Chapter V: AUTOGRAPH CONCLUSION.--1. The Judaisers' motive (ch. vi. 12, 13) (7)

+II. In St. Paul and in all the New Testament there is nothing more beautiful than the clear, open, broad way in which the positive culture of human character is adopted and employed.+--We can conceive of a God standing over His moral creatures, and, whenever they did anything wrong, putting a heavy hand on the malignant manifestation and stifling it, and so at last bringing them to a tight, narrow, timid goodness--the God of repression. The God of the New Testament is not that. We can conceive of another God who shall lavish and pour upon His children the chances and temptations to be good; in every way shall make them see the beauty of goodness; shall so make life identical with goodness that every moment spent in wickedness shall seem a waste, almost a death; shall so open His Fatherhood and make it real to them that the spontaneousness of the Father's holiness is re-echoed in the child; not the God of restraint, but the God whose symbols are the sun, the light, the friend, the fire--everything that is stimulating, everything that fosters, encourages, and helps. When we read in the New Testament, lo, that is the God whose story is written there, the God whose glory we see in the face of Jesus Christ. The distinction is everywhere. Not merely by trying not to sin, but by entering further and further into the new life in which, when it is completed, sin becomes impossible; not by merely weeding out wickedness, but by a new and supernatural cultivation of holiness, does the saint of the New Testament walk on the ever-ascending pathway of growing Christliness and come at last perfectly to Christ.

+III. This character of the New Testament must be at bottom in conformity with human nature.+--The Bible and its Christianity are not in contradiction against the nature of the man they try to save. They are at war with his corruptions, and, in his own interest, they are for ever labouring to assert and re-establish his true self. Man's heart is always rebelling against repression as a continuous and regular thing. There is a great human sense that not suppression, but expression is the true life. It is the self-indulgence of the highest and not the self-surrender of the lowest that is the great end of the Gospel. The self-sacrifice of the Christian is always an echo of the self-sacrifice of Christ. Nothing can be more unlike the repressive theories of virtue in their methods and results than the way in which Christ lived His positive life, full of force and salvation. The way to get out of self-love is to love God. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."--_Phillips Brooks._

_The Flesh and the Spirit._

I. When St. Paul talks of man's flesh +he means by it man's body, man's heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers+--what we call a man's constitution, the animal part of man. Man is an animal with an immortal spirit in it, and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain; it can feel trust, hope, peace, love, purity, nobleness, independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite difference between an animal and man, between our flesh and our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong.

+II. There has been many a man in this life, who had every fleshly enjoyment which this world can give, and yet whose spirit was in hell all the while, and who knew it;+ hating and despising himself for a mean, selfish villain, while all the world round was bowing down to him and envying him as the luckiest of men. A man's flesh can take no pleasure in spiritual things, while man's spirit of itself can take no pleasure in fleshly things. Wickedness, like righteousness, is a spiritual thing. If a man sins, his body is not in fault; it is his spirit, his weak, perverse will, which will sooner listen to what his flesh tells him is pleasant than to what God tells him is right. This is the secret of the battle of life.

+III. Because you are all fallen creatures there must go on in you this sore lifelong battle between your spirit and your flesh+--your spirit trying to be master and guide, and your flesh rebelling and trying to conquer your spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox in cunning, a peacock in vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. It is your sin and your shame if your spirit does not conquer your flesh, for God has promised to help your spirit. Ask Him, and His Spirit will fill you with pure, noble hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and with deep, unselfish love to God and man; and instead of being the miserable slave of your own passions, and of the opinions of your neighbours, you will find that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, true freedom, not only from your neighbours' sins, but, what is far better, freedom from your own.--_C. Kingsley._

_Walking in the Spirit._

+I. The Spirit is a Divine nature, quality, or condition whereby we are made conformable to Christ.+--1. _It is a rich and liberal grace of God._ It contains the seeds of all virtues. 2. _Its largeness._ The Spirit is in all the powers of them who are regenerate in mind, conscience, will, affections, and in the sensual appetite. 3. _Its sincerity._ The grace of God is without falsehood or guile. 4. _Its excellency._ The spirit of grace in Christians is more excellent than the grace of creation, in respect of the beginning thereof, and in respect of constancy. 5. _Its liveliness,_ whereby the Spirit is effectual in operation. (1) The Spirit works in and by the Word of God. (2) Works by degrees, to make us feel our need of Christ, and to kindle in us a desire for reconciliation with God. (3) Works to write the law in our hearts.

+II. Walking in the Spirit is to order our lives according to the direction and motion of the Spirit.+--1. _The Spirit renews our nature._ (1) Makes us put a further beginning to our actions than nature can, causing us to do them in faith. (2) To do our actions in a new manner, in obedience to the Word. (3) Makes us put on a new end to our actions--to intend and desire to honour God. 2. _We must become spiritual men._ Must do things lawful in a spiritual manner. 3. _We must not judge any man's estate before God by any one or some few actions,_ good or bad, but by his walking, by the course of his life.--_Perkins._

Ver. 17. _The Strife of the Flesh and Spirit._

+I. Man, under the influence of corruption, is called flesh.+--He may be said to be a spiritual being because he is possessed of an immortal spirit; but the term flesh seems to be awfully appropriate, because he is wholly and exclusively under the dominion of matter. In the text it implies the evil principle that inhabits the bosom of man. It is the mighty autocrat of humanity in the wreck of the Fall. Sin is such a mighty monster that none can bind him in fetters of iron and imprison him but God Himself. In the operation of weaving, different materials cross each other in the warp and woof in order to make one whole, and this is the case with the family of heaven here below. Sin and grace are perpetually crossing each other.

+II. The spiritual offspring which is born of God is called the new man.+--It is the junior offspring, the junior disposition, the offspring of the second Adam. Corruption has its root only in humanity. Not so with grace. This springs alone from God. The new man lives in Him; his head is above the skies, his feet lower than hell; and the reason why he is destined to be conqueror is that he fights in and under the inspiration of Heaven.

+III. These two principles are in a state of ceaseless warfare, ever opposed to each other.+--They are like two armies, sometimes encamped, at others engaged in terrible conflict; but, whether apparently engaged or not, each seeks the destruction of the other perpetually. They are and must be ever opposed, till one fall; one must perish and the other live eternally. Where there is no conflict there can be no grace.

+IV. Consider the wisdom and valour evinced by this new principle.+--It is illumined by the Spirit and by the truth of God. The sun does not give me an eye. God alone can confer this organ; yet it is equally true my eye must attain its full vigour in the light of the sun: so the external means are necessary to teach us what God is, and to develop all the principles of the new man, to clothe it with the panoply of Deity, and to lead it on from battle to battle, and from victory to victory, till the last battle is eventually fought, the last victory won, and the fruits of triumph enjoyed for ever.--_William Howels._

Ver. 18. _The Leading of the Spirit._--1. The new man performs the office of guide to the godly in all actions truly spiritual. (1) As it is ruled by the Word, which is the external light and lantern to direct our steps. (2) The work of grace itself is the internal light whereby the regenerate man spiritually understands the things of God. (3) The same work of grace being actuated by the continual supply of exciting grace from the Spirit is a strengthening guide to all spiritual actions. 2. The natural man is so much a slave to his sinful lusts that the things appointed by God to curb and make them weaker are so far from bringing this about that his lusts are thereby enraged and made more violent. The rigidity of the law, which tends to restrain sin, is turned by the unregenerate man into an occasion for fulfilling his lusts.--_Fergusson._

_The Guidance of the Spirit._

+I. Preservation,+ whereby the Holy Ghost maintains the gift of regeneration in them that are regenerate.

+II. Co-operation,+ whereby the will of God, as the first cause, works together with the regenerate will of man, as the second cause. Without this co-operation, man's will brings forth no good action; no more than the tree which is apt to bring forth fruit yields fruit indeed till it have the co-operation of the sun, and that in the proper season of the year.

+III. Direction,+ whereby the Spirit of God ordereth and establisheth the mind, will, and affections in good duties.

+IV. Excitation,+ whereby the Spirit stirs and still moves the will and mind after they are regenerate, because the grace of God is hindered and oppressed by the flesh.

+V. Privilege of believers not to be subject to the ceremonial law.+--"Ye are not under the law." Not under the law respecting its curse and condemnation, though we are all under law, as it is the rule of good life.--_Perkins._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 19-21.

_The Works of the Flesh_--

+I. Are offensively obtrusive.+--"Now the works of the flesh are manifest" (ver. 19). Sin, though at first committed in secret, will by-and-by work to the surface and advertise itself with shameless publicity. The rulers of the civilised world in the first century of the Christian era, such as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, are the execration of history as monsters of vice and cruelty. Their enormities would have been impossible if the people they governed had not been equally corrupt. It is the nature of evil to develop a terrible energy the more it is indulged, and its works are apparent in every possible form of wickedness. "Every man blameth the devil for his sins; but the great devil, the house-devil of every man that eateth and lieth in every man's bosom, is that idol which killeth all--himself."

+II. Furnish a revolting catalogue.+--The sins enumerated may be grouped into four classes:--

1. _Sensual passions._--"Adultery [omitted in the oldest MSS.], fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness" (ver. 19). _Fornication_ was practically universal. Few were found, even among severe moralists, to condemn it. It is a prostitution of the physical nature which Jesus Christ wore and still wears, which He claims for the temple of His Spirit, and will raise from the dead to share His immortality. _Uncleanness_ is the general quality of licentiousness, and includes whatever is contaminating in word or look, in gesture or in dress, in thought or sentiment. _Lasciviousness_ is uncleanness open and shameless. It is the final loathsome analysis of the works of the flesh.

2. _Unlawful dealing in things spiritual._--"Idolatry, witchcraft [sorcery]," (ver. 20). _Idolatry_ and sensuality have always been closely related. Some of the most popular pagan systems were purveyors of lust and lent to it the sanctions of religion. When man loses the true conception of God he becomes degraded. _Sorcery_ is closely allied to idolatry. A low, naturalistic notion of the Divine lends itself to immoral purposes. Men try to operate upon it by material causes, and to make it a partner in evil. Magical charms are made the instruments of unholy indulgence.

3. _Violations of brotherly love._--"Hatred [enmities], variance [strife], emulations [jealousies], wrath [ragings], strife [factions], seditions [divisions], heresies [keen controversial partisanship], envyings, murders" (vers. 20, 21). A horrible progeny of evils having their source in a fruitful hotbed of unreasoning hatred, each vice preying upon and feeding the other. Settled rancour is the worst form of contentiousness. It nurses its revenge, waiting, like Shylock, for the time when it shall "feed fat its ancient grudge."

4. _Intemperate excesses._--"Drunkenness, revellings, and such like" (ver. 21). These are the vices of a barbarous people. Our Teutonic and Celtic forefathers were alike prone to this kind of excess. The Greeks were a comparatively sober people. The Romans were more notorious for gluttony than for hard drinking. The practice of seeking pleasure in intoxication is a remnant of savagery which exists to a shameful extent in our own country. With Europe turned into one vast camp, and its nations groaning audibly under the weight of their armaments, with hordes of degrading women infesting the streets of its cities, with discontent and social hatred smouldering throughout its industrial populations, we have small reason to boast of the triumphs of modern civilisation. Better circumstances do not make better men (_Findlay_).

+III. Exclude the sinner from the kingdom of God.+--"They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (ver. 21). How poor life seems outside that kingdom! How beautiful and glorious inside its gates! If I tried to tell you how Christ brings us there, I should repeat to you once more the old familiar story. He comes and lives and dies and rises again for us. He touches us with gratitude. He sets before our softened lives His life. He makes us see the beauty of holiness and the strength of the spiritual life in Him. He transfers His life to us through the open channel of faith, and so we come to live as He lives, by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. How old the story is, but how endlessly fresh and true to him whose own career it describes (_Phillips Brooks_). Exclusion from the kingdom of God is man's own act; it is self-exclusion. He _will not_ enter in; he loves darkness rather than light.

+Lessons.+--1. _Sin is an active principle whose works are perniciously evident._ 2. _Sin is the primal cause of every possible vice._ 3. _Sin persisted in involves moral ruin._

_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._

Vers. 19-21. _Biblical Account of Sin._--A mournful catalogue of words, based on a great variety of images, is employed in Scripture to describe the state of sinfulness which man inherits from his birth. Sometimes it is set forth as the _missing of a mark or aim_; sometimes as the _transgressing of a line_--the word occurs seven times in the New Testament and is twice applied to Adam's Fall (Rom. v. 14; 1 Tim. ii. 14); sometimes as _disobedience to a voice, i.e._ to hear carelessly, to take no need of--the word occurs three times (Rom. v. 19; 2 Cor. x. 6; Heb. ii. 2); sometimes as _ignorance of what we ought to have done_ (Heb. ix. 7); sometimes as _a defect or discomfiture_--to be worsted, because, as Gerhard says, "A sinner yields to, is worsted by, the temptations of the flesh and of Satan"; sometimes as _a debt_ (Matt. vi. 12); sometimes as _disobedience to law_--the word occurs fourteen times in the New Testament and is generally translated by "iniquity." The last figure employed in the most general definition of sin given in the New Testament--_sin is the transgression of the law_ (1 John iii. 4).--_Trench and Maclear._

_The Works of the Flesh._

+I. Sins against chastity.+--Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, wantonness. 1. We must stock up the root of these things, mortify the passion of concupiscence. 2. All occasions of these sins must be cut off, two especially, idleness and the pampering of the body. 3. All signs of these vices must be avoided, any speech or action that may give suspicion of incontinent disposition, as light talk, wanton behaviour, curiousness and excess in trimming of the body, suspected company.

+II. Sins against religion.+--Idolatry, witchcraft, heresies.

+III. Sins against charity.+--Enmity, debate, emulations, anger, contention, seditions.

+IV. Sins against temperance.+--Drunkenness, gluttony. 1. We may use meat and drink not only for necessity, but also for delight. 2. That measure of meat and drink which in our experience makes us fit both in body and mind for the service of God and the duties of our calling is convenient and lawful. To be given to drinking and to love to sit by the cup, when there is no drunkenness, is a sin. Drunkenness: (1) Destroys the body. (2) Hurts the mind. (3) Vile imaginations and affections that are in men when they are drunk remain in them when they are sober, so being sober they are drunk in affection.--_Perkins._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 22-26.

_The Fruit of the Spirit_--

+I. Is evident in manifold Christian virtues.+--1. _Virtues describing a general state of heart._ "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace" (ver. 22). _Love_ is foremost of the group of Christian graces, and gives a nameless charm to all the rest, for there is an element of love in all true goodness. Love derives its power from being in the first place, love to God. When the soul centres its affection in God through Christ all its outgoings are influenced and regulated accordingly. _Joy_ is the product of love. A philosophy or religion which has no room for the joy and pleasure of man is as little conversant with the wants of man as with the will of God. "Joy in the Lord quickens and elevates, while it cleanses all other emotions. It gives a new glow to life. It sheds a Diviner meaning, a brighter aspect, over the common face of earth and sky. Joy is the beaming countenance, the elastic step, the singing voice, of Christian goodness." _Peace_ is the holy calm breathed into the soul by a pardoning God. It is the gift of Christ, giving rest to the soul in the midst of external agitations. "It is a settled quiet of the heart, a deep, brooding mystery that 'passeth all understanding,' the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, the Sabbath of God. It is the calm, unruffled brow, the poised and even temper which Christian goodness wears."

2. _Virtues exercised in the Christian's intercourse with his neighbour._--"Longsuffering, gentleness, goodness." Charity suffereth long. The heart at peace with God has patience with men. _Longsuffering_ is the patient magnanimity of Christian goodness, the broad shoulders on which it "beareth all things." _Gentleness_ (or kindness, as the word is more frequently and better rendered) resembles longsuffering in finding its chief objects in the evil and unthankful. But while the latter is passive and self-contained, kindness is an active, busy virtue. It is the thoughtful insight, the delicate tact, the gentle ministering hand of charity. Linked with kindness comes _goodness,_ which is its other self, differing from it as only twin sisters may, each fairer for the beauty of the other. Goodness is perhaps more affluent, more catholic in its bounty; kindness more delicate and discriminating. Goodness is the honest, generous face, the open hand of charity (_Findlay_).

3. _Virtues indicating the principles which regulate the Christian's life._--"Faith [honesty, trustworthiness], meekness, temperance" (vers. 22, 23). The _faith_ that unites man to God in turn joins man to his fellows. Faith in the divine Fatherhood becomes trust in the human brotherhood. He who doubts every one is even more deceived than the man who blindly confides in every one. Trustfulness is the warm, firm clasp of friendship, the generous and loyal homage which goodness ever pays to goodness. _Meekness_ is the other side of faith. It is not tameness and want of spirit; it comports with the highest courage and activity and is a qualification for public leadership. It is the content and quiet mien, the willing self-effacement, that is the mark of Christ-like goodness. _Temperance,_ or self-control, is the third of Plato's cardinal virtues. Temperance is a practised mastery of self. It covers the whole range of moral discipline and concerns every sense and passion of our nature. It is the guarded step, the sober, measured walk in which Christian goodness keeps the way of life, and makes straight paths for stumbling and straying feet (_Ibid._).

+II. Violates no law.+--"Against such there is no law" (ver. 23; comp. ver. 18). The fruit of the Spirit is love; and the law, so far from being against love, commands it (ver. 14). The practice of love and all its works is the fulfilling of the law and disarms it of all terror. The expression, "Against such there is no law," so far from being more than superfluous, as Hoffman asserts, is intended to make evident how it is that, by virtue of this, their moral frame, those who are led by the Spirit are not subject to the Mosaic law. For whosoever is so constituted that a law is not against him, over such a one the law has no power.

+III. Indicates the reality of a great spiritual change.+--1. _The old self-hood is crucified._ "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh" (ver. 24). This well expresses how sin must, little by little, be disabled and slain, for the crucified man did not die at once. He was first made fast with nails to the cross, and then kept there, till through hunger and thirst and loss of blood he became weaker and weaker, and finally died. We are to be executioners, dealing cruelly with the body of sin which caused the acting of all cruelties on the body of Christ.

2. _A new law now regulates the life._--"If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (ver. 25). The life is governed, not by the law of the flesh, but of the Spirit. The electrician can demagnetise and remagnetise a bar of iron, but the biologist cannot devitalise a plant or an animal and revivify it again. Spiritual life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant in the soul. The Spirit who created the life within sustains it and directs all its outgoings.

3. _Everything provocative of strife and envy is carefully avoided._--"Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another" (ver. 26). Vaingloriousness was a weakness of the Galatic temperament; and is not unknown in modern Christian life. Superiority, or fancied superiority, in talents or status is apt to proudly display itself. It is indeed a pitiable exhibition when even spiritual gifts are made matter of ostentation, exciting the jealousy of inferior brethren, and creating discontent and envy. The cultivation of the fruit of the Spirit is the best remedy against all bitterness and strife.

+Lessons.+--1. _The fruit of the Spirit a suggestive contrast to the works of the flesh._ 2. _Consistency of life is the test of genuine religion._ 3. _The operations of the Spirit are in harmony with the highest law._

_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._

Vers. 22, 23. _The Fruit of the Spirit._

+I. Love.+--1. The love of God. (1) Shown in a desire of fellowship with God. (2) To love the Word of God above all earthly treasure, and to tread our own will underfoot. (3) The love of them that love God and Christ. 2. The love of our neighbour. This is love indeed, to show love and to do good to them that wrong and abuse us.

+II. Joy.+--1. To rejoice in the true acknowledgment of God. 2. To rejoice in the work of our regeneration. 3. To rejoice in the hope of eternal glory.

+III. Peace.+--To maintain peace and concord: 1. Neither take offence nor give offence. 2. Seek to edify one another; either do good or take good.

+IV. Longsuffering.+--To moderate our anger and desire of revenge when many and great wrongs are done us. Set and sow this plant in the furrows of your heart, and consider: 1. The goodness of God, who forgives more to us than we can forgive. 2. It is the duty of love to suffer and forbear. 3. It is a point of injustice to revenge ourselves, for then we take to ourselves the honour of God, and against all equity--we are the parties and judge and witness and all. 4. We are often ignorant of the mind of men in their actions, and of the true circumstances thereof, and so may easily be deceived.

+V. Gentleness.+--Right courtesy is with an honest heart to bless when we are wronged.

+VI. Goodness.+--The virtue whereby we communicate to others good things, for their good and benefit.

+VII. Faith.+--Faith towards man, which means: 1. To speak the truth from the heart. 2. To be faithful and just in the keeping of our honest promise and word. This faith a rare virtue in these days. The common fashion of them that live by bargaining is to use glorying, facing, soothing, lying, dissembling, and all manner of shifts. They that deal with chapmen shall hardly know what is truth, they have so many words and so many shifts.

+VIII. Meekness.+--The same in effect with longsuffering. The difference is that meekness is more general, and longsuffering the highest degree of meekness.

+IX. Temperance.+--The moderation of lust and appetite in the use of the gifts and creatures of God. 1. We must use moderation in meats and drinks. That measure of meat and drink which serves to refresh nature and make us fit for the service of God and man is allowed us of God and no more. 2. We must use moderation in the getting of goods. 3. In the spending of our goods--contrary to the fashion of many who spend their substance in feasting and company, and keep their wives and children bare at home. 4. In our apparel. To apparel ourselves according to our sex, according to the received fashion of our country, according to our place and degree, and according to our ability.

+X. Against such virtues there is no law.+--1. No law to condemn. 2. No law to compel obedience. Spiritual men freely obey God, as if there were no law; they are a voluntary and free people, serving God without restraint.--_Perkins._

Ver. 22. _Love an Attendant of Regeneration._--1. Love is a delight in happiness. 2. Is universal. 3. Is just. 4. Is disinterested. 5. Is an active principle. 6. Is the only voluntary cause of happiness. 7. Is the only equitable spirit towards God and our fellow-creatures. 8. Is the only disposition which can be approved or loved by God.--_Dr. Dwight._

_The Powers of Love._--If these be the fruit of the Spirit, they cannot be mere matters of temperament. When philosophy gives an account of the human soul it can find only constitutional propensities and voluntary acquisitions. When we interrogate Christianity, we are told besides of communicated sanctities, states of mind which inheritance cannot give or resolution command, which need some touch of God to wake them up, which are above us and yet ours, and seem to lie on the borderland of communion between the finite and the infinite Spirit.

+I. There is humane love,+ which constitutes the humblest and most frequent form of unselfish feeling. It finds its objects among the miserable and attaches itself to them in proportion to their woes. In human pity there is a strange combination of repulsion and attraction, which it is the paradox of philosophy to state, and the mercy of God to ordain; it cannot endure the sight of wretchedness, and yet can never leave it. But there is a work ordained for us which this impulse will not suffice to do. Fastening itself on suffering alone, it sees nothing else. Yet beneath the smooth and glossy surface of easy life there may hide itself many an inward disease which the mere glance of pity does not discern. Flourishing iniquity that gives no seeming pain it lets alone; invisible corruption may spread without arrest.

+II. There is imaginative or æsthetic love,+ which attaches itself to objects in proportion as they are beautiful, kindles the enthusiasm of art, and completes itself in the worship of genius. Yet is this affection very barren until thrown into the midst of others to harmonise and glorify them. No reciprocal sympathy is requisite to this sentiment; that which is admired as beautiful does not admire in return. And above all there is a direct tendency to turn with indifference or even merciless repugnance from what is unlovely.

+III. There is moral love,+ which has reference to persons only, not to things, which attaches itself to them in proportion as they are good, judges them by the standard of an internal law, and expresses itself in tones, not of tenderness as in pity, or of admiration as in the trance of beauty, but of grave and earnest approval. Even this moral love is not without imperfections. Its characteristic sentiment of approbation has always in it a certain patronising air not welcome to the mercy of a true heart, and more like the rigour of a Zeno than the grace of Christ.

+IV. There is a Divine love,+ directed first upon God Himself, and thence drawn into the likeness of His own love, and going forth upon other natures in proportion to their worth and claims. This is the crowning and calming term of all prior affections, presupposing them, and lifting them up from clashing and unrest to harmony and peace. The humane, the beautiful, the right, remain only scattered elements of good till they are gathered into the Divine and blended into one by the combining love of God.--_Dr. Martineau._

_Love the Perfection of Character._--The fruit of the _true_ vine has been analysed, and in the best specimens nine ingredients are found. In poor samples there is a deficiency of one or other of these elements. A dry and diminutive sort is lacking in peace and joy. A tart kind, which sets the teeth on edge, owes its austerity to its scanty infusion of gentleness, goodness, and meekness. There is a watery, deliquescent sort which, for the want of longsuffering, is not easily preserved; and there is a flat variety which, having no body of faith or temperance, answers few useful purposes. Love is the essential principle which is in no case entirely absent, and by the glistening fulness and rich aroma which its plentiful presence creates you can recognise the freshest and most generous clusters, whilst the predominance of some other element gives to each its distinguishing flavour, and marks the growth of Eshcol, Sibmah, or Lebanon.--_Dr. James Hamilton._

_The Power of Meekness and Affection._--Once in Holland a person of high rank invited Tersteegen to be his guest. This individual imagined himself to have attained to a state of peculiar inward peace and took occasion during dinner to criticise Tersteegen for being too active, and for not sufficiently knowing the ground on which he wrought. Tersteegen attended meekly and silently to all that was said; and when dinner was over he offered up a fervent prayer in which he commended his host to the Lord in terms of such affection and compassion that this great and warm-tempered man was so much struck and affected by it that his feelings overpowered him, and he fell upon the neck of his guest and begged his forgiveness.

_Who are the Meek?_--A missionary to Jamaica was once questioning the little black boys on the meaning of Matt. v. 5, and asked, "Who are the meek?" A boy answered, "Those who give soft answers to rough questions."

_The Grace of Gentleness._

+I. It is not a gift, but a grace.+--It is not a natural demeanour, amiable and courteous, a soft, feminine compliance, but a grace of the Spirit which takes into it the strength of the Divine. You may have the instinct of delicacy, a natural tenderness and affability, yet not have this grace of the Spirit which impels you for Christ's sake to deal gently and save men. It is the underlying motive which determines whether grace or nature reigns. How is it when your ideas and methods of doing good are thwarted? Moses seems to have in Zipporah what Socrates had in Xantippe, yet her abuse had no more abiding effect on him than the spray which angry waves toss against the rock. Calvin hearing of Luther's ire said, "Let him hate me and call me a devil a thousand times; I will love him and call him a precious servant of God."

+II. The cultivation of this grace will cost you many a struggle.+--You are to get the better of your temper on your knees. No minstrel as in the case of Saul can do the work. We must forgive in our heart those who offend us.

+III. The grace of gentleness is a queen with a train of virtues.+--It ennobles our whole nature. An English nobleman could not be bound to keep the peace, for it was supposed that peace always kept him. So we should suppose that every professed Christian would have this grace; but if you should put your ear to the door of some Christian homes, it would be like listening to a volcano. If you did not behold a sulphurous flame bursting out, you might hear a continual grumbling. A man said to me once, "When I see Mr. So-and-so my passion is bigger than myself, and I long to make him feel it." The Spirit of Christ leads us to pray for those who despitefully use us. Only as His temper prevails in us shall we be able to illustrate the beauty of Divine greatness.--_Homiletic Monthly._

_Constant Joy._--Father Taylor, the Boston sailor-preacher, when going out to make a call, said to his host on the doorstep, "Laugh till I get back."

Ver. 24. _Crucifying the Flesh._

+I. What is meant by being Christ's.+--It is to accept of and have an interest in Christ in His prophetic, kingly, and sacerdotal offices. By His prophetic office we come to know His will; by His kingly office, ruling and governing us, we come to yield obedience to that will; and by His sacerdotal or priestly office we come to receive the fruit of that obedience in our justification.

+II. What is meant by the flesh.+--The whole entire body of sin and corruption; that inbred proneness in our nature to all evil, expressed by concupiscence. 1. _It is called flesh because of its situation and place, which is principally in the flesh._ 2. _Because of its close, inseparable nearness to the soul._ 3. _Because of its dearness to us._ Sin is our darling, our Delilah, the queen-regent of our affections; it fills all our thoughts, engrosses our desires, and challenges the service of all our actions. This reveals: (1) The deplorable state of fallen man. (2) The great difficulty of the duty of mortification. (3) The mean and sordid employment of every sinner--he serves the flesh.

+III. What is imported by the crucifixion of the flesh.+--1. _The death of it._ He that will crucify his sin must pursue it to the very death. 2. _A violent death._ Sin never dies of age. The conquest need be glorious, for it will be found by sharp experience that the combat will be dangerous. 3. _A painful, bitter, and vexatious death._ 4. _A shameful and cursed death._

+IV. The duty of crucifying the flesh.+--1. _A constant and pertinacious denying it in all its cravings for satisfaction._ 2. _Encounter it by actions of the opposite virtue.--Robert South._

Ver. 25. _Life and Walk in the Spirit._--Life relates to what is inward, walk to what is outward.

+I. To live in the Spirit.+--1. The Spirit begins the life of God in the soul. 2. The Spirit gives new desires and changes all the motives of life. 3. The Spirit lives in us.

+II. To walk in the Spirit.+--1. The walk will follow from the life, for every kind of life is after its own kind and development. 2. Every outward manifestation will correspond to the inward principle of life and will be marked by love to God and love to man. 3. Reputation will correspond to character and conduct to life.

+III. To be led by the Spirit.+--1. The Christian's life is a growth, his walk a progress; but he is led and guided by the Spirit. 2. No new revelation is made by the Spirit. He leads and guides by what is written in the Word.

+IV. Learn our relations to the Spirit.+--1. We live under the Spirit's dispensation. 2. He is the Spirit of God, and so of life, truth, and authority. 3. He is the Spirit of Christ, and so unites us to Him. 4. If we live by the Spirit, let conversation and conduct be answerable thereunto.--_Homiletic Monthly._

_Walking in the Spirit--_

+I. Is to savour the things of the Spirit.+--To subject a man's soul to the law of God in all the faculties and powers of the soul. The things revealed in the law are the things of the Spirit, which Spirit must at no hand be severed from the Word.

+II. To walk in the path of righteousness without offence to God or man.+

+III. To walk not stragglingly, but orderly by rule, by line and measure.+--To order ourselves according to the rule and line of the Word of God. The life of a man will discover to the world what he is.--_Perkins._

Ver. 26. _Vaingloriousness._

+I. The exciting cause of many quarrels.+

+II. A source of envy and disappointment.+

+III. Unbecoming the dignity and aims of the Christian life.+

_The Vice of Vainglory and its Cure._

+I. Vainglory is a branch of pride,+ wherein men principally refer all their studies, counsels, endeavours, and gifts to the honouring and advancing of themselves. They who have received good gifts of God are often most vainglorious. Whereas all other vices feed upon that which is evil, this vice of vainglory feeds upon good things. A man will sometimes be proud even because he is not proud.

+II. The cure of vainglory.+--1. _Meditation._ (1) God resisteth all proud persons and gives grace to the humble, because the vainglorious man, seeking himself and not God, robs God of His honour. (2) It is the work of the devil to puff up the mind with self-liking and conceit, that thereby he may work man's perdition. (3) There is no religion in that heart that is wholly bent to seek the praise of men. The man who desires to be talked of and admired by others gives notice to the world that his heart is not sound in the sight of God. 2. _Practice._ (1) Endeavour to acknowledge the great majesty of God, and our own baseness before Him. (2) We ought to ascribe all good things we have or can do to God alone, and nothing to ourselves. (3) In all actions and duties of religion we must first endeavour to approve ourselves to God, and the next place is to be given to man. (4) When we are reviled we must rest content; when we are praised take heed. Temptations on the right hand are far more dangerous than those on the left. (5) Men who are ambitious, if they be crossed, grow contentious; if they prosper, they are envied by others. Abhor and detest vainglory; seek to preserve and maintain love.--_Perkins._

* * * * * * * *

+CHAPTER VI.+

_CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES._

Ver. 1. +Overtaken in a fault.+--Be caught red-handed in any transgression, the result of some sudden and overpowering gust of evil impulse. +Restore such an one.+--The same word used of a dislocated limb reduced to its place. Such is the tenderness with which we should treat a fallen member in restoring him to a better state. +In the spirit of meekness.+--Meekness is that temper of spirit towards God whereby we accept His dealings without disputing; then towards men whereby we endure meekly their provocations, and do not withdraw ourselves from the burdens which their sins impose upon us (_Trench_).

Ver. 2. +Bear ye one another's burdens.+--The word is "weights," something exceeding the strength of those under them. "One another's" is strongly emphatic. It is a powerful stroke, as with an axe in the hand of a giant, at censoriousness or vainglorious egotism. We are not to think of _self,_ but of one another. To bear the burden of an erring brother is truly Christ-like. +And so fulfil the law of Christ.+--If you must needs observe a law, let it be the law of Christ.

Ver. 3. +He deceiveth himself.+--He is misled by the vapours of his own vanity, he is self-deceived.

Ver. 4. +Rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.+--In that his own work stands the test after severe examination, and not that he is superior to another.

Ver. 6. +Communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.+--Go shares with him in the good things of this life. While each bears his own burden he must think of others, especially in ministering out of his earthly goods to the wants of his spiritual teacher (see 2 Cor. xi. 7, 11; Phil. iv. 10; 1 Thess. ii. 6, 9; 1 Tim. v. 17, 18).

Ver. 7. +God is not mocked.+--The verb means to sneer with the nostrils drawn up in contempt. Excuses for illiberality may seem valid before men but are not so before God.

Ver. 8. +He that soweth to his flesh.+--Unto his own flesh, which is devoted to selfishness. +Shall reap corruption.+--Destruction, which is not an arbitrary punishment of fleshly-mindedness, but is its natural fruit; the corrupt flesh producing corruption, which is another word for destruction. Corruption is the fault, and corruption the punishment.

Ver. 9. +Let us not be weary: we shall reap, if we faint not.+--"Weary" refers to the will; "faint" to relaxation of the powers. No one should faint, as in an earthly harvest sometimes happens.

Ver. 11. +Ye see how large a letter I have written with mine own hand.+--At this point the apostle takes the pen from his amanuensis, and writes the concluding paragraph with his own hand. Owing to the weakness of his eyesight he wrote in large letters. He thus gives emphasis to the importance of the subjects discussed in the epistle.

Ver. 12. +Lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.+--They would escape the bitterness of the Jews against Christianity and the offence of the cross, by making the Mosaic law a necessary preliminary.

Ver. 13. +For neither they themselves keep the law.+--So far are they from being sincere that they arbitrarily select circumcision out of the whole law, as though observing it would stand instead of their non-observance of the rest of the law. +That they may glory in your flesh.+--That they may vaunt your submission to the carnal rite, and so gain credit with the Jews for proselytising.

Ver. 14. +God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.+--The great object of shame to them, and to all carnal men, is the great object of glorying to me. +By whom the world is crucified unto me.+--By His cross, the worst of deaths, Christ has destroyed all kinds of death. Legal and fleshly ordinances are merely outward and elements of the world. To be crucified to the world is to be free from worldliness, and all that makes men slaves to creature fascinations.

Ver. 15. +But a new creature.+--All external distinctions are nothing. The cross is the only theme worthy of glorying in, as it brings about a new spiritual creation.

Ver. 16. +As many as walk according to this rule.+--Of life: a straight rule to detect crookedness. +Upon the Israel of God.+--Not the Israel after the flesh, but the spiritual seed of Israel by faith.

Ver. 17. +I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.+--The Judaising teachers gloried in the circumcision marks in the flesh of their followers; St. Paul in the scars or brands of suffering for Christ in his own body--the badge of an honourable servitude.

Ver. 18. +Brethren.+--After much rebuke and monition, he bids them farewell with the loving expression of brotherhood as his last parting word, as if Greatheart had meant to say, "After all, my last word is, I love you, I love you."

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1-5.

_Mutual Sympathy in Burden-bearing._

+I. That sympathy towards the erring is a test of spiritual-mindedness.+--1. _Shown in the tenderness with which the erring should be treated._ "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness" (ver. 1). Worldly and self-seeking men are often severe on a neighbour's fault. They are more likely to aggravate than heal the wound, to push the weak man down when he tries to rise than to help him to his feet. The spiritual, moved by genuine compassion, should regard it as their duty to set right a lapsed brother, to bring him back as soon and safely as may be to the fold of Christ. To reprove without pride or acrimony, to stoop to the fallen without the air of condescension, requires the spirit of meekness in a singular degree.

2. _Reflecting that the most virtuous may some day be in need of similar consideration._--"Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted" (ver. 1). The disaster befalling one reveals the common peril; it is a signal for every member of the Church to take heed to himself. The scrutiny which it calls for belongs to each man's private conscience. The faithfulness and integrity required in those who approach the wrong-doer with a view to his recovery must be chastened by personal solicitude. The fall of a Christian brother should be in any case the occasion of heart-searching and profound humiliation. Feelings of indifference towards him, much more of contempt, will prove the prelude of a worse overthrow for ourselves.

+II. That sympathy in burden-bearing is in harmony with the highest law.+--"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (ver. 2). As much as to say, "If ye will bear burdens, bear one another's burden; if ye will observe law, observe the highest law--the law of love." There is nothing more Christ-like than to bear the burden of a brother's trespass. Christ bore burdens which to us would have been intolerable and overwhelming. The heaviest burden becomes supportable when shared with loving sympathy. Kindness towards the needy and helpless is work done to Christ. There is a poetic legend among the Anglian kings that Count Fulc the Good, journeying along Loire-side towards Tours, saw, just as the towers of St. Martin's rose before him in the distance, a leper full of sores who put by his offer of alms and desired to be borne to the sacred city. Amidst the jibes of his courtiers, the good count lifted him in his arms and carried him along bank and bridge. As they entered the town the leper vanished from their sight, and men told how Fulc had borne an angel unawares! Mutual burden-bearing is the practical proof of the unity and solidarity of the Christian brotherhood.

+III. That no man can afford to be independent of human sympathy.+--1. _Fancied superiority to sympathy is self-deception._ "If a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself" (ver. 3). Others will see how little his affected eminence is worth. Some will humour his vanity, many will ridicule or pity it, few will be deceived by it. Real knowledge is humble; it knows its nothingness. Socrates, when the oracle pronounced him the wisest man in Greece, at last discovered that the response was right, inasmuch as he alone was aware that he knew nothing, while other men were confident of their knowledge. It is in humility and dependence, in self-forgetting, that true wisdom begins. Who are we, although the most refined or highest in place, that we should despise plain, uncultured members of the Church, those who bear life's heavier burdens and amongst whom our Saviour spent His days on earth, and treat them as unfit for our company, unworthy of fellowship with us in Christ? (_Findlay_). The most exalted and gifted is never lifted above the need of fellow-sympathy.

2. _A searching examination into our conduct will reveal how little cause there is for boasting a fancied superiority._--"But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another" (ver. 4). As if the apostle said: "Let each man try his own work. Judge yourselves instead of judging one another. Mind your own duty rather than your neighbours' faults. Do not think of your worth or talents in comparison with theirs but see to it that your work is right." The question for each of us is not, "What do others fail to do?" but, "What am I myself really doing? What will my life's work amount to when measured by that which God expects from me?" The petty comparisons which feed our vanity and our class-prejudices are of no avail at the bar of God. If we study our brother's work, it should be with a view of enabling him to do it better, or to learn to improve our own by his example; not in order to find excuses for ourselves in his shortcomings. If our work abide the test, we shall have glorying in ourselves alone, not in regard to our neighbour. Not his flaws and failures, but my own honest work, will be the ground of my satisfaction (_Ibid._).

+IV. That individual responsibility is universal.+--"For every man shall bear his own burden [load]" (ver. 5). No man can rid himself of his life-load; he must carry it up to the judgment-seat of Christ, where he will get his final discharge. Daniel Webster was present one day at a dinner-party given at Astor House by some New York friends, and in order to draw him out one of the company put to him the following question, "Will you please tell us, Mr. Webster, what was the most important thought that ever occupied your mind?" Mr. Webster merely raised his head, and passing his hand slowly over his forehead, said, "Is there any one here who doesn't know me?" "No, sir," was the reply; "we all know you and are your friends." "Then," said he, looking over the table, "the most important thought that ever occupied my mind was that of my individual responsibility to God"; and he spoke on the subject for twenty minutes. The higher sense we have of our own responsibility the more considerate we are in judging others and the more we sympathise with them in their struggles and trials. Æsop says a man carries two bags over his shoulder, the one with his own sins hanging behind, that with his neighbour's sins in front.

+Lessons.+--1. _Sympathy is a Christ-like grace._ 2. _Sympathy for the erring does not tolerate wrong._ 3. _Practical help is the test of genuine sympathy._

_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._

Ver. 1. _The Sins of Others._

+I. The follies and misconduct of others are the choice subjects of conversation in every stage of society; and if we take slander out of these conversations, we rob them of their keenest fascination.+ I have felt it, that fearful joy which the discovery of others' faults produces; and then I found nothing at all extravagant in the strongest expressions by which the Scriptures depict the depth of our fall and the depravity of our heart.

+II. One of your brethren has lapsed: but you who condemn him, have you never erred?+ Do you know his history? Did he know what you know yourself? The fall of a brother should call forth a painful self-examination and a sincere humiliation before God.