Chapter V: AUTOGRAPH CONCLUSION.--1. The Judaisers' motive (ch. vi. 12, 13) (19)

+II. Is befitting the relation in which the believer is Divinely regarded.+--"Followers of God, as dear children" (ver. 1). God is our Father, and He loves us. That is enough; but how much is implied in that, who can tell? To realise the Divine Fatherhood is to become acquainted with the love of God. When we discover we are dear to Him our hearts melt, our rebellion is conquered, we seek His forgiveness, we revel in His favour, we exult in His service. When we discover He has always loved us we are overwhelmed. A mother, whose daughter had behaved badly and at length ran away from home, thought of a singular plan to find the wanderer and bring her back. She had her own portrait fixed on a large handbill and posted on the walls of the town where she supposed her daughter was concealed. The portrait, without name, had these words painted underneath: "I love thee always." Crowds stopped before the strange handbill, trying to guess its meaning. Days elapsed, when a young girl at last passed by, and lifted her eyes to the singular placard. She understood: this was a message for her. Her mother loved her--pardoned her. Those words transformed her. Never had she felt her sin and ingratitude so deeply. She was unworthy of such love. She set out for home, and crossing the threshold was soon in her mother's arms. "My child!" cried the mother, as she pressed her repentant daughter to her heart, "I have never ceased to love thee!"

+III. Is a love of Christ-like sacrifice.+--"As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us" (ver. 2). The offering of Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of men was acceptable to God, and came up before Him as a sweet-smelling savour, because it was the offering and sacrifice of love. The life of love is the life of obedience; it is eager to serve, and it shrinks not from suffering. Nothing can be love to God which does not shape itself into obedience. We remember the anecdote of the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy, and the first transgressor against whose prohibition was his own son. He accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, met, slew, spoiled him, and then with triumphant feeling carried the spoils to his father's tent. But the Roman father refused to recognise the instinct which prompted this as deserving of the name of love. Disobedience contradicted it and deserved death. Weak sentiment--what was it worth? It was the dictate of ambition and self-will overriding obedience and discipline; it was not love. A self-sacrificing life is prompted, sustained, and ennobled by love. The trials which love cheerfully undergoes in its ministry of love to others and in obedience to the will of God are often transformed into blessings. There is a legend that Nimrod took Abraham and cast him into a furnace of fire because he would not worship idols; but God changed the coals into a bed of roses. So it will ever be. The obedience that leads to the furnace of fire will find in the end that it is a bed of roses. The life of loving sacrifice will issue in eternal blessedness.

+Lessons.+--_The life of love is_--1. _The highest life._ 2. _The happiest life._ 3. _The life most fruitful in usefulness to others._

_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._

Vers. 1, 2. _St. Paul's Doctrine of Christian Ethics._

+I. The fundamental truth of the Fatherhood of God.+--Man's life has its law, for it has its source in the nature of the Eternal. Behind our race instincts and the laws imposed on us in the long struggle for existence, behind those imperatives of practical reason involved in the structure of our intelligence, is the presence and active will of Almighty God our heavenly Father. Institutional morals bear witness to the God of creation, experimental morals to the God of providence and history. The Divine Fatherhood is the keystone of the arch in which they meet. The command to be imitators of God makes _personality_ the sovereign element in life. If consciousness is a finite and passing phenomenon, if God be but a name for the sum of the impersonal laws that regulate the universe, for the "stream of tendency" in the worlds, _Father_ and _love_ are meaningless terms applied to the Supreme, and religion dissolves into an impalpable mist. Love, thought, will in us raise our being above the realm of the impersonal; and these faculties point us upward to Him from whom they came, the Father of the spirits of all flesh. It is not the loss of strength for human service nor the dying out of joy which unbelief entails that is its chief calamity. The sun in the soul's heaven is put out. The personal relationship to the Supreme which gave dignity and worth to our individual being, which imparted sacredness and enduring power to all other ties, is destroyed. The heart is orphaned, the temple of the Spirit desolate. The mainspring of life is broken.

+II. The solidarity of mankind in Christ+ furnishes the apostle with a powerful lever for raising the ethical standard of his readers. The thought that we are "members one of another" forbids deceit. Self is so merged in the community that in dealing censure or forgiveness to an offending brother the Christian man feels as though he were dealing with himself--as though it were the hand that forgave the foot for tripping, or the ear that pardoned some blunder of the eye. The Christ loved and gave; for love that does not give, that prompts to no effort and puts itself to no sacrifice, is but a luxury of the heart--useless and even selfish. The Church is the centre of humanity. The love born and nourished in the household of faith goes out into the world with a universal mission. The solidarity of moral interests that is realised there embraces all the kindreds of the earth. The incarnation of Christ knits all flesh into one redeemed family. The continents and races of mankind are members one of another, with Jesus Christ for Head.

+III. Another ruling idea lying at the basis of Christian ethics is St. Paul's conception of man's future destiny.+--There is disclosed a world beyond the world, a life growing out of life, an eternal and invisible kingdom of whose possession the Spirit that lives in Christian men is the earnest and firstfruits. Human reason had guessed and hope had dreamed of the soul's immortality. Christianity gives this hope certainty, and adds to it the assurance of the resurrection of the body. Man's entire nature is thus redeemed. Our bodily dress is one with the spirit that it unfolds. We shall lay it aside only to resume it--transfigured, but with a form and impress continuous with its present being.

+IV. The atonement of the cross stamps its own character and spirit on the entire ethics of Christianity.+--The Fatherhood of God, the unity and solidarity of mankind, the issues of eternal life or death awaiting us in the unseen world--all the great factors and fundamentals of revealed religion gather about the cross of Christ; they lend to it their august significance, and gain from it new import and impressiveness. The fact that Christ "gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God" throws an awful light upon the nature of human transgression. All that inspired men had taught, that good men had believed and felt, and penitent men confessed in regard to the evil of human sin, is more than verified by the sacrifice which the Holy One of God has undergone in order to put it away. What tears of contrition, what cleansing fires of hate against our own sins, what scorn of their baseness, what stern resolves against them, are awakened by the sight of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! The sacrifice of Christ demands from us devotion to Christ Himself. Our first duty as Christians is to love Christ, to serve and follow Christ. There is no conflict between the claims of Christ and those of philanthropy, between the needs of His worship and the needs of the destitute and suffering in our streets. Every new subject won to the kingdom of Christ is another helper won for His poor. Every act of love rendered to Him deepens the channel of sympathy by which relief and blessing come to sorrowful humanity.--_Findlay._

_Christ's Sacrifice of Himself explained, and Man's Duty to offer Spiritual Sacrifice inferred and recommended._

+I. Our Lord's unexampled sacrifice.+--1. _The Priest._ As a prophet or an apostle properly is an ambassador from God to treat with men, so a priest is an agent or solicitor in behalf of men to treat with God.

2. _The sacrifice._--Our Lord was both offering and sacrifice. Every sacrifice is an offering to God, but every offering to God is not a sacrifice. Perfect innocence and consummate virtue, both in doing and suffering, were not only the flower and perfection but the very form and essence of our Lord's sacrifice. These were the sacrifice of sweet odour, acceptable to Him who alone could judge perfectly of the infinite worth and merit of it.

3. _The altar._--From the third century to this time the cross whereon our Lord suffered has been called the altar. There is another altar, a spiritual altar--the eternal Spirit, the Divine nature of our Lord. The sacrifice of our Lord is an undoubted Scripture truth; but as to a proper altar for that sacrifice, it is a more disputable point, about which wise and good men may be allowed to judge as they see cause.

4. _The Divine Lawgiver._--To whom the sacrifice was made, and by whom it was graciously accepted. God the Father is Lawgiver-in-chief, and to Him our Lord paid the price of our redemption. Thus the glory of God and the felicity of men are both served in this dispensation.

+II. Our own sacrifice of ourselves.+--As Christ give Himself for us, so we ought to give up ourselves to God in all holy obedience, and particularly in the offices of love towards our brethren, as these are the most acceptable sacrifices we can offer to God. We cannot do greater honour to our Lord's sacrifice than by thus copying it in the best manner we are able--a sacrifice of love to God and love to our neighbours.--_Waterland._

_The Imitation of God._--No argument is so frequently urged as the example of Christ to persuade us to mutual love, because none is so well adapted to influence the mind of a Christian. God's approbation of Christian charity is expressed in the same terms as His acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ; for charity to our fellow-Christians, flowing from a sense of Christ's dying love, is a virtue of distinguished excellence. As the death of Christ is called "a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savour," so Christian charity is called "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." Let it be our care to follow Christ in His goodness and love, and to learn of Him humility, condescension, mercy, and forgiveness. Religion is an imitation of the moral character of God, brought down to human view and familiarised to human apprehension in the life of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ is of great use, not only as an atonement for guilt, but also as an example of love.--_Lathrop._

Ver. 1, _The Duty and Object of a Christian's Imitation._

+I. The duty enjoined.+--1. Remove the hindrances to imitation. (1) Spiritual pride and self-conceit. (2) This self-conceit works in us a prejudiced opinion, and makes us undervalue and detract from the worth of our brother. (3) Spiritual drowsiness. 2. Observe the rules of imitation. (1) We must not take our pattern upon trust; no, not St. Paul himself. He brings it in indeed as a duty--"Be ye followers of me"; but he adds this direction, "as I am of Christ" (1 Cor. xi. 1). "For in imitation, besides the persons, there is also to be considered," saith Quintilian, "what it is we must imitate in the persons. We must no further follow them than they follow the rules of art." "Some there were," said Seneca, "who imitated nothing but that which was bad in the best." It is so in our Christian profession: we must view, and try, and understand what we are to imitate. We must not make use of all eyes, but of those only which look upon the Lord. (2) That we strive to imitate the best. Saith Pliny: "It is great folly not to propose always the best pattern"; and saith Seneca, "Choose a Cato," a prime, eminent man, by whose authority thy secret thoughts may be more holy, the very memory of whom may compose thy manners; whom not only to see, but to think of, will be a help to the reformation of thy life. Dost thou live with any in whom the good gifts and graces of God are shining and resplendent, who are strict and exact, and so retain the precepts of God in memory that they forget them not in their works? Give men the instructive examples of these good men: let them always be before my eyes; let them be a second rule by which I may correct my life and manners; let me not lose this help, which God hath granted me, of imitation.

+II. The object of imitation.+--We must make God the rule of goodness in all our actions: we must be just, to observe the law; valiant, to keep down our passions; temperate, to conform our wills to the rule of reason; and wise, to our salvation. But there is no virtue which makes us more resemble God than this which the apostle here exhorts the Ephesians to; and that is mercy. For although all virtues are in the highest degree, nay, above all degrees, most perfect in Him; yet, in respect of His creatures, none is so resplendent as mercy. Mercy is the queen and empress of God's virtues; it is the bond and knot which unites heaven and earth, that by which we hold all our titles--our title to be men, out title to the name of Christian, our title to the profession of Christianity, our title to earth, our title to heaven. 1. As God forgiveth us, so we must forgive our enemies. 2. As we must forgive, so God's mercy must be the motive: we must do it "out of a desire to imitate God." 3. We must conform our imitation to the Pattern. He with one act of mercy wipes out all scores; so must we. When He forgives our sins, He is said to cast them behind Him, never to think of them, so to forget them as if they never had been; so must we. He doth it too without respect of persons; and so we ought to do. We must forgive all, for ever; and so far must we be from respect of persons that we must acknowledge no title but that of Christian.--_Farindon._

_Likeness to God._

+I. Likeness to God belongs to man's higher or spiritual nature.+--It has its foundation in the original and essential capacities of the mind. In proportion as these are unfolded by right and vigorous exertion, it is extended and brightened. In proportion as these lie dormant it is obscured. Likeness to God is the supreme gift. He can communicate nothing so precious, glorious, blessed as Himself. To hold intellectual and moral affinity with the supreme Being, to partake His Spirit, to be His children by derivations of kindred excellence, to bear a growing conformity to the perfection which we adore--this is a felicity which obscures and annihilates all other good. It is only in proportion to this likeness that we can enjoy either God or the universe. To understand a great and good being we must have the seeds of the same excellence.

+II. That man has a kindred nature with God,+ and may bear most important and ennobling relations to Him, seems to me to be established by a striking proof. Whence do we derive our knowledge of the attributes and perfections which constitute the supreme Being? I answer, We derive them from our own souls. The Divine attributes are first developed in ourselves, and thence transferred to our Creator. The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified and enlarged to infinity. It is the resemblance of a parent to a child, the likeness of a kindred nature.

+III. God is made known to us as a Father.+--And what is it to be a father? It is to communicate one's own nature, to give life to kindred beings; and the highest function of a father is to educate the mind of the child, and to impart to it what is noblest and happiest in his own mind. God is our Father, not merely because He created us, or because He gives us enjoyment: for He created the flower and the insect, yet we call Him not their Father. This bond is a spiritual one. This name belongs to God, because He frames spirits like Himself, and delights to give them what is most glorious and blessed in His own nature. Accordingly Christianity is said with special propriety to reveal God as the Father, because it reveals Him as sending His Son to cleanse the mind from every stain, and to replenish it for ever with the spirit and moral attributes of its Author.

+IV. The promise of the Holy Spirit+ is among the most precious aids of influence which God imparts. It is a Divine assistance adapted to our moral freedom, an aid which silently mingles and conspires with all other helps and means of goodness, and by which we are strengthened to understand and apply the resources derived from our munificent Creator. This aid we cannot prize too much, or pray for too earnestly.--_Channing._

Ver. 2. "And walk in love." _The Nature, Properties, and Acts of Charity._

+I. The nature of charity.+--1. Loving our neighbour implies we value and esteem him. 2. Implies a sincere and earnest desire for his welfare and good of all kinds in due proportion. 3. A complacence or delightful satisfaction in the good of our neighbour. 4. Condolence and commiseration in the evils befalling him.

+II. Properties of charity.+--1. Love appropriates its object in apprehension and affection, embracing it, possessing and enjoying it as its own. 2. It desires reciprocal affection. 3. Disposes to please our neighbour, not only by inoffensive but by an obliging demeanour. 4. Makes a man deny himself--despising all selfish regards--for the benefit of his neighbour. 5. To be condescending and willing to perform the meanest offices needful or useful to his friend.

+III. Acts of charity.+--1. To forbear anger on provocation. 2. To remit offences, suppressing revenge. 3. To maintain concord and peace. 4. To be candid in opinion and mild in censure. 5. Abstain from doing anything which may occasion our neighbour to commit sin, or disaffect him towards religion, or discourage him in the practice of duty.--_Barrow._

_The Sacrifice of Christ._

+I. A Divine person was absolutely necessary.+--1. _He who atones must be in possession of infinite worth._ Nothing less than the glory of infinity and eternity can atone for transgression. The individual must also be possessed of humanity for this obvious reason: that man hath transgressed, and man must atone. In the person of the Messiah we behold everything God could possibly desire. A Divine person, comprising Deity and humanity in Himself, atones for sin.

2. _It was absolutely necessary that the individual who atoned should be wholly at his own disposal._--Now, no finite being is at his own disposal; no finite being can say, "I will do as I please;" but Messiah speaks of Himself in language that finite being could not adopt without insulting God. The doctrine of the Trinity is opposed; but when we peruse Scripture we shall find the absolute necessity of a plurality of persons. A Divine person to present a sacrifice; and if so, a Divine person to receive that sacrifice.

+II. Christ's love in giving Himself.+--And here we behold the love of God in all its glory. Christ hath saved us, and given Himself for us. Here we behold the love of Christ; the love of a Divine person embracing God, embracing the law of God, and embracing the sinner in all his shame. Two of the attributes of this love never unfolded their glories before. The intenseness and the holiness of it were never before manifested. Behold God as well as man, a Divine person suffering for us. Here for once, and once only, behold the sovereignty of God in all its glory, in all its lowliness, connected with the justice of God in all its terrors. Messiah is punished, that the transgressor may live for ever.

+III. God's pleasure in the sacrifice of His Son.+--1. _God is infinitely delighted with His Son,_ as He is one in essence with Him. The pious Baptist gives his disciples a volume of Divinity in a few words. He traces everything to its source. "The Father loveth the Son." Surely, then, we must anticipate God's pleasure in everything the Saviour does. 2. _The resurrection and ascension of Christ_ prove God's acceptance of the sacrifice. 3. _The success of the Gospel another proof._

+Lessons.+--1. _See the evil and danger of unbelief._ 2. _All spiritual good comes from God; all spiritual evil flows from the creature._ 3. _Learn the work of faith--to accept Christ.--Howels._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 3-14.

_The Children of Darkness and of Light._

+I. The children of darkness are known by their deeds+ (vers. 3-5).--A loathsome and unsightly list! Sin marks its victims. Deeds done in darkness do not escape detection and exposure. The revolting sins of the heathen reveal the depth of wickedness to which man may sink when he abandons God and is abandoned of God. Every single sin, voluntarily indulged, weakens the power of self-control, and there is no deed of darkness a reckless sinner may not commit. Sensuality is a devil-fish--a vampire of the sea--preying upon and devouring the best powers of mind and body.

1. _Their deeds exclude them from the inheritance of the good._--They have no "inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (ver. 5). The children of darkness can have no company and no place with the children of light; the two cannot co-exist or blend together. The sinner excludes himself, and unfits himself for fellowship with the good. Their purity is a constant reproof of his vileness; he shrinks from their society, and hates them because they are so good. We may well be on our guard against sins that shut us out of the kingdom of grace on earth, and out of heaven hereafter.

2. _Their deeds expose them to the Divine wrath._--"Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience" (ver. 6). The wrath of God is already upon them (Rom. i. 18), and shall remain so long as they are disobedient. Deeds such as theirs carry their own punishment; but there is also the righteous vengeance of God to reckon with. For sin God can have nothing but wrath; but yet that is mercifully restrained to afford every opportunity for repentance. The Roman magistrates, when they gave sentence upon any one to be scourged, had a bundle of rods tied hard with many knots laid before them. The reason was this: whilst the beadle was untying the knots, which he was to do by order and not in any other or sudden way, the magistrates might see the deportment and carriage of the delinquent, whether he was sorry for his fault and showed any hope of amendment, that then they might recall his sentence or mitigate his punishment; otherwise he was corrected so much the more severely. Thus God in the punishment of sinners. How patient is He! How loth to strike! How slow to anger!

+II. The children of light are Divinely illumined.+--1. _They were once in darkness._ "Ye were sometimes darkness" (ver. 8). Their present condition as children of the light should remind them by contrast of their former state, and should excite their gratitude to God for the change He had wrought in them. They were not to be deceived by specious arguments (ver. 6) that they could return to their old sins and yet retain their new inheritance. To go back to the old life is to go back to darkness.

2. _Their possession of Divine light is evident._--"But now are ye light in the Lord. . . . For the fruit of the Spirit [_the fruit of light_] is in all goodness and righteousness and truth" (vers. 8, 9). True virtue is of the light and cannot be hid. Genuine religion manifests itself in goodness of heart, in righteousness of life, and in truthfulness of character and speech--in a holy reality that is both experienced and expressed. On Herder's grave at Weimar there was placed by royal authority a cast-iron tablet with the words, "Light, Love, Life." The life illumined by the Spirit is its own bright witness.

3. _Their conduct aims at discovering what is acceptable to God._--"Walk as children of the light, . . . proving what is acceptable unto the Lord" (vers. 8, 10). Their outward life must be in harmony with the new nature they have received. They were adopted as children of the light, and they must think, speak, and act in the light and with the light they had received. The light will show what it is that God approves; and striving in all things to please Him our light will increase. We may sometimes be mistaken, but we shall get light from our mistakes, as well as from our success, as to the will of God. Life is a trial, and our conduct will be the test as to how we are using the light God has given us. The light we shed will be a help and guide to others. There is a kind of diamond which, if exposed for some minutes to the light of the sun and then taken into a dark room, will emit light for some time. The marvellous property of retaining light and thereby becoming the source of light on a small scale shows how analogous to light its very nature must be. Those who touched the Saviour became sources of virtue to others. As Moses' face shown when he came from the mount, so converse with spiritual things makes Christians the light which shines in the dark places of the earth. "Let your light so shine before men" (Matt. v. 16).

+III. The children of light cannot participate in deeds of darkness.+--1. _They are to shun them._ "Be not partakers with them . . . Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" (vers. 7, 11). We may not actually commit certain sins; but if we tolerate or encourage them, we are partakers with the transgressors. The safest place is that which is farthest from evil. It is a perilous experiment to try how near we can approach and how far daily with sin without committing ourselves. The easiest way to resist temptation is to run away. It is beneath the dignity of the children of light to patronise or trifle with sin.

2. _They were not even to speak of them._--"It is a shame even to speak of those things" (ver. 12). There are some subjects about which silence is not only the highest prudence but a sacred duty. The foolish talking and jesting of ver. 4 belonged to the period when they were the children of darkness. Sparkling humour refreshes; the ribald jest pollutes. The best way to forget sayings that suggest evil is never to speak of them.

3. _They are to expose them by bringing the light of truth to bear upon them._--"But rather reprove them. . . . All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light," etc. (vers. 11, 13, 14). Silent absence or abstinence is not enough. Where sin is open to rebuke it should at all hazards be rebuked. On the other hand, St. Paul does not warrant Christians in prying into the hidden sins of the world around them and playing the moral detective. Publicity is not a remedy for all evils, but a great aggravation of some, and the surest means of disseminating them. It is a shame--a disgrace to our common nature, and a grievous peril to the young and innocent--to fill the public prints with the nauseous details of crime, and to taint the air with its putridities. The fruit of the light convicts the unfruitful works of darkness. The light of the Gospel disclosed and then dispelled the darkness of the former time. So will it be with the night of sin that is spread over the world. The light which shines upon sin-laden and sorrowful hearts shines on them to change them into its own nature. The manifested is light; in other words, if men can be made to see the true nature of their sin, they will forsake it. If the light can but penetrate their conscience, it will save them. "Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest." With this song on her lips the Church went forth, clad in the armour of light, strong in the joy of salvation; and darkness and the works of darkness fled before her (_Findlay_).

+Lessons.+--_The Children of darkness and of light differ_--1. _In their conduct._ 2. _In their spirit and aims._ 3. _In the way in which they are Divinely regarded._

_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._

Vers. 3-6. _Christian Sobriety inculcated._

+I. The vices condemned.+--1. _Impurity._ Fornication is sometimes used in Scripture to comprehend the grosser forms of uncleanness, as incest, adultery, and prostitution; but in common speech it is appropriated to intimacy between unmarried persons. If acts of uncleanness are criminal, so are impure thoughts and desires. The Gospel forbids filthy communication, which indicates a vicious disposition and corrupts others. Christians must abstain from everything that tends to suggest wanton ideas, to excite impure desire, and to strengthen the power of temptation.

2. _Covetousness._--An immoderate desire of riches.

3. _Foolish talking and jesting._--The Gospel is not so rigid and austere as to debar us from innocent pleasures and harmless amusements. Jesting is not foolish when used to expose the absurdity of error and the folly of vice. The apostle condemns lewd and obscene jesting, profane jesting, and reviling and defamatory jesting. Evil-speaking never wounds so deeply nor infuses in the wound such fatal poison as when it is sharpened by wit and urged home by ridicule.

+II. The arguments subjoined.+--1. Impurity, covetousness, and foolish talking are unbecoming in saints. 2. Foolish talking and jesting are not convenient, as the heathen imagined them to be, but are criminal in their nature and fatal in their tendency. 3. The indulgence of these sins is inconsistent with a title to heaven. 4. These sins not only exclude from heaven, but bring upon the sinners the wrath of God.--_Lathrop._

Ver. 4. _Against Foolish Talking and jesting._

+I. In what foolish talking and jesting may be allowed.+--1. Facetiousness is not unreasonable which ministers harmless delight to conversation. 2. When it exposes things base and evil. 3. When it is a defence against unjust reproach. 4. When it may be used so as not to defile the mind of the speaker or do wrong to the hearer.

+II. In what should it be condemned.+--1. All profane jesting or speaking loosely about holy things. 2. Abusive and scurrilous jesting which tends to damage our neighbour. 3. It is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters. 4. To affect to value this way of speaking in comparison to the serious and plain way of speaking. 5. All vainglorious ostentation. 6. When it impairs the habitual seriousness that becomes the Christian.--_Barrow._

Ver. 6. _The Dissipation of Large Cities._

+I. The origin of a life of dissipation.+--Young men on their entrance into the business of the world have not been enough fortified against its seducing influences by their previous education at home. Ye parents who, in placing your children on some road to gainful employment, have placed them without a sigh in the midst of depravity, so near and so surrounding that without a miracle they must perish, you have done an act of idolatry to the god of this world, you have commanded your household after you to worship him as the great divinity of their lives, and you have caused your children to make their approaches to his presence, and in so doing to pass through the fire of such temptations as have destroyed them.

+II. The progress of a life of dissipation.+--The vast majority of our young, on their way to manhood, are initiated into all the practices and describe the full career of dissipation. Those who have imbibed from their fathers the spirit of this world's morality are not sensibly arrested in this career, either by the opposition of their friends or by the voice of their own conscience. Those who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and have brought it into competition with an evil world, and have at length yielded with many a sigh and many a struggle, are troubled with the upbraidings of conscience. The youthful votary of pleasure determines to be more guarded: but the entanglements of companionship have got hold of him, the inveteracy of habit tyrannises over all his purposes, the stated opportunity again comes round, and the loud laugh of his partners chases all his despondency away. The infatuation gathers upon him every month, a hardening process goes on, the deceitfulness of sin grows apace, and he at length becomes one of the sturdiest and most unrelenting of her votaries. He in his turn strengthens the conspiracy that is formed against the morals of a new generation, and all the ingenuous delicacies of other days are obliterated. He contracts a temperament of knowing, hackneyed, unfeeling depravity, and thus the mischief is transmitted from one year to another, and keeps up the guilty history of every place of crowded population.

+III. The effects of a life of dissipation.+--We speak not at present of the coming death and of the coming judgment, but of the change which takes place on many a votary of licentiousness when he becomes what the world calls a reformed man. He bids adieu to the pursuits and profligacies of youth, not because he has repented them, but because he has outlived them. It is a common and easy transition to pass from one kind of disobedience to another; but it is not so easy to give up that rebelliousness of heart which lies at the root of all disobedience. The man has withdrawn from the scenes of dissipation, and has betaken himself to another way; but it is his own way. He may bid adieu to profligacy in his own person, but he lifts up the light of his countenance on the profligacy of others. He gives it the whole weight and authority of his connivance. Oh for an arm of strength to demolish the firm and far-spread compact of iniquity, and for the power of some such piercing and prophetic voice as might convince our reformed men of the baleful influence they cast behind them on the morals of the succeeding generation! What is the likeliest way of setting up a barrier against this desolating torrent of corruption? The mischief will never be combatted effectually by any expedient separate from the growth and the transmission of personal Christianity throughout the land.--_T. Chalmers._

Vers. 7-12. _Fellowship in Wickedness and its Condemnation._

+I. Illustrate this fellowship in wickedness.+--1. Not to oppose, in many cases, is to embolden transgressors, and to be partakers with them. 2. We have more direct fellowship with the wicked when we encourage them by our example. 3. They who incite and provoke others to evil works have fellowship with them. 4. They who explicitly consent to and actually join with sinners in their evil works have fellowship with them. 5. To comfort and uphold sinners in their wickedness is to have fellowship with them. 6. There are some who rejoice in iniquity when they have lent no hand to accomplish it.

+II. Apply the arguments the apostle urges against it.+--1. One argument is taken from the superior light which Christians enjoy. 2. Another is taken from the grace of the Holy Spirit, of which believers are the subjects. 3. The works of darkness are unfruitful. 4. This is a shameful fellowship. 5. If we have fellowship with sinners in their works, we must share with them in their punishment.--_Lathrop._

Ver. 8. _Light in Darkness._--I was in a darkened room that I might observe the effect produced by the use of what is called luminous paint. A neat card on which the words "Trust in the Lord" were printed rested upon the bookcase and shone out clearly in the darkness. The effect startled me. How remarkable that if from any cause the light of sun or day failed to rest upon the card its luminousness gradually declined, but returned when the sun's action infused fresh light! Truly we also, if hidden from the face of our Lord, cease to shine. "Are ye light in the Lord? walk as children of light."--_H. Varley._

Ver. 9. _Fruit of the Spirit._--As oftentimes when walking in a wood near sunset, though the sun himself be hid by the height and bushiness of the trees around, yet we know that he is still above the horizon from seeing his beams in the open glades before us illuminating a thousand leaves, the several brightnesses of which are so many evidences of his presence. Thus it is with the Holy Spirit: He works in secret, but His work is manifest in the lives of all true Christians. Lamps so heavenly must have been lit from on high.--_J. C. Hare._

Ver. 10. _The Rule of Christian Conduct._--1. We cannot conform ourselves to what is acceptable to the Lord and walk as children of light except we make serious search into the rule of duty revealed in the Word and do our utmost to come up to that rule. We walk not acceptably when we do things rashly without deliberation, or doubtingly after deliberation, nor when the thing done is in itself right, but we do it not from that ground, but to gratify ourselves. 2. It is not sufficient to make this inquiry in order to some few and weighty actions, but in order to all, whether greater or less, whether advantage or loss may follow our conforming to the rule. 3. The finding out of what is acceptable to the Lord, especially in some intricate cases, is not easily attained. There must be an accurate search, together with an exercising ourselves in those things we already know to be acceptable, that so we may experimentally know them to be such, and get our knowledge bettered in those things of which we are ignorant.--_Fergusson._

Vers. 11, 12. _Works of Darkness._--1. Though we are not in all cases to abstain from the fellowship of wicked men, but may converse with them as we are bound by necessity, or by any civil, religious, or natural bond, yet no tie of that kind can warrant us to partake with them in their sins. 2. Though the command to reprove the sins of others is an affirmative precept, and not binding at all times and in all cases, yet not reproving when occasion offers is a partaking with them in their sins. 3. There should be such a holy bashfulness in Christians as to think shame to utter in speech, at least without detestation, those things godless sinners are not ashamed to practise. Ministers in their public preachings should be modest and sparing in deciphering filthy sins, lest they teach others how to commit the sin they reprove. 4. When men do not seek the veil of secrecy to cover their sins, but glory in their shame, they are more corrupt than the grossest of pagans.--_Fergusson._

Vers. 13, 14. _Slumbering Souls and their Awakening._

+I. The character of the persons addressed.+--They are in a state of sleep. 1. If you allow yourselves in the practice of known wickedness, your conscience is asleep. 2. If you live in the customary neglect of self-examination, you are in a state of slumber. 3. If you have never been in any degree affected with a sense of your guilt and your dependence on the mercy of God in Christ, you are among those who are asleep. 4. If you have no conflicts with sin and temptation, you are in a state of slumber. 5. The prevalence of a sensual and carnal disposition is a sign of spiritual death. 6. Stupidity under the warnings of God's Word and providence indicates such a state of soul as the Scripture compares to sleep. 7. The soul in which the temper of the Gospel is formed hungers and thirsts after righteousness, desires spiritual growth, and reaches after perfection.

+II. The awakening call.+--1. This awakening must suppose and imply a conviction of your sin and a sense of your danger. 2. This awakening from sleep and arising from the dead imply a real repentance of sin and turning to God. 3. They who have awoke from their sleep and risen from the dead will experience the properties and maintain the exercises of a holy and spiritual life.

+III. The encouragement to attend to the awakening call.+--"Christ shall give thee light." 1. This may be understood as a promise of pardon and eternal life on your repentance. 2. The words import God's gracious attention to awakened souls when they frame their doings to turn to Him.--_Lathrop._

Ver. 13. _The Light of God._

+I. Light comes from God.+--God is light, and He wishes to give light to His children. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light"--that which is made manifest is light. There has been a steady progress in the mind of the Christian race, and this progress has been in the direction of light. Has it not been so in our notions of God?--a gradual discovery that when God is manifested, behold, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all--a gradual vindication of His character from those dark and horrid notions of the Deity which were borrowed from the pagans and the Jewish rabbis--a gradual return to the perfect good news of a good God which was preached by St. John and by St. Paul. The day shall come when all shall be light in the Lord--when all mankind shall know God from the least unto the greatest, and, lifting up free foreheads to Him who made them and redeemed them by His Son, shall in spirit and in truth worship the Father.

+II. In the case of our fellow-men whatsoever is made manifest is light.+--How easy it was to have dark thoughts about our fellow-men simply because we did not know them,--easy to condemn the Negro to perpetual slavery, when we knew nothing of him but his black face; or to hang by hundreds the ragged street boys, while we disdained to inquire into the circumstances which had degraded them; or to treat madmen as wild beasts, instead of taming them by wise and gentle sympathy. But with a closer knowledge of our fellow-creatures has come toleration, pity, sympathy. Man, in proportion as he becomes manifest to man, is seen, in spite of all defects and sins, to be hallowed with a light from God who made him.

+III. It has been equally so in the case of the physical world.+--Nature, being made manifest, is light. Science has taught men to admire where they used to dread, to rule where they used to obey, to employ for harmless uses what they were once afraid to touch, and where they once saw only fiends to see the orderly and beneficent laws of the All-good and Almighty God. Everywhere, as the work of nature is unfolded to our eyes, we see beauty, order, mutual use, the offspring of perfect love as well as perfect wisdom. Let us teach these things to our children. Tell them to go to the light and see their heavenly Father's works manifested, and know that they are, as He is, light.--_C. Kingsley._

Ver. 14. _Moral Stupidity._--How many scarcely think of God from day to day! It cannot therefore be uncharitable to consider the mass of the people, compared with the wakefulness their infinite interests require, as sunk in a profound slumber. Unless this slumber is soon broken they must sleep the sleep of eternal death.

+I. Search for the cause of this stupidity.+--The proximate cause may be comprehended in these two words--ignorance and unbelief. The remote cause is opposition to God and truth. Were not the heart opposed, no man with the Bible in his hand could remain ignorant of truths which claim to have so important a bearing on his eternal destiny. Fortified by sevenfold ignorance, men can no more be awakened to contemplate their condition with alarm than the pagans of the wilderness. It is perfectly in character for them to slumber. But there are men who are respectable for their knowledge of Christian truth who yet are asleep. The cause with them is unbelief--the want of a realising sense. Their understanding assents to the awful verities of religion, but they do not realisingly believe them.

+II. Apply some arguments to remove the evil.+--Consider that these awful truths are as much realities as though you were now overwhelmed with a sense of their importance. Neither the ignorance nor the unbelief of man can change eternal truth. God is as holy, as awful in majesty, He is as much your Creator, Preserver, and Master, He as much holds your destinies in His hands, as though you were now lying at His feet beseeching Him not to cast you down to hell. What would it avail if all the people should disbelieve that the sun will ever rise again, or that spring-time and harvest will ever return? Can the soldier annihilate the enemy by marching up to the battery with his eyes and ears closed? You have the same means with others: why should you remain ignorant while they are informed? If your knowledge is competent and it is unbelief that excludes conviction, then call into action the powers of a rational soul and cast yourselves for help on God. If you ever mean to awake, awake now. The longer you sleep the sounder you sleep. The longer you live without religion the less likely that you will ever possess it. You are sleeping in the presence of an offended God. In His hands you lie, and if He but turn them you slide to rise no more.--_E. D. Griffin._

_The Call of the Gospel to Sinners._

+I. The state in which the Gospel finds mankind.+--A state of sleep and of death.

1. _It is a state of insensibility and unconcern with respect to the concerns of another world._--Busied about trifles, men overlook the great concerns of eternity. Having their minds darkened, they see no world but the present, they live as if they were to live here for ever. And if at any time this false peace is shaken, they try all means to prevent it from being destroyed, and to lull themselves again to rest.

2. _How indisposed and unwilling men are to set about the work of true religion._--Nothing but this religion of which men are so ignorant, about which they care so little, against which they have conceived such a dislike, can in the end deliver them from everlasting shame, sorrow, and punishment. Here is their extreme misery and danger. They are unconcerned about an object which of all others ought to concern them most, and are set against the only remedy which can be of any real service to them. They are every moment liable to fall into utter perdition; but they are not aware of their danger, and reject the only hand which is stretched out to save them.

+II. The duty the Gospel calls on them to discharge.+--To awake out of sleep and arise from the dead. 1. _Their duty is to consider their state and danger._ 2. _To break off their sins by repentance._ 3. _To seek the knowledge and favour of God._

+III. The encouragement the Gospel affords.+--1. _Christ will give thee knowledge._ He will enlighten thy darkened mind, He will teach thee by His good Spirit, and will effectually lead thee into all saving truth.

2. _Christ will give thee peace._--Whatever peace thou mayest have arising from not knowing and not feeling that thou art a sinner and daily exposed to the wrath of God, the peace which Christ offers thee is a peace which will arise from a consciousness that thy sins are forgiven, and that, although though art a sinner, thou art yet reconciled to God.

3. _Christ will give thee holiness._--Holiness is our meetness for heaven. It is that state and disposition of heart which alone can fit us for seeing and serving God.--_E. Cooper._

_A Summons to Spiritual Light._

+I. A lamentable moral condition.+--_Sleep_ implies a state of inactivity and security. Men are busily employed about their worldly concerns; but a lamentable supineness prevails with respect to spiritual things. The generality do not apprehend their souls to be in any danger--death, judgment, heaven, and hell do not seem worthy their notice. God's threatenings against them are denounced without effect--they are like Jonah, sleeping in the midst of a storm. _Death_ includes the ideas of impotence and corruption. An inanimate body cannot perform any of the functions of life. It has within itself the seeds and the principles of corruption. The soul also, till quickened from the dead, is in a state of impotence, it is incapable of spiritual action or discernment. Yet, notwithstanding this state appears so desperate, we must address to every one that is under it the command, "Awake." Your inactivity and security involve you in the deepest guilt; your corruption of heart and life provokes the majesty of God. Nor is your impotence any excuse for your disobedience. They who exert their feeble powers may expect Divine assistance. To convince us that none shall fail who use the appointed means God enforces His command with--

+II. A promise.+--Sleep and death are states of intellectual darkness: hence light is promised to those who obey the Divine mandate. Light in Scripture imparts knowledge (Isa. viii. 20), holiness (1 John i. 7), comfort (Ps. xcvii. 11), and glory (Col. i. 12). And all these blessings shall they receive from Christ, the fountain of light (Mal. iv. 2; John i. 9).

+Lessons.+--1. _Let each one consider the command addressed to himself--"Awake thou."_ 2. _Let all our powers be called into action._ 3. _In exerting ourselves let us expect the promised aid.--Theological Sketch Book._

_The Gospel Call and Promise._

+I. Many of mankind are in a state of deadly sleep.+--In sleep the animal spirits retire to their source, the nerves are collapsed or embraced; and as the nerves are the medium of sensation and motion, the whole system is in a state of insensibility and inactivity. How exactly resembling this is your spiritual state.

1. _You are insensible._--Your eyes and ears are closed; and you have no proper sense of pleasure or of pain.

2. _You are in a state of security._--You have no fear of evil, no apprehension of danger, and consequently no concern for your safety.

3. _You are in a state of inactivity._--You are not inquiring, labouring, wrestling. When the body is locked in slumber, thought roves at random and produces gay dreams of fancied happiness. Thus many are dreaming their lives away. (1) In this sleep many are as void of sense and motion as if they were actually dead. (2) In common sleep a person after due repose spontaneously awakes, renewed in vigour. But from this sleep, unless God should awake you, you will never awake till the heavens be no more. (3) It is a sleep unto death. Like one who has taken a large quantity of opium, unless you are awakened by some external cause, you will insensibly sink into the second death, the death which never dies.

+II. God is using means to awaken them.+--While you are asleep, light, however bright and clear, shines upon you in vain. Till warning has waked attention, instruction and illumination will be lost upon you. 1. _God calls you to awake_ from your dreams of fancied happiness, and reflect upon the vanity of the objects by which you are deluded. 2. _Struggle to shake off the dull slumber_ which weighs you down. 3. _Consider your misery and danger._ 4. _Rouse all that is within you to activity._ God calls you--(1) By the language of His law. (2) By the severe dispensations of His providence. (3) By the strivings of His Spirit. (4) By the voice of the Gospel.