them
pray for " all the saints," and their prayers will give
courage, endurance, and invincible fidelity to those
who are struggling with incessant temptations.
Some Christian brother, who under the stress of bad

lect. xxiv.] INTERCESSOR > PRAYER. 443
trade and unexpected losses is almost driven to
dishonesty, will preserve his integrity. Some young
man, who is no longer sheltered by the kindly
defence of a religious home and who is surrounded
by companions that are trying to drug his conscience,
to excite his passions, and to drag him down into
vice, will stand firm in his fidelity to Christ. Some
poor woman, harassed by anxiety, worn down by
unkindness, will receive strength to bear her sorrows
with patience, and will rise to a lofty faith in the
righteousness and love of God. The feverish passion
for wealth will be cooled in some Christian merchant,
and he will obey the words of Christ charging him
to seek first God's kingdom and God's righteousness.
Some Christian statesman will have a clearer vision
of Divine and eternal things, and the vision will
enable him to master the impulses of personal am
bition and to care only for serving Christ by serving
the state. Saintly souls will become more saintly.
New fervour will kindle in many a heart already
glowing with apostolic zeal for the glory of God and
the salvation of men. New gifts of wisdom and of
utterance will be conferred on some who are already
conspicuous for their spiritual power and their
spiritual achievements. By constant and earnest
intercession for " all the saints," those who are living
in quiet and obscure places may share the honours
and victories of all their comrades, may have some
part in the praise of their holiness, and some part in
their final reward.

444 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiv.
Paul knew that many of the Christians at
Ephesus had a strong affection for him. For
"three years" he had lived in the city and its neigh
bourhood, and during that time "ceased not to
admonish every one night and day with tears."
They would be anxious to know about his health,
and about his prospects of release. He was an
"ambassador" having in charge "the mystery of the
gospel!' Ambassadors are received with honour,
and their persons are regarded as sacred ; but he
was an " ambassador in chains" ; his friends at
Ephesus would want to hear whether he was being
treated harshly or with consideration. He had
written to them about their duties ; they also would
want to know his "affairs"-} and he says that
Tychicus would tell them about him. "But that
ye also may know my affairs, how I do, Tychicus, the
beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord,
shall make known to you all things : whom I have sent
unto you for this very purpose, tliat he may comfort
your hearts!'
He closes, as he began, with a benediction. " Peace
be to the brethren"; — " the peace of God which passeth
1 This seems to be the meaning of the words " that ye also
may know our affairs." There is something unnatural, I think,
in supposing Paul to have meant that he had sent Tychicus in
order that the Ephesian Christians as well as Christians elsewhere
might know about him. He had been thinking and writing about
them ; they in their turn would be anxious about him.

lect. xxiv.] CONCLUSION. 445
all understanding" j1 the heavenly calm, the Divine
rest, which results from a clear and unclouded con
sciousness of the Divine love, and from the restora
tion of perfect harmony between the soul and God.
They have faith, and he invokes on them the Divine
fire which will kindle in their hearts a most fervent
love : " Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!'
" Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus
Christ in uncorruptness." Love for Christ is the
common life of all true Christians. In whatever else
they differ from each other, in their creeds, in their
modes of worship, in some of their conceptions of
how the Divine life in man is originated, how it
should be disciplined, and how it is manifested, they
are alike in this ; they all love the Lord Jesus Christ.
The controversies and divisions of Christendom have
gone a long way towards destroying the unity of
the church ; but in love for Christ all Christians are
one. And love for Christ is immortal. The religious
passion which is created by sensuous excitements,
whether those excitements are addressed to the eye
or to the ear, whether they heat the blood or in
toxicate the imagination, is transitory. It has in it
the elements of corruption. But true love for Christ
is rooted in all that is deepest and divinest in human
nature. It is immortal, for it belongs to that im-
' Phil. iv. 6.

446 LECTURES ON THE EPHESIANS. [lect. xxiv.
mortal life which comes to us by the inspiration of
the Spirit of God. It will not decay with the decay
of physical vigour. It will triumph over death ; and
will reveal the fulness of its strength and the intensity
of its fervour in those endless ages which we hope
to spend with Christ in glory. " Grace be with all
them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncgrruptness."

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