II.IMPUTES no evil.

III.ENTERTAINS no thought of resentment.

IV.DEVISES no evil.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

(J. A. James.)

(H. J. W. Buxton.)

(The Brooklet.)

2. In some degree our thoughts are a more true measure of ourselves than even our actions. Our thoughts are not under the control of human respect. No one knows anything about them. There are thousands of things which we are ashamed to say, or to do, which we are not ashamed to think. It is not easy for our thoughts to be ashamed of themselves. They have no witnesses but God. Religious motives can alone have a jurisdiction over them.

3. If a man habitually has kind thoughts of others, not because he happens to be of an easy-going disposition, but on supernatural motives, that is, as a result of grace, he is not far from being a saint.

4. Kind thoughts imply a great deal of thinking about others. This, in itself, is rare. But they imply also a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being judgments of their conduct, or criticisms. This is rarer still. Active-minded people are naturally the most prone to find fault, and such must, therefore, make kind thoughts a defence against self. By sweetening the fountain of their thoughts they will destroy the bitterness of their judgments. But kind thoughts imply a great nearness to, and a close contact with God. Kind thinking is an especial attribute of God, because He is not extreme to mark what is done amiss: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses."

5. Nobody can judge men but God, and we can hardly obtain a higher or more reverent view of God than that which represents Him to us, as judging men with boundless charity.

6. The habit of judging others, that is, of thinking evil, requires a long process to eradicate it. We must concentrate ourselves upon it to keep it in check, and this check is to be found in kind interpretations in suspecting, not evil, but good motives. We must come to esteem very lightly our sharp eye for evil on which we perhaps prided ourselves as cleverness in detecting, or, as we called it, unmasking it. We forget that all this may be, that there is a terrible possibility, or even a probability of its being, a huge uncharitableness. No doubt knowledge of character may be a talent, but it is the hardest talent of all to manage. We are sure to continue to say clever or sharp things as long as we are by way of judging others. Sight is a great blessing, but there are times and places in which it is far more blessed not to see. Of course we are not to grow blind to evil, but we must grow to something higher and something truer than a quickness in detecting or suspecting evil, if we would have anything of that blessed "charity," that love which "thinketh no evil."

7. Have we not always found that, on the whole, our kind interpretations were truer than our harsh ones? What mistakes have we not made in judging others? But have they not almost always been on the side of harshness? We have roused, and perhaps given vent to our righteous indignation. All at once the whole matter is explained in some most simple way, and we are lost in astonishment that we should never have thought of it ourselves. On the other hand, how many times in life have we been wrong, when we put a kind construction on the conduct of others?

8. The practice of kind thoughts tells most decidedly on our spiritual life. It leads to great self-denial about our talents and influence.

9. Thinking no evil, that is, thinking kind thoughts, endows us with great facility in spiritual things. It opens and widens the paths of prayers. It enables us to find God easily, because God is Love.

10. Above all, it is one of the main helps to the complete government of the tongue.

(J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)

1. The state of others. It often shows itself in a disposition to think the worst of those about us, whether they are worldly men or Christians.

2. The qualities of others. It appears in a disposition to overlook their good qualities, or to make very little of them; or to make more of their ill qualities than is just; or to charge them with those ill qualities which they have not.

3. The actions or speech of others. This spirit discovers itself —(1) In judging them to be guilty of evil actions without any evidence that constrains them to such a judgment (1 Timothy 6:4; Psalm 15:1-3; Proverbs 17:4).(2) In a disposition to put the worst constructions on their actions. But here it may be inquired, "Wherein lies the evil of judging ill of others, since it is not true that all judging ill of others is unlawful? And where are the lines to be drawn? "To this I reply, that there are persons appointed on purpose to be judges, in civil societies, and in Churches, and that particular persons, in their private judgments of others, are not obliged to divest themselves of reason, that they may thus judge well of all. And therefore we are not forbidden to judge all persons where there is plain and clear evidence that they are justly chargeable with evil. But the evil of that judging wherein censoriousness consists, lies —

(a)In judging evil of others when evidence does not oblige to it, or in thinking ill of them when the case very well allows of thinking well of them (Proverbs 18:13).

(b)In a well-pleasedness in judging ill of others.

II. HOW A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT IS CONTRARY TO CHARITY.

1. It is contrary to love to our neighbour.(1) We see that persons are very backward to judge evil of themselves. And, therefore, if they loved their neighbour as themselves, love would have the same tendency with respect to him.(2) We see that persons are very backward to judge evil of those they love.(3) We see, also, universally that where hatred and ill-will towards others most prevail, there a censorious spirit most prevails.

2. A censorious spirit manifests a proud spirit. And this, the context declares, is contrary to the spirit of charity.Conclusion: This subject —

1. Sternly reproves those who commonly take to themselves the liberty of speaking evil of others. How often does the Scripture condemn backbiting and evil-speaking! (Psalm 1:19, 20; Titus 3:1, 2; 1 Peter 2:1; Psalm 15:3).

2. Warns all against censoriousness, either by thinking or speaking evil of others, as they would be worthy of the name of Christians.(1) How often, when the truth comes fully out, do things appear far better concerning others than at first we were ready to judge.(2) How little occasion is there for us to pass our sentence on others. Our great concern is with ourselves (1 Corinthians 4:5).(3) God has threatened, that if we are found censoriously judging and condemning others, we shall be condemned ourselves (Romans 2:3).

(Jon. Edwards.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

I. IT IS CHRIST LIKE. How sympathetic and gracious and helpful He ever was! He had a kind word for the magdalen, a pitying glance for the dying thief.

II. CONSIDER OUR IGNORANCE. Who are we that we should assume to know what passes in a human breast? How little we understand the conditions, the environment, the sore temptations, of those who fall into sin!

1. Of justice we know little or nothing. Let us leave that to an omniscient God. Our function is with mercy. That falls measurably within our sphere of knowledge, and we are safe to administer it.

III. WE WORK INCALCULABLE INJURY BY OUR UNCHARITABLE TREATMENT OF OTHERS. There are people who would not prick their neighbours with a bodkin, yet do not hesitate, as Swift says, to —

"Convey a libel with a frown,

And wink a reputation down."They would not steal a farthing, but rob their neighbours without scruple of that which is better than life. It is related that when the martyr Taylor was dying at the stake one of the bystanders cast a flaming torch which struck his eyes and blinded them "and brake his face that the blood ran down his visage." This was base, cowardly, brutal beyond words. But it was not more base, more brutal, or more cowardly than to injure a man in his reputation, to put him to an open shame by blackening his honour.

IV. WE LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES. We are none of us any better than the law requires, none of us any better than we ought to be. We have all sinned and come short of the Divine glory; and, strange to tell, the faults which we are most prone to criticise in others are those which are most deeply seated in ourselves. Tell me the general drift of a man's aspersions and I will show you his darling sin. It would be prudent in us all to take advantage of that provision which in courts of justice excuses a witness from testifying against a culprit when to do so would incriminate himself. It takes a rogue to catch a rogue. All captious criticism is in the nature of State's evidence.

V. WE ARE ON OUR WAY TO JUDGMENT. And here we are making the rule which will apply to ourselves at that great day. "Judge not," said the Master, "that ye be not judged. For with what judgment," etc. The Moslems say that two spirits are set to guard the actions of every man. At night they fly up to heaven and report to the recording angel. The one says, "He bath wrought this good, O angel! Write it ten times!" The other says, "He hath wrought this evil; but forbear, O angel, yet seven hours, in order that he may repent!" It is true that God delighteth in mercy. But it we want it we must here accord it.

VI. IN DEALING UNGRACIOUSLY WITH OTHERS WE LOSE THE BLESSED OPPORTUNITY OF KINDNESS. There is no telling "what good may he done by a word of sympathy and helpfulness, one of those "words in due season" which are like apples of gold in pictures of silver. In the prison at New Bedford there is a man serving out a life sentence who some years ago had a strange experience. He had previously been regarded as one of the most desperate and dangerous inmates. He had planned outbreaks and mutinies, and been repeatedly punished in vain. His heart was full of bitterness. But one day in June a party of strangers came to visit the institution, an old man with several ladies and one little girl. It happened that this prisoner had just been assigned for some misdemeanour to the menial task of scrubbing the corridor. The warden, leading the visitors about, saw him, sulky and morose, at the top of the stairway. "Jim," he called, "come and carry this little girl up." The convict scowled and hesitated. The little girl at the foot of the stairway held out her arms and said, "If you will, I'll kiss you." He looked at her seriously a moment, then slowly came down, and lifting her upon his shoulders as tenderly as any father could have done, carried her to the upper corridor. She raised her face. He gravely stooped and kissed it, then returned to his task. And they say at the New Bedford jail that he has never been the same man since that day. The kindness of that child in some way transformed his life.

(D. J. Burrell, D.D.)

I. Let us consider WHAT THIS DESCRIPTION OF CHARITY IMPORTS. You will easily perceive that the expression in the text is not to be understood in a sense altogether unlimited; as if there were no occasion on which we are to think unfavourably of others. To view all the actions of men with the same degree of complacency would be contrary both to common understanding and to many express precepts of religion. Religion renders it our duty to abhor that which is evil. The virtue inculcated is that which is known by the name of candour. It is necessary to observe that the true candour is altogether different from that guarded, inoffensive language and that studied openness of behaviour which we so frequently meet with among men of the world. Smiling, very often, is the aspect, and smooth are the words, of those who inwardly are the most ready to think evil of others. That candour which is a Christian virtue consists not in fairness of speech, but in fairness of heart. It may want the blandishment of external courtesy, but supplies its place with generous liberality of sentiment. Its manners are unaffected, and its professions cordial. It is perfectly consistent with extensive knowledge of the world, and with due attention to our own safety. In that various intercourse which we are obliged to carry on with persons of every different character, suspicion, to a certain degree, is a necessary guard. It is only when it exceeds the bounds of prudent caution that it degenerates into vice He makes allowance for the mixture of evil with good, which is to be found in every human character. He expects none to be faultless; and he is unwilling to believe that there is any without some commendable quality. In the midst of many defects he can discover a virtue. Under the influence of personal resentment he can be just to the merit of an enemy. He is not hasty to judge, and he requires full evidence before he will condemn. As long as an action can be ascribed to different motives, he holds it as no mark of sagacity to impute it always to the worst. Where there is just ground for doubt, he keeps his judgment undecided. When he must condemn, he condemns with regret. He listens calmly to the apology of the offender. From one wrong opinion he does not infer the subversion of all sound principles; nor from one bad action conclude that all regard to conscience is overthrown. He commiserates human frailty; and judges of others according to the principles by which he would think it reasonable that they should judge of him. In a word, he views men and actions in the clear sunshine of charity and good-nature, and not in that dark and sullen shade which jealousy and party-spirit throw over all characters.

II. TO RECOMMEND, BY VARIOUS ARGUMENTS, THIS IMPORTANT BRANCH OF CHRISTIAN VIRTUE.

1. Let us begin with observing what a necessary requisite it is to the proper discharge of all the social duties. Accordingly, love, gentleness, meekness, and long-suffering are enumerated as distinguishing fruits of the Spirit of Christ. But it is impossible for such virtues to find place in a breast where the propensity to think evil of others is predominant. Charitable and candid thoughts of men are the necessary introduction to all good-will and kindness. They form, if we may speak so, the only climate in which love can grow up and flourish. A suspicious temper checks in the bud every kind affection. It hardens the heart, and estranges man from man. It connects humanity with piety. For he who is not given to think evil of his fellow-creatures, will not be ready to censure the dispensations of his Creator. Whereas the same turn of mind which renders one jealous and unjust towards men, will incline him to be querulous and impious towards God.

2. In the second place, as a suspicious uncharitable spirit is inconsistent with all social virtue and happiness, so, in itself, it is unreasonable and unjust. In order to form sound opinions concerning characters and actions, two things are especially requisite, information and impartiality. But such as are most forward to decide unfavourably are destitute of both. Instead of possessing, or even requiring, full information, the grounds on which they proceed are frequently the most slight and frivolous. Nothing can be more contrary both to equity and to sound reason than such precipitate judgments. The motives of the actor may have been entirely different from those which you ascribe to him; and, where you suppose him impelled by bad design, he may have been prompted by conscience and mistaken principle. Admitting the action to have been in every view criminal, he may have been hurried into it through inadvertency and surprise. He may have sincerely repented; and the virtuous principle may have now regained its full vigour. No error is more palpable than to look for uniformity from human nature, though it is commonly on the supposition of it that our general conclusions concerning character are formed. Mankind are consistent neither in good nor in evil. In the present state of frailty all is mixed and blended. The strongest contrarieties of piety and hypocrisy, of generosity and avarice, of truth and duplicity, often meet in one character. There are few cases in which we have ground to conclude that all goodness is lost. Placed, then, in a situation of so much uncertainty and darkness, where our knowledge of the hearts and characters of men is so limited, and our judgments concerning them are so apt to err, what a continual call do we receive for candour!

3. In the third place, what the sources are of those severe and uncharitable opinions which we are so ready to form. Were the mind altogether free from prepossession and bias, it might avail itself to more advantage of the scanty knowledge which it possesses. It is one of the misfortunes of our present situation that some of the good dispositions of human nature are apt to betray us into frailties and vices. Thus it often happens that the laudable attachment which we contract to the country or the church to which we belong, or to some political denomination under which we class ourselves, both confines our affections within too narrow a sphere, and gives rise to violent prejudices against such as come under an opposite description. Not contented with being in the right ourselves, we must find all others in the wrong. They rashly extend to every individual the severe opinion which they have unwarrantably conceived of a whole body. Was there ever any great community so corrupt as not to include within it individuals of real worth? Besides prepossessions of this nature, which sometimes mislead the honest mind, there are other, and much more culpable, causes of uncharitable judgment. Pride is hurt and wounded by every excellence in which it can claim no share; and, from eagerness to discover a blemish, rests upon the slightest appearance of one, as a satisfying proof. When rivalry and competition concur with pride, our desire to espy defects increases, and, by consequence, the grounds of censure multiply. Where no opposition of interests takes place, envy has too much influence in warping the judgment of many. A person of low and base mind naturally imputes to others the sentiments which he finds congenial to himself.

4. In the fourth place, that suitable to the sources whence a jealous and suspicious temper proceeds, are the effects which it produces in the world, the crimes and mischiefs with which it fills society. It possesses this unhappy distinction beyond the other failings of the human heart, that while it impels men to violent deeds, it justifies to their own apprehension the excesses which they commit. Amidst the uproar of other bad passions, conscience acts as a restraining power. As soon as the tumult subsides, remorse exerts its influence, and renders the sinner sensible of the evil which he has done. But the uncharitable man is unfortunately set loose from any such check or control. Through the infatuation of prejudice, his judgment is perverted; conscience is misled. The first-fruits of an evilthinking spirit are calumny and detraction, by which society is so often embroiled, and men are set at variance with one another. But, did it proceed no farther than censorious speech, the mischief would be less. Much greater and more serious evils frequently ensue. What direful effects, for instance, have often flowed from rash and ill-founded jealousy in private life! In public life, how often have kingdoms been shaken with all the violence of war and rebellion, from the unjust suspicions which subjects had conceived of their rulers; or the rash jealousy which princes had entertained of their people! But it is in religious dissensions chiefly that the mischievous power of uncharitable prejudice has displayed its full atrocity. Let us attend particularly to one awful instance of the guilt which men may contract, and of the ruin which they may bring upon themselves, through the want of fairness and candour. The nation of the Jews were almost noted for a narrow and uncharitable spirit. When John the Baptist and our blessed Lord appeared among them, because the former was austere in his temper, and retired in his life, they pronounced of him that he had an evil spirit; and because the latter was open and sociable in His manners, they held Him to be destitute of that sanctity which became a prophet. Their prejudice against our Lord took its first rise from a most frivolous and contemptible cause. "Is not this the son of the carpenter? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

5. In the fifth place, as a suspicious spirit is the source of so many crimes and calamities in the world, so it is the spring of certain misery to the person who indulges it. His friends will be few; and small will be his comfort in those whom he possesses. Believing others to be his enemies, he will of course make them such. So numerous and great are the evils arising from a suspicious disposition, that of the two extremes it is more eligible to expose ourselves to occasional disadvantage from thinking too well of others, than to suffer continual misery by thinking always ill of them. It is better to be sometimes imposed upon than never to trust. Safety is purchased at too dear a rate when, in order to secure it, we are obliged to be always clad in armour, and to live in perpetual hostility with our fellows. This is, for the sake of living, to deprive ourselves of the comfort of life. The man of candour enjoys his situation, whatever it is, with cheerfulness and peace.

6. In the sixth place, that there is nothing which exposes men in a more marked and direct manner to the displeasure of the Almighty than a malignant and censorious spirit. I insist not now on the general denunciations of Divine wrath against malice and hatred. Let us only consider under what particular description the Spirit of God brings this crime of uncharitable judgment. It is declared to be an impious invasion of the prerogative of God, to whom alone it belongs to search all hearts, and to determine concerning all characters. On the whole, it clearly appears that no part of the government of temper deserves attention more than to keep our minds pure from uncharitable prejudices, and open to candour and humanity in judging of others. The worst consequences, both to ourselves and to society, follow from the opposite spirit. Let us beware of encouraging a habit of suspicions, by forming too severe and harsh opinions concerning human nature in general. Darkened as the Divine image now is among mankind, it is not wholly effaced. Much piety and goodness may lie hidden in hearts that are unknown to us. Vice is glaring and loud. The crimes of the wicked make a noise in the world, and alarm society. True worth is retired and modest, and requires particular situations to bring it forth to public notice. The aged and the unfortunate, who have toiled through an unsuccessful life with long experience of the falsehood and fraud of evil men, are apt to he the most severe in the opinions which they entertain of others. For such, their circumstances may be allowed to form some degree of apology.

(H. Blair, D.D.)

(H. Blair, D.D.)

II. THE TRUTH is the exact opposite of iniquity, and therefore the legitimate object of charity's rejoicing. it indicates that which is fixed, settled, solid, certain, constant, according to fact or reality, to be confidently believed and relied upon. The truth by pre-eminence is God's gracious revelation to man contained in His written Word. The truth in human practice and human character is conformity of heart and life to the principles and requirements of that revelation.

(J. Cross, D.D.)

1. In the commission of it.

2. In the contemplation of it in others.

3. In the sufferings it occasions.

II. ITS JOY IS IN THE TRUTH (righteousness).

1. In the practice of it.

2. In the triumph of it.

3. The effects of it.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

(Jeremiah Burroughs.)

(Principal Edwards.)

(J. B. Wilkinson, B.A.)

I. SOME ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE DOCTRINE.

1. Holy practice is the aim of that eternal election which is the first ground of the bestowment of all true grace (Ephesians 1:4; Ephesians 2:10; John 15:16).

2. That redemption, by which grace is purchased, is to the same end (John 17:19; Colossians 1:21, 22; Titus 2:14).

3. That saving conversion in which grace is commenced in the soul is to the same end (Ephesians 2:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:7).

4. That spiritual knowledge and understanding, which are the inward attendants of all true grace in the heart, tend to holy practice.

5. From the more immediate consideration of the principle of grace itself, from which the same will be seen. And here —(1) Because the faculty which is the immediate seat of it is the faculty of the will, which is the faculty that commands all a man's actions and practice. The will is the fountain of the practice, as truly as the head of a spring is the fountain of the stream that flows from it.(2) It is the definition of grace, that it is a principle of holy action. What is grace but a principle of holiness in the heart? And if grace be a principle, what is it a principle of, but of action?(3) The nature of a principle of grace is to be a vital principle.(4) Grace is an exceedingly powerful principle (2 Timothy 3:5).

II. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE WITH RESPECT TO THE PARTICULAR CHRISTIAN GRACES. This is the case —

1. With respect to a true and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 5:6; James 2:18).(1) The conviction of the understanding and judgment, which is implied in saving faith, tends to holy practice. If men are really convinced of the truth of the things they are told in the gospel, about salvation and an eternal world, it will act in such a manner as will tend to their obtaining this salvation.(2) So does that act of the will which there is in saving faith. He that, by the act of his will, does truly accept of Christ as a Saviour, accepts of Him as a Saviour from sin, and not merely from the punishment of sin.(3) So does all true trust in God. And herein a true trust differs from all false trust. A trust in God in the way of negligence, is what in Scripture is called tempting God; and a trust in Him in the way of sin, is what is called presumption, which is a thing terribly threatened in His Word. But he that truly and rightly trusts in God, trusts in Him in the way of diligence and holiness.

2. All true love to God. Love to our fellow-creatures always influences us in our actions. He that loves money is influenced in his practice by that love, and kept by it in the continual pursuit of wealth. And so he that truly loves God is also influenced by that love in his practice.

3. All true repentance. In the original, the word signifies a change of the mind; and men are said to repent of sin when they change their minds with respect to it.

4. All true humility. He that is sensible of his own unworthiness, will be disposed, by a sense of it, to carry himself accordingly both before God and man.

5. All true fear of God. which is a holy solicitude or dread lest we should offend God by sinning against Him.

6. The spirit of thankfulness, and praise, which leads us to render again according to the benefits received.

7. Christian weanedness from the world, and heavenly-mindedness.

8. The spirit of Christian love to men. If the spirit of love to man be sincere, it will tend to the practice and deeds of love (Romans 13:9, 10).

9. A true and gracious hope. A false hope tends to licentiousness — to encourage men in their sinful desires and lusts, and to flatter and embolden them even when they are in the way of evil. But a true hope tends to stir men up to holiness of life, to awaken them to duty, and to make them more careful to avoid sin, and more diligent in serving God (1 John 3:3).Conclusion:

1. We may see one main reason why Christian practice and good works are so abundantly insisted on in the Scriptures as an evidence of sincerity in grace (Matthew 7:16-20; John 14:21-24; Ephesians 5:6, 6).

2. In view of this subject, let all examine themselves, whether their grace is real and sincere.(1) Has your supposed grace such influence as to render those things in which you have failed of holy practice, loathsome, grievous and humbling to you?(2) Do you carry about with you, habitually a dread of sin (Genesis 39:9)?(3) Are you sensible of the beauty and pleasantness of the ways of holy practice?(4) Do you find that you do particularly esteem and delight in those practices that may, by way of eminence, be called Christian practices, in distinction from mere worldly morality?(5) Do you hunger and thirst after a holy practice?(6) Do you make a business of endeavouring to live holily, and as God would have you, in all respects?(7) Do you greatly desire that you may know all that is your duty?

(Jon. Edwards.)

(Dean Vaughan.)

I. THE MULTITUDE OF LOVE'S DIFFICULTIES.

1. The difficulties of love are many, for the apostle sets forth the opposing armies as four times "all things." You will have to contend with "all things" —(1) Within yourself. Nothing in your original nature will help you. God has put within you a new life, but the old life seeks to smother it.(2) In the persons whom you are called upon to love. The best of the saints will try your patience; and as for the ungodly, everything in them will oppose the drawings of your love.(3) In the world, for the world lieth in the wicked one, and all its forces run against love.(4) In hell. The prince of the power of the air leads the van, and the host of fallen spirits eagerly follow him. Speak of crusades against the Paynim, what a crusade is this against hate and evil! Yet we shrink not from the fray.

2. Though love has many difficulties, it overcomes them all, and that four times.(1) By patience, which "beareth all things." Let the injury be inflicted, we will forgive it.(2) By faith: we trust in Christ, and look for Divine succour, and so we "believe all things."(3) By hope: we rest in expectation that gentleness will win, and that long-suffering will wear out malice.(4) By perseverance: we abide faithful to our resolve to love, we will not be irritated into unkindness. Baffled often, love "endureth all things."

3. Love conquers on all four sides. Love makes a hollow square.(1) Does God seem to smite love with afflictions? She "beareth all things."(2) Do her fellow Christians treat her ill? She believes everything that is good about them, and nothing that is injurious.(3) Do the wicked rise against her? She hopes that yet they may be brought to a better mind.(4) Do all her spiritual foes attack her with temptations and insinuations? She turneth patience against them, and by God's grace "endureth all things."

4. Love conquers in all stages of her life.(1) She begins in conversion, and the powers of evil are at once aroused to seek her destruction. Then she "beareth all things."(2) She gathers strength, and "believing all things," confesses her faith, and her fellow Christians are confirmed.(3) Advancing a little farther, though often disappointed, she "hopes all things."(4) And when infirmities and old age come, and she can do little else but sit still, she still perseveres, and accepts even death without complaining, for love "endureth all things."

II. THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE'S LABOUR. Her labours are fourfold.

1. In bearing all things. "Bear" might be translated "cover." The two ideas may be blended, however. Love bears all things in silence, concealing injuries as much as possible even from herself.(1) Think of this word "covers."(a) In reference to the brethren. It is not honourable to men or women to be common informers. Love stands in the presence of a fault, with a finger on her lip. She imitates the pearl oyster. A. hurtful particle intrudes itself and, unable to eject the evil, it covers it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl. I would desire to keep ready for my fellow Christians a bath of silver, in which I could electroplate all their mistakes into occasions for love. As the dripping well covers with its own deposit all that is placed within its drip, so would love cover all within its range with love, thus turning even curses into blessings.(b) As to "bearing all," apply the text mainly to trials in dealing with the unconverted. Ignore any repulsiveness that there may be in them. Bear with their ignorance of the gospel, their hardness of heart, and their jests. Would you see the perfection of the charity that beareth all things? Behold your Divine Lord. Oh, what He has covered!

2. In believing all things. In reference —(1) To our fellow Christians. True love believes good of others as long as it can, and when it is forced to fear that wrong has been done, gives the accused the benefit of many a doubt. When the thing is too clear, love says, "Yes, but the friend must have been under very strong temptation," or else that the good man must have been mistaken. Love's blind eye is to the fault, and her bright is for the excellence. It is said that once, in the streets of Jerusalem, there lay a dead dog, and every one reviled it. One spoke of its currish breed, another of its lean and ugly form, etc.; but one passed by who said, "What white teeth it has!" Men said, as He went on His way, "That is Jesus of Nazareth." Surely it is ever our Lord's way to see good points wherever He can.(2) To the unconverted. She does not believe that they are converted, but she believes that their conversion is possible, and expects that the word she speaks will be God's instrument of salvation. Do you want a model of this? Look to your Divine Master once again. He had no faith in man's goodness, for "He knew what was in man"; but He had great faith in what could be done in men and for them, and for the joy that was set before Him in this He endured the Cross, despising the shame.

3. In "hoping all things." Love never despairs.(1) Hope all things about your brethren, and if you should be forced to see sad signs in them, yet, remember that some of the brightest believers have had their faults. Remember yourself, lest you also be tempted.(2) As to the unconverted, you will never do anything with them unless you hope great things about them. When the good Samaritan found the poor man half dead, if he had not hoped about him he would never have poured in the oil and the wine, but would have left him there to die. Would you see a model of this? Our blessed Lord despaired of none, but went after those whom others would have given up.

4. In enduring all things. This is perhaps the hardest work of all, for many people can be affectionate and patient for a time, but the task is to hold on year after year. In reference —(1) To our fellow Christians, love holds out under all rebuffs. If your brethren are angry without a cause, be sorry for them, but do not let them conquer you by driving you into a bad temper.(2) To the unconverted. Our Lord said, "I will make you fishers of men." If you go out fishing for souls you will have to endure all things, for some whom you have been seeking for a long time will grow worse instead of better.

III. THE SOURCES OF LOVE'S ENERGY. Love's art is learned at no other school but at the feet of Jesus, where the Spirit of love doth rest on those who learn of Him. Love wins these victories, for —

1. It is her nature. The nature of love is self-sacrifice.

2. She has four companions. Tenderness that "beareth all things"; faith that "believeth all things"; hope and patience which "endureth all things."

3. She sucks her life from Christ. Love can bear, believe, hope, and endure because Christ has borne, believed, and hoped, and endured for her.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

(H. W. Beecher.)

II. BELIEVETH ALL THINGS.

1. To the advantage of its neighbour.

2. Until convinced by the clearest evidence.

III. HOPETH ALL THINGS.

1. Good of others.

2. Or that can possibly alleviate the wrong.

3. Or contribute to its amendment.

IV. ENDURETH ALL THINGS when there is no relief.

1. Without a murmur.

2. Without resentment.

3. Without reproach.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

1. It is terrible to think what a keen eye we have for each other's faults. It is sad to think how clever we are at ferreting them out, either for our own or for our neighbour's amusement. Even the dead are sometimes not suffered to rest unmolested in their graves. True it is that they are out of the reach of the tongue of slander or uncharitableness, but the sin is not the less great for all that.

2. Now charity, so far from injuring the reputation of any person by exposing their faults, not only conceals them, but protects these very persons, and interposes a shield, as it were, between them and the attack of their enemies. The very meaning of the word protect is to hide or conceal, by interposing some object between one who would seek to injure another. No doubt, from time to time, cases will arise where faults have to be brought to light and plainly told. But we must make quite sure that it is our business to find them out, and when we do speak, to be careful that we are not gratifying any prejudice of our own.

3. But to bear all things, in the sense of concealing the faults of others, is indeed to have a Christ-like spirit. It is to resemble Him very closely. It is to walk very closely in His loving footsteps. When need arose our gentle Lord was stern and strong in His reproofs. But how often He passes over faults! How ready He is to make excuses for or to conceal or hide them! Let two instances alone suffice: first, in the case of the woman taken in the deadliest of deadly sins. Then, again, on the Cross.

(J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)

1. Are willing not only to do, but also to suffer, for Christ (Luke 14:27).

2. Have the spirit to undergo all the sufferings to which their duty to Christ may expose them. They are willing to undergo all sufferings(1) Of all kinds.

(a)Reproach and contempt (2 Corinthians 12:10).

(b)Hatred and ill-will (Matthew 10:22).

(c)Losses in their outward possessions (Philippians 3:8); in their ease and comfort (2 Corinthians 6:4, 5).

(d)Persecution (Hebrews 11:35, 36):

(e)Death itself (Matthew 10:39).(2) Of all degrees, like pure gold, that will bear the trial of the hottest furnace.

II. SOME REASON OR PROOF OF THE DOCTRINE.

1. If we have not such a spirit, it is an evidence that we have never given ourselves unreservedly to Christ. It is necessary to our being Christians that we should give ourselves to Him, wholly, only, and for ever.

2. They that are truly Christians, so fear God, that His displeasure is far more terrible than all earthly afflictions and sufferings.

3. They that are truly Christians, have that faith whereby they see that which is more than sufficient to make up for the greatest sufferings (2 Corinthians 4:17; Hebrews 11:24-26).

4. If we are not willing to close with religion, notwithstanding all the difficulties attending it, we shall be overwhelmed with shame at last (Luke 14:28-33).

5. Without this spirit which the text implies, we cannot be said to forsake all for Christ. If there be any one kind or degree of temporal suffering that we have not a spirit to undergo for Christ, then there is something that we do not forsake for Him (Luke 14:26, etc.).

6. Without this spirit we cannot be said to deny ourselves in the sense in which the Scriptures require us to do it (Matthew 16:24, 25).

7. It is the character of all the true followers of Christ that they follow Him in all things.

8. It is the character of true Christians that they overcome the world (1 John 5:4).

9. The sufferings in the way of duty are often, in the Bible, called temptations or trials, because by them God tries the sincerity of our characters as Christians (1 Peter 1:6, 7; 1 Peter 4:12, 13).Conclusion:

1. How happy those persons are represented in the Scriptures to be who have a spirit to suffer, and do actually suffer, for Christ (Matthew 5:10-12).

2. What glorious rewards God has promised hereafter to bestow on those that do willingly suffer for Christ (Matthew 19:29; 2 Timothy 2:11, 12).

3. How the Scriptures abound with blessed examples of those that have suffered for Christ's sake!

(Jon. Edwards.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

(J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)

1. There is a sense in which it finds exercise towards God. The heart that loves God is not tormented with the mysteries of His Providence. The lips of love say, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" In the midst of inscrutable events in individual or national life, the filial child of God "believeth all things" about His wisdom and love.

2. It finds frequent exercise in relation to the imperfections of friendship. Often in social life there is need for the best construction to be put upon some word or some action. Love so believes in the beloved that it eagerly puts that construction.

3. It finds exercise in relation to mankind generally. With the true "enthusiasm of humanity," its views of men, its interpretations of men are inspired by a faith it is very unwilling to forego. And thus, as long and as far as possible, it "believeth all things."

II. IS AN UNSPEAKABLE GAIN TO MEN. For who cannot see that to have —

1. Unbroken repose in God's government.

2. Ungrudging trust in friendship, and —

3. Unfaltering belief in humanity, exerts the highest influences on —

(1)Piety.

(2)Philanthropy?

(U. R. Thomas.)

1. They always go together. Where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting.

2. They depend upon one another. One cannot be without the others. To deny one would in effect be to deny another, and so all.

3. They are, in some respects, implied one in another. Thus, e.g., humility is implied in faith, etc.

II. SOME REASONS OF THEIR BEING THUS CONNECTED AND DEPENDENT.

1. They are all from the same source (1 Corinthians 12:4, 6).

2. They are all communicated in the same work of the Spirit, namely, conversion. There is not one conversion of the soul to faith, and another conversion to love, etc.

3. That they all have the same root and foundation, namely, the knowledge of God's excellence (Psalm 9:10; 1 John 3:6; 1 John 4:7).

4. That they all have the same rule, namely, the law of God (James 2:10, 11).

5. They have the same end, viz., God.

6. They are alike related to one and the same grace, namely, charity, or Divine love, as the sum of them all.Conclusion:

1. The subject may aid us to understand in what sense old things are said to be done away, and all things become new, in conversion (2 Corinthians 5:17). A true convert, the moment he is converted, is possessed not of one or two, but of all holy principles, and all gracious dispositions.

2. Hence, also, they that hope they have grace in their hearts may try one grace by another; for all graces go together. If persons think they have faith, they should inquire whether their faith was accompanied with repentance, etc. And so persons should examine their love by their faith.

(Jon. Edwards.)

II. THE EXTENSION.

1. All good things. For, to wait for the twilight with the adulterer; to catch at all opportunities which may be as steps to bring to the pinnacle of honour; to have "our eyes still watching upon the prey," is not hope, but lust, or ambition, or covetousness.

2. Future, absent goods; goods at a distance. For when the object is present, hope is no more. Charity "is patient" (ver. 4), draws in its breath, as it were, and stayeth, and defers, and prolongs itself (Romans 8:25).

3. Matters of difficulty. For hope loves to struggle with its object, and sometimes is increased by opposition, and made bolder by being frighted. But if the object be "at hand and cheap," my hope is lazy and asleep; "hope above hope, hope against hope" (Romans 4:18), that, is hope indeed. The way of hope is hard and rugged. She passeth by the pomp of the world, and she treadeth dangerous paths. If a serpent be in the way, she feareth not; if a flower, some pleasing object, she gazeth not; but presses on forward, over riches and poverty, over honour and disgrace, over all relations and. dependencies, and striveth forward to her object.

4. Good things, though hard to obtain, yet "possible." For charity is not foolish and indiscreet: it ploughs not, the air, nor sows upon the rocks. What is easy and at hand cannot raise a hope and what is impossible overwhelms and swallows it. What is ready to fall into my bosom, I need not hope for: and what I cannot have doth scarce produce a wish, much less beget a hope.

(A. Farindon, D.D.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

(A. Farindon, D.D.)

I. IS ATTESTED BY

1. Its nature. For love will not let go any ground for expecting the best things concerning the admired, or for anticipating the best things concerning even the pitied. Unwilling to forebode ill, it is sanguine ever of good.

2. Its history. Love is always known to be declining when it is unhopeful. The infinite love is the God of hope.

II. GIVES LIFE AND BEAUTY TO LOVE. Whilst love is a source of hope, hope again feeds the lamp of love. It suggests the better. explanation of what seems mysterious in human or in Divine procedure, and thus it endows love with an eye that never grows dim.

(U. R. Thomas.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

I. LOVE HAS TO ENDURE MUCH This is strange, but it is true. Love is not requited with love, but often with misunderstanding and even with hatred. Error hates truth, selfishness hates love. Christ's biography supplies the climax of the proof of this. But all loving bears witness to the same experience. Does not God endure much?

II. LOVE IS ABLE TO ENDURE MUCH. The distresses and persecutions that seem to have force enough in them to blast and burn out all they oppose, have been again and again as harmless to love as the fiery furnace to the three Hebrew youths. Fierce fire cannot consume it; many waters cannot quench it.

(U. R. Thomas.)

II. AS AN ACTIVE GRACE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ON EARTH.

1. View it in any of its manifestations.(1) Beneficence and self-denying liberality — "the poor ye have always with you"; and a claim ever arises from these.(2) Forgiveness of injuries, while these abound — and so long as human nature is what it is they will abound — every day affords occasions in which it is called for.(3) Kindness and forbearance to the faults and failings of others: in the present imperfect state such must ever be expected.

2. Nor less than this is it adapted to all circumstances and situations of life: to the poor and the rich, etc. There is no position in which the believer can possibly be found in which charity will not be an ornament and a delight. It will add glory to, and preserve the soul from, the dangers of the day of prosperity; and it will equally cheer it in the day of adversity.

3. It is adapted to every period of time, to the hour of death, to the day of judgment, yea, to heaven itself.

4. And so, in a more extended sense, and as regards the condition of the Church, no less than in individual cases. It is adapted to times of persecution and to times of peace; when the world frowns or when the world smiles. Charity is the best preservative against, as it is the only cure for, those petty jealousies which equally disgrace the Church and dishonour God.

III. IN SUPPLYING MOTIVES TO EXERTION IN THE REDEEMER'S CAUSE. In its comprehensiveness, it takes in the entire race, and aims at no lower object than to "make known His ways upon earth; His saving health among all nations."

IV. AS TO THE DURABILITY OF ITS EXISTENCE. It will last for ever, and live in heaven, as the life of glory there. Death cannot annihilate it. "Love is heaven, and heaven is love." To have it, therefore, now is to possess the foretaste of eternal joys.

(J. T. Smith, M.A.)

I. HOW GIFTS FAIL.

1. Prophecy must be accomplished.

2. Tongues superseded.

3. Knowledge vanish before a brighter manifestation.

II. HOW LOVE NEVER FAILS.

1. Its work is never done.

2. Its necessity can never be superseded.

3. Its expression may be perfected, but in heaven as on earth its nature is the same.

III. THE INFERENCE.

1. Love is better than gifts.

2. Should be more earnestly desired.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

1. The apostle had been speaking of temporary gifts. Supernatural endowments were granted to the Church for a season only. The apostle intimates that there is a gift of richer value, and that the time would come when these would be bestowed no longer, and when that only would remain.

2. What a catastrophe would it be were it to become extinct! But it cannot fail. So wide a channel was made for it by the mission of the Son of God, that to stop its onward flow were as impossible as to prevent the rolling of the ocean's waves. Love as it dwells in the believer's breast is only a reflection of the love of the Creator. Hence it is a gift which never fails.

3. The gift of charity will never fail on earth, how then is it possible that it should fail in heaven? The period will arrive when not only miracles will cease, but even the ordinary means for the edification of the Church. But love will even then abide. Upon the blessed inhabitant of the upper sanctuary it will stream in richest plenitude, direct from the eternal throne.

II. AN ACTIVE VIRTUE.

1. It is a gift, but it is a gift to be employed, and on its exercise depends its value. Nor does it ever fail in this respect. It is ever seeking to do good, and to pour its gifts and blessings on the hapless sons of man.(1) Its pity never fails. Wherever it beholds an object of distress, its efforts are put forth to give relief.(2) Its liberality never fails. It is like an angel of mercy, which is never wearied with conferring favours, and never says you ask too much.(3) Its ingenuities never fail. It is ever occupied in forming schemes to carry out its generous designs. Spurious or defective charity may fail, but true charity will never fail.

2. Look again into the eternal world. How active is the principle of love among the hosts of heaven! On earth, love is more or less mixed up with other things; in heaven it will be free from all defect. The family will be one. They will have one common interest. Each will contribute to the happiness of all. Jealousies will not be there. No envious feelings can be there indulged.

III. A SOURCE OF PURE AND ELEVATED ENJOYMENT. What is so constant as the joy that springs from the activities of benevolence? Man's happiness will ever be increased in proportion to the largeness of his soul. When other springs of pleasure are dried up, this will continue to flow in copious and refreshing streams. In heaven, our Father's house, love will be more pure, more elevated, and more fervent; and hence it will be there, as it is on earth, but in a far higher measure, the source of never-ending satisfaction and delight.

(Thornley Smith.)

(J. A. James.)

II. AS AN ELEMENT OF ACCEPTABLE OBEDIENCE (ver. 3). The acts of the unconverted are not considered by God. There is but meagre satisfaction in this passage for the moralist. Without love to Jesus our best deeds do not avail before God (Matthew 25:40). Doing for the brethren is doing for Jesus. An act of kindness or deed of love done for a child, far away from home and in need of sympathy and care, is regarded by the parent as a favour done to him. The mother is better pleased than if the deed of love had been done unto her.

III. AS AN ELEMENT OF ACCEPTABLE SERVICE (Revelation 2:4, 5). The Church at Ephesus had left her first love; therefore the service she rendered was not pleasing to God. She must do her first works, which were seasoned with love, and cease to perform her duties mechanically in order that her efforts might be acceptable to God (vers. 1, 2). Love is also the power-element of service.

IV. AS A SIN RESISTING POWER (John 14:15). Love to Jesus produces righteousness. It enables us to keep the commandments, and is therefore a sin-resisting power (John 14:21).

V. AS AN AGGRESSIVE POWER (2 Corinthians 5:14). The constraining love of Jesus made Paul the aggressive man he was.

VI. AS A SUSTAINING POWER (John 21:17). Peter repented, because he had in him the germ of true love for Jesus, and was sustained. Judas repented from remorse, and ultimately destroyed himself. Love to Jesus sustained , , Latimer, Ridley, the martyrs, and the persecuted in all ages.

VII. IN PRODUCING CONFESSION (John 12:42, 43). When men love position and power and the praise of men more than Christ they will not confess Him. When men love Jesus supremely they are swift to confess Him as Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:10).

VIII. AS A PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN (1 Corinthians 16:22). Without love to Christ no one is meet for heaven, but is devoted to destruction. The wrath of God abideth on him.

(Hom. Review.)

I. AN ELEMENT OF MORAL POWER. It is the strongest —

1. Sustaining power.

2. Resisting power. Love builds around the soul a rampart, invulnerable.

3. Aggressive power. We have not only to bear up under trials, and to resist temptations, but we have battles to fight. There is nothing so aggressive in the moral world as love. Man can stand before anything sooner than love.

II. A PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL UNITY. Deep in the heart of man is the desire for union with his fellow, isolation and division are naturally repugnant to his social nature. His ingenuity has been taxed for ages in the invention of schemes for union. As the result we have confederations based on political sympathy, material interests, theological dogmas, mere carnal affinities; but we are only one with those we love. But we can only love the lovable.

III. A SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL HAPPINESS. Love is joy.

1. It expels from the mind all the elements unfavourable to happiness.

2. It generates in the mind all the elements of spiritual joy.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

I. IS INDICATED BY ITS CAPACITY OF MEETING ALL DEMANDS MADE UPON IT.

1. This is the conclusion from the previous assertions of this passage.

2. This is the result of our observation of every-day life. True levels equal to any exigency. It survives all else.

II. IS A STRIKING CONTRAST TO ALMOST ALL ELSE IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

1. This is the declaration of the passage following our text. All else "ceases," "vanishes," is "done away."

2. This is confirmed by human experience. Love is the great protest of our immortality.

III. IS EXPLAINED BY ITS BEING DIVINE NOT ONLY IN ITS ORIGIN AND SUSTENANCE, BUT IN ITS NATURE. Love is of God, and God's love never faileth, "His mercy endureth for ever." Ours is not an imitation of His, but an inspiration from it. His love is the life of ours. Hence ours is deathless.

(U. R. Thomas.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

(W. Baxendale.)

II. THERE ARE OTHER FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT BESIDES THAT WHICH SUMMARILY CONSISTS IN LOVE, WHEREIN THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS COMMUNICATED TO HIS CHURCH.

1. Extraordinary gifts, miracles, inspiration, etc.

2. Ordinary gifts. These, in all ages, have more or less been bestowed on many unconverted men, in common convictions of sin, common illuminations, and religious affections.

III. ALL THESE OTHER FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ARE BUT FOR A SEASON, AND EITHER HAVE ALREADY CEASED, OR AT SOME TIME WILL CEASE. As to the miraculous gifts, they are but of a temporary use, and cannot be continued in heaven. And as to the common fruits of the Spirit, with respect to the persons that have them, they will cease when they come to die; and with respect to the Church, they wil1 cease after the day of judgment.

IV. LOVE IS THAT GREAT FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT THAT NEVER FAILS. Consider the Church —

1. With respect to its members, as —(1) It never fails in this world (Romans 8:38, 39).(2) And it ceases not when the saints come to die. When the apostles went to heaven, they left all their miraculous gifts behind. But they carried love with them to heaven, where it was perfected.

2. As a body. Though other fruits of the Spirit fail in it, this shall never fail. Of old, when there were interruptions of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit there never was any interruption of this. And at the end of the world when the Church shall be settled in its eternal state, and all common and miraculous gifts shall be at an end, love shall be brought to its most glorious perfection in every individual member of the ransomed Church above.

V. THIS REASON FOR THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE WHICH HAS THUS BEEN PRESENTED, viz., that love is the great end of all the other fruits and gifts of the Spirit. It is the end to which all the miraculous gifts that ever were in the world, are but the means. They were only means of grace, but love is grace itself; and not only so, but the sum of all grace. Application:

1. There seems to be no reason to think that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are to be restored to the Church in the times of her latter-day prosperity and blessedness. Prophecy and miracles argue the imperfection of the state of the Church, rather than its perfection. For they are designed as a support, or as a leading-string, to the Church in its infancy, rather than as means adapted to it in its full growth. And then again that state will not be more glorious than the heavenly state; and yet the apostle teaches, that in the heavenly state all these gifts shall be at an end, and the influence of the Spirit in producing Divine love only shall remain.

2. The subject should make persons exceedingly cautious how they give heed to anything that may look like a new revelation, or that may claim to be any extraordinary gift of the Spirit.

3. The subject teaches how greatly we should value those influences and fruits of the Spirit which are evidences of true grace in the soul, and which are all summarily included in love.

(Jon. Edwards.)

II. THE OBJECTS OF LOVE THAT IT CONTAINS.

1. There are none but lovely objects in heaven (Revelation 21:27). All the persons that belong to the blessed society of heaven are lovely. The Father of the family is lovely, and so are all His children. There are no false professors or hypocrites there.

2. They shall be perfectly lovely. There are many things in this world that in the general are lovely, but yet are not perfectly free from that which is the contrary.

3. All those objects that the saints have loved above all things here while in this world shall be in heaven.

III. THE SUBJECTS OF LOVE IN HEAVEN. And these are the hearts in which it dwells. In every heart in heaven love dwells and reigns. The heart of God is the original seat or subject of love. The love of God the Father flows out toward Christ the head, and to all the members through Him. And the light of their love is reflected in the first place, and chiefly back to its great source. There is no enemy of God in heaven; but all, as His children, love Him as their Father.

IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE IN HEAVEN.

1. As to its nature. It is altogether holy and Divine.

2. As to its degree. It is perfect. The love that dwells in the heart of God is absolutely perfect. The love of angels and saints to God and Christ is perfect in its kind, or with such a perfection as is proper to their nature. It is perfect with a sinless perfection, and perfect in that it is commensurate to the capacities of their nature.

V. THE EXCELLENT CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH LOVE SHALL BE EXPRESSED AND ENJOYED IN HEAVEN.

1. It is always mutual. It is always met with answerable returns of love — with returns proportioned to its exercise.

2. Its joy shall never be interrupted or damped by jealousy.

3. There shall be nothing within themselves to clog or hinder it in the saints. In this world they find much to hinder them in this respect.

4. It will be expressed with perfect decency and wisdom.

5. There shall be nothing to keep us at a distance from each other, or to hinder our most perfect enjoyment of each other's love.

6. We shall all he united in very near and dear relations.

7. All shall have property and ownership in each other. Love seeks to have the beloved its own; and Divine love rejoices in saying, "My beloved is mine, and I am his."

8. We shall enjoy each other's love in perfect and uninterrupted prosperity.

9. All things shall conspire to promote our love, and give advantage for mutual enjoyment.

10. We shall know that we shall for ever be continued in the perfect enjoyment of each other's love.

VI. THE BLESSED EFFECTS AND FRUITS OF THIS LOVE, AS EXERCISED AND ENJOYED IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. The most excellent and perfect behaviour of all the inhabitants of heaven toward God and each other.

2. Perfect tranquillity and joy.Conclusion:

1. If heaven be such a world as has been described, then we may see reason why contention and strife tend to darken our evidence of fitness for its possession.

2. How happy those are who are entitled to heaven! But here some may be ready to say, "Without doubt; but who are these persons? By what marks may they be distinguished?"(1) They are those that have had the principle or seed of the same love that reigns in heaven implanted in their hearts in regeneration.(2). They are those who have freely chosen the happiness that flows from the exercise and enjoyment of such love as is in heaven, above all other conceivable happiness.(3) They are those who, from the love that is in them, are, in heart and life, in principle and practice, struggling after holiness.

3. What has been said on this subject may well awaken and alarm the impenitent.(1) By putting them in mind of their misery, in that they have no portion or right in this world of love (Revelation 22:15).(2) By showing that they are in danger of hell, which is a world of hatred.

(J. Edwards.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

I. GIFTS ARE TEMPORARY.

1. Imperfect in their nature.

2. Adapted to an imperfect state.

3. Must consequently pass away.

II. LOVE IS ETERNAL.

1. In its own nature.

2. Is the end of all gifts.

3. Must endure in a perfect state of being.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

(J. H. Hinton.)

(Prof. Henry Drummond.)

(A. Jessopp, M.A.)

(W. B. O. Peabody, D.D.)

(C. A. Bartol.)

1. He knows something of the welcome of Jesus.

2. He knows something of communion with Jesus.

3. He knows, too, in part, the spirit of service to Jesus.

4. A Christian knows also, in part, likeness to Christ.But all these brightest moments, these deepest joys, these noblest moods, are to be eclipsed, forgotten, counted as nothing, "when that which is perfect is come." To the Christian this is coming. All else is going. What, then, can compare with the claims and the charms of the spiritual life? Suppose there were on earth a country where, in health, that which is perfect had come; where, in purity of character, that which is perfect had come; where, in all the tender relations of domestic life, that which was perfect had come; where, in society and in government, in cottage and in palace, that which is perfect had come; where, in man, and field, and air and sky, that which was perfect had come; — how ships would groan with human cargoes destined for its shores! In comparison, fields of gold and seas of pearl would cease to draw. Yet the brightest conception of such a state falls immeasurably below what the dying Christian finds in heaven.

(Benjamin Waugh.)

1. We know in part. This limitation is imposed upon us triply. Of all that is, of all that even we with our present faculties feel must be, we can know but a small fraction. Our knowledge is limited in range. And, again, our knowledge of that small fraction of being which is in any way accessible to us is bounded and conditioned by our human powers. Our knowledge is limited in form. And, yet once more, of theft which man could know, being what he is, if the personal powers and the personal experience of the race were concentrated in a single representative, what an infinitely small portion is embraced by one mind! Our knowledge is limited by the circumstances of life. So far the fact itself that we know in part is unquestionable and unquestioned. No one who ever presumptuously maintained that "man is the measure of all things," ventured also to assert that "all things" which he measures owe their being to him. No one who has considered the slow development of the powers which man now enjoys in what appears to us to be his maturity would be willing to admit that his faculties exhaust in kind or in degree the possible action of being. Our knowledge, I repeat, is inevitably partial in regard of the object, and of the subject, and of the conditions of its acquisition. In each respect an infinite mystery enwraps a little spot of light. But while upon reflection we admit that our knowledge is thus limited, we do not, I think, commonly take account of the momentous significance of the fact. Many of us who are ceaselessly busy with our daily occupations do not habitually feel it. Many who have distinctly realised it, deliberately put it out of sight. That which we cannot know in the way of earthly knowledge is for us, they say, as if it were not. St. Paul follows a better way. He teaches us to see that these mysteries, and the full sense of limitation which they bring with them, are an important factor in our lives. He rounds life off on this side and that, not with a sleep, but with the glory of the invisible. And is it not true that we are made stronger as well as humbler by lifting up our eyes to the sky which opens with measurable depths above the earth on which we are set to work?

2. We know in part. the fullest recognition of this fact is not only helpful but essential for the fulfilment of our several tasks. The practical or deliberate disregard of this relation of all our knowledge to the unknown brings with it urgent dangers. On the one hand we are tempted to make our own knowledge, our own thoughts, our own experience, an absolute standard. On the other hand we are tempted to apply a dominant method to subjects which do not admit it. There is no one, I suppose, who has not been sorely tried by both temptations. It requires a serious effort to enter with a living sympathy into the character of another man, or of another class, or of another nation, or of another course of thought: to feel, not with a sense of gracious superiority but of devout thankfulness, that here and there that is supplied which we could not have provided: to acknowledge how peculiar gifts or a peculiar environment, how long discipline or an intense struggle, have conferred upon others the power of seeing that which we cannot see. But it is to breadth of hope, to self-denial, to patience that we are called, as those who believe and seek to live as believing that we know in part. The immediate circumstances in which we are placed need, as we must feel, the exercise of such graces. There is on all sides an overpowering passion for clearness, for decision, for results which can be measured on demand. Art and history are trammeled by realism. A restless anxiety for fulness and superficial accuracy of detail diverts the forces which should be given to an interpretation of the life. We begin to think that when we can picture to ourselves the outside of things we have mastered them. So it is also in many respects with opinion. We are told that we must make our choice definitely between this extreme and that; that there can be no mean; that a logical necessity demands one precise conclusion or the other. In this way we lose insensibly the present consciousness of the great deeps of life. Portraiture becomes photography, and faith is represented by a phrase. The reflections from the mirror, the shadows on the wall of the cave, are taken for the realities which these fleeting signs should move us to seek. There is no outline in nature, however convenient or even necessary we may find it to draw one. A closer view of this one-sided and dominant realism, which is characteristic of our generation, shows what is at once its final issue and its remedy. For it is not fanciful, I think, to connect it with the great successes of the method of physical inquiry. We try, perhaps even without knowing of what spirit we are, to make the same method supreme over all knowledge. Meanwhile we are neglecting a different lesson which physics have to teach us and which we have not yet learnt. However paradoxical the statement may appear, physical study more than any other brings the invisible vividly before us. The world of the man of science is not the scene of conflict and disorder which we look upon with our untrained eyes, but an order of absolute law which he finds by the interpretation of a larger experience. He pierces beneath the seen to that which it indicates. So far he has read the thought of God. His partial knowledge is a sign for the moralist and for the theologian.

3. We know in part. We have seen that acceptance of this fact enables us to meet and to use the dangers and the lessons of limited views. The same words describe the process by which our efforts are made effective. We advance towards the limits of our attainable knowledge by the help of every fragmentary movement. We look upon the fullest vision of the truth in the combination of parts held separately. This is the Divine law of spiritual progress and of spiritual apprehension. It is not that any one mind or any one race can evolve the last deductions from the primal facts. The manifold endowments of the nations are made contributory in due order to the unfolding of the universal gospel. The history of Judaism and the history of Christianity prove the truth beyond doubt. Spiritual knowledge and with it spiritual life is furthered by the introduction into it of new elements from without. The seed which has the principle of life gathers from all around that by which the life is manifested in the fulness of its beauty. It has often been pointed out how every critical stage in the progress of earlier revelation was marked by the action of new races upon the people of God. Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, quickened fresh thoughts in Israel, and brought to light fresh mysteries in the Law. The Son of Man entered on the patrimony of the race made ready for His use. The course of Christianity up to the present time exhibits the accomplishment of the same law on a larger scale and with a more pervading application. Judaism was limited and preparatory. The Divine Presence was symbolised for the fathers by a cloud or by a glory. But Christianity is absolute and final. For us the Divine Presence is "the Word made flesh," "the man Christ Jesus." It is no longer any part of man, or any part of mankind to which the message of God is addressed or entrusted. The experience of our own lives offers an illustration of this growth through assimilation and loss. The unfolding of our separate powers is able to bring home to us what is fulfilled on a colossal scale in the broad history of human progress. One faculty after another is called into dominant activity, and yields in its turn to some fresh claimant. And here comes the trial of faith. We are tempted, as it may be, to linger with a vain regret round that which is ready to vanish away or to hasten prematurely the advent of that which is not yet mature. But the faith deals with all in a process of life. The conviction that every result, every triumph, every prize is given us to use and not to keep, saves us from the peril of stationariness and from the peril of innovation. He cannot rest who knows that the counsel of God is not yet accomplished.

4. And surely this paradox is the very joy of life. We know all: and we have still much to learn. Our strength is to feel that the end which is given to us is not yet gained. As long as there is movement there is hope. Because the central fact of our faith reaches to the utmost bounds of our being: because to the last our knowledge is limited, we bring together with loving reverence all that has been accumulated in the past, and we stand ready to welcome the new light which shall reveal the old treasures in fresh glory. It is not strange then that there should at all times be difficulties. Difficulties guide men to new regions of work for Christ's sake. We can feel, I repeat, in these different directions, in the spheres of personal life, of human fellowship, of cosmical dependence, how our partial knowledge witnesses to the existence of regions of vital energy not essentially unattainable but hitherto necessarily unexplored: we can feel that the darkest riddles of life lose their final gloom when we refuse to acknowledge that their solution must be found in the facts which we have been so far able to grasp: we can feel that the gospel of Christ incarnate and ascended deals with these latest questionings not by accident or by accommodation, but in its inmost nature: we can feel as the problems rise before us that our historic creed contains the answer to them, though it has not yet been drawn out, that our needs have not been left uncared for by eternal love, that it is through the sternest searchings of heart that the growing fulness of the truth is realised. The sorest trial of very many now is the sad suspicion that Christianity does not cover all which we know to be. Perhaps we have given colour to the fear by our own narrowness of sympathy. But from the first it was not so. And it is true still, true always, that our faith conquers not by the suppression or by the dissimulation of difficulties, but by interpreting them or by placing them in their right relation to what we see of the whole constitution and circumstances of the world. We do not then appeal to ignorance, but to the conditions of a partial knowledge: we do not transfer our hope to an imaginary scene, but find the pledge of its fulfilment in a completer revelation of this in which we toil and suffer: we do not offer any intellectual formulas as exhaustive and absolute, but we claim that now and at all times the faith should be regarded in connection with every human interest; we do not affirm the limitation of knowledge as a bar to inquiry, but as a bar to finality.We know in part.

1. The words are a consolation. No one has ever set before himself a high ideal of work for the truth's sake without sadly noting at the close of his labour the scantiness of his achievements. His difficulties, perhaps, have grown clearer, but they have not grown less. At last he finds himself left face to face with mysteries, which appear in the form of irreconcilable opposites. The fundamental mystery of his finite being responsible to the Infinite repeats itself in many forms. There is no escape from conditions of thought which he feels to be inapplicable to spiritual existences. Happy is he only when he knows that what he sees, what he can see, is but a fragment of that glory which all the powers of all the ages will not exhaust in its fulness. We inherit and we transmit our inheritance to others, with the slender accessions we have made. So it is that we are bound one to another, and while we contend to the uttermost for the truth which is given to us, we find a place opened for other labourers.

2. They are a promise. The knowledge is partial, but the object is not illusory. We may not he able to see much, but the appearances which we observe answer to something which is eternal. This conviction is sufficient to inspire us with hope. We are so constituted that we cannot but group together the scattered facts which come before us, and interpret them in some fashion. Looking to them we can cherish the signs of a wider order in the moral world which has not yet been realised.

3. They are a prophecy. Now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face. The mode of knowledge will be changed, but He who is revealed in many parts and in many ways is Himself unchangeable. Perfect knowledge now would be the sentence of spiritual death: "the whole can increase no more, is dwarfed and dies." But, let us thank God, we know in part; and we know Him that is true. We do not rest in what we are, or in what we can attain to, but in what God is, in whose imago we are made.

(Bp. Westcott.)

(E. E. Hale, D.D.)

1. We know but little.

2. That little is mixed with much error.

3. Includes much that is useless.

4. Is very imperfectly apprehended.

II. ITS CAUSES.

1. Intellectual.

2. Physical.

3. Moral.

III. ITS LESSONS.

1. Humility.

2. Docility.

3. Distrust of our own understanding.

4. Hope.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

I. THE PART WE DO NOT KNOW — by far the greater part; and the more we know, the more we seem not to know — as the outside of a circle gets larger as the inside is increased. Only beginners are proud of their acquirements; discoverers, who stand upon the boundaries of human knowledge, gazing with earnest eyes over the boundless untrodden region beyond, feel themselves unable to spell out the very alphabet of the universe of God.

1. What do we know about the material world? Men observe that things have certain appearances, and that changes occur with a certain regularity; but why they appear so, and how these changes take place, which obviously are the most important points to understand, belong to the part we do not know. Why a star moves or a plant grows, it is useless to ask an astronomer or a botanist.

2. So in the spiritual world. How much of goodness and how much of trial make up the facts and events of our lives! But what can we know about them — how they come, and why? What an amount of ingenuity we spend upon these questions, and how much are we perplexed! But vain are our endeavours to get at the meaning.

3. It is the same in regard to the great facts of the Christian revelation. "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." Why was that necessary? How was it possible? That is the part we do not know; and we must content ourselves, having appropriate evidence, with the fact that it is so. Paul's eager mind did indeed press against the furthest boundaries of inspired knowledge; but he once stopped with, "O the depth of the riches," etc., and then turned to practical matters.

II. THE PART WE NO KNOW. It is natural to us to appreciate what we lack, and to undervalue what we have. In this, as in other respects, we are but children of a larger growth. As a thousand natural wonders and beauties lie at our feet which we have not eyes attentive enough to see, or minds awake enough to study, or hearts big enough to love: so with the marvels of Christ and Christianity, of which our tongues often speak parrot-like in hymns and prayers, yet the rich significance of which we seldom feel. Our prayer should be, "Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law."

(T. M. Herbert, M.A.)

I. WE ARE BORN WITH AN EYE GRADUATED TO SOME PARTICULAR TRUTH OR TRUTHS, and not with a vision that spreads itself with equal facility over all truths.

1. It is no fault of ours that we cannot see the Southern Cross. That constellation does not form part of the heavens under which God intended us to live. If it had fallen to our lot to dwell in Patagonia, then we should have lived under its blaze, and it would then have been impossible for us to make out the Great Bear. No eye is able to see everything, and each eye has an outlook of its own.

2. Truth is like a diamond, and you must shift your position in order to catch the particular flash from each individual facet; which is what in the matter of truth we do not and cannot do. We can migrate from latitude to latitude, and skip from street to street; but as regards truth, we can change neither our nationality nor our address; truth is fixed, and we are born fixed in our relation to it. We are individually created into a specific angle with the truth. Truth individualises itself to each eye and makes only minute donations to each. It is with us in this respect much as it is with objects in their relation to a sunbeam, where one sort of material will pull the blue out of it; another the green; another the red, and so on through the entire bundle of colour bound up in a white ray. In the same way, each mind picks the particular truth that is native to it.

3. It is the way we are made. It has its advantages; some one aspect of truth we have power to take hold of and to feel keenly. It results in each man having his own little patch of truth to cultivate, and by that means he doubtless gets more produce on to the world's market than he would do if he had a whole hundred acre lot to cultivate scatteringly.

4. That ought to keep us steadily at work on constructive lines, not destructive ones; telling what little we do see and know, and letting the rest go. A star is not brilliant because I happen to see it; it is brilliant because — it is brilliant. Exactly so it is of a truth. If there is some reality that your mind looks right into, but that your Christian neighbour has no sense of and no care for, it is not because he is a theological idiot, but because your little star does not happen to shine where he stands.

II. WE ALLOW THE ONE PARTICULAR BENT THAT WE ARE BORN WITH TO ASSERT A DESPOTISM OVER US.

1. If, e.g., there is some particular truth of God's Word that we have a native bias for, we shall be almost certain to make that determine for us the portions of Scripture that we shall admit to our thought and our confidence; much as the one glowing constellation that is in the direct range of our vision will be almost certain to prevent our scouring around to detect others imperfectly disclosed.

2. The same holds of other books as well as of the Bible. Look at the library of any Christian thinker, and you will be able to determine what his theological bent is. The very particularity of his view operates to keep it narrow, and his will only be those that he can use as whet-stones upon which to whet his particularity down to a thinner edge.

3. Then, too, the habit of thinking along some congenial line, not only weakens our interest in truth lying upon other lines, but sometimes even impairs our power of appreciating truth lying upon them. Just as a creature needs a different bodily construction to enable him to live upon land from what he does to exist in water, so, to a certain degree, a different equipment is required to live and think in a region of spirit from what is required to adapt one to a world of matter; and the more exclusively we are habituated to the former, the more awkward it will make us when we undertake to make any headway in the latter. Some of us use our scientific faculties so little that they become aborted and we lose all power to appreciate scientific facts. And the converse of that is equally true.

4. So that in these days, when there is being so strong a pressure brought to bear in behalf of those branches of knowledge that deal with matter only, if you want your boy to be a Christian, see to it that he gets his mind trained in those faculties that will especially be called in play in the discernment and appreciation of spiritual truth.

III. BY A DELIBERATE ACT OF OUR OWN WILL WE VETO THE TRUTH.

1. Truth depends for its power upon the concurrence of the mind as much as light depends for its power on the concurrence of the eye. A truth coming to us always knocks at the door and then stands outside waiting till some one comes and answers. No man is likely to be persuaded against his will. We personally decide just how much God's Word shall do for us and how far it shall go with us. The preacher never drives it in; we let it in, and just as far as we choose. Good hearing is a far more difficult art than good preaching.

2. Christ had perfect confidence in the truth, and He had just as much confidence that when once the heart had taken the truth fairly in, something would come of it; the parable of the sower teaches that. It may rain as hard as ever it did in the days of old Noah, but the rain will start no grass so long as the downpour falls on to frozen ground.

IV. THERE ARE CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE THAT CAN COME ONLY WITH THE YEARS AND INDEED WITH THE CENTURIES.

1. Experience is the only perfect teacher. We can of course crowd ourselves with facts, but that is not wisdom. Wisdom is gained by the process of somehow letting the threads of truth weave themselves into the tissue of our own life; and therefore it is not a thing to be hurried any more than you can hurry the growing of the corn. You will have to visit the country before ever you will quite understand what you have so painstakingly learned. Experience is expository; the Bible illuminates us but we illuminate the Bible. We make the Bible ours by our becoming its. We do not understand the publican until we have been on our knees by his side. We do not fathom the story of the prodigal until we have returned from the far country and have known what it is to stand in restored relations with that father. Is there any one of us who feels that he has more than merely begun to understand this chapter?

2. The simple change, too, that comes with our steady departure from childhood to manhood brings us on to a new side of some matters. Perhaps we have found out that life is not what we once thought it was going to be. Possibly the present is not quite so real as it used to be, and very likely the great future is growing upon us. One day I was looking at two large telescopic photographs of the moon, one taken when it was at its full, the other a week later. In the latter, some of the mountains that showed dull and lustreless in the earlier view, came out bright, as in the meantime the sun had passed along to the point where it could illumine the evening slopes, I remarked this to the dealer whose hair had been whitened by the years. "Yes," he said, very quietly, but quite cheerily, withal, "Yes, the lights are very differently arranged when you get into the last quarter."

(C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.)

I. THE ASSUMPTION MADE — "Now we know." It is knowledge that makes man better than the brute, that makes him like God, that develops his power, that is his salvation. We know, indeed, and therefore stand out before the heathen, the Jews, the early Christians. We have privileges which are peculiarly our own, and which none have ever enjoyed before.

II. THE LIMITATION ENFORCED. "We know in part." Of all things finite, human knowledge is the most limited. It is limited —

1. In its range.

2. In power.

III. THE SIGNIFICANCE IMPLIED. This state of limited human knowledge has its purpose.

1. It places us in our own proper position. We are tempted to make our own knowledge an absolute standard. We fix rules for morality, doctrine; we organise parties and call them perfect, because we imagine our knowledge is perfect; but the authors can only see in part. It requires a serious effort to understand that others have the power of seeing what we cannot see.

2. It alters the whole tone of our spiritual life on earth. It should

(1)Remove fear, for what appears to us to be dark may in reality be light.

(2)Remove doubt, for we must trust.

(3)Lessen grief, for trials may be blessings in disguise.

IV. THE PRIVILEGE BESTOWED. Our present limited knowledge is to some extent a blessing.

1. It gives us something to look forward to — "Then we shall know even as we are known." All mysteries shall one day be revealed, and then all errors shall cease.

2. It prevents much sorrow. How fearful to know all that is before us!

3. It engages our thoughts on the practical rather than the theoretical. Love is the practical duty at present; for we can love even if we cannot know.

(J. J. S. Bird, M.A.)

I. A NECESSITY. The knowledge of the highest creature must by the necessity of nature be partial. What he knows is as nothing compared with the knowable, still less with the unknowable. "Who by searching can find out God?"

II. A CALAMITY. Our necessary ignorance is not a calamity, but a benediction. It acts as a stimulus. But ignorance of knowable things must be ever a disadvantage. Ignorance of ethics, political economy, laws of health, religion, entails incalculable injuries. Ignorance of these things is the night, the winter of intellect.

III. SINFUL. A partial knowledge of our moral condition, the claims of God, the means of redemption, where a fuller knowledge is attainable, is a sin. Ignorance of Christ in a land of churches and Bibles is a sin, and theft of no ordinary heinousness. It is a calamity to heathens, it is a crime to us.

IV. BENEFICENT. Our ignorance of our future is a blessing. Were the whole of our future to be spread out before us, with all its trials, sorrows, death, life would become intolerable; it is mercy that has woven the veil that hides the future. Conclusion: Our partial knowledge should make us humble, studious, undogmatic, devout.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

I. A DISCIPLINE TO DILIGENCE.

1. We require our children to know, and then we give them, not the knowledge that they seek, but the key of that knowledge. Doubtless the teacher imparts knowledge, but his greater function is in wisely keeping it back until it is fairly won. So God teaches without telling; sets alluring objects of knowledge almost within sight and reach; sets ajar the doors of science, and writes up, "Ask, and ye shall receive," etc.

2. And no faithful seeker seeks in vain. Perhaps he finds somewhat other than he sought, as Saul sought the straying asses and found a kingdom. Men sought by alchemy for the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, etc., and found them not, but found marvellous things in the quest, and by and by found themselves at the splendid portals of the great treasure-house of modern chemistry. Geography explored unknown seas for a new route to Cipango and Cathay, and lo! a new continent was given as her reward. Astrology adventured out vaguely among the stars, seeking she knew not what, and became transfigured into astronomy.

3. But ever with what is given is something yet reserved. Each new discovery discloses new questions yet to be answered. And what is true in the study of material things is even more impressively true in the higher study of man, and duty, and God. "Ye shall know, if ye shall follow on to know the Lord."

II. A DISCIPLINE TO HUMILITY AND PATIENCE. And so good a discipline is it that they who have learned the most are commonly the humblest, for they know how inadequate their knowledge is. For running through the very midst of human life, in its most intimate concerns, is a line of unanswerable questions. Along the seam between will and motive, foreknowledge and responsibility, eternity and time, spirit and matter, the absolute and the conditioned, are ranged the antinomies over which the only wisdom is to despair and be patient. And that is the wisdom which after these six thousand years of discipline, theology and philosophy are only now at last beginning to learn.

III. A DISCIPLINE TO CHARITY towards others whose knowledge is yet more narrowly limited or is on a different. side from ours. We are vexed at their narrowness, and do not think what reason we give them or others to be vexed at ours. Probably none of us are aware where our knowledge is nearest akin to ignorance and error. Likely enough it is at the very point where we are most positive. We need, as a training in charity, to "look upon the things of others" as well as "upon our own things." Vinet says, "The men of two hundred years hence will be looking back with astonishment on some monstrous error that was unconsciously held by the best Christians of the nineteenth century." This is the constant story of the past. And it is right that we should be reminded of it; not that we should cease to hold the truth or hold it with timorous or hesitating grasp, but that we should learn to hold the truth no longer in unrighteousness or in self-righteousness, but in love.

IV. A DISCIPLINE TO FAITH. We speak of a man of great and settled faith, meaning a learned, confident theologian, who has surveyed and triangulated the whole field of sacred knowledge. Eternity, Trinity, Atonement, all these are quite clear and definite to him. Nay, rather, he is a man, so far as this goes, of no faith at all. He has not the necessary antecedent condition of faith that should bring him to the feet of the great Teacher, and to lay his hand in that of the only Guide. And you who, vexed by doubts and uncertainties and limitations, have been wont to say, "But for these I might believe," learn now to speak in a higher strain, and say, "In spite of these — no; because of these I must — I do believe. To whom can I go but to Him who hath the words of eternal life? Blessed be God, who hath fenced up my way of knowledge that so I might learn to feel for the leading of His hand, and walk by faith, not by sight."

V. A DISCIPLINE TO HOPE. It is not for always, this which is in part, even though it is expedient for us now. It is the dimness which turns our mind toward the day-star and the coming dawn. This hunger and thirst unsatisfied are a continual promise of the coming time when I shall be filled. In this mood I can well afford to await that glorious time for which I am not yet prepared, but for which God is preparing me, when that which is perfect shall have come and these things which are in part shall be done away — when I shall see face to face and know even as I am known.

(L. W. Bacon, D.D.)

1. The gifts themselves.(1) The knowledge is not ordinary but extraordinary, being the effect of supernatural influence (1 Corinthians 12:8).(2) The gift of prophecy comprehended much. Sometimes it meant the power of foretelling future events; sometimes celebrating the praises of God by a Divine afflatus; sometimes the power of teaching the doctrines of the gospel by the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. So it means here.(3) We may, however, apply the terms to that more ordinary knowledge and teaching which is the present qualification of all who have received the Spirit and have the knowledge of the truth of God. This is knowledge which none can possibly surpass, and which very few can equal.

2. The imperfection ascribed to these gifts.(1) The Spirit of God never gave a full development of all His revelations. Even the apostles themselves did not know all that it was possible to know respecting Jesus Christ. Paul, with all his knowledge, says, "I have suffered the loss of all things — that I may know Him." And as the knowledge was imperfect, so was the prophecy. The inspired apostle found himself on the shore of a boundless ocean, and exclaimed, "O the depth of the riches!" etc.(2) And so to us the same imperfection attaches most strongly. The pride of our nature may induce us to imagine otherwise; but that pride will very soon be checked. The man who has studied the hardest, who has been most frequently wrapt into visions of future times — even he must still say, "I know in part — I prophesy in part." And I would ask a Christian of the highest class, if any illuminations, in which he has been enabled hitherto to rejoice, have permitted him yet to say, "That which is perfect is come"? Consider what you know of God — of His government of the universe, of the councils of His will, and of the connection of these with His actions — and then say how incomplete is your knowledge! Consider what you know of the mediatorial influence of Christ — of the fall transformation of the soul into His image — of the future state. You have, it is true, facts to believe, but you cannot comprehend their fulness; you study, you meditate, you explore — but you are soon lost; and you come to the conclusion, "I know in part."(3) And then some will say, "Where there is so much mystery, there should be no faith." But if you will reason thus on religion, extend your reasoning to life, to nature, to all around you. You know that you live; you sit, you think, you hear, you speak; but how soon will you find your knowledge, even on these subjects, limited and nonplussed! Here we must be content to see imperfectly — to comprehend as in enigma. We can only stand as it were on the threshold of the temple; it is in the future age that the veil will be rent, that the inner sanctuary will be open to our gaze, and the fire that burns on the golden altar revealed.

3. The reasons on which this imperfection is founded.(1) Man's moral pollution. The most sinful are always the, most ignorant. Adam by transgression lost much of his knowledge; and in proportion as transgression increased, ignorance abounded. Sin has a tendency to pervert the imagination, and forms an hindrance in the way of attaining the pure and sublime knowledge of religion.(2) Man's intellectual weakness. There is much in Divine knowledge that we have not a capacity for knowing. Engaged as we all are on material objects, and able to see only through the medium of our senses, what wonder is it if we be compelled to confess, "We know in part"?(3) The designs of God in connection with man's present and future state. It is not the design of God that we should know all. The future state is to make up for the defects of the present. It is this which makes heaven an object of such ardent desire to the Christian.

II. AN ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE PERFECTION.

1. In regard to some future state of the Church upon earth. Look at the Church in our own day; see how abundantly our information has increased. Yet the Church is now in a very imperfect state compared with what it shall be in the last days; then "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." None shall say to his neighbour or his brother, "Know the Lord," etc.

2. In reference to the state of the Church in heaven. Then it will be truly said, "That which is perfect is come."

(1)A perfection of purity.

(2)Of power.

(3)Of knowledge.

(4)Of happiness.

(J. Parsons.)

I. THE IMPERFECTION OF OUR PRESENT CONDITION.

1. Gifts are but partially distributed.

2. Are imperfect.

3. Are adapted to a state of imperfection.

II. THE PERFECTION OF HEAVEN.

1. Certainly anticipated.

2. Implies the removal of all imperfection and its causes.

3. The consummation of our nature and its consequent happiness.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

1. Founded on human instinct.

2. Confirmed by revelation.

3. Secured by faith.

II. WHAT RELIEF WILL IT BRING?

1. The removal of all defect.

2. Consequently of all sorrow.

III. WHAT HAPPINESS DOES IT PROMISE? The perfection of our condition.

1. Physical.

2. Intellectual.

3. Moral.

4. Social.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

1. When depressed by conscious littleness of being, yet feeling that he should not be little, man may look to futurity and exclaim, "I shall be great yonder! the immense futurity is mine! I may be content to be poor awhile in the prospect of that!"

2. It is most gratifying to see the Divine revelation connecting the condition of perfection, on any terms, in any sense, at any future period, with human nature. Looking at man, we seem to see a vast collection of little beginnings, attempts, failures — so that the perfectibility of man is ridiculed as one of the follies of philosophic romance. Then how delightful is it to see revelation itself, pronouncing it as possible!

3. This prediction of something "perfect" to come, relates to knowledge. This is somewhat surprising. It seems much more easy to conceive of perfection in holiness. But knowledge is not a state of the dispositions, but an intellectual relation with anything which can come within the sphere of its apprehension. All things in the stupendous totality of existence are subjects for knowledge. To hear, then, of perfection in knowledge, in any, the most limited, accommodated sense, is very marvellous.

II. LET US ATTEMPT TO REALISE TO OUR IMAGINATION SUCH A STATE.

1. The lowest point we can take is the exclusion of error. So that if the manner of apprehending be intuition, the objects will be made clearly self-evident; if by reasoning, the evidence will be explicit and the reasoning process infallible. It could not but be in the heavenly state a painful thing for the spirit, after exulting in the reception of a portion of knowledge, to find out that it had been imposed on.

2. It will be perfectly adequate to the infallible direction of all the activities of the superior state. Those activities we may well believe to be of vast extent and endless variety, and an infallible knowledge — what to do, and when, and by what means — will be vouchsafed.

3. Knowledge will doubtless be perfect in that we shall possess as much of it as is indispensable to our happiness, and be sensible that we do so. We shall not be in the condition of John, who looked on the sealed book and "wept" because there was none to open it.

4. We shall possess always as much knowledge as for the time our faculties are actually capable of. Here there are a vast number of things kept in the dark from us, which we could understand if they were but declared; and there is sometimes a most restless wish to know them. Imagine then a continual enlargement of the intellectual capacity, and as it enlarges, a continual influx of new knowledge to fill it.

III. WE SHOULD TAKE SOME ADVANTAGE OF THE APOSTLE'S CONTRAST BETWEEN "THAT WHICH IS IN PART," AND THAT "PERFECT" WHICH IS TO COME. Note —

1. The imperfect, partial nature of our means of knowledge. The senses, the grand inlets of our knowledge, must and do convey it in a most imperfect manner. Through them the spirit can receive only reports and images of the things. How it wishes to come at the things themselves! Language, again, is a most imperfect medium for the conveyance of knowledge, being framed upon our imperfect knowledge and partaking of all its defects. But "when that which is perfect is come," the mode, the medium, the instruments of our receiving and conveying knowledge must be something immensely different, whether or not in analogy with the present means. If there are to be senses and any artificial instruments of knowledge analogous to the present, let them be but as much superior to these as a "spiritual body," made like the glorified body of Christ, will be superior to this "earthy," mortal one, and it will suffice. But whatever shall be the means and manner of apprehending — the apprehension must be incomparably more intimate than in this world to satisfy the exalted intelligence. And that it will be so, the apostle intimates, "I shall know even as also I am known."

2. How emphatically our present knowledge is but "in part " as to the number and extent of the things known! Just think how many can be answered of all the questions we can ask. "When that which is perfect is come," it will not bring an answer to all possible inquiries; but it will be amazing and delightful to see what a multitude of things, of which we had but the faintest glimpses before, are brought into perfect manifestation. What a revelation there may be —(1) In the vast enlargement of the mind's own proper power of knowing, while it looks from a higher eminence over a wider field.(2) In the direct disclosures and communications which the Divine Being may beneficently make.

3. But all these anticipations remind us but the more forcibly how we here "know but in part."(1) So "in part," that just the part which we want to attain is divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissevering principle or a dark veil fell down exactly at the point where we think we are near upon the knowledge we are pursuing.(2) So "in part," that we sometimes feel as if a disproportionate weight is thrown upon our faith. In our partial view, appearances may seem against what we nevertheless are required most firmly to believe. It is difficult to maintain this faith, but is happily aided by the Divine assurance that one day we shall know "when that which is perfect is come."(3) So "in part," that in many things we see far more of the evil than of the good. But we are sure that there must be a decided predominance of good in the empire of Him who is infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. And the anticipation of clearly seeing it so is a delightful radiance from heaven on our present dark abode.(4) So "in part," that we cannot agree one with another. The "part" itself contains those shades and perplexities among which men must greatly differ. But when the "perfect comes," the grand illumination of each spirit will be rendered inconceivably delightful by coincidence of judgment.

(J. Foster.)

2. Turning from the apostle to ourselves, we might pursue a similar train of thought with regard to our childhood.(1) "When I was a child," one would say, "I was surrounded, not like Saul, with religious influence, but with everything that was bad."(2) "My childhood," another would say, "was spent in what ought to have been a happy home, but misunderstanding and discord made it anything but that, and the effect is I am a misanthrope."(3) "Mine," a third would say, "was the childhood of frivolity and fashion. In all senses my childhood and youth were 'vanity.' I was trained a trifler, and, as the result, I am mentally and morally a dwarf."(4) "When I was a child," another would say, "I was trained for heaven and for Christ, and so long as memory lasts, the recollection of my childhood will be to me an impulse to duty and a lustre to life," and so on. But now let us look at what is common to childhood as such.

I. HOW BEAUTIFUL THE DIVINE ARRANGEMENT ACCORDING TO WHICH CHILDHOOD GRADUALLY UNFOLDS! He who formed our first parents complete could as easily have done so with us. But it is best as it is.

1. God has given us forms of beauty everywhere, but nowhere more strikingly than in the openings of life.

2. More than this, He has thus multiplied enjoyment. Each age, as each season, has its peculiar joys.

3. We see, too, an indication of the way in which the great Worker works always — ever gradually. Childhood gradually unfolds into youth. We foolish creatures are in haste for results; God teaches us alike in nature, providence, and grace to wait and be patient.

4. While thus acting what benefit does He secure? How great the benefit to the young, teaching them lessons of docility, patience, submission; and to adults forbearance, watchfulness, etc. Imagine life without childhood, home without children.

5. If there were no higher advantage, what a benefit is the naturalness of the arrangement! The child speaking, thinking, understanding "as a child," not trying to do more; so often rebuking thus our unreal and artificial modes of adult life.

II. HOW IMPORTANT THAT WE SHOULD RECOGNISE THIS DIVINE ARRANGEMENT, AND SEEK TO OBEY IT!

1. Recollect the capacity of the child in your teaching. He speaks "as a child," and will only understand you as you do the same, and then not according to your meaning of the words, but his own, for he thinks "as a child."

2. Recognise this, too, in your expectations. You may not expect too much. They think and feel "as children," and not even grace will destroy the force of child nature. Nor ought you to wish it.

III. HOW OBVIOUS OUR DUTY, SUCH BEING THE CONDITION OF CHILDHOOD!

1. You, dear children, must be willing to submit to such training as your condition requires.(1) Obedience is the first lesson God expects you to learn. Nor forget that disobedience to parents, or those who for the time stand in their place, is a great sin. Remember on the one hand Hophni and Phinehas, and Absalom, and on the other Timothy and Jesus. "Honour thy father and thy mother," which is the first commandment with promise.(2) Seek the Saviour. Of Josiah we read that when but eight years old his heart was tender, and he feared God. Your hearts are tender, not yet "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"; while they are so, submit to the guidance of Jesus!

2. Parents, teachers, see that your duty is wisely and faithfully fulfilled. Strive to have an intelligent appreciation of what your work is. In each of those minds and characters under your care are latent powers. You are to develop them. How? As the sun does the bud of the flower — by shining upon them. Only thus will they unfold to you.

IV. HOW MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT IS AFFORDED TO THOSE WHO ARE THE GUIDES AND INSTRUCTORS OF CHILDHOOD.

1. Were the material on which you are called to act stereotyped, your task would be hopeless. It is because it is so plastic that you may work with the prospect of success. We cannot tell how early the Spirit of God may work upon the opening mind of children.

2. Remember what God has said about this seed-time! "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days." Whence have the majority of Christian men and women had their origin? Has it not been from the ranks of pious families, Christian schools?

(J. Viney.)

2. The spring, summer, autumn, and winter of our being are beautiful only in their time. Precocious childhood, prolonged infancy, or premature decay excite other feelings than those of admiration. Childishness is beautiful in its time, but only in its time. It would be a sad world if it were stripped of all the beauty and joy given to it by the innocence and playfulness of children. He is a hard man who can frown on the "childish things" so unworthy the man, but so natural in them.

3. This life of ours is a parable introduced by the apostle to describe our inner spiritual life. There are the "babes in Christ," who require to be fed with milk; "little children," in whom the good seed is giving the promise of fruit; "young men," deficient in the wisdom which long experience alone can supply, but full of hope and zeal; "strong men," the pillars of the Church, the leaders in enterprise; and fathers, who, as shocks of corn, are fully ripe and ready to be gathered into the garner. This progressive improvement we ought all to manifest.

4. There is something belonging to our childhood which we should seek always to preserve — its freshness, humility, and truthfulness. Between childlikeness and childishness there is the widest difference. Christ's life teaches us that it is possible to unite the understanding of the man with the heart of the child. What are the childish things to be put away with our advancing intelligence and experience?

I. IGNORANCE.

1. The understanding of a child is necessarily feeble and his views crude; but we expect, as years pass on and education does its work, that the various faculties shall begin to develop themselves.

2. God dealt with the Jews as with children He did not give the substance of the truth, but only types and shadows — a series of pictures. So, too, the requirements of the law were designed for children. There was not the simple exhibition of erie great principle which the people were themselves to apply, but a multitude of distinct enactments. But the law has done its work as a schoolmaster, and now we are brought to Christ to receive other teaching, and walk after another rule, even the perfect law of liberty and love.

3. There are many, however, who would always be Jews. They love that which appeals to the senses, and have little sympathy with the purely spiritual aspects of religion. They want a system of exact law, drawing distinct lines of separation between the right and the wrong, and have no idea of that mighty, all-pervading principle of self-consecration begotten at the Cross. It is needful that we put away these childish things, and let men understand that our religion consists not in the submission to priestly authority, or the discharge of a dreary routine of sacred duties, or even in the cherishing of certain religious sentiments, but in the rule of an enlightened conscience, sprinkled from dead works in the blood of Christ, and taught by the Spirit of our God. We would walk not as those who are without law, but under the law to Christ. To feel that religion must not be a mere piece of mechanism, a skeleton without a soul, but a life of godliness — to find in well-kept Sabbaths and sacred ordinances helps to the attainment of this end — to rest with all a child's dependence on Christ, and yet to show a man's energy in Christian effort, these are among the highest attainments of Christian knowledge and the best evidence of spiritual maturity.

II. NARROWNESS.

1. It is perfectly natural for a child to attach undue value to his own surroundings. He has never seen the great city, and he ascribes to his little town an undone importance. He has never looked on the mountain, and the little hillock is to him a towering height. He has never wandered on the banks of some wide-spreading stream, and therefore he counts the rivulet with which he is familiar a river. How strong these feelings are we may perhaps learn from our own experience. Even after time, travel, and reading have enlarged our views, we are inclined to think that the little town with which we were familiar in early days was superior to others until a visit serves to break the spell.

2. The same feature is to be found in men whose want of education leaves them still in a state little better than that of children. There are dwellers in a remote part of our coventry who astonish strangers by their simple faith in the superiority of their own district.

3. How absurd this sounds — yet is it only a type of what we may see continually in religious things.(1) There are numbers who, in this respect, are nothing but children. They have never gone beyond the narrow confines of their own little community. Their reading is restricted to a certain class of authors who look at the truth from their standpoint. The result can only be a cramped intellect and a narrow heart. They do not see that there are other sides of truth. Their own poor sect is to them the Church of Christ. Such men are holding fast by "childish things." Greater breadth of view and truer charity of sentiment should characterise those who have become men. We cannot read the story of the Church without seeing that God has honoured men of the most opposite views and temperaments. We cannot take up our books of praise without having the same truth impressed upon us.(2) Here, however, as almost everywhere, there are opposite extremes against which we have to guard. The very idea of breadth has been brought into disrepute by the way in which some have employed it. The man who holds fast by his own deep and intelligent convictions of doctrine and duty is pronounced narrow. On the other hand, if a man desires to tone down the gospel to the supposed tastes of men until it has been robbed of all that is distinctive and glorious in its revelations, he is esteemed broad. No wonder that devout men should look with some feeling of dread upon these broad views of Christianity. Yet is it deeply to be lamented if in their recoil they are provoked to an un-Christian narrowness. Because others indulge in a latitudinarianism which trenches on unbelief, we are not to yield ourselves to the sway of a bigotry which can tolerate no difference of opinion. Liberty is a precious Christian right, not to be surrendered or compromised, even though unwise friends have abused its privileges. Charity is the chief of the graces, and though its sacred name may often be employed to cloak indifference, or even to excuse hostility to Divine truth, yet must we not fail to cultivate and manifest it in all our controversies. He shows the breadth of Christian manhood who is able to preserve fidelity without the sacrifice of charity.

III. FEEBLENESS.

1. A child is necessarily weak, and only by slow degrees gains that muscular strength necessary for the discharge of the various functions of his physical life. His first efforts are sure to be failures. He lacks confidence even more than strength, for as yet he knows not his own power. But when the child becomes a man, we desire to see robustness and vigour.

2. So may it be expected that the first efforts of the Christian after holiness will be marked by weakness and attended with frequent failure. In the glow of his first love the young disciple fancies that nothing will be too hard for him to achieve. But soon experience teaches him — the evils of years cannot be repaired in a day — habits cannot easily be abandoned — passions that have been masters are not content to become subjects. But we have a right to expect that advancing years will bring with them increasing strength. What we have most to deplore is, that so many fail to manifest this progress. They are content to be as they have been for years. They sin and repent, make confession of their guilt, and straightway return to sin again. Possibly life is not extinguished, but assuredly it is very feeble and unhealthy.

(J. G. Rogers, B.A.)

I. THE ADVANCE FROM JUDAISM TO CHRISTIANITY. Judaism was the childhood of the Church. I do not say this to insinuate any doubt of its Divine origin. The child is as much the creature of God as the man: just so, it is as clear that He spake by Moses as by Christ. But still there is a marked difference between the two dispensations.

1. Judaism was adapted to those who, in religious knowledge and experience, were children. You teach the little ones chiefly through the eye: give them picture books, and assume pictorial attitudes. So the tabernacle was a picture-gallery, teaching precious truth — but to the senses mainly to reach the mind.

2. How different are the institutions of the gospel! Here are no altars, no priests. The Church has got out of the nursery into the study; and Christians are treated not as children, but as men. We are taught — especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews — that the ordinances of Judaism were merely figures for the time till Christ should come; but now what need of the type, when we have the antitype? Our sacraments are just the exceptions that prove the rule.

3. But see the tendency of the present day. It is to crush the manhood of the Church of Christ, and bring us back to a religion of ceremonies again. Ritualism is a second Judaising of the Church — a coming back to the nursery and babyhood again.

II. THE ADVANCE FROM EARLY PIETY TO MATURE.

1. Early piety is one of the loveliest things I know — like the blossoms of the apple-tree in spring, or the first faint light on the horizon. Yet it is a very imperfect thing. The blossoms are not the fruit — the dawning is not the day. The young Christian is only a little child in the family of God.

2. But let him become a man in Christ Jesus — what an advance! The blossoms have gone — but here is the tree filled with the fruits of righteousness; the dawning has disappeared — but it is only swallowed up in the sunrise. There was a time when Paul knew little more than that he bad been a great sinner, and lay wholly at the mercy of the Lord. But he lived "to comprehend with all saints the breadth and length," etc. Oh, to attain a full manhood of Christian character! to have the greatest peace, to do the greatest good, to bring God the greatest glory!

III. THE ADVANCE FROM THE EARTHLY STATE TO THE HEAVENLY. This was what the apostle had chiefly in his mind.

1. He describes the earthly state of Christians as imperfect. What a lesson of humility! This great gifted man acknowledges how much he cannot teach! "We know in part." And so with the very aptest of scholars. John Howe says, "Many of our conceits, which we thought wise, we shall then see cause to put away as common trash"; and Owen, "Notwithstanding all our confidence of our high attainments, all our notions of God are but childish in respect of His infinite perfections." Down, then, with our foolish pride, our arrogant assumption!

2. But what is there awaiting us? We are looking through a dim window now, and things outside are a riddle; but then the window will be thrown open, and we shall see face to face (ver. 12; 1 John 3:2), and the clear sight of Jesus shall complete our transformation. All that was dim in us shall become luminous, and we shall perfectly reflect the image of our Lord.

3. The change must begin here. We must be new-born babes on earth, if we are ever to reach maturity in heaven. "Except a man be born again," etc. Then we shall look down on this dim spot, and say, Then I was a child, but now I am a man.

(F. Tucker, B.A.)

(C. Hodge, D.D.)

1. Speech corresponds with tongues (ver. 8).

2. Understanding with prophecy.

3. Thought with knowledge.

II. THE SAINT'S MANHOOD.

1. Perfect power of expression.

2. Glorified intellect.

3. Full revelation of God.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

I. SPEECH. "I spake as a child." The Christian's speech in eternity will be characterised —

1. By clearness. Our speech here, like that of children, is often unintelligible, mere jargon. The reason is our conceptions are ill-defined. Clear speech requires a clear head. In heaven thoughts are clear, and complete as balls of radiant crystal.

2. By reality. Our speech here, like that of children, is frequently nothing more than the vehicle of mental fantasies and conjecture. But speech in eternity is the organ of reality. Words there are things. They are truths made vocal.

3. By comprehensiveness. How meagre the vocabulary of a child! Our speech here, like that of children, is limited to a very small range of things. Not so in heaven. The soul will range over the whole domain of facts, receive true impressions of all, and speak them out.

4. By sublimity. Our speech here, like that of children, is not of the most exalted and soul-inspiring character. In heaven every word will be electric, every sentence radiant, and quickening as the sunbeam.

II. UNDERSTANDING, "I understood as a child." The Christian's understanding here is like that of a child in several respects.

1. In feebleness. The child's intellect, like his body, in the first stages is very feeble. It is incapable of any great effort. It is thus with the Christian here. We say of such a man — he has a great intellect. But in reality what a small amount of truth can the most vigorous hold within his grasp! In heaven the understanding will be strong, unencumbered by matter, unchecked by disease, unclouded by sin. It will grow young with age and strong with exercise.

2. In sensuousness. A child's understanding is under the control of the senses. It judges by appearances. Is it not so with the Christian? He is prone to "mind earthly things," "to judge after the flesh."

3. In relativeness. The child judges of all things by their relation to himself. His father may be an author or a statesman, but the child knows nothing of him in those relations. As a father only he knows him. So with the understanding of a Christian. His conceptions of God are purely relative. Redeemer, Father, Master. Thus only is He regarded. What He is in Himself, what He is in the universe, he understands nothing. In eternity we shall "see Him as He is."

4. In servility. The child yields his understanding up to others. So it is often with Christians here. Not so in heaven. Each with a full consciousness of his individuality will be independent in his investigations and conclusions.

III. REASONING. "I thought as a child." How does the child reason? From an insufficiency of data. Having neither the power nor the opportunity of making an adequate observation and comparison, he draws his conclusions from passing impressions and unfounded conjectures. Thus it is often with the Christian here. His knowledge of the facts of God and the universe on which he reasons is so limited, that his conclusions are often inconclusive and puerile.

2. From the impulse of desire. In all cases his wish is the father to the thought. It is too often so with the Christian here. Their likings control their logic. Not so in heaven.Conclusion: This subject teaches —

1. The educational character of this life. The true view of this life is that it is a school for eternity. Be reconciled to this state. Struggle on till you "put away childish things." We shall leave this school soon for the family mansion and the grand inheritance.

2. The organic unity of man through all the scenes and stages of his being. Though the man here talks and judges and reasons very differently to what he did when a child, he is nevertheless the same being. Man in heaven is but the child matured. We shall never be greater than men.

3. The necessity of modesty in the maintenance of our theological views.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

I. SILLINESS. There are many things that we pardon in a child because it is a child. If a child makes a foolish remark, or does a foolish act, we say, in excuse, "He is but a child — he will be wiser by and by." But if, when the child grows up, and is still not wiser, we say, by way of reproach, that he is childish and ought, at his age, to know better.

II. SELFISHNESS. All young children show this more or less. Hence the greediness in children and their egotism, the frequent use in their mouth of the words "I" and "me." And this is a fault which all parents should try to correct. But a selfish child has the excuse of ignorance; but a selfish young man or woman has not this excuse. They do know better. While this fault remains uncorrected in us we have not made, and we cannot make, any progress in true religion Learn from your Lord and Example to think of, to care for, to give to others. It is more blessed to give than to receive!

III. WANT OF SELF CONTROL. They only are to be accounted manly who are masters of themselves, who act from reason not from passion. Remember what St. Paul says, "Every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things" — in meat, drink, speech, pleasure, pursuit of earthly gains. The way to self-mastery is to be on the watch against all excess, all inordinate affection; to bring your bodies into subjection to the law of your mind; to look in all you do, not at what is most pleasant; but at what reason and conscience enjoin.

(R.D. B. Rawnsley, M.A.)

1. Let us, therefore, consider that our present existence, compared with our future, is a childhood in respect of its duration. We are to exist for ever. What, then, is this life? How justly may it be called our childhood? The strict truth is, that it is no more than our entrance into being — our birth into the vast creation — the first glimmering of light at the dawn of day.

2. A gain, this life is our childhood in respect of improvement. At our best state in this world we may say of ourselves, with the utmost propriety, that we know nothing, and are nothing. We now mistake presumption for knowledge, a strange imagination for a sound understanding, and the delusions of passion for the perceptions of truth. Hereafter our intellectual powers will acquire vigour. We shall see intuitively those truths which we now are obliged to make out by long and intricate deductions.

3. I might go on to observe to you that we are now children in respect of power and dignity. Fluctuating at best and very feeble is our present condition. Hereafter our condition will be more fixed and stable. Our powers will be enlarged, and we shall rise to a dignity and weight in the universe of which we can now form no conception.

4. But it is necessary that I should endeavour to give you a yet more accurate view of this subject by observing to you that this life answers to the idea of a childhood, as it is an introduction to, and a state of education for, another and a higher state. Infancy prepares for childhood, and childhood for manhood. As we pass through these several stages, we are continually becoming more and more familiarised to the scene in which we are placed. And it is easy to perceive that were we to be brought into life full grown, or to be made men without passing through infancy and childhood, we should be totally incapable of relishing life, and as unfit for it as we should be for conversation, had we never been taught language; or for enjoyment and happiness, were we destitute of senses. Thus is the beginning of our existence here a natural and necessary preparation for mature life; and in like manner the whole of our mature life itself is a necessary preparation for that future life on which we are to enter at death. Should you ask me here in what manner, and by what means, this life is thus an education for another, I would answer, that it is so particularly by the instruction and the habits which are the necessary consequence to all of passing through this life; but that it is so principally by that instruction in righteousness, and those habits of self-government and virtue which we are put upon acquiring in this life. Virtue, you must always remember, is the grand condition of happiness under the Divine government. Without this we cannot be qualified for permanent existence, or any honourable situation in the universe. It is this, therefore, that we must chiefly be placed here to learn. It is proper to add, that as the Author of nature has so ordered our circumstances in this world as to make early life fit to be an education for mature life, so likewise has He so ordered our circumstances in mature life as to adapt it to the purpose of an education in virtue. We cannot proceed a step in life without finding opportunities for practising some virtue, without being required to resist some temptation, to check some wrong tendency, to discharge some duty, to govern some passion, to cherish some grace, or to stand some trial. Another sense in which our education in this world for another corresponds with our education in early or mature life, is the necessity we are under in both capacities of submitting to spirit and, sometimes, painful discipline, the reason and uses of which we may not be able to understand. Children are trained up by restraint and correction, the tendency of which they do not see, and which, therefore, they are apt to think hard and severe. So it is with us, as probationers and candidates for eternity. It is obvious that our happiness when men depends in a great degree on our conduct when young; and that the turn we take, the habits we contract, and the bent that is given us as we grow up from infancy to maturity, determine the colour and fate of all our subsequent days. Idleness and laziness in youth form a manhood void of worth and dignity; and a worthless and vicious manhood forms a wretched old age. On the contrary, virtuous, faithful, modest, sober, and well-educated youths always come out with advantage into the world. Such is the dependence of our happiness in the successive stages of the present life on our conduct in those which have preceded them; and such, likewise, is the dependence of our happiness in our future stages of existence on our conduct in our present existence. Every particular of what I have just observed of the latter, holds with respect to the former, and our seeing this to be the order of the Divine government in the one case, should silence all objections to the credibility of it in the other. Our education in youth for manhood (we all know) may miscarry, and through negligence and vice leave us deficient, ignorant, worthless, and unhappy; or, on the contrary, it may attain its end, lay the foundation of subsequent honour, and make us wise, and worthy, and respectable. The same is true of our whole education here for eternity. This also may miscarry; and instead of qualifying us for the habitations of the just, and a place among superior beings, it may leave us fit associates only for evil beings, or issue in our ruin; and one of the most terrifying of all reflections is, that in both cases these miscarriages are common.I shall conclude with desiring your attention to the following reflections.

1. It leads us to reflect on the wisdom of God in ordering the scenes of our existence. He causes us to rise gradually, and to qualify ourselves for happiness, as a necessary condition of obtaining it.

2. The subject on which I have been discoursing should teach us patience under the trials of life, and reconcile us to all present difficulties.

3. The observations I have made should render us earnest in our endeavours to make this life what it is designed — a preparation for a better life — an introduction to glory — an education for the joys of angels.

(R. Price, D.D.)

II. The next note, by which the apostle distinguishes the characters of a man and a child, is taken from the difference of their INCLINATIONS. Those of a child are always governed by trifles. The things which strike his fancy, which offer him immediate pleasure, how minute, how momentary soever, are the objects of his pursuit. But manly prudence includes in it attention to different kinds of good; the power of comparing them with regard both to their itenseness and duration; and the habit of resisting the allurements of trifling, short-lived pleasures, and of being directed by views of greater and more lasting happiness. He who suffers his mind to be continually engaged by mere amusements, and drawn away by them from every serious employment worthy of a rational being, whether of furnishing himself with useful knowledge and virtuous habits at one period of life, or at another of providing for the interests of a family, a neighbourhood, or the public; though his years may not be few, nor his amusements the same as in his childhood, is yet in the eye of reason still a child: not indeed in innocence, for a constant attachment to things of little value is not a little criminal; but in folly and perverseness.

III. In the JUDGMENT consists the third great distinction between the characters of a man and child. With little experience, and less exercise of his rational faculties, a child cannot have formed for himself any principles on which he may build real knowledge. He must of necessity learn many truths without the proper evidence of them, which yet he may afterwards by slow degrees discover. Nor are they the principles of knowledge only which he receives implicitly. Rules of conduct also he gathers from examples before he is able to understand their foundations. But it becomes a man to judge and act for himself: to examine as a critic, not receive as a disciple, all the reasoning proposed to him, and to direct his conduct by his own judgment, not by a blind submission to examples. He who takes his opinions without inquiry, though from the most accurate philosopher, has no more real knowledge than the child who takes them from his nurse. For in science that only is our own which we have earned by our attention and labour. What is cast upon us from the stores of others, without our claim or merit, loses its value in passing, and cannot enrich us. And he who in the regulation of his life is influenced by foolish fashions of which he has formed no judgment, or can give no approbation, may be justly charged with the negligence or the weakness of a child.

(W. S. Powell, D.D.)

I. THAT THE ATTAINMENT TO MANHOOD IN LOVE COSTS AN EFFORT. You are not only to develop out of the child's love, but you are to "put away childish things."

II. MANHOOD IN LOVE PUTS AWAY ONLY CHILDISHNESS, NOT CHILDLIKENESS. All that is good is to be kept by the growing man. The child's love is gentle, sincere, confiding, honest, simple; retain all this, and add to it, by putting away the "childish" peevishness, and ignorance, and vacillations.

1. One of the weaknesses of a child is his longing to outgrow childhood. the apple-tree in blossom is beautiful. So is the perfect tree. A child when a child, a man when a man, are alike beautiful.

2. One of the greatest magnets on earth is a little child. A child is a purifier of our evil thoughts and passions. All that is thus excellent in the child retain, cultivate, put not away.

III. THE CULTIVATION OF A MANLY LOVE, FREE FROM CHILDISHNESS, IS WORTHY OF MANHOOD.

1. When the powers of manly love are enlarged, it is easy to rid ourselves of childishness.

2. Manly love is quite likely to assert itself as we approach manhood.

3. Manly love is of the highest worth "Greatest of these" is love.

4. Manly love moves the hand as well as the heart. It is self-sacrificing and yielding.

5. It is invincible. Becomes strong by "long suffering." It "endures all things."In conclusion —

1. How can we be content with the unripe and the imperfect? We should become men; not be fickle, impulsive, ignorant in our love.

2. Paul's love enabled him to endure as a good soldier. His life was not child's play. Be strong, be manly; "put away childish things" in manly love.

(Thomas Armitage, D.D.)

I. I begin with observing that the first duty of those who are become men is, as the text expresses it, TO PUT AWAY CHILDISH THINGS. The season of youthful levities, follies, and passions is now over. Some things may even be graceful in youth, which, if not criminal, are at least ridiculous, in persons of maturer years. It is a great trial of wisdom to make our retreat from youth with propriety. It becomes us neither to overleap those boundaries by a transition too hasty and violent; nor to hover too long on one side of the limit when nature calls us to pass over to the other. There are particularly two things in which middle age should preserve its distinction and separation from youth; these are levities of behaviour, and intemperate indulgence of pleasure. Higher occupations, more serious cares, await you. Turn your mind to the steady and vigorous discharge of the part you are called to act. This leads me —

II. TO POINT OUT THE PARTICULAR DUTIES WHICH OPEN TO THOSE WHO ARE IN THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF LIFE. The time of youth was the preparation for future action. In old age our active part is supposed to be finished, and rest is permitted. Middle age is the season when we are expected to display the fruits which education had prepared and ripened. In this world all of us were formed to be assistants to one another. The wants of society call for every man's labour, and require various departments to be filled up. No one is permitted to be a mere blank in the world. This is the precept of God. This is the voice of nature. This is the just demand of the human race upon one another. One of the first questions, therefore, which every man who is in the vigour of his age should put to himself is, "What am I doing in this world? What have I yet done, whereby I may glorify God, and be useful to my fellows? Do I properly fill up the place which belongs to my rank and station?" In fine, industry, in all its virtuous forms, ought to inspirit and invigorate manhood. This will add to it both satisfaction and dignity; will make the current of our years, as they roll, flow along in a clear and equable stream, without the putrid stagnation of sloth and idleness. Idleness is the great corrupter of youth, and the bane and dishonour of middle age.

III. TO GUARD WITH VIGILANCE AGAINST THE PECULIAR DANGERS WHICH ATTEND THE PERIOD OF MIDDLE LIFE. It is much to be regretted that in the present state of things there is no period of man's age in which his virtue is not exposed to perils. Pleasure lays its snares for youth; and, after the season of youthful follies is past, other temptations, no less formidable to virtue, presently arise. The love of pleasure is succeeded by the passion for interest. In this passion the whole mind is too often absorbed; and the change thereby induced on the character is of no amiable kind. It deadens the feeling of everything that is sublime or refined. It contracts the affections within a narrow circle, and extinguishes all those sparks of generosity and tenderness which once glowed in the breast. In proportion as worldly pursuits multiply, and competitions rise, ambition, jealousy, and envy combine with interest to excite bad passions, and to increase the corruption of the heart. To these, and many more dangers of the same kind, is the man exposed who is deeply engaged in active life. No small degree of firmness in religious principle, and of constancy in virtue, is requisite, in order to prevent his being assimilated to the spirit of the world, and carried away by the multitude of evildoers. Let him therefore call to mind those principles which ought to fortify him against such temptations to vice. Let not the affairs of the world entirely engross his time and thoughts. From that contagious air which be breathes in the midst of it, let him sometimes retreat into the salutary shade consecrated to devotion and to wisdom. In order to render this medicine of the mind more effectual, it will be highly proper —

IV. THAT, AS WE ADVANCE IN THE COURSE OF YEARS, WE OFTEN ATTEND TO THE LAPSE OF TIME AND LIFE, AND TO THE REVOLUTIONS WHICH THESE ARE EVER EFFECTING. In this meditation, one of the first reflections which should occur is, how much we owe to that God who hath hitherto helped us; who hath guided us through the slippery paths of youth, and now enables us to flourish in the strength of manhood. Bring to mind the various revolutions which you have beheld in human affairs, since you became actors on this busy theatre. To the future, we are often casting an eager eye, and fondly storing it, in our imagination, with many a pleasing scene. But if we would look to it, like wise men, let it be under the persuasion that it is nearly to resemble the past in bringing forward a mixture of alternate hopes and fears, of griefs and joys. While we thus study to correct the errors, and to provide against the dangers which are peculiar to this stage of life, let us also —

V. LAY FOUNDATION FOR COMFORT IN OLD AGE. That is a period which all expect and hope to see; and to which, amidst the toils of the world, men sometimes look forward, not without satisfaction, as to the period of retreat and rest. But let them not deceive themselves. A joyless and dreary season it will prove if they arrive at it with an unimproved or corrupted mind. First, he who wishes to render his old age comfortable, should study betimes to enlarge and improve his mind; and by thought and inquiry, by reading and reflecting, to acquire a taste for useful knowledge. This will provide for him a great and noble entertainment when other entertainments leave him. Among the measures thus taken for the latter scenes of life, let me admonish every one not to forget to put his worldly affairs in order in due time.

(H. Blair, D.D.)

(Scientific Illustration.)

(Scientific Illustration.)

1. His speech imperfect, childish.

2. His understanding weak, limited, easily deceived.

3. His thought and reasoning, trifling, foolish, erring.

II. MAN IN THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT.

1. Under instruction and discipline.

2. Accumulating experience.

3. Looking forward in hope,

III. MAN IN HIS MATURITY.

1. Fully developed in heaven.

2. Bids farewell to the toys of earth.

3. Has clearer perceptions, grander views, nobler objects.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

I. IN REGARD TO MANKIND IN GENERAL. Man is a more noble being than he appears, and was designed for nobler ends than he attains.

1. If God expended so much labour in creating men and the world they live in, that they might be happy and illustrate His glory, their present existence, unconnected with a future state, shows neither His wisdom, goodness, nor justice, but casts obscurity over them all. Men do not here receive the punishment due to their sins nor arrive at the perfection either of their powers or happiness.

2. The Author of our being, who designed us for immortality, placed us in this infant state to ripen as for a glorious and eternal manhood. Our greatest growth here, compared with our future dimensions, does not transcend the size of children. This world is only the nursery, or the cradle in which souls yet in swaddling bands are rocked for immortality.

3. How miserably do they overlook the dignity of man who contemplate him only in the present life. What wretched miscalculation to consume all their cares in making provisions for this infant state, and neglect to provide for the happiness of a vigorous and eternal manhood.

II. IN REGARD TO WORLDLY MEN. Their views, tastes, knowledge, pleasures, etc., all bespeak them children. Compared with the high and noble end for which they were made, what trifles they are pleased with and they pursue! Compared with the dimensions and dignity of a glorified saint, the wealth of Croesus and the honours of Caesar are mere playthings. Are they not children? Mark how they pursue their little pleasures without any dignified and manly aim — what want of foresight for their future well-being. Subject to disappointments and sorrows, the children often fret and cry. They speak as a child, understand as a child, etc. Ah! when will they become men and put away childish things? Cast aside your toys and raise your thoughts to objects worthy of men — to the kingdom and glory of God — to infinite interests and immortal concerns. Many deem it manly to neglect religion, and account it childish to yield to piety. But they appear to angels as one would appear to us who at the age of fifty should busy himself in making houses in the sand. And it would have been better for them always to have remained children. A child is satisfied with his baubles: but they, possessed of capacities which nothing but God can fill, remain restless and uneasy with all their toys about them.

III. IN REGARD TO CHRISTIANS THEMSELVES.

1. They speak of Divine things as a child, using expressions which no more reach the extent of the subject than the prattling of children about the moon conveys a full idea of that luminary. They had no other language for these subjects than that of Scripture, which, being adapted to the weakness of our apprehensions, is little more than an association of images borrowed from sensible objects. But when they arrive at manhood they will use a language expressive of things as they are — a language no longer darkened with the shadow of figures, but taken from the very light of the subjects themselves, and as luminous as truth.

2. Here their conceptions of heavenly things are extremely crude. All are largely mingled with ideas borrowed from sensible objects. But when they arrive at manhood their conceptions will be correct.

3. In this life their understandings are feeble and contracted, are darkened by ignorance, are perverted by prejudice, are liable to errors and misconstructions of the Word of God. But in heaven they will all see eye to eye, and be united in the most sublime and delightful views of Divine truth. Here they are limited to a very imperfect knowledge of God's will, and are often pressed with doubts respecting their duty; but there all duty will be made plain. Here their views are confined to a small circle; "there they will take in the universe, Here, with all the helps they enjoy, they know but little of God; there they will see as they are seen and know as they are known. No longer limited to the hopes and anticipations of childhood, they will have arrived at the full attainment of their supreme good. No longer confined to the company of children, they will enjoy the society of the glorious army of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, etc. No longer limited to the low pursuits of this infant state, all their faculties will be employed in the most noble, parts of the Divine service. How vastly their powers will be enlarged cannot now be told. Was Newton a child? Was Solomon a child? What then is a man?

(E. D. Griffin, D.D.)

1. There is a literal significance in these words. With our physical organs of vision we do not see essential realities. This is an elementary law of optics; our sensuous vision is only a mirror upon which realities cast shadows.

2. We see our fellow-men with double veils between ourselves and them — they hidden from us in a drapery of flesh, and we looking through the glazed windows of our own organism. How much do we really know of them? The lesson here is that we should think more charitably of our fellow-men. Under the hardest concealment there is some goodness that shrinks from exposing itself, and the most careless and frivolous have their moments of thought and devotion. If ever one man is truly revealed to another, it is only by the agency of love and sympathy. The lightnings of the satirist do not rend open the door of the deepest heart.

3. So it is with the forms and objects of the actual world, the chemist, the botanist, the physiologist, after all how much below the rind have they pierced? How soon they are balked? The moment they get below forms and positions, and certain relations of things, everything becomes as impalpable as the shapes that pass over the surface of the mirror. Science, with all it has achieved, is merely a catalogue of appearances; its terminology is merely a set of equivalents, words masking the deep facts which we do not know. The chemist boasts that he can almost reconstruct the original tissues of the human frame. But what then? He cannot give life; nay, he cannot even tell what it is.

4. Astronomy is the oldest and most complete of all the sciences. Yet the questions in Job are just as applicable to our day as to his. It is a singular fact that objects which are the most remote from us fall within the arrangements of this most complete science. The nearer we get to our personality, the more deep the problems become. Astronomy is so satisfactory only because we are not near enough to it to touch the real problems which it presents. The most familiar objects — how the grass grows, how the fingers move — become to us unexplainable. And if, then it is thus with the more familiar objects, how is it with unknown realities or those which are known only by intermediate revelations?

5. Now if the creations of God which are most intimate are confessedly but as shadows of shapes upon a mirror, how must it be with the infinite God Himself? We behold Him only through His works, and there as in a glass darkly. And so in regard to His providential dealings with us. We cannot take in the vastness of God's plan, surely, if we cannot take in the essence of His works! We behold only processes, parts of things. As the child that might come into the laboratory of his father, the chemist, could not begin to comprehend from the transaction in which the father was engaged the great work at which he aimed, so we, children all of us, in a thousand years see but one of God's processes, and yet we talk and act as though we saw the whole, and challenge the Almighty because everything is not made clearly consistent with our idea of His goodness. God's most beneficent agencies appear to us only in shadow at the best. And thus it is that even the most beneficent providences of God sometimes appear like the ministers of wrath. We see but the transient aspects of death; it is but a shadow on the mirror, and this is a lesson for our faith in all the workings of God.

II. ALTHOUGH WE SEE DARKLY, WE DO SEE SOMETHING.

1. It is not a mere reflection, it is a reality behind the reflection. There are shadows, but there never is a shadow without something to cast a shadow. And remember also it is we who see darkly, not that the things themselves are dark. Faith, therefore, is the only legitimate conclusion from the capacity of seeing at all.(1) What do you make of these instincts of something higher and something better that have prevailed in all ages of the world and in all souls? are all these the images of nothingness? How can we have the shadows without the substance, or have the forms of things mirrored before us that do not exist in reality?(2) And then the affections, the great working of man's love, there is the thing that Paul fell back upon in this chapter. Man's love assures us that in this depth of nature in which God has planted within us there must be something higher and better.

2. There is great grandeur in the fact that Christianity has not made a full revelation of the things to come. There is a reason for that in the discipline we need. Gradual growth must develop us and make us all that we should be; Christianity should not reveal everything to us. But at the same time, as a religion of benevolence, Christianity would have informed us if these great primary instincts played us false. Jesus Christ would have told us if these affections of Our nature prophesied untruly. Yes, we see darkly, but we do see. And in that fact there is proof that we shall see better face to face.

3. Even with this dim, imperfect mirror there are degrees of seeing. We all see darkly enough — the clearest-sighted of us — but sometimes there is a film upon the eye of the observer as well as upon the mirror.(1) Sometimes men have their eyes darkened all over with the scales of appetite, so that all that they see is distorted, is made abominable.(2) And sometimes then see nothing on the mirror of this life but a gigantic image of self. Like the giant of the Hartz Mountains, they see projected upon life merely an enlarged idea of their own wants and of their own greatness.(3) But there are men who apprehend the reality of things which come darkly, and feel that there is a substance back of those shadows.

4. It is a momentous period in our being when a man awakes to a sense of realities. That is conversion to come to a sense that there are spiritual realities beyond our present vision, to come to a sense that our souls, God, Christ, eternity are real.

(E. H. Chapin, D.D.)

I. TO MATERIALISE THE CONCEPTIONS OF THE MIND. We "judge after the flesh."

II. TO SWAY THE DECISIONS OF THE MIND. "The desires of the flesh " often move and master the soul.

III. TO CLOG THE OPERATIONS OF THE MIND. Business, sleep, refreshment, exercise, disease, all these interrupt the soul. Our visions of spiritual things being so dim. Conclusion:

1. None should pride themselves in their knowledge.

2. None should arrogate infallibility of judgment.

3. We should anticipate brighter and fuller visions, when the medium is removed, and we "see face to face."

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

I. THE ENIGMA OF LIFE. An enigma is a form of thought and speech which half reveals and half conceals the soul of truth. If you take any of those proverbs which form the current thought-coin of the world, you will find it to be only a hint of the truth to which it points. Hence almost every such saying may be capped by others which express the exact opposite. There are proverbs which tell us that to live for the day is the best wisdom, others which tell us to "consider the end;" some which emphasise the value of money, others which warn that loss is more profitable than gain. For we are many-sided creatures, and truth, to seem like truth at all, must be chameleon-like in its aspect. Our Saviour deliberately taught the multitude in riddles, which are but transcripts of that immense parable of nature and human life on which we are ever gazing.

1. Nature is full of oracles which never say quite clearly what is meant. God addresses us in an oblique, not in a direct manner. There are times of anxiety when we wish it would please God to speak to us no more in these riddles. But if the wish were granted it would be unbearable, and your prayer would soon be that this excess of knowledge might be again hidden from your soul.

2. What an enigma is human nature! Few of us know anything but the surface. The great masters in poetry go a little below, but not far. What is human nature? Good or evil? Or, neither good nor evil, but a mixture or conflict, a result determined by education and circumstance? None but the ignorant will undertake to answer such questions oft-hand. You or I know as much about it as Calvin or as Shakespeare, which is not much. The soul is the enigma of enigmas. It is the meeting-point of heaven and hell. It is the scene of contention of good and evil spirits. The angel and the demon, the saint and the sinner, are in each heart. We look from day to day into the mirror of conscience, and see an image fainter or clearer of self. We note changes in that self, yet find that self the same. Sometimes that image frightens us, and again, under the spell of music or of prayer, a celestial glory falls upon that image.

II. WHAT IS THE TEMPER OF MIND THAT BEFITS USIN PRESENCE OF THIS ENIGMA?

1. Evidently a lowly habit, the very opposite of all conceit and dogmatism about the great problems of existence. Things mean much more than they seem to any one of us. Humility, the sense that our opinions are very partial, begets slowly a truer judgment of the relative value of things. We learn to appraise the contents of the world, and gradually to give them their right place in the scale of spiritual value. And we may learn, above all, better to know our own place and value, somewhere between the highest and the lowest point.

2. And thus, through lowliness, we may reach patience and leisure of mind; for we must not be hasty or impatient if we would live with God. Our eagerness to come to conclusions and to set the world to rights may imply a forgetfulness that the world is in God's charge, not ours. Our anxiety to get to a terminus seems to ignore that we have all eternity before us. Every great subject requires to be re-examined, every great book to be re-studied and revised. The forms of our religion must undergo incessant change; its essence abides, for the spirit of Jesus is the essence of Christianity. This is rooted not in any particular sort of intellectual acquirement, but simply in love. Love alone abideth.

III. LOVE IS THE LAST SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA OF LIFE. As a principle in our own minds, love, says St. Paul, is greater than either faith or hope. The moment the spring of love dries in the heart, that moment we cease to believe and to hope. If we are true to love in the little world we govern, it cannot well be doubtful that He is true to love in the vast world He governs. The cause of any serious infidelity that exists lies here; men doubt whether God is as loving as themselves. But whence came your own love? You did not create it, and will you deny the Giver in the very strength of His gift? We cannot explain the problem of existence, but we can feel that that is already explained in the mind of God. In proportion as we live in God's love, shall we find the faith, and the hope, and the courage to face the facts of life, so long as those qualities are needed.

(Prof. E. Johnson.)

I. THAT THE OBSCURITY IS NOTHING MORE THAN IS TO BE EXPECTED FROM ANALOGY. It is remarkable that mysteries sensibly multiply as knowledge increases. In every direction we soon reach the limits of human knowledge. How little does the educated man know of the mysteries connected with our bodily frame; but let the physiologist speak, and he will tell you that every separate member and vessel and nerve of the human frame is full of mystery. The peasant that turns up the ground, and casts in the seed, perceives no mystery in its growth; but the philosopher, who understands the wonderful process of vegetation, is conscious of difficulties which he cannot solve in its several stages towards maturity. Since, then, there is so much that is mysterious in the natural world, revelation is the production of the same Being, and bears the same characteristic feature of its great Original.

II. THE MYSTERIOUS PART OF CHRISTIANITY ARISES FROM THE VERY NATURE OF THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. The truths which it announces transcend the comprehension of the human mind. "Who can by searching find out God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection?"

1. The doctrine of three persons in one God is an instance of this. The mystery does not consist in any ambiguity of language, but in the nature of the subject; not in the teacher, but in the small ability of the scholar.

2. The facts of revelation are accompanied with a similar difficulty. They do not come under human observation. Redemption through Christ is a series of operations which stands alone, belongs to a class of its own, and is not to be judged of by the measuring line of human policy. As well might a man, ignorant of the rules of art, pass his judgment on its most finished production. As well might the babe of yesterday exercise his faculties on the higher problems of nature, as men attempt to estimate the wisdom, love, and mercy that shine in the gospel of Jesus Christ. "His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts," etc.

3. The regeneration of the soul transcends the common observation. It is a fact taught; us by revelation, and experienced by the subject of it; but is only to be studied and known by others through the medium of its results.

4. The resurrection from the dead is not in accordance with our experience. We have no means of ascertaining the account of this truth. There is clearly no impossibility in it. The same power that formed our bodies may obviously reconstruct them. It is a field of Divine operation into which we cannot enter, and the mode in which the work will be accomplished is among the secrets of the Deity.

III. THE MYSTERY THAT ACCOMPANIES REVELATION TENDS TO INCREASE THE EFFICACY OF THE GOSPEL.

1. It tends to humble us before God, which is the great end of the gospel. God is worthy of universal adoration, and the elements of this exercise of the mind are awe and reverential feeling. But this state of mind can never be produced by anything that we fully understand. Familiarity breeds contempt. The more distinctly we realise the limits of our knowledge the deeper will be our impression of the grandeur of the Divine mind. The wisdom of God, in His restorative system of mercy, abases man in the very faculty which caused our fall. He humbles us at the very root of the tree of knowledge, teaching us to submit our understandings to the guidance of His Word.

2. It tends to excite our diligence in examining Divine truth. The obscurity that conceals it is a reason for continuing our researches. God has made His revelation of a kind to try our best faculties. Were all that is to be known easy of apprehension it would be a departure from the usual mode of Divine procedure. In nature the most valuable is not found upon the surface. Gold is dug from the bowels of the earth, and pearls are gathered from the depths of the ocean.

3. It is necessary to make us more desirous of heaven, where we shall enjoy perfect knowledge. The attainment of the loftiest intellect on earth is but the alphabet of knowledge, compared with what we shall know hereafter.

4. It lies at the foundation of the Christian's hope. It must be mysterious that God should so love a ruined world.

(S. Summers.)

I. Now.

1. Our present organs of vision implied in "we see." These are our mental and spiritual powers of apprehension and knowledge. Through these we learn all we know of God. But these organs are weak and defective by reason —

(1)Of sin.

(2)Want of proper activity and culture.

2. Our present medium of seeing — "through a glass darkly." Spiritual and Divine things are seen only by reflection, and that which reflects is incapable of giving a full representation, because of —

(1)Its own defectiveness.

(2)Our defective vision.

(3)The magnitude of that which is to be revealed.The "glass" through which we see consists of three things —

(a)Nature.

(b)Revelation.

(c)Providence.These three represent God in His works, His words, and His ways. But that there is mystery and darkness about them who is vain enough to deny? That God is seen in these we all admit; but when, with our weak vision, we peer into these reflectors, what more can we say than that "we see through a glass darkly."

II. THEN.

1. Our future organs of vision will be very much the same as "now"; but how greatly developed and improved no mortal may know. The comprehensive knowledge, the strength and sweep of vision enjoyed by the redeemed may defy the powers of the most daring imagination to conceive.

2. Our future medium of seeing — "face to face." No glass any more, but blessed contact — actual presence.

(1)The enormity of sin.

(2)The love of God in the gift of His Son.

(3)The righteousness of God's moral government.

(T. Kelly.)

I. SOME THINGS THAT WE DO SEE NOW, WHICH WE ARE TO SEE MORE FULLY AND DISTINCTLY HEREAFTER.

1. Ourselves. To see ourselves is one of the first steps in true religion. The mass of men have never seen themselves. They have only seen the flattering image of themselves.(1) We have been taught to see our ruin in the fall and our actual sinfulness. But in heaven we shall see, as we have not yet seen, how desperate a mischief was the fall, and the blackness of sin as we have never seen it here.(2) We know to-day that we are saved; but that robe of righteousness which covers us now, as it shall cover us then, will be better seen by us.(3) Here we know that we are adopted; but there we shall know better what it is to be the sons of God, for here it doth not yet appear what we shall be, there shall we not only see the estates that belong to us, but actually enjoy them.

2. The Church.(1) We know there is a Church of God, but there we shall know something more of the numbers of the chosen than we do now, it may be to our intense surprise. There we shall find some amongst the company of God's elect whom we in our bitterness of spirit had condemned, and there we shall miss some who, in our charity, we have conceived to be perfectly secure.(2) We shall understand then what the history of the Church has been in all the past, and why it has been so strange a history of conflict and conquest.

3. The providence of God.(1) We believe all things work together for good to them that love God; but still it is rather a matter of faith than a matter of sight with us. Then some of us will say, "I have fretted and troubled myself over what was, after all, the richest mercy the Lord ever sent."(2) We shall there, perhaps, discover that wars, pestilences, and earthquakes are, after all, necessary cogs in the great wheel of the Divine machinery; and He who sits upon the throne at this moment will then make it manifest to us that His government was right.

4. The doctrines of the gospel and the mysteries of the faith. How much more of authentic truth shall we discern when the mists and shadows have dissolved; and how much more shall we understand when raised to that higher sphere and endowed with brighter faculties none of us can tell.

5. Jesus. We have seen enough of Him to know that "He is altogether lovely"; we can say of Him, He "is all my salvation and all my desire." Yet when we once get to the court of the Great King we shall declare that the half has not been told us. The streets of gold will have small attraction to us, and the harps of angels will but slightly enchant us, compared with the King in the midst of the throne. We shall see Jesus.

6. The pure in heart shall see God. God is seen now in His works and in His Word. Little indeed could these eyes bear of the beatific vision, yet we have reason to expect that, as far as creatures can bear the sight of the infinite Creator, we shall be permitted to see God.

II. HOW THIS VERY REMARKABLE CHANGE SHALL BE, EFFECTED.

1. No doubt many of these things will be more clearly revealed. Here we are in the dim twilight; there we shall be in the blaze of noon. God has declared something of Himself by His prophets and apostles. He has, through His Son, spoken more plainly. These are the first steps to knowledge. But there the only-wise God shall unveil to us the mysteries, and exhibit to us the glories of His everlasting kingdom. The revelation we now have suits us as me, clad in our poor mortal bodies; the revelation then will suit us as immortal spirits.

2. Here we are at a distance from many of the things we long to know something of, but there we shall be nearer to them.

3. We shall be better qualified to see them than we are now. It would be an inconvenience for us to know here as much as we shall know in heaven. But up there we shall have our minds and our systems strengthened to receive more, without the damage that would come to us here from overleaping the boundaries of order, Divinely appointed.

4. Besides, the atmosphere of heaven is so much clearer than this. Here there is the smoke of daily care, the constant dust of toil, the mist of trouble perpetually rising.

III. THE PRACTICAL LESSONS.

1. Gratitude. Let us be very thankful for all we do see. Those who do not see now even "through a glass darkly," shall never see face to face.

2. Hopefulness. You shall see better by and by.

3. Forbearance. Our disputes are often childish. Two persons in the dark have differed about a colour. If we brought candles in they would not show what it was; but if we look at it to-morrow morning we shall be able to tell. How many difficulties in the Word of God are like this! Not yet can they be justly discriminated; till the day dawn the apocalyptic symbols will not be all transparent to our own understanding. Besides, we have no time to waste while there is so much work to do.

4. Aspiration. It is natural for us to want to know, but we shall not know as we are known till we are present with the Lord. We are at school now; we shall go soon to the great university of heaven, and take our degree there.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

1. God.

2. The Saviour.

3. Heaven.

II. THEN WE SEE ALL THINGS BY ACTUAL PRESENCE AND CONTACT. "Face to face."

1. The glory of God.

2. The love of the Saviour.

3. The wonders of heaven.So shall "we know even as we are known." The child becomes a man. Imperfection of knowledge and experience give way to the perfection of both. Then, like the queen of Sheba, we shall find that "not the half has been told us."

(Clerical World.)

I. THE EXTREMES OF LIFE, AS VIEWED RELATIVE TO TIME: — "now" and "then." These extremes are parts of the same piece, only different in place, and perhaps also in circumstances and relations. The "now" and "then" of life —

1. Are dependent upon each other. The "then" of life is dependent upon the "now" of it as to its fact and character. There must be some antecedent "now" before there can be an anticipative "then." The "now" would be worth but little without the "then," any more than to-day could be highly prized without a hope of tomorrow. The "then" inspires us in our present discouragements, or depresses us in its anticipation. The "then"of life influences our minds as we view it applicable to our state and character. The guilty receives it with fear, the innocent with joy.

2. Are extremes only possible in conscious reality to superior beings. "Now" belongs to all existences alike; but only a rational being can conceive in thought of the future, and he, as a moral being, can anticipate it through his hope or fear.

3. Have in them all provided and possible for us. All the past crowds the present, and will follow us, in some form or other, to the future. All that is needed to fill the present hour and fit us for the future is given us in the "now," and all the blessings and privileges of the.heaven of the future will be included in the "then." Whatever you need is within the compass of the "now": whatever you hope and wish is comprehended in the "then."

4. Present themselves very differently to our conviction and faith. The present is a matter of direct consciousness, the future is a matter of inference. Our experience is all in the "now." We look at the "then" through promises and hope. The religion of the present would not only be absurd without the future, but groundless and impossible.

5. Are comprehensive only of one order. The moral order of truth and rectitude which obtains "now" will be the same "then." The authority which demands certain things "now" will be in force and unchanged "then"; nor will the essential powers of man be different "then" to what they are "now."

6. May be extremely different, and in no case will they be identical. "Now" we maybe happy and successful, but there may a "then" when these will not be our portion any more. Let the "now" be true and right, and the "then" will have its hope and brightness.

II. THE SUPERIORITY OF THE "THEN" OVER THE "NOW." As regards —

1. The mode of perception. In this state we behold spiritual objects through a glass. All the means and things in our earthly state are but glasses to show something unseen and spiritual above sense and our present imperfect perceptions. What is the universe but one glorious glass to show us the more glorious Maker? And what is the Bible but a glass of the Divine and spiritual in man and the universe? Christianity, in all its means and ordinances, is a glass to us of the real and spiritual above and beyond themselves. But with all the assistance of our glass media our perception is feeble of things invisible and eternal. And why? Is it in our glasses or our way of using them, or in a deficiency in our spiritual perception? Partly in all these. But in our future state it will be face to face. There will be no veil over the face of things, and many things we use are things for rude childish condition: the condition of manhood will dispense with them as unfit and useless. In the "then" condition of our being, the distance will be reduced into nearness, the attitude will be advantageous, the expression will be clear and in sight, and the powers of the soul will be strengthened and matured.

2. Clearness. In this state of things we see nothing perfectly clear. But in our future state not only win our perceptions be more acute and perfect, we shall not be subject to delusions and illusions, which so much confuse and mar our perceptions in this world.

3. The degree of knowledge. We in part know something about most things, but in the light of another day we shall probably learn that our profoundest knowledge is but a small part. The present condition of things does not allow us to know except in part. The imperfections of our senses, the weakness and afflictions of our minds and bodies, the cares and anxieties of life, the want of means, the shortness of life, and other obstructions, are things which prevent our knowledge being anything but very partial. But such imperfection is not to be always our lot. "Then we shall know as now we are known." We shall know holy intelligences as they shall know us. As they and we are but part of the same family, and they the most perfect, their knowledge of us appears to be a natural conclusion. As they know us in our lower home, so shall we know them in their higher one. As they know us in our trials, so shall we know them in their joys. Though our knowledge of God will be infinitely less perfect of Him than His is of us, yet He will be known to us as real, as a fact, as we are to Him.

III. THE ADVANCEMENT OF LIFE AS VIEWED BETWEEN THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE, Advancement, in some form or other, is seen everywhere. Life is a school for it, and everywhere there are suitable means and agents. This law runs through Christian life, and never is suspended, either in time or eternity.

1. It is a personal advancement. The few cannot procure it for the many, or the many for the few.

2. It is the advancement of the good and true in life — from the childhood of weakness to the manhood of strength.

3. It is a thing of consciousness to its subjects. The advancement which is outside our conscious knowledge must be outside our will, faith, and activity, for the thing that is written there we have in common with them. Such an advancement is the one of a plant or a brute, and not of a rational man.

4. It is an advancement which is comprehensive of all requisite life. It is complete both in quality and degree.

5. It is an advancement above the power of common and natural means to produce.

(T. Hughes.)

1. The first is illustrated by two comparisons.(1) We see by means of a mirror; that is to say, it is a reflection of truth we have at present, not the very truth itself. The copy is both defective and misleading. How often is the face of the mirror occupied with other images! How often is the vision distorted by passion or guilty remembrance!(2) We see darkly, in a riddle, enigma, or dark saying. Our knowledge comes to us through words, the source of so much misunderstanding and confusion. We apply a human language to measure Divine things. What is infinity, eternity? Each a riddle.

2. But our present knowledge is also imperfect in degree. "I know in part." Our great difficulty in religion is to know how to combine. We have several portions of Divine truth communicated to us, but in many cases without the connecting link — God's justice and mercy: His hatred of sin, and permission of the existence of evil; man's free will and God's free grace. But we know that God sees them in one. And "what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

II. THE FUTURE PERFECTION OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

1. "But then face to face." Our knowledge of truth will be direct; not by reflection, but by intuition. And it will be personal. Face to face implies a person: "The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

2. "Even as I was known." Therefore our knowledge will be thorough; through and through. God is a heart-searching God. And it will be comprehensive. God's insight is large as well as minute. Notwithstanding a fault, He sees a servant; notwithstanding a good quality, He sees an enemy. Seeing minutest qualities, He judges of the character as a whole. We also shall see God's truth in its reconciling harmony and perfect unity. The imperfection of our present knowledge of Divine things must make no one idle in the pursuit of it. In this also, "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given." Finally, though many of our theologies may be contradicted, nothing that we have known of the living Saviour Himself will be contradicted, nothing that we have learned of Him by experience, or seen of Him in prayer.

(Dean Vaughan.)

1. "God knows me," says St. Paul. That was his fundamental conviction. But that conviction involved another. If the Father knew the child, it must be in the child's power to know the Father. Paul was no agnostic. Known perfectly, he knew but in part; but the time would come when he should know as he was known. And this certainty of a future knowledge was itself a present knowledge.

2. This future knowledge means perfect obedience in the future; perfect harmony between the child's action and the Father's will. When Jesus said, "The Father knoweth Me," He meant, "God has a will for every act of Mine" And when He said, "I know the Father," He meant, "In every act of Mine, I do the Father's will." So with us. With perfect freedom answering to every will of God. There alone is peace and power.

(Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

(T. Ainger, M.A.)

1. This may refer to the extent or objects of our knowledge.(1) It is partial. Compare the views of a worm or any minuter insect with those of a man who has the largest and most comprehensive sight of the works of nature, and you have a faint image of the unknown difference there is between our present and future sphere of knowledge.(2) We know but in part even those few things that do fall within the compass of our present knowledge. There is not the least particle of matter we see, or the least dust of earth we tread on, but what puzzles the most penetrating and philosophic minds. We see only the outside of things, their external properties, their dimensions, form, figure, and colour; but as to their essence or internal substance, the cohesion of their constituent parts, and the laws of that cohesion, we can give no account at all of them. And if we know so little of material, how much less do we know of spiritual substances, which we have much fewer helps and opportunities of being acquainted with! And if we examine our knowledge of abstracted truths, or points of speculation and reason, how very defective does it appear!

2. Our knowledge is not only partial, but very indistinct. We see through a glass. This glass is twofold — reason and faith; by which we realise and represent to the mind future, distant, and invisible things. And happy is it for us that we have these excellent glasses to assist the eye of the mind, whose sight without the help of both would be very short and very defective. But the unhappiness of it is that these glasses, though very excellent in themselves, are often obscured and spoiled by the mists of errors, passions, and prejudices which hang upon them, and make them unable to penetrate through the darkness which lies between them and the distant objects they are intended to descry, which render our sight of those objects very obscure and indistinct. Not to say that imagination, as a false medium, often comes between, which enormously magnifies some objects and diminishes others as much.

3. Our present knowledge is not only very confined and indistinct, but very uncertain also. Our best knowledge is often but mere conjecture, and that conjecture may depend only on mere fancy, arising from a particular state or motion of the animal spirits, and resting more on mechanical than rational supports. For we not only see through a glass, but darkly. Future things are as yet concealed from us, wrapped up in allegory, riddle, or dark enigma, which gives us only a few indirect hints or a mystical representation of the thing intended, by which we are left to guess it out. And hence it is that multitudes form no notion at all concerning the objects of abstract science, whilst some are very dubious in the right, and others very confident in the wrong. And not only matters of abstruse speculation, but the plainest things in religion are by many but uncertainly understood. Not that the things themselves are uncertain, but it is uncertain whether the persons that boast the greater knowledge of them do form a conception of them that is certainly right, especially considering the medium they look through — that is, the lusts, passions, and prejudices with which they are beset.

4. The last view which the apostle gives us of the deficiency of human knowledge in the present state is by comparing it with that of children or infants. We are as yet in our non-age, and but children in understanding. Children, you know, through the immaturity of their faculties, the liveliness of their fancy, the strength of their passions, and inexperience of their age, are very liable to be mistaken; to take up with the first notions that are instilled without examination, to retain the first impressions that are made, whether right or wrong, to be fond of the little knowledge they have, to be confident in it, and to despise others for the want of it; whilst persons of greater sense, experience, and understanding, see that all their confidence is owing to their ignorance, and look upon them with pity. But not with half so much pity as we shall look upon ourselves hereafter when, emerged out of this obscurity in which we dwell, we look back from that region of light upon this land of darkness, and consider all our former ignorance, errors, false judgment, confidence, and prejudices, when we were but children in knowledge; when we saw through a glass darkly, and knew but in part, and spake and reasoned and thought as mere infants in understanding.

II. WHAT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE THE APOSTLE IS HERE SPEAKING OF.

1. How partial, indistinct, uncertain, and low is our knowledge of the ever-blessed God! We diminish His Divine dignities in all our thoughts; we depreciate His excellencies in our most elevated conceptions: when we put our mind to the utmost stretch to form the sublimest ideas of His eternal glories, how soon do we find it overwhelmed with the weight of so astonishing a subject! For ah! how can immensity be confined in a hand's breadth? Here all finite faculties are entirely swallowed up, like a drop in the ocean, and we are lost in astonishment at the poverty of our powers.

2. It is but very little we know of ourselves. We know not the wonders either of our external or internal frame; the faculties of our nature; our capacities for service and happiness; the motives and springs of our conduct; the passions that govern us; the conduct and improvement of our superior powers; the influences to which they are liable; the purposes to which they are to be directed, and the manner in which they are to be employed in order to our happiness and usefulness, for which ends we received them. And which is worse, we do not so much as know either our ignorance or knowledge; we shut our eyes upon the former and wonderfully admire the latter, though it be, perhaps, but little better.

3. Our knowledge of Divine and religious things in general is exceedingly defective. It is sad to see what amazing ignorance there is amougst a multitude even of Christians about the great things of religion; and that not only in the deep and disputable mysteries of it, but in some of its most plain and important principles; nay, about the essential nature and most substantial truths of it, and even the plainest parts of practical religion; and this not only amongst the lowest order of men who have had no advantages of education, but among persons of a more elevated rank, who have had sufficient opportunities of being better instructed; but having no heart to improve the prize put into their hands, are apt to despise it as a very unnecessary part of learning, and neither value others the more for having it, nor themselves the less for wanting it.

4. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! If we turn but our eyes to the government of this lower world, we are soon lost in the mazes of infinite wisdom, and can never in the least conceive how good can arise from so much visible evil, order out of so much confusion, and beauty out of so much deformity. And yet that ,all things under the government of God are well and wisely managed we cannot doubt. But if we turn our thoughts to other worlds and other species of created beings (of which, without doubt, there are innumerable), all under the wise care and government of the same Almighty and Universal Monarch who is the daily object of our adoration, how do we blush and mourn under our present ignorance, and look upon ourselves and all our knowledge comparatively as nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity!

III. WHENCE IT IS THAT ALL OUR BEST ATTAINMENTS IN KNOWLEDGE ARE AT PRESENT SO VERY POOR AND DEFECTIVE.

1. Our mental powers themselves are at present but very feeble and defective.

2. The powers of the human mind at present are not only weak, but miserably confined and cramped in their operations by the union of the soul with a crazy and corruptible body.

3. Our sphere of knowledge is here very much contracted. Alas! what knowledge of the world or men can be expected from one who hath lived all his life in a dungeon?

4. Under all these disadvantages, the time that is here allowed us for attaining knowledge is very short.

5. How often are we diverted from this pursuit! How many avocations do we meet with from the world and the affairs of it, which necessarily claim a good part of our attention and care, and rob us of that time which might have been more usefully employed in augmenting the furniture of the mind!

6. How often are we perplexed, entangled, and bewildered by our own prejudices and those of others, whereby we are often turned aside from the right path of wisdom, and put upon a wrong scent. So that instead of making a progress in the right way of knowledge, we have enough to do to recover our wanderings from it. And it is sometimes the main business of the latter part of life to retract the errors of the former. "To what end, now," perhaps you will be apt to say, "have you given us this very diminutive view of human knowledge?"I answer —

1. To excite our most ardent desires after that world of light and liberty where, disencumbered from our present embarrassments, we shall enjoy the pleasures of pure and perfect science.

2. To show how very little reason the most understanding man on earth has to be vain of his knowledge.

3. That holy, humble, upright souls, who have had but few means and opportunities of attaining knowledge, may not be too much discouraged under a consciousness of their present ignorance.

(J. Mason, A.M.)

1. It will be distinct and clear; no longer confused and obscure as it now is while we look through a glass.

2. It will be certain and satisfying; no longer conjectural and enigmatical as it now is while we look through a glass darkly.

3. It will be perfect and complete in its kind; and no longer defective as it now is whilst we know but in part, for we shall then know even as we are known.

II. SOME OF THE VARIOUS OBJECTS OF IT.

1. The most glorious and felicitating object of our thus improved and enlightened understanding will be the ever-blessed God Himself. It is true the great and blessed God, as a pure and perfect Spirit, can never be seen with bodily eyes. But we must not think that the soul is capable of no distinct and clear perceptions but what it receives by means of bodily organs. It has even now a power of realising and ascertaining, of contemplating and enjoying things that are not seen. And when our mental powers shall be unconfined, enlarged, and improved, as we are sure they will be in heaven (and we know not but there may be new faculties superadded, suitable to the new objects of contemplation), we shall then as distinctly and clearly discern and contemplate spiritual and invisible objects, as we now do material ones by an eye of sense.

2. Then shall we begin to know ourselves. For whatever it may be thought, man is as yet one of the greatest mysteries to himself; that is a subject about which he knows as little as almost anything which falls within the compass of his understanding. Then he will begin to think as an immortal creature ought to do, which he very rarely does now, whilst his mind is sensualised, his understanding cramped, his sentiments debased, and his heart captivated by low and earthly things. Then will he look up to his original with perpetual adoration and joy, and live up to the dignity of an intelligent and immortal being, made for the honour of his great Creator, in whose praise and service all his powers will be for ever delightfully employed.

3. Our sense of religious and Divine things will then be strong, comprehensive, and clear. Then only shall we begin to be infallible, and perhaps be ashamed of our former ignorance when we thought ourselves most so. Then shall we discern the wrong paths in which we trod, as plainly as a benighted traveller at the rising of the morning sun, and be able, it may be, to trace our errors up to their original, the first wrong impression we received which insensibly turned us aside from the path of truth, which we were never able afterwards to recover, whilst at the same time we shall adore the guard and guidance of Divine grace which preserved our feeble and fickle minds from imbibing errors of a more dangerous and pernicious tendency.

4. Glorious and surprising then will be the new discoveries we shall make in the works of God. The hidden mysteries of nature which now lie too deep for our ken, and baffle all our most exquisite and laborious research, will then lie open to our view, and we shall have an intuitive knowledge of what it now costs us the study of an age to attain an imperfect notice of.

5. What a sweet and sublime entertainment will the enlarged mind enjoy in contemplating the wise and wondrous ways of Providence!

III. WHAT JUST AND SOLID REASONS WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT OUR KNOWLEDGE HEREAFTER WILT, BE SO COMPLETE AND SATISFYING.

1. Because we are sure that in heaven there will be nothing wanting to perfect the happiness of a glorified spirit.

2. Its powers, capacities, and desires will be then inconceivably enlarged and opened, and consequently the objects and extent of its knowledge must be proportionably increased.Conclusion:

1. Let us remember that all the natural powers and faculties of the mind will then be in their full strength and maturity.

2. Our sphere of knowledge will then be vastly enlarged.

3. The enlarged powers of our mind will then be free from all their present encumbrances.

4. We shall have no wrong prejudices and prepossessions to overcome or guard against, by which our free progress in true knowledge is now so much obstructed.

5. We shall then meet with no more avocations to divert us from the pursuit of knowledge.

6. This speedy progress in knowledge we shall make, not only a few years, but to all eternity.

(J. Mason, M.A.)

(R. W. Randall, M.A.)

(T. W. Shedd, D.D.)

(H. Blair, D.D.)

1. We are in a world full of mystery. Every step we take, the great, deep problems strike us which we are unable to solve.(1) Day fades away into night, the night blossoms out into day; the stars walk up and down the vault of night. We cannot but wonder why. Say that it is because the earth revolves on its axis, and moves round in its orbit, but where is the force that drives it along its path? Astronomy only magnifies the mystery. I see other worlds flying in every conceivable direction and at all possible velocities; and yet the power, the thing I want, does not come out to me. I push the mystery perhaps one step, and taking that step, I plunge again into the darkness, to ride on as my fathers have been riding through all the past, unsoothed by definitions, and formulas.(2) But somebody says, "Why, it is gravity that holds the world in its path." And so I dig down to the earth for this giant whose arms are so long and whose grip is so almighty, but I do not find him; and after my weary search I sit back in despair, muttering "Gravity!" and I know no more than I did before. Nature, like the man who gave the empty casket to the highwayman and kept the jewels, has given us names and kept the secret — the power.(3) Oh I but you say, chemistry settles that. She has gone into the world and parcelled it out, saying, "This is oxygen, that is nitrogen, and that is carbon," etc. So I walk along quietly after her, and say, What is oxygen, what is carbon? I'll call this carbon every time I see it in the future. I used to call it coal: and yet my soul is fed no more by carbon than it was by coal. The term does not change the fact. My poor heart cries out for the power behind this. Where did it come from? Who stored the fires in its dark bosom? Who gathered the sunbeams of so many centuries and stored them into coal? That is the power I want, and not the name.(4) But chemistry has taken up the microscope, and says, "Now we have it; we have got things in the very act of beginning to be; we have seen them actually wriggling up into life." Yes, wriggle before they existed. I am sure I see very darkly here.(5) Suppose we go into the domain of my thoughts. This is something that you may call psychology — what can that do after all? Why, it takes up what I call my thought — gives its outer history, tells somewhat of its worth; but that is all it does. There is something behind the thought; here is the mystery it cannot touch at all.

2. Now, we are in this one universe, and should it be strange if, when we come to the things concerning eternal verities, there should be some darkness; if nature has cast a shadow over all things here, need we stumble, or be alarmed, if concerning spiritual and eternal things we see through a glass darkly? What if I cannot understand the mysteries of the incarnation, the Trinity, regeneration and resurrection — what of all that? Is it not rather the demonstration that we are under the administration of one God. May I not bring as many difficulties and arguments against the facts of your personal experience in every-day life as you can bring against the experience and facts of this spiritual and eternal life?

II. BUT WE DO SEE SOMETHING. Though we cannot define it. Look at two or three mountain-peaks that indicate to us the inner line that possibly we cannot pass, and even surveying may not definitely define.

1. One mountain-peak is the fact of revelation itself. I do not mean the arguments by which we sustain that this book is from God, but rather the fact of the communication of God to us. There it stands. Here we are in the universe; somebody brought us here; we did not make ourselves; we cannot trace our pedigree back through the ages. Yet we are here, and so circumstanced that we must do somebody's will in order to have peace; and to do it, we must know it. We cannot reach it with our reason. We have not instinct. The animals monopolise that. Will He not come out to me? Will he take such wonderful care of His meanest creatures, and leave His best to die in the darkness? I do not see very clearly, but I see something.

2. Here is another peak — the Book itself, said to be from God. A wonderful document! — too much in it for us to comprehend; full of mysteries, yet so simple and plain in most of its parts, that it has been the food of the common people for all the centuries. It is so compact and self-sustaining, that it has defied the sharpest criticism of eighteen centuries. There it is; fifteen hundred years in the shop being made, written by forty different men, separated, as far as possible, both in station and in culture. Yet somehow these forty men tell one story, and so telling it, that as we read it we feel that it is true, because they got one inspiration. They tell the history of the race into sin, and through sin up into redemption; and where one lets go, another takes hold, so that it is one story. I do not know how it was inspired; but there is the fact. It may be dark about the depths of the book, but it is infinitely darker outside of it. Outside we have nothing; here we do have something. I do see One said to be the Son of God, the Lamb of. God who taketh away the sin of the world, giving to me the fact of peace. I cannot fathom it. Indeed, I do not know why I am cold or why I am warm; but I know when I am cold and when I am warm. I am not able to understand exactly how it is that this that I see lifted on Calvary lifts me up into a better life, but it does.

3. Here is the Church opposed by every possible power, with no human instrumentality to commend it, and yet here it is. Yesterday it was a weakling, with only a dozen followers; to-day it masters all the peoples of the earth and brings them toward itself.

(Bp. Fowler.)

1. Early training in prejudice.

2. False teaching.

3. Inability to learn.

II. A CRIME, when owing to —

1. Prayerlessness.

2. Wilfulness.

3. Lethargy.

4. Inattention.

5. Forgetfulness.

III. A BLESSING, when it causes —

1. Faith to be exercised.

2. Inquiry to be evoked.

3. Filial fear to be displayed.

IV. AN ARGUMENT for —

1. Humility.

2. Praise.

3. Hope.

4. Alarm.

(Stems and Twigs.)

(J. Cross, D.D.)

1. All causes of ignorance and error will then be entirely removed. Here below, not only the body of flesh, but still more the body of sin, darkens our understandings. But in heaven, sin will no longer becloud our minds; prejudices will be eradicated, the passions, refined, purified, and directed to their proper object, will only aid us in the pursuit of truth; and the cares and pleasures of the world can no longer affect us.

2. Our intellectual faculties will be greatly strengthened. Our faculties shall ever be in vigorous exercise, never requiring to be relaxed, always penetrating and active; our imaginations ever unclouded; our memories never losing the knowledge we have acquired.

3. Much of our improvement depends upon the society with which we associate. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." We shall be companions of the redeemed in the world of felicity.

4. There the redeemed shall be instructed by the all-wise God (Revelation 21:22).

5. The knowledge of the saved will be increasing throughout eternity.

II. WHAT SHALL BE THE OBJECTS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE? The glorified saints shall know God —

1. In His nature.

2. His attributes.

3. His works of creation.

4. His works of Providence.

5. Redemption through the blood of Jesus.

6. The Word of God.

III. WHAT WILL BE ITS CHIEF PROPERTIES. Our knowledge shall be —

1. Immediate and intuitive. Instead of the labour, cares, processes of reasoning, that are here necessary, we shall have only to open our souls for the reception of that celestial light which will flow into them from God, the source of light.

2. Full and adequate, both in variety and degree, and certain and infallible.

3. Transforming.

4. Beatifying.

5. Unfading and eternal.Conclusion: This subject —

1. Is calculated to animate Christians and comfort them. You now lament that you know so little of God and the Redeemer; wait till the light of eternity shall burst upon your view, and then you "shall know even as you are known."

2. Leads us to lament the doom of men of unsanctified genius and learning.

3. Should give us consolation on the death of pious friends. You may again meet them, advanced in knowledge and perfect in bliss.

(H. Kollock, D.D.)

2. It is a relief, in considering that universal perception which we shall take of others, and others shall take of us, to institute the inquiry, Will Christian friends then meet — will they recognise each other? We cannot withstand a thought of the past. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. In casting my eye over the present assembly, I am only struck with bereavement and loss; I know not whither to turn to find some friend of my youth. But is there an absolute privation? We must think of heaven as aa existing reality. We speak of it as if forgetting that it is only future to us. But our brethren, sainted and glorified in heaven, have their present beatitudes, splendours, and songs. Let us think of them, therefore, as only separated from us by a veil, which will soon be torn aside. Will there be those who shall be ready to welcome us? Shall there be those whom we ourselves remember? This is not a barren speculation; it is that which surely has engaged every thinking mind and every susceptible heart. "Oh, renowned day," exclaimed the Roman orator, "when I shall have reached the Divine assemblage of those minds with which I have congenial predilections, and shall escape this untoward and uncongenial throng!" "We but depart," said the lyrist of the same nation, "to meet our AEneas, and our Tully, and our Ancus."

I. THE CONTRARY CONCLUSION IMPLIES A DESTRUCTION WHICH IS QUITE OPPOSITE TO THE DEALINGS OF GOD WITH OUR NATURE. If I do not know in heaven those whom I have known here, there must have taken place an imperfection in my mind. We must suppose that God blots out some of the exercises of the recollection. But this seems quite opposite to His ordinary dealings with us; and therefore, unless there was the strongest proof that we should not, know each other, we should argue that it was contrary to all that we might infer. Now, heaven is the consummation of our present happiness. And what makes us happier upon earth than mutual acquaintance? "I have no greater joy," said the beloved disciple, "than to hear that my children walk in truth": and was that joy entirely torn from his spirit when he passed from this world of distraction and discord to that region where all was love? Besides, it is impossible to think that all will be without a history and without a name; some, we know, will be preeminent; we shall sit down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob, in the kingdom of God. And will all other spirits flit before us unstoried and nameless?

II. BUT LET SCRIPTURE DECIDE.

1. When David thought of his dying child, he agonised in fasting and in prayer; when that child was taken away he found encouragement. "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." That his head should recline on the same clod? Nay; here is an intimation of immortality and of the communings of two spirits in that immortality. And the same remark may be made when the pious are said to be "buried with their fathers." It is chilling and repulsive to think that the cemetery only is referred to, and that there is no mingling of the departed except in the dust of the sepulchre.

2. There are other phrases in the latter portion of the Christian Scriptures which we think are absolutely decisive. "Knowing," says the apostle, "that He who raised up the Lord Jesus Christ, shall also raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." And again, he adjures those to whom he writes, " by our gathering together unto Jesus Christ." Now there seems to be a banishment of all point and of all spirit, unless you suppose that they will know each other. To prove how disinterested was the spirit and purpose of the first Christian teachers, they always rested their labours upon a reward, which consisted in the glory of those spirits whom they had saved. "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and our joy." "That I may rejoice in the day of the Lord that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." "Look to yourselves, that ye receive a full reward." " That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Now this cannot, for a moment, be separated from the recognition of those who were the fruits of their ministry (see particularly 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

3. When standing near the grave of Bethany, our Lord says, "Thy brother shall rise again"; was it that that brother was to be absorbed and lost in the myriads of spirits; so that the sisters who had lately laid him in the grave should see him and know him no more?

4. The process of judgment seems to include this recognition of each other. A cup of cold water given to a disciple in the name of Jesus shall not be without its reward. The Saviour, specifying those who are before Him, shall say, "I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat," etc. Now, this is reflected in the persons of those who are in the crowd: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

5. Then, when we go further, and consider the Christian doctrine upon she destruction and overthrow of death. "O grave, where is thy victory?" Now, this implies that all that death has done of evil and of pain shall be compensated. But what has been a more bitter consequence of death than bereavement? How, if that is never repaired, can it be said that death has no sting, that the grave has no victory?

6. But think of the happiness of the heavenly world. Will all remembrance of that world which we have left be suspended? Shall we not think of the means of our conversion — what we have done for others — what others have done for us? Hear the new language: "Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." Is not this a rush of the past upon the soul? Is not this like living again? Conclusion: We are not at all, however, unconscious that objections may be raised against this doctrine. If we recognise our beloved friends, must we not deplore the absence of those who, whatever was their guilt, were dear to our bosoms, and were twined around our hearts? But remember that you are perfect in heaven. You cannot conceive of that which is perfect in heaven without the most entire acquiescence, in what God has arranged, or what God has suffered.

(R. W. Hamilton, D.D.)

1. From the constitutional sociality of our nature, that renders such an expectation as our mutual recognition hereafter conducive to our happiness, heaven being the scene where all the innocent sources that contribute to felicity would be probably accumulated.

2. From our enlarged capacities of knowledge and enjoyment in a future state.

3. From the common assent of mankind in all ages.

4. From the incidental inference drawn from the like general belief of mankind in the appearances of the dead, and their being recognised by the parties to whom they appeared, as was undoubtedly the case in the instances of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration, and of "the bodies of the saints" that arose after our Lord's resurrection.

5. From the analogy of sleep, the Scriptural type of death, the persons of individuals, both dead and living, being clearly identified in the dreams of the night, and therefore leading to the inference that such persons would be equally identified after they and we shall have "fallen asleep in Jesus."

II. THE SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT.

1. Old Testament (1. Samuel 28:11, etc.). If a parted spirit and a living man could be mutually recognised, then it is even more probable if both individuals had departed they could equally recognise each other. David, indeed, proposes an express comfort to himself from such an expectation, when bereaved of his child (2 Samuel 12:29, etc.). Where would be the special consolation in the father's being lost to the child, as the child had been lost to the father, if death were the final extinction of the power of recognition and recovery each of the other?

2. New Testament. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus not only does the rich man recognise Lazarus, but converses with him, and Lazarus is represented "in Abraham's bosom," i.e., in terms of close intimacy with Abraham. The reply of our Lord to the Sadducees, in Matthew 22, implies that if men in the resurrection are to resemble the angels, men will enjoy the like privilege of "knowing each other, even as they are known." This view may be further confirmed from 1 Corinthians 15:54. The angels sing this: the angels, then, must recognise in the redeemed spirits who had died, or how could they triumph over their escape from and defeat of death? But not only angels triumph in the victory of their brethren from the flesh; St. John (Revelation 7:13) tells us of "one of the elders," i.e., an Old Testament saint, who was perfectly acquainted with the persons and the antecedent trials of some triumphant souls. Moreover, death was the effect and penalty of sin. If man had not sinned, the union of earthly attachments and relationships, for aught we now, had been immortal. If in Christ all the effects of sin shall be abolished, man will be reinstated, though with much superadded glory, in all the privileges which he originally enjoyed, and therefore with a capacity of renewing and perpetuating his communion with them, over whom "death shall have no more dominion." Again, in Luke 13:28, it is stated as one of the peculiar aggravations of the anguish of lost souls that they should recognise in the realms of glory those who had not been so highly favoured as themselves.

3. Again, there is a moral necessity for individual remembrance at least in the scene of judgment. "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account of the deeds done in the body" (Matthew 25:34, etc.; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; Hebrews 13:17). Thus the penitent thief makes the fact of his recognition the burthen of his dying prayer, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!" and had there been any error or mere fanaticism in the hope, Jesus would have corrected it; but, on the contrary, He sanctioned and established it in the tender answer — "To-day thou shalt be with Me in paradise." "The Lord knoweth them that are His" here; "His name shall be in their foreheads" there; and thus each shall recognise another, and all their common Lord. Conclusion: But if we shall rejoice to recognise our friends in heaven, must we not be grieved at the absence of others, in hell? The consequence is not necessary. The Lord may give His risen people large capacities for joy without a single capacity for sorrow. Angels are said to "joy over the penitent sinner," but they are never said to be grieved for the reprobate sinner. May not the enlarged views of Divine perfections into which the glorified saints will be admitted serve to swallow up every inferior impression? "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight!"

(J. B. Owen, M.A.)

(J. Trapp.)

II. HOPE, the consequence of faith. If a man believes in the Son of God, he shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If we firmly believe this promise it will give us hope of its fulfilment. Hope is the anchor that sustains the Christian in all the storms of time, the chain that connects him with the future amid all its difficulties. What would life be without it, even in a worldly sense? The anticipation of something better bears us up amid many of the world's trials. But even the best of our worldly hopes is of a transitory and uncertain character, but the heavenly hope is sure and steadfast. Hope is not only a privilege and a blessing; it is part of a Christian's duty. A man who sits down and desponds loses the very anchor of his ship.

III. CHARITY. First, faith the root and trunk, then hope the branches, then charity the fruit, the highest development of the Christian character, the practical part of Christianity. Faith is the inward union of the soul with Christ; hope is the support which gives us strength to battle with the present; charity the outward manifestation of what we feel within. Only realise that the gospel is love, and then you realise its beauty and realise its glory.

(J. J. S. Bird, B.A.)

1. Faith. Now faith means belief; and evangelical and saving faith is believing the gospel. The gospel contains an account of man's ruin by sin, and of his redemption by Christ, and these things, when believed, produce an important effect upon our state and character.

2. Hope is the desire, combined with the expectation, of some future good; and Christian hope is the desire and the expectation of all the good which is promised to believers in the Word of God.(1) Its objects include all the blessings belonging to the kingdom of grace and of glory. As Christians we have much in possession, but more in prospect.(2) Its foundation is the gospel of Christ. The reason which we have for the hope that is in us is derived from the exceeding great and precious promises which God has given to us in His Word, the fulfilment of which is secured to us by the blood of Christ, by the oath of God, and by the faithfulness of the Divine character. We hope therefore because we believe.(3) Its influence. It encourages our prayers; for the hope of receiving inspires confidence in asking. It promotes our holiness; "for every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pare." And it is a source of peace and consolation and joy.

3. Charity or love.(1) Love to God includes in it gratitude to Him for His goodness; approbation of His character; cheerful obedience to His commands; desire for the enjoyment of His favour, and for increasing conformity to His image.(2) Love to our fellow-creatures in general is "goodwill to men."(3) Love to the brethren is love to Christians as such. It includes approbation of their characters as well as benevolence to their persons.

II. THE UNION WHICH SUBSISTS AMONG THE THREE. They are united.

1. In their source. Diversified as they are in their nature and operations, they have each their source in God. The heart of man, which is naturally "deceitful above all things," etc., cannot be the fountain of streams, so pure and hallowed as these three. Faith, we are told, is "the fruit of the Spirit" and "the gift of God." Hope has the same Divine origin, for it is "the God of hope, who fills you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." And love is equally of God, for "God is love," and it is His love which is shed abroad in our hearts. And as "these three" are thus united in God, their source and giver, it is from God alone that you are to seek them, by earnest and by persevering prayer.

2. In their residence — the heart. The body, the soul, and the spirit are not more necessary to compose a living and a perfect man than are faith and hope and love to constitute a living and a perfect Christian; for were any one of these three wanting, there would be a fatal deficiency in the character. He therefore, by whom that character is formed, begins it by the gift of faith, but completes and perfects it by the addition of hope and love. There is not one of them with which a Christian can part. You cannot, e.g., part with faith; for we are saved by faith, and without faith it would be impossible to please God. You cannot part with hope; for without hope we should be of all men the most miserable. And you cannot part with love; for that would be to lose the very image of God; for "he that loveth not knoweth not God." As therefore in an arch you cannot part either with the foundation-stones or with the key-stone in the centre, without ruin to the whole fabric, so you cannot part with any one of these three graces without becoming absolutely "nothing."

3. In their influence.(1) To purify the heart, for our hearts are "purified by faith"; "every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure"; no man can love God without becoming "a partaker of His holiness."(2) In prosperity, in supplying the Christian with sweeter pleasures than earthly things can yield, and in keeping him unspotted from the world. His faith beholds an inheritance, "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away"; his hope seeks fruition in "joy unspeakable and full of glory"; and his love leads him to choose God as his invaluable portion, and to declare, "whom have I in heaven but Thee?" etc.(3) In adversity, in bringing strength and consolation to the soul.

III. THE SUPERIORITY OF CHARITY TO BOTH FAITH AND HOPE, "The greatest of these is charity." The epithet of "great" belongs, to each, and they are far superior to natural talents and even to miraculous endowments. Love is the greatest of the three, because —

1. It is the only grace which is exercised by God Himself.

2. It is the grace for the sake of which faith and hope are produced and exercised. Love is the sacred temple which faith and hope are employed in building, and needful as their presence and exertions are now, whilst the temple is rising, yet when the topstone is brought forth, and when the cloud of glory has filled the holy place, their assistance will no longer be required, and they may rest from their labours.

3. It is capable of putting forth greater energies, and of performing greater achievements.

4. It is eminently and almost entirely a social grace. Faith and hope are in a great measure personal graces.

5. It alone is eternal in its duration. Faith, like the venerable lawgiver, ascends Mount Pisgah, views the promised land, and dies. Hope, bright and cheering as the morning star, grows dim, and fades, amidst the splendours of the rising and meridian sun. But Charity, immortal in her existence as the soul she inspires, and as the God from whom she came, ascends, like Elijah, in a charier, of fire, and is translated to the realms of life and joy.

(T. Alexander.)

I. WHAT FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY ARE.

1. Faith has respect to things either unseen or future.

2. Hope is desire and expectation of good.

3. Charity is love to God and love to man. There may be in our text a special reference to love to man, including the love of complacency towards the good, and a love of compassion towards even the vilest of the vile.

II. THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH AND HOPE.

1. Faith is excellent contemplated —(1) Intellectually. The power of realising existing objects and past and future events is a power of incalculable value, without which man would not be man. Most of our knowledge is obtained through the medium of books and oral instruction, which we have read and heard and have believed. Even common conversation owes much of its interest to the faith which we have in one another. In commerce the importance of a promise to pay and of believing that promise is most apparent. Trial by jury, on which the question of life or death often depends, would be useless were faith in civil society impossible.(2) Morally.(a) A man "whose word is as good as his bond" is universally and deservedly esteemed. He is a man who can be believed.(b) But the moral excellence of faith is most of all apparent in its reference to God. Faithfulness as clearly belongs to God as either justice or mercy; and when we trust in Him without fear, we "give to Him the glory due to His name."(c) Faith exerts a beneficial interest on the entire character of man as exposed to temptation. For his conflict the moral soldier is furnished with "the shield of faith". "This is the victory that over-cometh the world," etc.(d) It is essential to our salvation. It is to a Christian what grasping the hand of a friend would be to a drowning man.

2. Hope is excellent, because —(1) It is the next best thing to actual possession (Romans 8:24). It is the earnest of heaven.(2) It neutralises if not annihilates the misery which great affliction might otherwise create; "these light afflictions, which are but for a moment," etc.

III. THE SURPASSING EXCELLENCE OF CHARITY.

1. It is more disinterested than either faith or hope.

2. It is the perfection of man.

3. It is eternal.

4. Although charity is before faith and hope in point of excellence, faith is first in order of time.

(J. Burder, M.A.)

2. The practical value of these three gifts is enhanced by the fact that they are universally attainable. Miraculous gifts might, even in the age of miracles, be sought without success; and they were withdrawn long ago. But of the gifts of faith, hope, and love, we can say that "every one that seeketh findeth," and it is a man's own fault if he has them not.

3. There is a remarkable pairing and grouping of these graces in the Scripture (1 the 1:14: Ephesians 6:23; Galatians 5:6). Observe also the coupling of faith and hope (1 Peter 1:21; Colossians 1:23). We also find them grouped all together (Colossians 1:3-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:3).

4. The admirable nature of these graces is proclaimed by the functions assigned to them as part of the Christian's heavenly armour (Ephesians 6:16). Consider them —

I. IN A GENERAL WAY.

1. Love has the first place in point of time. There was a time when there was, and could be, no faith and no hope; but the gospel tells us of an everlasting love. What is declared of the Word is true of love (John 1:1).

2. While love can, and does, dwell wherever faith and hope find a home, it makes its chief abode in a quarter to which they have no access. But love takes a higher flight. God neither believes nor hopes; but God loves.

3. All three are springs of human action. But love is more; it is a spring of action on the part of God. Faith and hope beget great deeds; but they are only the deeds of men after all. Love awakens to action the powers of omnipotence, and God arises at its summons.

II. AS GRACES WHICH ARE FOUND IN EVERY REAL CHRISTIAN'S HEART. When thus considered, love is the greatest of them all.

1. It excels in respect of its success and range. The Christian's love is the companion of his faith and hope in all their exercises, and goes forth upon the object on which they lay hold: but it is also the companion and follower of God's love, and makes for the objects of Divine regard.

2. It carries off the palm among the graces, because it imparts a likeness to God. God is love. "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil."

3. The disinterestedness of love gives it pre-eminence. Love's office is to give. Faith and hope are exercised in the reception and anticipation of benefits. Love "seeketh not her own."

4. The greatness of love may be estimated by its relation to holiness. Faith, indeed, is a holy principle, and holiness is the result of its influence and operation. So hope also is a holy principle, purging away the defilement of sin. Every man that hath it in him, purifieth himself, as Christ is pure. But love is holiness itself — the end for which these means and instruments are employed.

5. Love is greatest in respect of the ultimate importance of the part it has to act.(1) There are various respects in which faith and hope are greater than love. Take the case of a man convinced of his guilt, and longing for pardon and acceptance with God. Love can do nothing there. When the jailer cried, "What must I do to be saved?" it was faith that was summoned to the rescue. Take the ordinary case of God's people on earth, exposed to danger from the world. Love would be borne down and put to death, did not faith cover love with the buckler of its protection. Or take the case of one who is visited with protracted trials and afflictions. Is it love that will keep him from despair? No. That is the office of hope.(2) But then the offices of faith and hope now glanced at do not last for ever. The time is coming when there will be no such work as we have spoken of for faith and hope to do. We do not say that faith and hope will then disappear. For the redeemed will always trust in God, and look to Jesus; and in viewing the eternity that stretches out before them, they shall be animated by a hope on which there will never be a cloud. But faith and hope will not continue in the front of the scene. They will then confess themselves to be but the handmaids of love, and will make way for love by withdrawing into the shade: Having nursed and defended love in her infancy, and watched over her ripening years, and having, at last, conducted her to the steps of her destined throne, their work is comparatively finished. Then will be the glorious reign of love.

(A. Gray.)

1. Faith. As to its origin, it is the gift of God; as to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit; as to its object, it fastens on Christ; as to its exercise, it is the disciple's own act. the Scriptures make much of faith — "Precious faith"; "Thy faith hath saved thee"; "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Faith is the first stone of the building, but it is not the, foundation. Our help is laid on One that is mighty. But beware how you come to Christ. Any work of yours, by way of recommending you, will be a non-conductor through which the light of life from the Saviour cannot run (Galatians 5:2).

2. Hope is adapted to a transitory, imperfect state. Its office is to diminish the sorrows of the present by drawing on the stores of future joy. It is the tenant, not of a heart that was never broken, but of a heart that has been broken and healed again. A pure, bright star fixed in heaven, it reaches with its rays the uplifted eye of the weary pilgrim. But stars shine not in the day; the darkness brings them out. So grief summons hope to the aid of the sufferer. When the ransomed rise from the sleep of the grave, this gentle star, which had often soothed them in the night of their pilgrimage, will nowhere be found in all the upper firmament; for in presence of the Sun of Righteousness hope, no longer needed, no more appears.

3. Love. Some fragments of this heavenly thing survive the fall and flourish in our nature. It is beautiful even in ruins. We shall learn more about its nature when we are called to consider its magnitude.

II. THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF ALL. Hitherto we have spoken of them as three rings lying beside each other; now we speak of them as three links within each other, so as to constitute a chain.

1. The relation between faith and hope. Faith leans on Christ, and hope hangs by faith. There is, indeed, a species of hope which has no connection with faith. If in a place of danger you saw a chain whose uppermost link was surely fixed in the living rock, and whose lowest link — a goodly, iron ring — was vibrating invitingly near, you might be induced to venture your body's weight upon its seeming strength. If that lowest link were not within the one above it, but only attached externally by some brittle twig, you would exchange the slippery place of danger for the plunge into inevitable death. It is like the fall of sinner who has risked his soul for the great day on a hope not linked to faith.

2. The relation between hope and love. Hope leans on faith, and love on hope. Love will languish unless blessed hope be underneath. Love's manifold efforts, stretching out in every direction and leaving no space unoccupied, are like the branches of a fruit tree. A single stem supports and supplies them all, while itself in turn is supported and supplied by the root. So hope, itself sustained by faith, sustains love in its turn. Hope in the heart of the Man of Sorrows bore Him through His labours of love (Hebrews 12:2). Hope is the mainspring of labouring love — hope in the Lord, first for yourself, and then for your neighbour.

III. THE SUPERIOR MAGNITUDE OF THE LAST.

1. In its work on earth. It is the only one of the three that reaches other men and directly acts upon them for their good.(1) "Thy faith hath saved thee," but what can it do for thy brother? It operates by sustaining and stimulating other graces — "Faith worketh by love."(2) Hope in like manner begins and ends in the heart of a disciple. The less that your hope, as such, protrudes itself on the notice of mankind, the better for its own health; but the more it swells within your breast, the more of love will it send forth to bless the world.(3) On the contrary, it is the nature of love to come out. Unless it act on others it cannot be. Love teaches the ignorant, clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, and is the fulfilling of that law which came latest from the Lord's own lips: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel unto every creature."

2. In its performance in heaven.

(W.Arnot, D.D.)

2. We cannot forget that he had the advantage of Greek culture, so it is natural to suppose that he was led to the conception by the three graces. But what a contrast between the Greek and the Christian graces! The one represented chiefly the charms of outward beauty, winsomeness, gleefulness; the other were not mere embellishments of life, but its central forces, the deep springs of all that was true and beautiful and noble in character. Was not that a most significant change? The word "grace" retains its Greek as well as its Christian meaning in our language. We often use it in the old sense, e.g., "grace in every movement of the body," or "done with a very good grace"; but just think in what a different region of thought and life we are when we speak of grace in its profound Christian sense. There are those who have real grace in the heart, whose manners do but scant justice to that which is within them; and there are those who have succeeded in cultivating outward graces of manner, but are utterly devoid of grace within. Give us both the outward and the inward, if it be possible; but if it must be only one, let it be that which is real and deep and true.

3. But we must look at the triad of Christian graces. The apostle says that they abide while other good things pass away.

4. The contrast in regard to abiding is not between the graces among themselves, but between gifts and graces (ver. 8). This contrast between knowledge, as transitory, is especially interesting now that there is a disposition to speak of faith, etc., as the shadowy things which are rapidly vanishing away, while knowledge is the substantial thing which is sure to hold its ground. Is not faith giving way to agnosticism? Is not hope fading before pessimism? And is not the old idea that love is creation's final law giving way to the new philosophy which resolves everything into matter and force?

5. Is there any way of testing which is right? If only we could project ourselves forward, say, for 2,000 years, how very satisfactorily we could settle the matter! Would a learned man of the nineteenth century pass for a learned man of the thirty-ninth? Or would he be only as a child? But will not faith, etc., be as powerful and healthful factors in life as they are now? But we must not prophesy. But what if we look 2,000 years back? Where would the wise man of the apostle's time be alongside of our mighty men of science to-day? Imagine a conversation between Pliny, the elder, and Professor Huxley on biology. The great naturalist of the first century would have to go to school for twenty years before he was ready to begin. Would the apostle Paul have to go to school for twenty years before he could begin to talk with an advanced Christian of the nineteenth century on faith and hope and love? The learning of the time was not at all to be despised. Nor did the apostle at all despise it; only he recognises the fact that it is partial — that in course of time it will be obsolete. We may be sure that this would by no means please the gnostics of the day, as they called themselves. These learned men believed they had reached the ultimate truth. The apostle did not undertake to pronounce on the truth or falsehood of what they taught; only he plainly indicated that it would by and by be out of date, whereas the heavenly faith and hope and love which it was his high calling to set before men would last. Where are the gnostics now? I don't suppose there is one left in all the world. But faith, etc., inspire as many men now as they did then, and thousands of thousands more!

6. And many other knowledges have passed away besides that of St. Paul's day in the course of these nineteen centuries. A very striking illustration of this is to be found in the "Paradiso" of Dante. The science of his time is so completely out of date that, without a special study of it, it is impossible to understand what he means at all when he is trying to expound it; and after you do find what he means it is not of the slightest use or permanent value. Ah, but when he soars on the wings of faith and hope and love, we soar with him yet. And they were the same as the apostle's, only they were not entangled with the errors of the times. A most signal token this of an inspiration far transcending that of Dante. And here we can go back far more than eighteen centuries. Look at Genesis. There is the very oldest book in all the world. Is it obsolete? Compare it with the work of Dante in this respect, and what a contrast! People talk of the conflict between science and faith. There is no such conflict. It is only the conflict between old science and new. All our troubles with scientific opinions have come from our leaving the lofty regions of faith, etc., and descending into the troubled area of shifting scientific knowledge. the holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, kept quite clear of all these questions. You don't find them pronouncing opinions on scientific subjects. They kept themselves to their own faith and hope and love.

7. The knowledge that many of us are ambitious, and rightly ambitious, to acquire will no doubt be of great service for many years to come; but faith, hope, and love are just as needful and serviceable for these years; and then their value by no means ends with these years, but lasts on and on for ever. They are the coin current in eternity. Without them we shall be paupers for eternity, however wise and learned and well-equipped for time.

(J. Monro Gibson, D.D.)

I. THE NATURE AND EFFECTS OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY.

1. Faith, in its general signification, is credit given to testimony. It is a principle upon which we are continually acting in the ordinary concerns of life. Now the faith spoken of in the text is precisely the same principle, only having a different object and resting upon higher testimony. We cannot penetrate the recesses of the Divine counsels. Faith is a cordial assent to the truth of all the declarations of God's Word. "Entering into the daily habits and experience of the Christian, this principle is the spring of his most holy tempers, exertions, attainments, and consolations. He lives — he walks — he stands — he perseveres — he fights — he conquers and triumphs, by faith."

2. Hope is a lively expectation of obtaining those things which we desire; and when we are led by faith to a knowledge of our real condition, we shall obviously desire nothing so much as deliverance from that condition. The principal object of hope will, therefore, be the attainment of eternal salvation through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Hope differs from presumption. When thus grounded upon the everlasting covenant which has been confirmed by the oath of Jehovah, it does afford strong consolation to the true Christian.

3. Charity, like faith and hope, is a stranger to the natural heart. And oh! what a splendid character does it present to us! "How glorious is it as an emanation of Divine goodness when compared with the usual habits of men; when viewed in contrast with the habitually selfish doings of many men, who even profess and call themselves Christians!" It is, at the same time, a character so elevated, that it needs a certain measure of Christian grace to perceive and to love its excellencies.

II. IN WHAT THE SUPERIORITY OF CHARITY CONSISTS.

1. It is more excellent in its nature. Perfect excellency can be found only in God Himself. It is by this grace, then, that the restoration of the Divine image takes place in our hearts.

2. It is more advanced in order. That is, it ranks higher in the scale of attainment. We must possess faith and hope before we can be actuated by the principle of love. They are the means; this is the end. It is the prize itself of which faith and hope must gradually put us in possession. A magnificent edifice cannot be erected without scaffolding; yet the building is greater than the scaffolding, being the sole end for which that is necessary: and when it is finished the scaffolding is removed as an useless encumbrance.

3. It is more expansive in its exercise. There is a degree of selfishness in faith and hope. They benefit him only who possesses them.But love, like the sun in the firmament, diffuses its blessings far and wide, and sheds a kindly influence all around.

1. Let us, in conclusion, first, use these graces as a test of our state.

2. Let us seek to abound more in them.

(R. Davies, M.A.)

2. But it is not really strange that St. Paul should raise hope to a Christian temper of the first order. St. Paul was a student of Scripture, and what is on the very surface of the Bible is the way in which, from first to last, it is one unbroken, persistent call to hope. Hope, never destroyed however overthrown; hope, never obscured amidst the storm and dust of ruin, is the paramount characteristic of the Old Testament, all leads back to hope; if ever it dies, it revives again larger and more confident than before.

I. HOPE ELEVATES AND STRENGTHENS AND INSPIRES. This is why it is one of the greatest elements of the religious temper. There may be a faith almost without hope, a faith which believes though it can see nothing in God's truth and goodness; "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." But hope is the energy of vigorous faith, the strong self-awakening from discouragement and despair. What gives its moral value to hope, is that, in its higher form, it is a real act and striving of the will and moral nature. Like the highest forms of courage, it is a refusal to be borne down and cowed by evil, a refusal to dwell on the dark side of things. It is thus that hope plays so great a part in the spiritual life, that it fights with such power on the side of God; for it not only receives, welcomes, trusts in God's promises, but it throws into them life and reality.

II. HOPE IS A GREAT INSTRUMENT OF SPIRITUAL AND MORAL DISCIPLINE. We are saved by hope. Long waiting is God's appointed order for the generations of men. All kinds of fortunes befall the Church, befall us all who are going through our trial time, and we often are tempted to be tired, and oppressed, and out of heart. There must often be much to distress and alarm us, evils which seem without remedy, defeats which seem final. To hope seems to us then like deluding ourselves. And yet how often has it happened in the upshot of things that, if in the very darkest times of history any one had been bold enough to hope, he would have been amply justified! We need not blind ourselves to facts; we have our part to do, and we must deal with it as we may, and as we ought. But the God of hope calls to us out of the darkness, and we are unfaithful to Him if in our wilfulness we shut our ears to His voice and dwell despondingly on the future which is in His hands.

III. BUT ALL THAT HERE INVITES AND DEMANDS HOPE IS BUT LITTLE TO THAT WHICH IS TO BE WHEN ALL HERE SHALL HAVE BEEN PAST AND OVER.

1. We may dare to look forward to be sinless. Think of what you know of your own conscience, of your own temptations, of your own fall, of your own struggles for forgiveness and restoration, and then think what it will be to have left all that behind.

2. Then, whatever the function and employment of that perfect state may be, whatever work God may have for us to do, we shall have the will and the power to do it as the angels do. The divided service, the broken purpose, the double mind, the treacheries of the will, the blindness of sell-deceit, the laggard indolence, all that now mars and cripples our sincerest obedience, will then have been purged away, and in all the fulness of truth we shall know how to serve Him with our whole heart.

3. There, in infinite measure, will be all that calls for human affection, and there human affections will he raised to new powers and strength, transfigured, purified, glorified; and there, in ways we cannot dream of now, we shall be brought near to Christ, and be like unto Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

(Dean Church.)

2. These meanings are the delicate dividing line between Faith and Hope. While Hope expects, Faith inspects; while Hope is like Mary, looking up-ward, Faith is like Martha, looking at-ward; while the light in the eyes of Hope is high, the light in the eyes of Faith is strong; while Hope trembles in expectation, Faith is quiet in possession. Hope leaps out toward what will be, Faith holds on to what is; Hope idealises, Faith realises; Faith sees, Hope foresees.

3. And so it comes that in religion faith is conservative, while hope is progressive. Passing on the Rhine through the fog and mist of Holland as through a stagnant sea, you stretch upward league after league; and as you go the country gradually changes, the air grows clearer, the prospect finer. But the higher you go, the harder is your going. So at last you come into Switzerland, where all about you is a vaster vision, and within you an intenser inspiration than can ever be felt on the foggy flats below. It is the difference between faith alone and faith and hope together.

4. Consider hope, however, as a positive matter. Why, you say, hope is the most intangible thing a man can entertain. "Hope," says Owen Feltham, "is the bladder a man will take wherewith to learn to swim; then he goes beyond return, and is lost." But what says Paul? He makes our life a battle, and every man a soldier, and it is not enough that the heart be protected by the shield of faith, the head must be guarded also by the helmet of hope: the one is as indispensable as the other. And a brief glance at the life about us will soon convince you that the man is right, that as Dr. Johnson said, our powers owe very much of their energy to our hope; and whatever enlarges hope exalts courage; and, where there is no hope, there is no endeavour. Here is Cyrus Field conceiving the idea of binding the Atlantic with a cord. In carrying out his idea, the man has two servants to help him — the faith that it can be done, and the hope that he shall do it. With these aids he goes to work. Faith steadies him; hope inspires him. Faith works; hope flies. Faith deliberates; hope anticipates. Faith lets the cable go, and it breaks, and is lost. "Nay, not lost," cries hope, and fishes it up again. Here is Garibaldi conceiving the idea of a new Italy. He has faith and hope. Austria, Naples, and Rome are against him. But no man knows, or can know, what faith and hope together can do in a man of the pattern of Garibaldi. What they have done for Italy will go ringing down the ages. Very curiously, if you will again, you can see the power of faith without hope illustrated in China. When our ancestors were savages they had advanced about where they are now. But who shall say that China, with the noble qualities no doubt she has, might not have had a peerless place in the world, had she held herself hopeful and expectant, continually, toward every new idea and discovery?

5. And this fact of hope and its influence has some important applications.(1) To religion. It is entirely essential "to remember that, when this man tells his friends to take for a helmet the hope of salvation, he meant the hope he himself was rushing through the world to proclaim. In the England of John Wesley numbers of men were his peers in faith. But Wesley had more hopefulness in his little finger than any other man of them had in his whole body. And so wherever Wesley went men caught the contagion of his great hope, and then ran tirelessly as long as they lived, kindling over all the world.(2) To life generally. Young men and women, with this life mainly before you, get this hope. Make sure that there is not a day but brings you nearer to some Divine surprise of blessing, some great unfolding of God's wry glory. Men and women in middle life, with the bloom gone from some things that seemed very beautiful as they lay glistening in the dew of the morning, whatever you do, never let a painful inspection rob you of a great expectation. If, as you live, you try to live faithfully, then, as the Lord liveth, try to live hopefully, or you will miss the better half of your living.

(R. Collyer, D.D.)

2. What, then, is this love? It is a word traceable to many different roots. That could not be otherwise. Love would naturally be one of the very first things the most abject savages must find a name for, after getting a word to express each of the bare needs of life. The first time the man of the forest tried to win a maiden in some higher way than by carrying her off by force, he would need the word. The first time the mother had to tell of the mysterious glow in her heart toward her babe in its helplessness, she would need the word. And so love, in one root, is longing; in another, goodness; in another, preference; but, to me, the right rests at last in the Teutonic word leben — life. "This is life," these children of nature said, when they first began to be conscious of this glowing wonder in their hearts. "You are my life," the man said when he went to win the maiden; and the mother, when she caught her nursling to her heart. Love is to live; and not to love is not to live. And it was exactly the definition of John, when he wanted to tell of the nearest and dearest of all the relations the soul can hold to God.

3. And so, while faith is inreaching, and hope outlooking, love is inbeing. By faith I stand; by hope I soar, by love I am. Faith assures me, hope inspires me; love is me, at my best.

4. And it is only as we keep, close to this idea and fact that we can prevent love being confounded with other and baser things, that, getting mixed up with it in our own language, act like the baser metals mixed up in the coinage of a country, giving the real gold and silver a lower relative value, and debasing the whole fair standard of commonwealth. Love, for example, is not lust. Because love, for whatever may in itself be good, adds just so much as there is in what I love to life; while lust for that very thing exhausts life. When the young man, living in a room, eating in a restaurant, and troubled about more things than ever Martha was, feels at last how contracted and poor such a life is at the best, and says in his heart, "This is not living: I must get me a wife," whatever may be his idea of the wife he wants, the word he uses to describe his condition reaches away into the truth. It is not living: it is just half living, and probably not that. His heart is crying out for the rest of his life. But there is that calling itself love which is lust — something that seeks not a life, but an appanage to life, and reaps for its sowing a harvest of gray ashes. Love informs life; lust exhausts it. Love is the shining sun, lust is the wandering star.

5. But, beside such special applications, there is no direction in which we can turn but this spirit meets us with its sweet, solemn face. Consider the lesson we have learned in our war. When we plunged into that red sea, the gentlemen of England were looking on. The few said we should hold our own; the multitude said we had gone under. What made this difference? The few loved us, so that Faith stood square, and Hope plumed her wings, and they became the glad ministers of their leader and guide. The many did not love us. They had no faith in us and no hope for us, because they had no love. When a man really loves, it piles great stores of love into his heart; so that he may even come to some dreadful pass where faith and hope fail him, and yet love shall carry him through. When the father wants to put his son on the way to success, if he is a wise man, he most anxiously tries to find out where the lad's love lies; for there, he knows, he will have faith and hope, because the love will be a perpetual inspiration; while, to put him to what he can never love, will only exhaust and disgust him, until at last it is given up in despair.

(R. Collyer, D.D.)

1. COMPARATIVELY.

1. Faith is that grace which makes Christ ours, and all His benefits. God gives it (1 Corinthians 12:9); by the Word preached (Romans 10:17); for Christ's sake (Philippians 1:29). This virtue is no sooner given of God, but it gives God (Romans 8:32). "Without this it is impossible to please God " (Hebrews 11:6). Let us not otherwise dare to come into His presence.

2. Hope is the sweetest friend that ever kept a distressed soul company; it beguiles the tediousness of the way, all the miseries of our pilgrimage.(1) It holds the head whilst it aches, and gives invisible drink to the thirsty conscience. It is a liberty to them that are in prison, and the sweetest physic to the sick. St. Paul calls it an anchor (Hebrews 6:19). Let the winds blow, and the storms beat, and the waves swell, yet the anchor stays the ship. It breaks through all difficulties, and makes way for the soul to follow it. It teacheth Abraham to expect fruit from a withered stock; and Joseph in a dungeon to look for the sun and stars' obeisance. Though misery be present, comfort absent, though thou canst spy no deliverance, yet such is the nature of hope, that it speaks of future things as if they were present (Romans 8:24).(2) These are the comforts of hope. Now, that you may not be deceived, there is a thing like hope, which is not it. There is a bold and presumptuous hope, an ignorant security and ungrounded persuasion, the very illusion of the devil, that how wickedly soever a man shall live himself, yet still he hopes to be saved by the mercy of God. Against this hope we shut up the bosom of consolation.

3. Charity is an excellent virtue, and therefore rare. The proper and immediate object of our love is God. This is the great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," etc. The subordinate object is man, and his love is the effect of the former cause, and an actual demonstration of the other inward affection. Love is the abridgment of the law, the new precept of the gospel. Luther calls it the shortest and the longest divinity: short, for the form of words; long, yea, everlasting, for the use and practice; for "charity shall never cease."

II. COMPARATIVELY.

1. The distinction between faith and hope is nice. I will reduce the differences into three respects.(1) Of order: Paul gives faith the precedency (Hebrews 11.). Hope may in some sort be said to be the daughter of faith. For it is as impossible for a man to hope for that which he believes not, as for a painter to draw a picture in the air. Indeed, more is believed than is hoped for; but nothing is hoped for which is not believed.(2) Of office: faith is the Christian's logic; hope his rhetoric. Faith perceives what is to be done, hope gives alacrity to the doing it. The difference between faith and hope is that between wisdom and valour. Valour without wisdom is rashness, wisdom without valour is cowardice. Faith without hope is knowledge without valour to resist Satan; hope without faith is rash presumption and an indiscreet daring.(3) Of object: faith's object is the absolute word and infallible promise of God: hope's object is the thing promised. Faith looks to the word of the thing, hope to the thing of the word. So that faith hath for its object the truth of God; hope, the goodness of God. Faith is of things both good and bad, hope of good things only. A man believes there is a hell as truly as he believes there is a heaven; but he fears the one, and hopes only for the other. In some sense hope excels faith. For there is a faith in the devils. Hope, a confident expectation of the mercy of God; this they can never have. This is the life of Christians, and the want makes devils (1 Corinthians 15:19).

2. Charity differs from them both. These three Divine graces are a created trinity; and as there the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from them both; so a true faith begets a constant hope, and from them proceeds charity. "Thus is God's temple built in our hearts," saith : the foundation whereof is faith; hope the erection of the walls; charity the perfection of the roof. In the godly all these three are united. We believe in God's mercy, we hope for His mercy, and we love Him for His mercy. Faith says, there are good things prepared: hope says, they are prepared for me: charity says, I endeavour to walk worthy of them.

III. SUPERLATIVELY. "The greatest of these is charity."

1. Objections.(1) The principal promises are made to believers. So no less a promise is made to lovers (Romans 8:28). "God," saith the Psalmist, "is near to those that call upon Him," but He is within those that love Him (1 John 4:17).(2) If charity be greater than faith, then is not man justified by faith only. Inconsequentillation! St. Paul commends not love for the virtue of justification. A prince doth excel a peasant: shall any man therefore infer that he can plough better, or have more skill in tillage? A philosopher doth excel a mechanic, though he cannot grind so well as a miller, or limn so cunningly as a painter. Faith is able to justify of itself, not to work of itself (Galatians 5:6). The hand alone can receive an alms, but cannot cut a piece of wood without an axe or some instrument. Faith is in the Christian's hand: add love to it, and it worketh by love. So that the one is our justification before God, and the other our testification before men.

2. Wherein consisteth this high transcendency of charity?(1) For latitude, love is the greatest. Faith and hope are restrained within the limits of our particular persons. "The just man lives by his own faith," and hopes good to himself; but love is like the vine (Psalm 80:8), or the sun in the sky, that throws his comfortable beams upon all, and forbears not to warm even that earth that beareth weeds.(2) For perpetuity. Faith lays hold on God's gracious promise for everlasting salvation; hope expects this with patience; but when God shall fulfil His word, and us with joy, then faith shall be at an end, hope at an end, but love shall remain between God and us an everlasting bond.(3) For the honour and likeness it hath unto God. Faith and hope make not a man like God, but charity doth.(4) In respect of its titles, charity excelleth. It is the new commandment: faith was never called so. It is the bond of perfection: faith is not so termed. It is the fulfilling of the law: where hath failed such a title?(5) Charity is more noble, for it is a better thing to give than to receive. Faith and hope are all of the taking hand.(6) For manifestation. Faith and hope are things unseen, and may be dissembled, but charity cannot be without visible fruits; therefore the only trial of faith and hope is by charity. Conclusion: Why speaks Paul of no more than three? St. Peter mentions eight (2 Peter 1:6), and St. Paul in another place nine (Galatians 5:22). Why are all these left out here? Because they are comprehended under these three: as to the trade of a stationer, some are required to print, some to correct, some to fold, others to bind, and others to garnish; yet all belongs to one trade There be many rays, and but one sun.

2. As these three fair sisters came down from heaven, so the devil sends up three foul fiends from hell: against faith, infidelity; against hope, desperation; against charity, malice. He that entertains the elder sister "is already condemned" (John 3:18). He that embraceth the second, bars up against himself the possibility of all comfort, because he offends the mercy of God, and tramples under foot that blood which is held out to his unaccepting hand. He that welcomes malice, welcomes the devil himself.

(T. Adams.)

(R. Tuck, B. A.)

1. Faith. It unites to Christ. It secures our justification. It is the great power in our present life: "The just shall live by faith."

2. Hope. It brightens the present by brightening the future.

3. Love. What a wilderness the world would be without love!

II. THEIR CONTINUANCE. It is better to have lost the extraordinary gifts than these graces.

III. THEIR RELATIVE VALUE. Love the greatest.

1. It has longer continuance.

2. It is more useful to others.

3. It makes men like God in character.

(Clerical World.)

I. THESE TRIPLE GRACES IN THEMSELVES, AND SOME THINGS WHEREIN THEY DIFFER. They are in the mind; apart from the mind they can have no existence. In themselves they are abstractions, which can have no existence but as parts or actions of some other fit subjects.

1. Faith is the confiding attitude of the mind, relying on stone object or resource believed by itself, by evidence or experience sufficient to sustain or meet its wants and wishes. It is the power of uniting weakness with strength, need with plenty, misery with happiness, man's sinfulness and despair with Divine grace and merciful provision.

2. Hope is the soul turning its face to the good and happiness of the future. It is the vanguard of the soul, on its travel forward in the wilderness of life.

3. Charity is the attitude of the soul embracing the lovely and the pure. It is the cultivated state of the soil of the soul, like a well-weeded, pulverised garden, bearing rich and fragrant flowers. The soul in this state morally is both strong and happy; but to make it safe and broad it needs the light and evidence of faith, and the prophetic eye and encouragement of hope.

4. Though these graces belong to one system, they differ —(1) In the way they view their objects. Faith seeks its object through the light of evidence, hope through the good and the happy, and charity through the beautiful and lovely.(2) In the conscious sentiments they produce in the soul. Faith makes the soul strong and confident, hope sanguine and anxious, and charity satisfied and happy.(3) In the soil they grow in, and the elements which feed and mature them. Faith grows in the soil of intelligence, and is fed by reason, evidence, and experience; hope grows in sympathy with the future, and a desire to know and possess its goodness, and is fed by its own intuitive faith and possession of the good and the happy; charity grows in tenderness, beneficence, and the social feeling of the soul for communion with the beautiful and lovely, and is fed by manifestation of love, faith, and hope.(4) In their action, and the way they express themselves. Faith acts boldly, and expresses itself fearlessly; hope acts more timidly, and expresses itself with patience and submission; charity acts calmly, expressing itself with chastened sweetness and joyful exaltation.(5) In the service they render to the soul. Faith educates its intelligence, and would perserve it from dull blindness and superstitious ignorance; hope sustains and encourages it in the dark day and weary night of its earthly abode; and charity educates it, in all its sentiments, into refinement and beauty, so as to make it a happy companion to itself and others.

II. IN THEIR UNION AND NECESSITY.

1. They are united,(1) In their source. Every good gift finally must be traced to one common fountain of Divine goodness.(2) In common sympathy and attachment. They are made for one another; they could not live apart.(3) In their work and end. What one cannot do the other does; and what they cannot do separately they complete unitedly.(4) In the means of their strength and advancement — the Spirit of God, through the provision of the economy of grace.

2. Their necessity in the system of Christian life. They are needful —(1) As means by which the soul of man can apprehend the different sides in the economy of truth and Divine provision.(2) To develop and perfect the soul in its various sides and powers.(3) From the demands made upon man.

(a)For daily duty.

(b)For warfare and defence.

III. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF CHARITY. It is the greatest —

1. In the quality of its nature. It has a refinement and purity which is not to be found in the same manner and degree in the others. "God is love." Love is the Divine nature in man.

2. In the sway of its power. Faith is power, and has done mighty works; so is hope, and has long and far walked over arid and thorny lands to its Canaan of good; but when faith falters and hope faints, love supports and comforts still.

3. As a source of comfort and happiness to the soul. The company of love is always sweet.

4. As it approaches the nearest to God. God is in the hand of faith, He is in the eye of hope, but He is in the heart of love.

5. In useful results.

6. As the greatest advancing power. No one can advance in anything much unless he loves it.

7. In attraction and motive. Love drives no one away; it draws to itself even those who are void of any impelling motive in themselves.

IV. THE ABIDING CHARACTER OF THESE GRACES. There is a prevalent belief that faith and hope are only transient. But what is the evidence of such a belief? It is said that faith and hope will be done away with, because all will be seen in heaven. But surely I need it as a power of confiding trust, when I see the object as well as when I do not see it. Is hope also not requisite relative to the continued safety and duration of the good we possess, as much as the possession of the unseen? But we cannot accept of the assertion that all will be seen and possessed at once in heaven. Can all the future be packed into one moment? Can all its objects and visions be contracted into one small point? It is again said, but all will be safe. But do I not want faith to comfort me as well as to defend me, to unite me with God, as well as to put me under His shield? Do I not also want hope in the enjoyment of the good, as well as in the search after it? Nothing good we have will be taken from us, but perfected. In order to sustain this view, note —

1. These powers are essentially united together, so as to make one system of power in the mind.

2. They are alike powers of the soul. Christianity has not created them; it has only directed them to higher objects, purified their quality, and given them new direction and impetus. If one of them were to be done away with, the soul would be incomplete, and would be unfit to do its work and enjoy its blessings. If the triangle were deprived of one of its sides, it would no longer be a triangle; so if one of these triangular sides of the soul were done away with, it would no longer be the rational and responsible identical soul which man has in this world; he would not only be a different being, but a smaller and a less perfect one than now he is.

3. Faith and hope are essential to dependent and limited beings. We cannot think it possible for finite beings to exist without them, for the source of their being, and the comprehension of their good, are all outside themselves.

4. The continuance of faith and hope is needful for the perpetuation of love. Could you love a person or an object in whom or in which you have no faith? And is not your hope for the good and the beautiful a part of your love towards them?

5. It is difficult to think that happiness is possible in the absence of faith and hope.

6. They are among the noblest of the gifts of God, and such things are not given to be recalled or destroyed.

(T. Hughes.)

I. FAITH. Faith has wings; but unlike the wings that Solomon gives to riches, faith is busy in gathering instead of scattering her treasures. Faith has wings because she is "a stranger and sojourner" on the earth. But although without a home here she has a home, and mounting up with the wings of eagles, she lives in a congenial clime, "seeing him who is invisible." Matthew Henry says, "We cannot expect too little from man, nor too much from God." But in God we can have faith. His wisdom is without the admixture of error; His heart infinitely kind; His power without restraint.

II. HOPE. Faith has wings, and like the wings of the cherubim in Ezekiel's vision, they are "full of eyes"; and these eyes are full of sparkling hope. By a strange paradox, the castles built by sense are vapoury visions, while the buildings of faith are substantial and enduring. Hope builds on faith, and faith builds on God, "that our faith and hope may be in God." Faith is the child in the house, who knows his filial relationship though the parent is absent. Hope is the child at the window, expecting the parent's return. A prisoner, detained in his cell for some supposable reason, after he had received his pardon, would be saved both by faith and hope; faith, in the word that announced his pardon would assure him of salvation; the prospect of release from his prison cell would be his bright hope; at the hour of his departure he would "receive the end of his faith" — full deliverance.

III. CHARITY.

1. Love is "greatest" by reason of its dignity. Both faith and hope are receptive in their character; but love is communicative, therefore is it "greatest," for "it is more blessed to give than to receive"!

2. Love is "greatest" by reason of age — it is the eldest. Love can say — before faith and hope were "I am." It was the flower of Eden, but its first growth was not there, for it was transplanted from the garden of heaven, and blossomed in the bosom of God "from everlasting."

3. Love is "greatest" by reason of its strength. "Love is strong as death." How firm a hold does death take of its captives! This aspect of love has several relations.(1) There is God's love to us. When we see this we are taken captive by love at its will. It is a power magnetic. We love because first loved.(2) There is our love to God. How weak, alas! the measure of it; but how potent its quality! No motive for service can be compared with it; nor anything in service sustain like it.(3) Hence our power with men. As God "commendeth His love to us" by His love, and we by love commend our service to God, so must we commend ourselves to men. Love makes us kingly, and hearts are ever ready to do homage to all who rule with love's sceptre.

(Anon)

1. Faith means a belief, on the testimony of God, of things which we do not perceive by our senses, and which we could not find out in any other way. It is directly opposed to sight, and signifies our looking to things invisible. It is the looking-out of the immortal spirit from its corporeal prisonhouse, to catch a glimpse of some nobler and happier form of existence. It is the commencement of spiritual life in the soul. It may be at first like the springing of seed sown, or like the movements of life in the newly breathing infant. But that, once commenced, is a momentous event; the birth of a principle which will continue to operate; the beginning of a life which will go on without end. Faith brings all the great truths and motives of the gospel so vividly before the mind, and keeps them so habitually present to the thoughts, as to prove a most powerful, practical, and purifying principle, carrying the views beyond things seen to things unseen, giving the soul a superiority over the power of this world, and so influencing effectually the whole conduct and course of life.

2. Hope means an expectation of those promised blessings as our eternal portion. Faith respects our belief of these blessings, as provided for all believers; hope respects our expectation of these blessings, as being ourselves believers. Faith gives our souls a connection with the Saviour, which secures our salvation, though our hope should be but low. Hope imparts to our souls a peace and support amidst the trials and duties of life, which, though not essential in any particular degree to our salvation, yet is requisite so far, as preventing despondency of mind under spiritual trials, as proving a source of the highest enjoyment to the heart of man in this world, and as supplying the strongest encouragement to steadfastness and diligence in God's service. It is not a mere confident expectation of safety and happiness, which might be a mere delusion, and which is too often strongest where the grounds are weakest; but it is closely connected with a humble acceptance of Christs salvation, and a cordial obedience to His commandments.

3. Charity is the sovereign principle from which every active service to God or man must flow.

II. THE PECULIAR EXCELLENCE OF CHARITY OR LOVE, AS THE GREATEST OF ALL THESE CHRISTIAN GRACES. Here, however, we must beware of separating one part of the Christian character from another; and while we exalt one grace, must not overlook or undervalue the rest. Observe then distinctly, that all these three must exist together, otherwise none of them can be genuine, "now abideth faith, hope, charity; these three." They must all be present, "these three"; all abide or dwell in company in our hearts, as heavenly principles, implanted there, and necessary to be there for our salvation. They are thus not only equally alike the work of Christ's Spirit; but they derive much of their respective excellences and uses from one another, and from operating along with one another. As well might you think of taking any part of the body out of its place, and speaking of its beauty and use, when thus separated from the rest of that living frame, as to take any of these graces by itself, and then speak of its use or excellence without the others. When it is said, therefore, that "the greatest of them is charity," it is, first of all, to be kept in mind that charity is nothing without the rest, and that from them it derives even much of its greatness. Charity is not the greatest, as if it could stand in the place of faith and hope. It is not great at all without them, and it cannot do their part; no more than the hand could do the office of the eye or the ear. It is nevertheless the greatest of all, as here declared.

1. Because it is the evidence of the rest, and the earnest of that salvation being begun in our souls, which they call us to seek and look for, as our portion.

2. Because it is the end, of which faith and hope are only the means. Faith and hope are the heavenly remedies, the health-giving streams, from which we must draw the reviving energy of Divine grace; but love is the spiritual soundness, that very state of health in the soul which is the end of these streams having been opened to us, and of our being invited to take freely their living waters. It is the celestial fruit, for the sake of which the root of faith is planted, and the blossoms of hope are cherished: it is "the fruit of the Spirit of all grace."

3. Because it is more particularly the Spirit of God Himself, the peculiar excellence which we are called to imitate in Him as our Father.

4. Because it is the most permanent of all these graces, and forms the principal occupation and enjoyment of the heavenly state.(1) Inquire how far these three are abiding in your hearts, or how far at least you are desiring to have them there.(2) Follow after charity, as the fruit, the evidence, the ornament of them all.

(J. Brewster.)

(C. Vince.)

1. Faith is the apprehension of the truth as the means of our salvation.

2. Hope is the apprehension of salvation by the truth.

3. Charity is the outflow of salvation from the heart. The stages are evident — faith finds the Saviour, hope delights in Him, but love desires to exhibit Him to others for their acceptance. We are justified by faith, delighted by hope, consecrated by love.

II. THE LAST STAGE IS GREATER THAN ITS FORERUNNERS.

1. Charity assimilates the heart to the life of Christ. Faith brings us to the Saviour, but love makes us like Him.

2. Love makes the Church a power for good. The generous heart is the power which brings the love of God to bear on men's stubborn hearts. There is no cross too heavy, and no sacrifice too great for love.

3. The influence of love is more abiding. Faith will be turned into sight, and hope into possession, but love will continue the ruling passion of the world.

(Weekly Pulpit.)

I. INTRINSICALLY EXCELLENT. Faith and hope, however good and useful, derive their value from the limitation of our nature.

1. Faith is necessary because we have not personal knowledge of objects. What is beyond the range of our bodily organs and intuitive feelings is alone an object of faith.

2. And so there is implied in hope something more or better than we have; only those that are imperfectly blessed can hope. Faith implies something without, hope something beyond, us.

3. God cannot believe, for "He fills immensity"; He cannot hope, for "He inhabits eternity." But He can love; and the more we have of this gracious disposition, the more we are assimilated to that glorious Being who "giveth all things" and "needeth not anything," who has no necessity but that of doing good.

II. THE MOST INDEPENDENT GRACE. Faith and hope, however rich and strong, are recipients, to a great extent. But it is the glorious distinction of charity that, instead of recognising a good that exists, it forms a plan of originating one that is not. This is its description: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; seeketh not her own." While faith and hope are the ample vessels of grace, charity is its free fountain; while they are its reverent worshippers, it is its self-denying missionary. They accept, but it dispenses; they regard self, it looks not on its own things, but on the things of others.

III. THE END OF WHICH FAITH AND HOPE ARE MEANS. Whatever is imparted to us, in the form of present truth and prospective good, is with a view to some result. God can have no lower or other design than the sanctification of our entire nature: and what is that but the shedding of His love abroad in it by the Holy Ghost, constraining us to all good works? "Love is the fulfilling of the law," and of the gospel. Faith is the nourishment of love, hope is its luxurious entertainment. Faith is the soil in which it grows, hope is the bright sunshine that quickens and beautifies it. Love cannot be intelligent unless it be taught of God, and cannot be free and cheerful unless He smile upon it.

IV. PERMANENT. In a sense doubtless we shall believe and hope in a future state; but in that state there will be the realised enjoyment of the main objects of present belief and pursuit. In that state will be fulfilled, not comparatively as here, but to a glorious extent of accomplishment, the strong representations of our context. We shall "see face to face," we shall "know even as we are known." But love will undergo no change of this sort: its change will be of another kind. The perfection that lessens the need and intensity of other graces will increase the power and enlarge the sphere of love. Conclusion:

1. If charity is the greatest, so manifestly let us beware of losing sight of its pre-eminent excellence. Many put faith before it. Forgetting the real nature and office of faith, they dishonour the charity that dwells in others, and suppress instead of cherishing it in themselves. No spectacle of Christian error is more painful than that of a man taking his stand on faith and violating charity. If we must err at all, let it be on the side of the "greatest" thing; and, erring or not, let us never forget that whatever is accurate in belief, and pleasant in hope, is far exceeded by love, and has its use and worth only in its promotion.

2. Ponder the emphatic words of vers. 1-3. What a thought, for a man to be nothing! nothing, and yet gifted with spiritual faculties; speaking angelic tongues; though impoverishing himself to relieve his brethren; though yielding up His life in defence of faith! Oh, receive the love of God into your hearts, and that shall be in you a fountain of all charity; you shall love like God as well as rejoice in His love: and be something for ever!

(A. J. Morris.)

I. IN POINT OF RANK. Faith and hope are of the operation of God, but love is from His heart: by love we are let into God. We are called to be strong in faith, to abound in hope, but to be perfect in love! We are to put on the shield of faith, the helmet of hope, but, above all, put on charity.

1. It decides the genuineness of faith and hope. Faith cannot work without love — it is the animation of faith. And hope maketh not ashamed, "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." Faith some. times has doubts, hope has fears, charity always hopes; yea, when faith and hope both stop, charity believeth, hopeth, does their work.

2. It is the end, of which faith and hope are but the means; the labour of love raises the top stone. Faith is the root, hope the buds, love is the fruit of the Christian's tree.

3. Faith and hope are essential to man as a sinner, but love was his religion before he was a sinner, and it is now by love that he rises above his fall and forms alliance with heaven. Love is the religion of heaven 1 Wonder not, then, that love is the foremost fruit of the Spirit, the end of the commandment, the fulfilling of the law — the royal law — that it sits on the throne — the queen of graces.

II. IN POINT OF UTILITY. Faith and hope are selfish graces — private props. Charity is to others like the sun in the firmament — goes about doing good. Personally, she visits the sick, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked; has a wise head, and attentive ear, a quick eye, a heart! makes others' woes, etc.; has an eloquent tongue, an open hand: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me." Thus she pursues her way; if contradicted, is not easily provoked; whatever is said of her, she thinketh no evil; she overlooks not the temporal interests of man, but chiefly regards the spiritual, and such as take in the good of the world.

III. IN POINT OF DURATION — abideth for ever. Faith and hope are Moses. Love is Joshua. Faith and hope supply here the place of vision: "We see through a glass darkly," etc. In an evangelical sense, faith and hope are not in heaven; we are to hope to the end; but no end in heaven. Learn —

1. Wherein real Christianity consists. In creeds? professions? No! but in Divine principles, holy tempers, benevolent actions. Orthodox opinions, etc., unaccompanied with faith, hope, and charity, are fruitless.

2. The excellency of real Christianity. It brings faith, it inspires hope, it fills with the love of God; and when this principle is universal in the world!

3. Is this religion ours? A man is better known by what he loves than by his faith and hope. Who loves strong drink, we know who he is. So, if man love God, we know who he is! Now we look for the effects of this love in his life and conversation. Does your faith work by love?

(J. Summerfield, A.M.)

(H. W. Beecher.)

I. IT WAS THE EXERCISE OF THIS VIRTUE THAT MADE POSSIBLE OUR DELIVERANCE FROM SIN. "God so loved the world," etc. It was Christ's love that constrained Him to do and suffer so much that the sinner might be restored. Of all the Divine attributes it is love that stands out in grandest outline.

II. THERE IS NO OTHER VIRTUE LIKE IT TO INSPIRE SACRIFICE. Love for God and for man inspired Grace Darling to imperil her life to rescue wrecked mariners from a watery grave. It moved an Elizabeth Fry to abandon home to find the criminal in his cell, and lead him to a higher life. It induces the minister of the Cross to endanger life, that he may save his heathen brother.

III. THERE IS NO OTHER SO EFFECTIVE FOR WINNING AND MAINTAINING THE GOOD-WILL OF OUR FELLOW-MEN. The man of eminence, intelligence, or affluence is envied if not hated at times by those less fortunate; but a loving man unites all classes to him, and even conquers our enemies and compels their love in return. "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself," says Napoleon, "founded great empires; but upon what did the creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions are ready to die for Him." William Penn, who lived for many years in the midst of six warring Indian tribes in harmony and peace, assured his dusky brethren of the forest, "The great God of heaven has written His law of love upon our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love, to help, and to do good to each other; and to-day we meet you in the broad pathway of love and good-will, hoping no advantage may be taken on either side." While other colonists were building forts and displaying their arms, and hence involved in trouble and war, the flowers of prosperity and peace blossomed in the footprints of William Penn.

IV. THERE IS NO OTHER VIRTUE THAT SO GLADDENS THE HEART AND ENRICHES THE LIFE. Love is to the heart what summer is to the year, maturing all the noblest and grandest fruits. The man in whose heart the spirit of love abides has a sort of music within to which he may march all the day long without exhaustion. His work, whether spiritual or manual, on Sunday or Monday, is no servitude, for duty becomes a delight. Love "oils" the complex machinery of his whole being, and thus prevents the daily friction that is such an enemy to human life. Where there is love for one's work there will be no reluctance or hanging back, for love is an impelling motive.

(W. G. Thrall.)

(H. W. Beecher.)

1. It is implied by the apostle that they are all great. He speaks of "the greatest." Faith is a great thing. It implies reason, truth, and the investigation of evidence; it is a great thing in business, in science, in society, as well as religion; it is a power that removes mountains. See a record of its brilliant achievements in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Hope is a great thing too. It implies the recognition of good, a desire for good, and an expectation of good; it bears as an angel into the brightness of the future; it makes the greatest trials of the present bearable by bringing into the spirit the blessedness of the future.

2. It is implied by the apostle that they are all permanent. There "abideth."

II. THE SUPERIORITY OF ONE OF THE THREE. The greatest of these three is charity. Why is it the greatest?

1. It is a virtue in itself. There is no moral virtue in faith or hope. They are under certain conditions necessary states of mind; but love, disinterested, godly love, is in itself a virtue. It is in truth the substratum of all virtuous states.

2. It is that quality which alone gives virtue to all other states of mind. Where this love is not, faith and hope are morally worthless. They are trees without one leaf of virtue on their branches.

3. It is that state of mind by which the soul subordinates the universe to itself. The loving soul can alone interpret the universe. The loving soul alone appropriates the universe. "All things work together for good to them that love God," etc.

4. It is that state of mind which links the spirit to all holy intelligences. Love is the attractive power that binds the holy universe together. Faith and hope are not so.

5. It is that state of mind which includes the highest faith and hope. Love implies the both.

6. It is that state of mind which is in itself happiness. Love is happiness. We cannot say so either of faith or hope.

7. Love is the most Godlike state of the soul.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

1. Its endurance. Prophecies fail when the thing prophesied takes place. Love has a continuous life. If there is anything destined to immortality that thing is love.

2. Hence the next reason for esteeming charity as the greatest of great things, and that is, the nothingness of all things without it. Prophetical insight, the profuse distribution of wealth, and the bravery of martyrdom its If, all — all are hollow where charity is not. So true it is that charity is the greatest of great things. It gives a Divine substance to human graces, and at its bidding that which otherwise were but perishing beauty starts, like Jairus's daughter, from its shroud, and moves to beautify the home and give happiness there as only the true daughter can.

3. But again, charity is the greatest of great things, because it sways the will. Duties that we love not are clogs. He that clings to the world rather than to Christ must look the solemn fact in the face — that he loved the world more than Christ, and that love sways his will. It is not inability — it is not natural or moral infirmity of the will that keeps us from becoming more godly. It is our loves — our affections that are more fed and strengthened by sinful desires than by angels' food.

4. And this suggests the fourth reason why charity is to be esteemed the greatest of great things, and that is, it is the fulfilment of the law. He that wishes to do something as God does all things has only this to do — exercise a pure love — an enduring, an edifying, a will-swaying love. He who performs one act of disinterested benevolence, acts so far on the high plane of the Deity.

(H. Bacon.)

1. Charity, to my view, is the greatest of the three graces, because it is the most God-like. Faith believes the Bible, hope rests upon it, charity enlarges the Bible. There is more light to break forth over God's Word, and the loving heart will be the first to catch it. This helps to give charity the pre-eminence.

2. Charity is pre-eminent, inasmuch as it is the greatest stimulant to labour. The world is so fashioned, man is so placed that there is always a great and urgent need for work. It is work that turns the wilderness into a paradise, which levels mountains and fills up valleys. Hope is a great aid to diligence. The ploughman would not plough, by reason of the cold, if he were not encouraged by hope, and shown in anticipation the verdure of the next spring, the blossoms of the next summer, and the harvest of the next autumn. But ofttimes there is work to be done when faith is feeble and hope is ready to die, and then love alone can strengthen the labourer for the task. In the sick chamber there must be weary watchfulness and diligence, hope cannot sustain, nor can faith; but the care is as tender and the diligence is as great as ever, because love is present in the heart of the watcher and the worker, and love sustains when every other support has failed. We want men who will love the world, and who will work for its enlightenment, for its emancipation and its redemption, when difficulties are great, when progress is almost invisible, and when faith and hope are ready to die.

3. The way to obtain this charity is to live close to Him in whom this charity was perfectly exemplified. I must remind you of an old story concerning the tomb of Orpheus, who was so skilled in melody. It was said that the nightingale which built her nest nearest to the tomb had always the sweetest song. Here is a man, a Divine man; Divine pity was expressed in human tears, Divine love worked through human hands, Divine charity was exemplified in human love. He who lives nearest to Jesus will become the most perfect in this charity, and will win the brightest crown within his grasp.

(C. Vince.)

2. But the many-sidedness of love is not the only ground of its supremacy. St. Paul next draws attention to its permanence. "Love never faileth," and in this respect he again contrasts it with those spiritual gifts which first occasioned the mention of it.

3. And this brings us to the last of the contrasts suggested in this marvellous chapter. Love is not only above all gifts, it is many-sided while they are single; it is permanent while they are fleeting; but it is chief also among the graces which abide, because while they are in their very nature incomplete, it is already stamped with the mark of perfection. Truth may change, or rather the opinions which passed for truth, but the blessed three, faith, hope, and love, shall abide; faith the evidence, hope the earnest, love the very foretaste of heaven. There is no putting of these away as childhood passes into manhood. They were born with our birth, they will follow us to the grave. They are, whether we will or no, the links which bind us to the invisible. And of these love is the greatest, greater than faith, which is trust in God; greater than hope, which is desire after Him. It is the source of them both. It is God's own likeness already revealed in our hearts. Doubtless in this our present state, love is very far from perfect — God knows how weak it is, how partial, how selfish — but in so far as it is love, I say, it has upon it the stamp of perfection. It is the grace which brought Christ down to earth. It is the grace, the only grace that raises man to heaven. Is your life and mine in any sense an endeavour to follow after the pre-eminent grace of love? To decide the question, let us take St. Paul's description, and honestly try ourselves thereby.

(E. M. Young, M.A.)

II. HOW STRONGLY DOES THIS STANDARD OF CHARACTER CONTRAST WITH THAT OF THE WORLD! Who is the man that the age delighteth to honour? Is it the gentle, loving disciple of Jesus? Nay, is it not the proud, selfish, and ambitious?

III. HIS ACCOUNT OF CHARITY SHEDS A REPROVING LIGHT UPON NATIONAL ANTIPATHIES AND WAR. Why should the geographical and political divisions of the globe sever the bonds of human brotherhood and limit the sphere of Christian benevolence? Can Christ's followers be murderers? and what is war but wholesale murder?

IV. HOW SEVERELY DOES CHARITY CONDEMN THE BIGOTRY OF SECTARIAN PREJUDICE AND THE BITTERNESS OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY! Why should some difference of opinion in matters not fundamental alienate from one another hearts that were else one in Christ? If we differ in many things, do we not agree in more? and are not those in which we agree much more important than those in which we differ?

V. IN THE LIGHT OF OUR EXPOSITION, HOW ARE WE TO ESTIMATE THE GUILT OF THOSE WHO CAUSE RUINOUS DIVISIONS IN THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH? If it is so good and pleasant a thing for brethren to dwell together in unity, who shall measure the mischief done by breaking up the family? If charity is the bond of perfectness, the test of Christian character, the best recommendation of the gospel, and the condemnation of a discordant world, what words shall suffice to express the repugnance of every true disciple to that wicked schismatical spirit which often wounds it so recklessly or murders it outright?

(J. Cross, D.D.)

II. WHENCE HATH LOVE ITS BIRTH? In the infinite love of God, charity is greater than faith and hope and any other grace, because it has its source in that which God is. Hence then it is love which gives the value to all deeds of faith, or devotion, or toil, or love, or martyrdom; because love is of God, and refers all to God. Noble self-denying deeds may be for man's praise or in self-complacency; chastity may be proud; alms-giving, vain-glorious. Active service may be its own reward; death itself may be undergone amid obstinacy. Love hath no end but God, seeketh nothing but Himself for Himself. All virtues are but forms of love, for she is the soul of all. "Temperance," says , "is love, keeping itself pure and undefiled for God. Fortitude is love, readily enduring all things for the sake of God. Justice is love which serveth God alone, and so hath command over all things subject to man. Prudence is love, distinguishing what helpeth it towards God, from what hindereth it"; or, "Love, kindled with entire holiness towards God, when it coveteth nothing out of God, is called temperance; when it willingly parteth with all, is called fortitude." The worldly, careless, covetous, hard-hearted, the lovers of pleasure, cannot love God, but neither do they desire to love Him.

III. HOLY MEN HAVE DISTINGUISHED FOUR STAGES OF LOVE.

1. The first state of fallen man is, alas! to "love himself for himself." In this state, he rather fears God than loves Him.

2. Yet man needs God; and so he begins by faith to seek after and love God, because he needs Him. And so he is brought to a second stage of love, to love God for man's own sake. Much as a man might value the sun, because it warms him and ripens his corn, so man makes himself his centre, and loves God because he needs Him. Yet God so humbleth Himself, that He willeth even thus to be loved. Nay, He has therefore surrounded us with the blessings of nature, that all things around us may teach us to love God, because He made them "very good." Yet in some such way might a heathen love. It is a Christian form of this love of God for man's own sake, if a man loves Him, because He has redeemed him, because, without Him, he cannot be saved, and he hopes to be saved by Him.

3. Next God becomes known to the soul, and consequently sweet to it; and so, having "tasted that the Lord is good," he passes to the third degree, and loves God for His own sake. Yet even in beginning to love God for His own sake, there is a snare lest men should love God for sensible sweetnesses and the consolations which, when He sees good, He gives in prayer or the Holy Sacrament; and so He often withdraws these comforts, and leaves the soul in darkness, after showing her His light, and in dryness, after having bathed her in His sweetness, that He may prove the soul that she follows Him, not for the loaves and fishes, but for love of Himself alone. This is a pure chaste love, which loves God not for any gifts of His, not even for everlasting bliss as His gift. Pure love would not be contented with all the glories and brightness and beauty of heaven itself: it stops short of nothing, it could be satisfied with nothing, but the love of God Himself. It loves God "because He is good "; and so it loves the will of God, and becomes conformed to it, and wills, or wills not, not for its own pleasure, but for the will of God.

4. And so the soul is formed towards that last stage of love, of which, blessed are they who have for a moment some faint glimpse in this life, but which is life eternal, that man should love himself only for the sake of God. In this the soul, borne out of itself with Divine love, losing itself in a manner, as though it were not, emptied of itself, "goeth forth wholly into God, and cleaving to God, becometh one spirit with Him, so that it may say, 'My flesh and my heart faileth, but Thou art the God of my heart and God my portion for ever.'" For since God is the centre of all things, so the soul, when perfected, must will to be nothing but what God wills; to be, only that He may live in it; to be dissolved, as it were, and wholly transfused into the will of God. Of these stages of love, the love of God only for one's own sake, is blessed as a step towards that which is better; yet there is much danger lest, if God gives a man not what he wills, or what he wills not, he should lose what love he seemed to have. Thus people have become embittered or impatient through misfortunes, as though God had dealt hardly with them, and have thrown off the love of God.

IV. HOW, THEN, ARE WE TO KNOW WHETHER WE HAVE LOVE; HOW GAIN IT? The tests whereby we may know whether we have this love of God for Himself are also the means of gaining it, or of increasing it. How is it with those whom you dearly love on earth? Be this the proof of your love of God.

1. You gladly think of them, when absent. You are glad to turn from converse with others, to speak with them. One word or look of theirs is sweeter than all which is not they.

2. You are glad to hear of those you love; you are glad when others speak good of them.

3. You love anything which belongs to them

4. You gladly suffer for them.

5. You have no other will than theirs.

6. You are jealous for their honour.

7. For their sake you value not any outward things which others prize.

8. You do all things for their sake and count nothing too little, nothing too great to do for them. Conclusion: Faint not, any who would love Jesus, if ye find yourselves yet far short of what He Himself who is love saith of the love of Him. Perfect love is heaven. When ye are perfected in love, your work on earth is done. There is no short road to heaven or to love.Do what in thee lies by the grace of God, and He will lead thee from strength to strength, and grace to grace, and love to love.

1. Be diligent by His grace to do no wilful sin; for sin, wilfully done, kills the soul, and casts out of it the love of God.

2. Seek to love nothing out of God. God re-makes a broken heart and fills it with love. He cannot fill a divided heart.

3. Think often of God. For how canst thou know or love God if thou fillest thy mind with thoughts of all things under the sun, and thy thoughts wander to the ends of the earth, and thou gatherest them not unto God?

4. Bring all things, as thou mayest, nigh to God; let not them hurry thee away from Him.

5. Be not held back by any thought of unworthiness or by failures from the childlike love of God.

6. Be diligent, after thy power, to do deeds of love. Think nothing too little, nothing too low, to do lovingly for the sake of God. Bear with infirmities, ungentle tempers, contradictions; visit the sick, relieve the poor, etc.

7. Where, above all, shouldest thou seek for His love but in the feast of His love? Without it, ye cannot have any true love.

(E. B. Pusey, D.D.)

II. IS THE PRINCIPLE OF ALL GENUINE SOCIAL LIFE. "If God so loves us, we ought also to love one another." Christians —

1. Are the children of one Father's household, and hence must love each other as kindred.

2. Are under equal exposures. The world drives up against them on the outside; they should therefore organise for mutual defence.

3. Have all the same work; and it is time we comforted each other with a comparison of tasks and of patience under them.

III. IS THE PRINCIPLE OF EMINENT ZEAL.

1. There is no comfort in work where there is not love as the motive of it. God loved the world; Christ loved the souls He died to redeem; Christians are moved by love for those around them; or else the work is drudgery, and can never claim blessing.

2. What will not love do and dare? With only an earthly object Love swam the Hellespont, and gave a name to every hero who holds out a torch. With no more than filial strength, it sent Coriolanus back from treason at the gates, and delivered Rome from downfall.

3. But then, how gentle this love is also! This is the only natural force that works by tenderness. It made Paul weep, it filled the eyes of Jesus with tears. Yet there is no effeminacy in it. John, who spoke most about it, was a "son of thunder."

4. Such love is effective when everything else would fail. "I came to break your head," once said a rough man to Whitefield, with a big stone in hand; "but by the grace of God you have broken my heart."

IV. IS THE PRINCIPLE OF HEAVENLY ENJOYMENT. This wonderful charity issues in a completeness at the limit of life, that the life itself which it tenanted never knew nor even suspected: "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part," etc.

(C. S. Robinson, D.D.)

(R. Tuck, B.A.)

(R. Tuck, B.A.).