HOW TO OBEY AN IMPOSSIBLE INJUNCTION
FAITH, LOVE, HOPE, AND THEIR FRUITS
SMALL DUTIES AND THE GREAT HOPE
THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY
CONTINUAL PRAYER AND ITS EFFECTS
CHRIST GLORIFIED IN GLORIFIED MEN
EVERLASTING CONSOLATION AND GOOD HOPE
THE LORD OF PEACE AND THE PEACE OF THE LORD
'THE GOSPEL OF THE GLORY OF THE HAPPY GOD'
THE CONDUCT THAT SECURES THE REAL LIFE
II. CORINTHIANS
HOPE AND HOLINESS
Having therefore these promises … let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.'—2 Cor. vii. 1.
It is often made a charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy does not condemn them half so emphatically as their own religion does: the sharpest censure of others is not so sharp as the rebukes of the New Testament. If there is one thing which it insists upon more than another, it is that religion without morality is nothing—that the one test to which, after all, every man must submit is, what sort of character has he and how has he behaved—is he pure or foul? All high-flown pretension, all fervid emotion has at last to face the question which little children ask, 'Was he a good man?'
The Apostle has been speaking about very high and mystical truths, about all Christians being the temple of God, about God dwelling in men, about men and women being His sons and daughters; these are the very truths on which so often fervid imaginations have built up a mystical piety that had little to do with the common rules of right and wrong. But Paul keeps true to the intensely practical purpose of his preaching and brings his heroes down to the prosaic earth with the homely common sense of