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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-25 sits inside this longer paragraph.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
But the frute of sprete is loue ioye peace longesufferinge gentlenes goodnes faythfulnes
meknes temperancye. Agaynst suche ther is no lawe.
They ye are Christis have crucified the flesshe with the appetites and lustes
Yf we lyve in the sprete let vs walke in the sprete.
But the fruite of the Spirit is loue, ioye, peace, long suffering, gentlenes, goodnes, fayth,
Meekenesse, temperancie: against such there is no lawe.
For they that are Christes, haue crucified the flesh with the affections and the lustes.
If we liue in the Spirit, let vs also walke in the Spirit.
63 distinct cross-references across this passage (64 total citations).
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Martin Luther 1535 · Public Domain On vv22–25 VERSES 22, 23. But the fruit of the Spirit…
VERSES 22, 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
The Apostle does not speak of the works of the Spirit as he spoke of the works of the flesh, but he attaches to these Christian virtues a better name. He calls them the fruits of the Spirit.
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LOVE
It would have been enough to mention only the single fruit of love, for love embraces all the fruits of the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul attributes to love all the fruits of the Spirit: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind," etc. Here he lets love stand by itself among other fruits of the Spirit to remind the Christians to love one another, "in honor preferring one another," to esteem others more than themselves because they have Christ and the Holy Ghost within them.
JOY
Joy means sweet thoughts of Christ, melodious hymns and psalms, praises and thanksgiving, with which Christians instruct, inspire, and refresh themselves. God does not like doubt and dejection. He hates dreary doctrine, gloomy and melancholy thought. God likes cheerful hearts. He did not send His Son to fill us with sadness, but to gladden our hearts. For this reason the prophets, apostles, and Christ Himself urge, yes, command us to rejoice and be glad. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy king cometh unto thee." (Zec 9:9.) In the Psalms we are repeatedly told to be "joyful in the Lord." Paul says: "Rejoice in the Lord always." Christ says: "Rejoice, for your names are written in heaven."
PEACE
Peace towards God and men. Christians are to be peaceful and quiet. Not argumentative, not hateful, but thoughtful and patient. There can be no peace without longsuffering, and therefore Paul lists this virtue next.
LONGSUFFERING
Longsuffering is that quality which enables a person to bear adversity, injury, reproach, and makes them patient to wait for the improvement of those who have done him wrong. When the devil finds that he cannot overcome certain persons by force he tries to overcome them in the long run. He knows that we are weak and cannot stand anything long. Therefore he repeats his temptation time and again until he succeeds. To withstand his continued assaults we must be longsuffering and patiently wait for the devil to get tired of his game.
GENTLENESS
Gentleness in conduct and life. True followers of the Gospel must not be sharp and bitter, but gentle, mild, courteous, and soft-spoken, which should encourage others to seek their company. Gentleness can overlook other people’s faults and cover them up. Gentleness is always glad to give in to others. Gentleness can get along with forward and difficult persons, according to the old pagan saying: "You must know the manners of your friends, but you must not hate them." Such a gentle person was our Savior Jesus Christ, as the Gospel portrays Him. Of Peter it is recorded that he wept whenever he remembered the sweet gentleness of Christ in His daily contact with people. Gentleness is an excellent virtue and very useful in every walk of life.
GOODNESS
A person is good when he is willing to help others in their need.
FAITH
In listing faith among the fruits of the Spirit, Paul obviously does not mean faith in Christ, but faith in men. Such faith is not suspicious of people but believes the best. Naturally the possessor of such faith will be deceived, but he lets it pass. He is ready to believe all men, but he will not trust all men. Where this virtue is lacking men are suspicious, forward, and wayward and will believe nothing nor yield to anybody. No matter how well a person says or does anything, they will find fault with it, and if you do not humor them you can never please them. It is quite impossible to get along with them. Such faith in people therefore, is quite necessary. What kind of life would this be if one person could not believe another person?
MEEKNESS
A person is meek when he is not quick to get angry. Many things occur in daily life to provoke a person’s anger, but the Christian gets over his anger by meekness.
TEMPERANCE
Christians are to lead sober and chaste lives. They should not be adulterers, fornicators, or sensualists. They should not be quarrelers or drunkards. In the first and second chapters of the Epistle to Titus, the Apostle admonishes bishops, young women, and married folks to be chaste and pure.
Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv22–25 22. But the fruit of the Spirit. In the…
22. But the fruit of the Spirit. In the former part of the description he condemned the whole nature of man as producing nothing but evil and worthless fruits. He now informs us that all virtues, all proper and well regulated affections, proceed from the Spirit, that is, from the grace of God, and the renewed nature which we derive from Christ. As if he had said, “Nothing but what is evil comes from man; nothing good comes but from the Holy Spirit.” There have often appeared in unrenewed men remarkable instances of gentleness, integrity, temperance, and generosity; but it is certain that all were but specious disguises. Curius and Fabrieius were distinguished for courage, Cato for temperance, Scipio for kindness and generosity, Fabius for patience; but it was only in the sight of men, and as members of civil society, that they were so distinguished. In the sight of God nothing is pure but what proceeds from the fountain of all purity.
Joy does not here, I think, denote that “joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17,) of which he speaks elsewhere, but that cheerful behavior towards our fellow-men which is the opposite of moroseness. Faith means truth, and is contrasted with cunning, deceit, and falsehood, as peace is with quarrels and contentions. Long-suffering is gentleness of mind, which disposes us to take everything in good part, and not to be easily offended. The other terms require no explanation, for the dispositions of the mind must be learned from the outward conduct.
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But if spiritual men are known by their works, what judgment, it will be asked, shall we form of wicked men and idolaters, who exhibited an illustrious resemblance of all the virtues? for it is evident from their works that they were spiritual. I reply, as all the works of the flesh do not appear openly in a carnal man, but his carnaltry is discovered by one or another vice, so a single virtue will not entitle us to conclude that a man is spiritual. Sometimes it will be made evident, by other vices, that sin reigns in him; and this observation may be easily applied to all the cases which I have enumerated.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 Therefore, they are not the fruits of free will,…
Therefore, they are not the fruits of free will, but so far forth as our will is made free by grace.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv22–25 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love,…
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Ver. 22. The fruit of the Spirit] The spirit of grace are those two golden pipes, Zec 4:12, through which the two olive branches empty out of themselves the golden oils of all precious graces into the candlestick, the Church. Hence grace is here and elsewhere called the fruits of the Spirit, pleasant fruits, Son 4:16; Son 6:2; Joh 15:16.
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Longsuffering] It hath been questioned by Aquinas whether a man can be longsuffering, sine auxilio gratiae, without the help of grace. But that which is right is a fruit of the Spirit.
Gentleness] Gr. χρηστατης. Usefulness, sweetness.
Faith] That is, faithfulness, as Mat 23:23; 1Ti 5:12; Tit 2:10.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv22–25 The fruit of the Spirit; those habits which the…
The fruit of the Spirit; those habits which the Holy Spirit of God produceth in those in whom it dwelleth and worketh, with those acts which flow from them, as naturally as the tree produceth its fruit, are,
love to God, and to our neighbours:
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joy; the soul’s satisfaction in its union with God, as the greatest and highest good; with an actual rejoicing in Christ, and in what is for his honour and glory, called a rejoicing in the truth, 1Co 13:6; and in the good of our brethren, Rom 12:15;
peace; quietude of conscience, or peace with God, (of which peace of conscience is a copy), and a peaceable disposition towards men, opposed to strife, variance, emulations, &c.:
long-suffering; opposed to a hastiness to revenge, and inclining us patiently to bear injuries:
gentleness; sweetness and kindness of temper, by which we accommodate ourselves, and become mutually useful to each other:
goodness; a disposition in us to hurt none, but to do all the good we can to all:
faith; by faith seemeth here to be meant, truth in words, faithfulness in promises, and in dealings one with another.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 25 Observe here, 1. That the apostle, who called sin…
Observe here, 1. That the apostle, who called sin the work of the flesh, doth here call grace the fruit of the Spirit. Sin is a work of our own; it proceeds wholly from ourselves, our own depraved minds and wills, without the least co-operation of the holy Spirit; he can neither be the author nor abettor of any thing that is evil. All sinful works are works of the flesh, and therefore our own works; but all graces accompanying salvation, are the fruit of God’s Spirit: both because he is the author of them and also, because they are so acceptable and pleasing to him even as fruit is unto our taste, and likewise so profitble and advantageous to ourselves. Where the flesh ruleth, there the work exceeds the fruit; and accordingly, without any mentioning of the fruit, they are called works of the flesh; but where the Spirit of God ruleth, there the fruit exceeds the work; and therefore, without ever mentioning the work, it is called the fruit of the Spirit.
Observe, 2. That the works of the flesh are spoken of as many; but the fruit of the Spirit is spoken of as one, many works, but one fruit. There is such a connection and concatenation of graces, that although they are distinct in their natures, yet are they inseparable in their subject, pull one link of a chain, and you pull all; so he that has any one spiritual grace in reality, or at least in eminency, cannot be utterly destitute of any other; for where the holy Spirit is, there cannot be a total defect of any holy grace.
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Observe, 3. That the works of the flesh are said to be manifest, Gal 5:19 but no such thing is here affirmed of the fruit of the Spirit. Alas! God knows, the works of the flesh are but every where too manifest; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness, do so abound in all places, that you can scarce look beside them: But the fruits of the Spirit are not so; love, peace, gentleness, meekness, these are very thing in the world; hips and haws grow in every hedge, when choicer fruits are but in some few gardens.
Observe, 4. How St. Paul enumerates here nine special fruits of the Spirit; not as if there were more, but because these here mentioned stand in a direct opposition to the former vices recited in the foregoing verses.
The first sweet fruit of the Spirit, taken notice of here by the apostle, is love ; a holy affection in the soul, whereby a person is carried forth to love God, primarily and chiefly for himself, and his neighbour for God’s sake:
Joy, delight in doing our duty, and rejoicing in the expectation of the reward for well-doing:
Peace, inward peace with God and conscience, and outward peace with one another:
Long-suffering, an inclination of mind disposing us to bear injuries patiently, and to forgive them readily:
Gentleness, or affability and courtesy in conversation, a sweetness of temper, which renders us greatly useful, as well as exceedingly delightful to mankind:
Goodness, a disposition inclining us to communicate what we have and are to others, and to do all the possible good we can in our respective places and stations:
Faith, or fidelity towards men, in our promises, and in all our actions, speaking exact truth:
Meekness, this is threefold, a natural meekness, which is the product of the temperament of the humours in the body, a rare felicity; there is also a moral meekness, which is the product of education and counsel, this is an amiable virtue; and there is a spiritual meekness that order the persons according to the divine rule, the holy law of God; this is a noble and divine grace, which attracts the estimation of God, and the admiration of men:
Temperance, a sober use of meat, drink, and every thing wherein our senses are gratified or delighted.
Observe, 5. A special privilge belonging to all those who are possessed of the forementioned fruits of the Spirit, and that is, exemption from the law: Against such there is no law; that is, no law to compel, no law to accuse or condemn them; for the law enjoins them, and encourgaes the practice and performance of them.
Learn hence, 1. That the best, yea, the only way to have the fruits of the Spirit thrive in our hearts, is first to mortify the works of the flesh; weeds and thistles must be rooted up before grain can grow or thrive. As the corruption of one form is the production of another, so the morification of sin makes way for the plantation of the fruits of the Spirit.
Learn, 2. That moral virtues are the fruits of the Spirit, and commence Christian graces when they are acted by faith in Christ, influenced by love unto him, and aiming at the highest of ends, the glory of God and our salvation.
Learn, 3. That if we compare the fruits of the Spirit with the works of the flesh, there will appear so much beauty in the one, and such real deformity in the other, so much satisfaction in the one, and such disquiet and vexation in the other, that besides the difference between them in their original and event, the former considerations are abundantly sufficient to engage our love to the fruits of the Spirit, and to excite our hatred to the works of the flesh.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Meekness,.... Humility and lowliness of mind, of which Christ…
Meekness,.... Humility and lowliness of mind, of which Christ is an eminent example and pattern; and which the Holy Spirit from him transcribes into the heart of a regenerate person; and lies in having mean thoughts of himself, in walking humbly with God, acknowledging every favour, being thankful for every blessing, and depending on his grace, and in behaving with modesty and humility among men. The last of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned is
temperance, or "continence"; and designs both chastity and sobriety, and particularly moderation in eating and drinking. It may be observed, that these fruits of the Spirit are opposed to the works of the flesh. So love is opposed to hatred; joy to emulations and envying; peace to variance, strife, and seditions; longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and meekness, to wrath and murders; faith to idolatry, witchcraft, and heresies; and temperance to adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness, and revellings.
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Against such there is no law; meaning, against such fruits, graces, and good things; these being perfectly agreeable to the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, and spiritual; and are so far from being forbidden by it, that they are highly esteemed and approved of by it: or against persons that are possessed of such fruits; for these appear to be in the spirit, and to be led by the Spirit; and therefore are not under the law, and have nothing to fear from it, as a terrifying, accusing, cursing, and condemning law. The works of the flesh, and they that are of the flesh, are such that come under the notice and lash of the law; and not the fruits of the Spirit, and they that are after the Spirit, as such are who partake of his fruit.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Love - The root of all the rest. Gentleness…
Love - The root of all the rest. Gentleness - Toward all men; ignorant and wicked men in particular. Goodness - The Greek word means all that is benign, soft, winning, tender, either in temper or behaviour.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit] Both…
Verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit] Both flesh-the sinful dispositions of the human heart and spirit-the changed or purified state of the soul, by the grace and Spirit of God, are represented by the apostle as trees, one yielding good the other bad fruit; the productions of each being according to the nature of the tree, as the tree is according to the nature of the seed from which it sprung. The bad seed produced a bad tree, yielding all manner of bad fruit; the good seed produced a good tree, bringing forth fruits of the most excellent kind. The tree of the flesh, with all its bad fruits, we have already seen; the tree of the Spirit, with its good fruits, we shall now see.
Love] αγαπη. An intense desire to please God, and to do good to mankind; the very soul and spirit of all true religion; the fulfilling of the law, and what gives energy to faith itself. See Ga 5:6.
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Joy] χαρα. The exultation that arises from a sense of God's mercy communicated to the soul in the pardon of its iniquities, and the prospect of that eternal glory of which it has the foretaste in the pardon of sin. See Ro 5:2.
Peace] ειρηνη. The calm, quiet, and order, which take place in the justified soul, instead of the doubts, fears, alarms, and dreadful forebodings, which every true penitent less or more feels, and must feel till the assurance of pardon brings peace and satisfaction to the mind. Peace is the first sensible fruit of the pardon of sin. See Ro 5:1, and the notes there.
Long-suffering] μακροθυμια. Long-mindedness, bearing with the frailties and provocations of others, from the consideration that God has borne long with ours; and that, if he had not, we should have been speedily consumed: bearing up also through all the troubles and difficulties of life without murmuring or repining; submitting cheerfully to every dispensation of God's providence, and thus deriving benefit from every occurrence.
Gentleness] χρηστοτης Benignity, affability; a very rare grace, often wanting in many who have a considerable share of Christian excellence. A good education and polished manners, when brought under the influence of the grace of God, will bring out this grace with great effect.
Goodness] αγαθωσυνη. The perpetual desire and sincere study, not only to abstain from every appearance of evil, but to do good to the bodies and souls of men to the utmost of our ability. But all this must spring from a good heart-a heart purified by the Spirit of God; and then, the tree being made good, the fruit must be good also.
Faith] πιστις, here used for fidelity-punctuality in performing promises, conscientious carefulness in preserving what is committed to our trust, in restoring it to its proper owner, in transacting the business confided to us, neither betraying the secret of our friend, nor disappointing the confidence of our employer.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 25 Gal 5:22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit —…
Gal 5:22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit — He says the fruit of the Spirit, to signify that the graces here mentioned are the natural, genuine product of the influences of the Spirit upon the mind of man. It is not possible to give a higher praise to any temper of mind, or course of life, than to say, it is the fruit of the Spirit of God; is love — To God, his people, and all mankind, the source of all the other fruits; joy — Arising from a sense of the remission of sins, of the favour of God, of adoption into his family, and being constituted his children and his heirs; from a lively hope of the heavenly inheritance, the testimony of a conscience void of offence toward God and man, (2Co 1:12,) communion with God, and an earnest of heaven in our hearts. Peace — Namely, with God, and in our own consciences, and a disposition, as far as possible, to live peaceably with all men; long-suffering — That is, patience in bearing with the infirmities, and faults, and even injuries of others; gentleness — Toward all men, ignorant and wicked men in particular, implying sweetness of speech and manners; goodness — A benevolent and beneficent disposition, with all that is kind, soft, winning, and tender, either in temper or behaviour, as the Greek word αγαθωσυνη implies; faith — Or rather fidelity, as the word here evidently signifies, namely, in engagements, promises, and trusts, or what we call good faith and uprightness in men’s dealings, neither, in any instance, imposing upon others, nor failing in any of those engagements which it is in our power to fulfil; meekness — Or calmness under provocations, holding all the affections and passions in an even balance; temperance — In the use of meats and drinks, and all animal gratifications: Against such holy and happy dispositions, there is no law — By this observation, the apostle intimates that the graces and virtues here mentioned are so manifestly excellent, that they not only never were forbidden by any human law, but that there never hath been any nation which did not acknowledge their excellence, and give proofs that they did so, by making them objects either of their public or their private institutions. And those who in the general course of their lives bring forth these amiable and benign fruits of the Spirit, are, by the grace of the gospel, freed from the condemning sentence of the divine law.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv22–25 But the fruit of the Spirit - That which…
But the fruit of the Spirit - That which the Holy Spirit produces. It is not without design, evidently, that the apostle uses the word “Spirit” here, as denoting that these things do not flow from our own nature. The vices above enumerated are the proper “works” or result of the operations of the human heart; the virtues which he enumerates are produced by a foreign influence - the agency of the Holy Spirit. Hence, Paul does not trace them to our own hearts, even when renewed. He says that they are to be regarded as the proper result of the Spirit’s operations on the soul.
Is love - To God and to human beings. Probably the latter here is particularly intended, as the fruits of the Spirit are placed in contradistinction from those vices which lead to strifes among people. On the meaning of the word love, see the notes at 1Co 13:1; and for an illustration of its operations and effects, see the notes at that whole chapter.
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Joy - In the love of God; in the evidences of pardon; in communion with the Redeemer, and in his service; in the duties of religion, in trial, and in the hope of heaven; see the notes at Rom 5:2; compare 1Pe 1:8.
Peace - As the result of reconciliation with God; see the notes at Rom 5:1.
Long-suffering - In affliction and trial, and when injured by others; see the note at 1Co 13:4.
Gentleness - The same word which is translated “kindness” in 2Co 6:6; see the note at that place. The word means goodness, kindness, benignity; and is opposed to a harsh, crabbed, crooked temper. It is a disposition to be pleased; it is mildness of temper, calmness of spirit, an unruffled disposition, and a disposition to treat all with urbanity and politeness. This is one of the regular effects of the Spirit’s operations on the heart. Religion makes no one crabby, and morose, and sour. It sweetens the temper; corrects an irritable disposition; makes the heart kind; disposes us to make all around us as happy as possible. This is true politeness; a kind of politeness which can far better be learned in the school of Christ than in that of Chesterfield; by the study of the New Testament than under the direction of the dancing-master.
Goodness - See the note at Rom 15:14. Here the word seems to be used in the sense of beneficence, or a disposition to do good to others. The sense is, that a Christian must be a good man.
Faith - On the meaning of the word faith, see the note at Mar 16:16. The word here may be used in the sense of fidelity, and may denote that the Christian will be a faithful man, a man faithful to his word and promises; a man who can be trusted or confided in. It is probable that the word is used in this sense because the object of the apostle is not to speak of the feelings which we have toward God so much as to illustrate the influences of the Spirit in directing and controlling our feelings toward people. True religion makes a man faithful. The Christian is faithful as a man; faithful as a neighbor, friend, father, husband, son. He is faithful to his contracts; faithful to his promises. No man can be a Christian who is not thus faithful, and all pretensions to being under the influences of the Spirit when such fidelity does not exist, are deceitful and vain.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v22 The fruit of the Spirit is charity, &c. There…
The fruit of the Spirit is charity, &c. There are numbered twelve of these fruits in the Latin, though but nine in the Greek text, in St. John Chrysostom; St. Jerome; St. Augustine, tract. lxxxvii. in Joan. p. 756. The difference may again happen by the Latin interpreter using two words to express one Greek word. It is observed, that longanimity and patience are in a manner the same; so are benignity and goodness; and so may be here continency and chastity. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v25 2. More special Admonition to the Walk in the…
2. More special Admonition to the Walk in the Spirit (to serving Love), or warning against excessive self-valuation and envious selfishness
(Gal_5:25 to Gal_6:10.)
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(Epistle for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
25If we live in [by]33 the Spirit, let us also walk in [by]34 the Spirit. 26Let us not be desirous of vain-glory [become vain-glorious], provoking one another, envying one another.
a. Warning against unloving self-exaltation above others (Gal_6:1-5)
6 1Brethren‚ if [even if]1 a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which [who] are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also [shouldst] be tempted. 2Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so [or thus shall ye] fulfil2 the law of Christ. 3For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4But let every [each] man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another [his ground of boasting only in what concerneth himself, and not in what concerneth the other].3 5For every [each] man shall bear his own load.4
b. Warning against envious selfishness.—Admonition to unweariedness in doing good, especially to teachers of the word (Gal_6:6-10).
6Let [But let] him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. 7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth to his [own] flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. 9And [But] let us not be weary5 in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 10As we have therefore [Accordingly then as we have]6 opportunity, let us do good7 unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Paul, after the exhortation, Gal_5:13 (and the more general one, Gal_5:16), had passed on to a more didactic exposition. But from Gal_5:25 on, he returns to the general exhortation to “walk by the Spirit” (which, as he means it, is essentially equivalent to exercising serving love) immediately specifying it more particularly, Gal_5:26; Gal_6:1 sq.
Gal_5:25. If we live by the Spirit.—Ζῇν πνεύματι means of course not the outward life, the realization in walk of this life in the Spirit, for the words “let us also walk,” etc., are the first in which the Apostle exhorts them to stamp the life by the Spirit upon the outward walk. Ζῇν therefore means the inner life, and the spiritual life is here referred to, as one at first entirely internal. It is not improbable that “live” is to be taken here in a pregnant sense (Meyer)=if we are living through the Spirit, i. e., death occurs to the man, who is Christ’s, with respect to the “flesh;” but in another respect precisely thus does Life come in; the death of the old man introduces the life of the new (comp. Gal_2:19-20), and this latter is grounded upon the “Spirit.” [There is some doubt as to the force of the dative πνεύματι here. Schmoller renders it durch den Geist; Meyer calls it ablatival, and Ellicott says it is “here adopted rather than διά with the accusative as thus forming a sharper antithesis to the dative which follows.” Alford follows the E. V., but, while objecting to the ablatival dative, gives the same sense to the word. Lightfoot renders “to the Spirit,” after the parallel passage, Rom_6:2; Rom_6:10 : “die unto sin,” etc. But the first view is preferable.—R.]—Let us also walk by the Spirit.=περιπ. πν. Gal_5:16. [Schmoller thus makes the second πνεύματι an instrumental dative, but it seems better to take it as a normal dative (so Gal_5:16) with Meyer, Ellicott, et al. The verb στοιχεῖν seems to imply a more studied following of a prescribed course.—The Greek order is striking: “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk.” “By” has both the instrumental and normal force in English.—R.] In what this walk should consist is then shown.
Gal_5:26. Let us not become vain-glorious.—The walking by the Spirit (or walking in love) should show itself thus. Κενόδοξον εἶναι=vanam gloriam capture, to affect vain-glory. [Γινώμεθα, “become” vain-glorious, there being in the verb as well as in the use of the first person an intentional mildness as though the sin had not yet taken root (Ellicott).—R.] The sense appears to be: we should not seek glory by provoking one another and envying one another, for such glory is “vain,” worthless.—Provoking one another.—Ἀλλήλους προκαλούμδνοι, by vaunting in the presence of those to whom we feel ourselves superior, by pressing our superiority.—Envying one another.—’Ἀλλήλοις φθονοῦντες, not favoring one another, enviously refusing to acknowledge the good qualities that a man possesses. (Φθουεῖν is to be taken in this sense here, see below on Gal_5:6; Gal_5:10.)—The seeking of vain-glory naturally goes hand in hand with provoking and envious behavior. Where the former is abandoned, the latter also disappears. The warning of this verse is nothing else than the admonition to serve one another by means of love (Gal_5:13), somewhat more particularly defined. The Apostle now reverts to this, in order to give it a more precise application. The remark on Gal_5:16, that the exhortation of the Apostle may have had a direct connection with the main theme of the Epistle, since the intrusion of the false teachers might very naturally have provoked a bitter party strife in the churches, applies also to the more special application of that admonition (Gal_5:13) in this section. Especially is it not improbable that through the intrusion of the false teachers the relation of the individual members to their teachers had been disturbed, thus giving occasion to the earnest admonition, Gal_6:6 sq. Yet this conjecture is not absolutely necessary; we need only suppose that some circumstances in the churches gave him particular occasion to direct his exhortation to this point.—[The context seems to justify the close connection of what follows with this verse. It is urged, however, that “brethren” indicates a change of topic (comp. Gal_4:12), and also that the change from the first to the second person favors the opinion that a new paragraph begins with Gal_6:1. But the thoughts are too closely linked, to allow these arguments from mere forms of expression to be conclusive against the close connection which Meyer and others defend.—R.]
VI. Gal_6:1-5. These verses extend the warning of Gal_5:26, against “provoking one another.” The Christian instead of using any advantage he may possess over another, or any defect he may observe in him, to exalt himself above him (and thereby to provoke him), should, as walking by the Spirit, do just the reverse, should set his neighbor right, when he sees him at fault (Gal_6:1) and then help him bear the burdens which oppress him (Gal_6:2). Gal_6:3 justifies these admonitions by the remark that a man’s thinking himself to be something, when he is nothing, is self-cheatery; for it is such a vain imagining that underlies the refusal to set others right (in the spirit of meekness) and to carry their burdens. As the right means to be saved from this self-deception, Paul proceeds to commend self-examination. (On this, see below, Gal_6:4-5.) [Ellicott thinks it probable “that the teachers are mainly addressed in Gal_6:1-6, and the hearers and laity in Gal_6:6-10.” But while there are points in the exhortation specially applicable to classes thus distinguished, it seems best not to discriminate thus, for it limits the force of some parts of the exhortation, and might lead to an incorrect interpretation of Gal_6:1.—R.]
Gal_6:1. [Brethren.—Beza: a whole argument lies hidden under this one word.—R.]—Even if a man be overtaken. Προλημφθῇ: πρό expresses undoubtedly the unexpectedness of the being taken=before a man is aware, or is able to offer resistance. The ἐν shows that the verb is here to be understood as=to entangle, so that in a fault, according to the frequent Biblical image, is used of the snare in which any one is caught (Wieseler). Luther gives the sense quite correctly: “ubereilt,” overtaken. [The strictly temporal reference (before the arrival of the Epistle, or a recurrence of the offence) is unsatisfactory. Ellicott, Alford and Lightfoot join καί with the verb: “if a man be even surprised,” i. e., caught before he can escape, flagrante delicto; thus implying an aggravation of the offence. But it is not necessary to connect καί thus, and such a meaning of the verb is rare, while the interpretation does not accord with the context so well as the common view given above. Meyer: The Apostle charitably regards the sins, which may occur among the Galatians, as peccata precipitantiæ.—R.]
Ye who are spiritual.—This refers back to Gal 6:25=ye who have the Holy Ghost, show your possession of it, your living by the Spirit, by such action. He thus describes “provoking one another,” as something repugnant to their very character. In view of this exalted predicate, which he ascribes to them, they should now reflect, what demeanor is the becoming one for them as “spiritual.” This implies that they are not now conducting themselves agreeably to this designation, or such admonitions would be unnecessary. [The general character of the exhortation forbids our finding in this phrase a reference to a party of more liberal views, who had taken his side against the Judaizers, and were not paying sufficient regard to the weaker brethren. Hence there is no irony, but he is giving a test for their spirituality. It is true those who would stand the test, who were really led by the Spirit, would necessarily be the adherents of Paul, as the representative of the freedom of the gospel, but there is no evidence that there was such a party when he wrote.—R.]—But to the validity of this claim to be “spiritual,” it is necessary that, when a brother is overtaken in a fault, the πνευματικός should restore such a one, should bring him into his normal state, instead of turning this fall into an occasion of self-exaltation against him. [Καταρτίζετε: the verb is properly a surgical term, applied to the setting of a joint, here used in an ethical sense, the idea of amendment being more prominent than that of punishment. The figurative meaning would perhaps imply some official act of restoration, but this is forbidden by the context.—R.] This “restoring” (or the wish for it) is the main idea, and not strictly speaking, as is commonly assumed, the spirit of meekness; or at least not this alone. This latter phrase only states the manner in which the setting right should be performed. This spirit must attend the act, or there is no real restoration, only a seeming one, in which the irritating lust of praise still seeks its gratification. It is forced, to understand “spirit” of the Holy Spirit, whose character is meekness, or rather who bestows meekness; it signifies the human spirit disposed to meekness. The foregoing “spiritual” does not require us to understand the Holy Spirit here, comp. 1Co_4:21. [It does not mean merely “a meek spirit,” but a spirit whose characterizing quality is “meekness,” with an ultimate reference to the Holy Spirit. (See Ellicott.) As “spiritual,” possessing the Holy Spirit, their spirit toward offenders should be characterized by “meekness.”—R.]—Considering thyself.—An individualizing transition to the singular. The added clause contains a motive to “restore” (not merely to “meekness”).—Lest thou also should be tempted—and it happen to thee to be overtaken in a fault.
Gal_6:2 makes the admonition of Gal_6:1 more general. It is not always by setting our neighbor right, that we may do him good; another exhibition of love is to bear his burdens.—Burdens.—Βάρη is undoubtedly in itself quite general: whatever presses our neighbor, lies heavy upon him, so that occasion is given to the vain-glorious man to provoke him. Moral delinquencies, such as are named in Gal_6:1, are included; but also more grievous things, such as outward distress.—Bear.—Βαστάζετε, of course, does not mean: endure (for I do not endure what oppresses my neighbor, but only that, for example, with which he oppresses me), but simply: bear=to take upon our shoulders as our own burdens, and thereby help him to bear; this includes, in some circumstances, the lightening of them; in others, their entire removal (Wieseler).—We see that the restoring of a neighbor who has been overtaken in a fault falls under this general idea of bearing his burden.—The Apostle adds to this admonition a powerful motive for its fulfilment: and thus shall ye fulfil the law of Christ.—The expression “fulfil the law of Christ” is significant, and designedly chosen with reference to the zealots for the law. You will forsooth have a law, now see here is a law but “of Christ;” fulfil that! At the same time it refers back to Gal_6:14, where the duty of love to our neighbor has been designated as the commandment equivalent to the whole Mosaic law, but a “law of Christ,” not of Moses. [Yet this “law of Christ” must necessarily include that “law.” which He not only came to fulfil, but so fully illustrated and enforced in His teachings. The use of the future indicative instead of the imperative seems to imply, that the Christian needs “the law of Christ” only as a guide to grateful duty. “Thus shall ye fulfil” what your hearts would fulfil, “the law of Christ,” “who died for us and rose again.”—R.]
Gal_6:3. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing.—“When he is nothing” belongs to the protasis. Being nothing: not precisely in the ethical sense alone, but one, who can in truth make no claim to consideration above others, yet ambitiously assumes this. This of course involves the admission that one may be something, but such a one is least likely to assume this; it is the one that is nothing, who is most likely to lay claim to consideration above his merits.—He deceiveth himself, his “glory” shows itself to be “vain,” [Lightfoot: “φρεναπατᾷ, ‘deceives by his fancies.’ Comp. Tit_1:10. More is implied by this word than by ἀπατᾷν, for it brings out the idea of subjective fancies and thus enforces the previous δοκεῖ. It was possibly coined by St. Paul, for it seems not to be found in any earlier writer, and at a later date occurs chiefly, if not solely in ecclesiastical authors.”—R.]
Gal_6:4. Paul therefore immediately after enjoins: let each man prove his own work.—Τὸἔργον: not collective=the aggregate of his actions; for it is not particularly an ethical self-examination that is referred to, but general, about equivalent to: His case, the way matters stand with him. [The view of Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, et al., that τὸ ἔργον is emphatic and collective, seems on the whole preferable.—R.]—The reason why he enjoins this, is then stated with: then shall he have his ground of boasting only in what concerneth himself and not in what concerneth the other.—“He will then have matter of self-gratulation only it will be in reference to himself, and not to another.” [See the excellent note of Ellicott, the results of whose exegesis are given in the above rendering. The preposition εὶς must be translated by a paraphrasis, in order to preserve the same force in both cases. Τὸν ἔτερον, “the other”—the man with whom he was comparing himself; general in its meaning, but particular in each case of comparison. (Alford.)—R.] Every one, in that case, directing his look as he does in self-examination only upon himself, will refer his self-praise only to himself; will only boast of such excellences as he may discover in himself; but he will not vaunt himself on the ground of the deficiencies which he finds in others. And if this results from the very nature of self-examination, as directing the look of the man upon himself alone, it will also be sure to come to pass from the result, which every one will find from self-examination, as this is stated in Gal_6:5, with which Paul gives special weight to the οὐκ εἰς τὸν ἕτερον. Of course not to the εἰς ἑαυτόν. In order to have εὶς τὸν ἔτερον καύχημα, i. e., in order to be able to make what another lacks a ground for boasting over him, one must not only have many good qualities but a preeminence above the other, of which he is conscious.
Gal_6:5. But this is not the case. On the contrary ἔκαστος τὸἴδιον φορτίον βαστάσει, each man: I as well as the other, I cannot therefore make his φορτίον, a ground of vaunting myself against him.—Shall bear.—Future, expressing the result of the self-examination, because it succeeds it (not referring to the last judgment) = it will turn out, that every one has a burden of his own to bear, [i. e., now in actual life, he is appointed to bear, must bear.—R.]—His own load.—Φορτίον: although principally meaning moral imperfection, yet here it is not to be limited to this; it means imperfection of every kind, every defect which one discovers in himself. Φορτίον is in itself a vox media, it may be either heavy or light; βάρος can only be heavy. To this general declaration the more general word exactly suits; respecting the degree of burdensomeness Paul does not in the first instance mean to make a statement, but only to say that each one has his own φορτίον. It is otherwise in Gal_6:2 : there the idea of heaviness is the main one. [Conybeare finds here an allusion to Æsop’s fable (πῆραι δύο), but Ellicott thinks this not very plausible. Lightfoot says: “βάρη suggests the idea of an adventitious and oppressive burden, which is not implied in φορτίον. The latter is the common term for a man’s pack. Each Christian soldier bears his own kit.” Still this does not sufficiently imply the idea of imperfection and consequent grievousness, which the context, with its injunctions to self-examination, seems to demand.—R.]—The difficulty in Gal_6:4-5 is, that the Apostle condenses together two thoughts: 1. “in what concerneth himself alone,” 2. “not in what concerneth the other;” which to be sure are in one aspect identical, and yet must be distinguished, because the second is strengthened by the subsequent declaration, “for each man,” etc., which gives it a somewhat different sense from what it has when disjoined from this and taken with what precedes. De Wette takes it differently: And then will he have his joy (if he has any, which is manifestly put as doubtful) for himself alone (for his own joy) and not for others (to irritate and provoke them therewith).—Self-examination is therefore the antidote to “provoking one another;” it is to oppose this that the Apostle has enjoined it.
Gal_6:6-10. This division also is a specifying of the admonition Gal_5:26; it must, although more remotely related, still have reference to it, because it is undeniably a carrying out of the admonition to “serve one another by means of love,” (Gal_5:13) of which, as we have seen, Gal_5:26, only gives the negative expression. More accurately considered this division opposes the second vice named in Gal_5:26, “envying one another.” It contains admonitions to an abounding, unwearied “communication in good things,” and this is the direct opposite of “envying one another”=grudgingly withholding. Only he who is unenvious will do good to all.
Gal_6:6. The exhortation in this verse does not therefore come in so abruptly, as at first sight appears. Paul first opposes envious grudging in that relation in which it looks particularly ill, and yet must have occurred, in the relation of him that is taught in the word of God to him that teacheth, and in contrast with this, admonishes to communicate and that in all good things. This is of course not= in all that is morally good (Meyer), but = in all good things [i.e., temporal possessions of every kind.—R.]. It is expressed with the utmost generalness, and is therefore to be understood in its broadest sense; care for temporal support is included in it, but not exclusively intended; there is to be, according to the words, a sharing of all good things, that is, in a certain sense a community of benefits; he “that is taught” is to give “him that teacheth” a share in all his advantages. This is the very strongest antithesis to “envying.” [The verb means literally “go shares with.” It is intransitive here, followed by the dative of the person, and the thing (“in all good things”) governed by a preposition. There is no lexical or grammatical difficulty. Almost all commentators refer the verse to the temporal support of ministers. Meyer gives it an ethical meaning mainly to preserve the connection, and Schmoller, for the same reason, makes the meaning general, as above. But δέ arrests the former topic before it passes out of sight (Lightfoot), and serves here to indicate the contrast between the temporal and spiritual application (Ellicott). As if he had said: “I spoke of bearing one another’s burdens. There is one special application I would make of this rule. Provide for the temporal wants of your teachers in Christ.” Κατηχούμενος here means simply “instructed,” and is followed by an accusative of reference (λόγον), “in the word,” i. e., the gospel.—R.]
Gal_6:7-10. To give weight to this admonition to him that is taught in the word that he should show a generous liberality in all things to his teacher, Paul points to the last judgment, to the law of Divine retribution as one of immutable validity. This is primarily meant to strengthen only the special admonition, Gal_6:6, and shows how earnestly he means it, that he attributes to it an importance which we may not in any way lessen; but still this confirmatory reference to Divine retribution is expressed with such generalness, that Paul is able immediately to deduce from it an entirely general exhortation to unwearied “well doing,” which he then again specializes somewhat in Gal_6:10. But the main matter is still the “communicating in all good things” in opposition to “envying one another.”
Gal_6:7. Be not deceived.—Do not entertain the erroneous thought, even should it occur, or be presented to you, that God can be mocked (lit., to turn up the nose at), that is, with success. (All glory sought therein is vain.) This mocking would occur, if man might do what he would, if he could with impunity neglect a communication of good things to his teacher, who himself imparts that which is best to him. The declaration that this cannot occur, is established by for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.8—[Τοῦτο καί; “this and nothing else than this” (Ellicott).—R.] The essential correspondence between the seed sown and the fruit reaped, which takes place according to a law of nature and is therefore subject to no mutation, is a current image in other writings also (even in profane writers, e. g. Cicero, de Orat. II. 65, ut sementem faceris, ita metes, and others), for the exact correspondence between the retribution of God in the judgment and the moral acts of man in his earthly life.
Gal_6:8. The general proposition of Gal_6:7 is established in this verse. For never will it fail of coming to pass, that he that soweth to his own flesh shall therefrom reap corruption; and even so he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.—“Corruption” is therefore conceived as that which corresponds to sowing to the flesh, as the harvest to the seed, or “corruption” is essentially the crop into which the flesh when sown develops, and in like manner “life everlasting” is nothing else than the ripened fruit sown to the Spirit.—Ὁ σπείρων, it may be remarked, does not alter the figure in Gal_6:7 b, making it the soil instead of the seed, but, as Paul has to speak of two different sorts of seeds, he only designates this difference according to the difference of the soil, on which it is sown; for seed is always chosen according to the soil that is to be sown; that which is sown upon the flesh is even thereby a different seed from that which is sown upon the Spirit. Perhaps it would be better to say: ὄ in Gal_6:7 is not merely to be understood of the seed itself, but of the whole manner and method of the sowing, and so to be taken as equivalent to this: According as any one sows, even so shall he also reap; and in view of this “according as” we should have in Gal_6:8 to understand especially the soil which is sown, inasmuch as it is especially on this that the character of the harvest depends, as good or bad. For it is this that is treated of here. Flesh and Spirit, moreover, are figuratively represented as the soil, because they are conditioning, quickening factors, and therefore to sow upon the flesh or Spirit generically = to let one’s self be determined in the act by the flesh or Spirit. Πνεῦμα of course, as in Gal_6:16 sq. = the Holy Ghost, and therefore lacks ἑαυτοῦ, which stands with σάρξ.9 Φθορά, agreeably to the contrast with ξωὴ ἀίωνιος=Destruction, Ruin, and that eternal ruin=ἀπώλεια, θάνατος, not=Transitoriness.
Gal_6:8 was only a proof of Gal_6:7 b, according to its two contrasted sides; 7b itself again was in proof of θεὸς οὐ μυκτηρίζεται. The sense of this is: One cannot neglect doing good, without being punished of God. But the thought is not expressed.
Gal_6:9. Here, however, it is expressed affirmatively, agreeably to 8b, as an admonition (because it is true, as said in Gal_6:7-8, that what a man sows, he reaps) to do “well,” in a certain sense to sow τὸ κάλον. That the admonition rests immediately upon what precedes, is shown by the continuance of the image, which we find at least in the second clause.—Well doing is to be taken in its greatest possible extension; agreeably to the signification of καλόν, about=to do what is praiseworthy, only it must not be taken so generally as no longer to fall within the sphere of unenvious exhibition of love towards our neighbor. This is the frame, within which this “well doing” also falls.—Let us not be weary.—[“Behave cowardly, lose heart.”—R.] It is possible to grow weary, because “well doing” is at first a sowing, which, according to the laws of nature, is not immediately, perhaps not till long after, followed by the harvest. It comes in due season, καιρῷ ἰδίῳ, not just when we wish it: at the precise time, when it can appear according to its inward law, as ordained by God. Agreeably to the eschatological expectations of the Apostle we have here to understand particularly the Parusia.—If we faint not.—Μὴ ἑκλυόμενοι, to be taken as conditional and to be refesrred to the sowing: if we do not become weary in that. This is no “languid repetition of the warning against ἐγκακεῖν” (Usteri); for it is just this not becoming weary in good which Paul wishes to emphasize, as the condition of reaping the harvest (Wieseler). [Bengel: ἐγκακεἶν est in velle, ἐκλύεσθαι est in posse. The latter is a consequence of the former (Lightfoot). The verse is one of mingled warning and encouragement, and the latter element appears from the promise to those who do not “faint,” for one may be “weary,” and not yet have fainted.—R.]
Gal_6:10. [Accordingly then as we have.—Ἄρα οὖν, “so then,” “accordingly then;” ὡς, not “while,” nor “according as,” nor since, but “in proportion as” (Alford).—R.] The mention of the “season” of the harvest reminds him to warn against wasting the καιρός, season, opportunity, of the sowing, because when the former is come, it will be too late for the latter. And in conclusion Paul deduces from the more general admonition (Gal_6:9) the more special exhortation let us do good, which is also to be taken in the widest possible extent, but still retaining the special idea of doing good. The generic interpretation of ἐργαζώμεθα τὸ ἀγαθόν=to do what is morally good (Meyer, as in Gal_6:6), is inconsistent especially with the distinction, which Paul makes with especially, etc. For to the doing of what is morally good, one is of course equally obliged towards all men, members of the household of faith or strangers to it (Wieseler).—To them who are of the household of faith.—Οἰκεῖοι τῆς πίστεως, doubtless not merely=those belonging to faith, as an amplification of the simple term: Believers (Meyer,) but kindred in faith, fellow-Christians, as constituting together one οἶκος τῆς πίστεως, one family of faith.10 The emphasis rests upon the fact that believers are of one family; for this is the reason why love should be especially shown to them (Wieseler).—The expression is of course general and comprehends their fellow-Christians as a body, but yet it refers back to Gal_6:6; because their fellow-Christians should be so especially the objects of the “doing good,” it follows from this, that those who teach should least of all be excluded therefrom. Paul in 1Co_16:1-2, refers to a more specific instruction concerning beneficence which he had given to the Galatians.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Self-exaltation and self-seeking. In respect to the right conduct of Christians towards each other, Paul designates two vices as especially incompatible therewith: Self-exaltation and self-seeking. And indeed there is nothing which more undermines society in general than these two vices; while self-exaltation rends the inner bond of unity with our fellow-men, self-seeking rends besides this the outer bond. But now the maintaining of fellowship is the specific character of the relation of Christians to each other; they are meant to form an undivided whole. These two vices therefore stand in diametrical opposition to the very nature of the Christian life. And of course they must, for they are the immediate offspring of the “flesh,” whose essence is self-seeking. But Christians should walk by the Spirit, and should prove this to each other especially by serving love.—Certain as it is therefore, that both self-exaltation and self-seeking stand opposed to the essence of Christian fellowship, and must therefore be most vigorously contended against, it is nevertheless equally certain, that they may, and do in fact, appear within the circle of Christian fellowship. For this is by no means as yet pure and free from such manifestations of the “flesh,” though not thereby necessarily losing the name of Christian fellowship. On the contrary an individual or a community may really “have the Spirit,” be possessed of a spiritual life, while yet in their walk the sarcical element still manifests itself in various ways, against which we must protest. Things must be rebuked which, looking at the ideal, and not at the concrete fact, might appear impossible to occur; admonitions must be given, which might from the ideal point of view appear superfluous. The admonitions given in this section are the simple proof of what was remarked on the former section, respecting the indispensableness of continual admonition, respecting the “shall” which the Spirit inwardly, as also the Word of Scripture from without, must continually present to the Christian. While therefore we must not be lax, as if every thing in the Christian life, including the fruits of the Spirit, came of itself, and while we must earnestly represent to the Christian the incongruity of every thing sarcical with his faith, we must on the other hand be very careful not to make rigoristic requirements of him, not to expect that no manifestation of the flesh should ever appear in him; we must not, in particular, imagine that among Christians every thing must, as it were, of itself, be serving love. And therefore, even when many virtues of the Christian life are yet very defective, we must not be quick to deny that one is “spiritual,” to dispute the sincerity of his faith and declare him to be a hypocrite.
2. Admonitions especially necessary for those busy about the law. “But was it then necessary, one might here ask, that Paul should write such admonitions to people, who were already anxious about works of the law and out of conscience were submitting themselves to the Jewish ordinances? Was there not then in their case an exaggerated piety, that needed rather to be tempered? Alas, no! The world lies in wickedness and yet is busy about works of the law. It lives in contention and envy, in turbulence and lewdness, and yet forsooth will be saved by its virtue. By what sort of virtue? By a magnanimity, which from time to time, amid many evil deeds, a man may practice toward his neighbor, by wit and lively discourse, by a decent gravity, the offspring of age and function, of interest and love of honor, by the observance of political and ecclesiastical laws, yet with many exceptions. Let no one go into raptures over this virtue.—At a distance it appears great, but near by it is mean and in God’s eyes naught. Do not such people need to have some one proclaim to them: Be not deceived, God is not mocked? The Galatians gave themselves up to the Jewish law, which did in fact, contain the strictest moral teaching. They sought salvation earnestly, and sought it, not by vices, but by virtue and religious works; yet notwithstanding this Paul was constrained to warn them against all manner of gross sins, especially against hatred and envy, and to proclaim to them: Be not deceived, God is not mocked! How certain it is therefore, that he who does not live in faith on the Son of God, will be overmastered by sin, and in spite of his endeavors to be virtuous, will become ever more vicious! If then one does not come into the right way, he at last mocks God. And how does one mock Him? In this way, that one desperately imagines that He will at last take black for white, that He will let him reap wheat who has sown tares, and will reward the sin, to which men have given the name of a virtue. By such principles, which to be sure, when we read them on paper, contradict the first principles of human intelligence, the whole world is ruled, and therefore is there occasion to say it: God is not mocked; what a man sows in this world, that, and nothing else, shall he reap in the next.” Roos.
3. What a man sows, that shall he also reap. An utterance as simple, as it is true and deep. According to it, all the actions of men are a sowing, which shall have a harvest, the actions of men shall bear a fruit. This image, taken from the processes of nature, declares in the first place in general terms, that actions never stop with themselves, but that with inexorable certainty a retribution will one day follow, as certainly as the sowing is only a beginning, which according to a settled law leads at last to the harvest. This it is true does not follow at once, and therefore there is need of patience, but afterwards, when the time has come, and then without fail. And, more definitely, the seed bears a harvest, and such a harvest as corresponds exactly with itself. The actions of men therefore find a retribution fully adequate. On this account it is not so indifferent what kind of seed we sow, for the seed, that is, our acts, will bear their proper fruit, and no other. If we want then a fruit to please us, we must sow a seed that will bring it; we shall never succeed in getting a harvest that is independent of the seed; and on the contrary no one can deprive us of the harvest that answers to the seed. The harvest of our actions is nothing casual, it is that which they must produce. It rests with us, then to determine the harvest, by determining the seed. If “corruption” is the harvest of sowing to the flesh, and “life everlasting” the harvest of sowing to the Spirit, each result follows by an inward necessity. The former is only the carnal sowing come to ripeness, the latter is only the ripened seed sown to the Spirit. Thereby the character of arbitrariness and externality is removed from the Divine retribution, and objections from this side obviated. But on the other hand it must not be thought, that we can in this way set aside the positive Divine activity, and therewith retribution in a definite sense, and change it into a kind of natural process. As in the natural process of the springing of the harvest from the seed, the inner law of nature, according to which this takes place, is no other than the law of God, as it is He who gives it effect, so is it also in this spiritual harvest. His ordinance is it, that “corruption” grows up from the sowing to the flesh and the reverse. And especially is this so, in that corruption is really what it is, only as decreed by Him, as consisting in being rejected by Him, and even so, on the contrary, life everlasting; this is His gift for the sowing to the spirit, only because He gives it and gives Himself also therein. Moreover the time of harvest is in itself simply a future one for the time of sowing; when the sowing, therefore, is over, every moment may be a “due season” for the harvest, even in this world, and there are indeed many such harvests. But these are only anticipations. The proper, due season for the harvest first comes with the time appointed by God for general retribution at the consummation of the kingdom of God. Not till then will the sowing to the flesh have ripened into corruption, and the sowing of the spirit into life everlasting. Before that, the time of the sowing still continues, and it is still possible to change the character of the harvest by changing the one sort of seed for the other.
4. Care for spiritual teachers. The emphasis and earnestness, with which Paul admonishes against a selfish behavior of the church towards her teachers, are remarkable. This very estimate of spiritual good, as above all others, makes him the more impatient of selfishness concealing itself behind a pretended spiritual mind. “The support of teachers by their hearers is grounded on a divine institution, not only in the Old Testament (comp. Priests and Levites), but also in the New. Although now in the New Testament there is no definite prescription how much of their property hearers shall contribute to their teachers, yet it is certain from the New Testament that God requires an adequate and liberal support. This admonition was the more necessary in the Apostle’s time, because there were not then, as now, yearly incomes definitely appointed. But now that there are such settled incomes the admonition to hearers has not lost its force, especially when they know that the regular income is insufficient. Christ’s commandment binds them then to a subsidy. Men act to-day, as if their forefathers alone had been bound to care for the support of their teachers, and the hearers of to-day had nothing to add to this.” Starke.—Luther expresses himself very definitely and strongly respecting this duty towards teachers, e.g.: “It is indeed impossible that true Christians should endure to have their pastors pinched and in want. But because they do not only suffer this, but laugh in their sleeve at it, it is certain, that they are worse than Turks and Heathen.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Gal_5:25. Heubner:—The internal and the external must harmonize, must be one. The outer life is the reflection and thereby the sign of the inward life.—Rieger:—To keep the flesh crucified is the only way to give room for the spirit, whose life appears in growing strength in a spiritual walk. Although walking is a consequence inseparable from life, yet the Apostle exhorts thereto, as to a duty, on account of the danger of slothfulness creeping on, as indeed one cannot walk without taking some special thought about it.—[Brown:—If we are spiritually alive, let us show that we are so by being spiritually active.—R.]
Gal_5:26. Luther:—Love of vain glory is a common vice the whole world through, in all conditions. No village so small but there be one or two peasants therein, that will fain be taken for wiser and better than the rest. It is so pleasant to be pointed at with the finger and hear it said: See there is a man that is fit for anything! This vice is common, yet nowhere does it such harm, as to those who fulfil a spiritual function and service in the church.—[Calvin:—It is not lawful for us to glory but in God alone. Every other kind of glorying is pure vanity. Mutual provocations and envyings are the daughters of ambition.—R.]—Starke:—To seek honor with a proud spirit, is a token of a carnal man and an abomination to God. Lust of praise leads many sins together, held in one leash, as the huntsman leads hounds. Nothing is more opposite to the love of our neighbor, than high-minded self-love; wherefore it is of no use to commend the latter where the former is not eradicated.—Heubner:—The stoic pride of virtue also is the worst kind of vain-gloriousness.
Chap. 6 Gal_6:1. Luther:—The forgiveness of sins belongs to those who are weak and frail in faith and life, and yet acknowledge their sins and pray for forgiveness; but to those who pervert the doctrine, it does not belong.—Rieger:—The very words, in which the Apostle describes what behavior beseems us in regard to others’ faults, are so chosen, that they insensibly incline us to the more merciful side. A man (how easy for a man to fall) is overtaken by the suddenness of temptation, by the concurrence of many circumstances, that have beclouded his vision. In such circumstances admonition, rebuke, persuasion, consolation, etc., may do the work of restoration, even as a dislocated limb may be again set in place. But for this there is needed the Spirit, and therefore on the one hand not blind love, not a careless disparagement of the fault, and on the other hand not severity, but insight into the gospel, to draw from thence motives for forbearing admonition, such as shall advance the crucifixion of the flesh and the strengthening of the inward man.—Hedinger:—Are we ourselves pure and blameless as angels, that our neighbor’s fault drives us so quickly to arms? Was it Christ’s way to break the bruised reed? Let us do as He did! The Lord is in the still small voice, although mighty winds sometimes herald his coming.—Augustine:—Rebuke administered in bitterness, profits not. Quidquid lacerato animo dicetis, punientis est impetus, non caritas corrigentis; dilige et dic, quod voles.—[Calvin:—Nothing is more difficult than to bring us to examine or acknowledge our own weakness. Whatever may be our acuteness in detecting the faults of others, we do not see “the wallet that hangs behind our own back.”—Whenever we have occasion to pronounce censure, let us begin with ourselves, and, remembering our own weakness, let us be indulgent to others.—R.]
Gal_6:2. Luther:—A Christian must have strong shoulders and stout legs, in order to bear the flesh, i. e., the weakness of his brethren; for they have vices that are troublesome and annoying. Therefore must love pass by and overlook, and endure much. We must learn, since we can so easily endure and overlook our own sins and faults, many of which we daily commit, to bear also other people’s sin.—In Starke:—What is our whole religion, but a burden-bearing? We have our own and also others’ burden to bear. We are all on a journey; if one is like to give way, the other must refresh him; if one is likely to fall, the other must help him up.—If it is not to be answered for, that we should not help another bear his burden, how unchristian must it be, to double his burdens for him.—[Wordsworth:—Poverty is the load of some, and wealth is the load of others, perhaps the greater load of the two. It may weigh thee down to perdition. Bear the load of thy neighbor’s poverty, and let him bear with thee the load of thy wealth. Thou lightenest thy load by lightening his.—R.]—[The law of Christ is the law of mutual love.—R.]
Gal_6:3. Starke:—Self-conceit and haughtiness have cheated many a man. Pride is the harbinger of a heavy fall. It is often a grace, when God allows the presumptuous one to fall, that he may come to a knowledge of his own nothingness.—[Brown:—Those who in their own estimation have little to learn, have in truth learned but little.—The greater advances a man makes in true Christianity, the more humble he becomes.—R.]
Gal_6:4. Luther:—He that faithfully discharges his function, does not inquire much what men say of him, it is all one to him, whether the world praises or reviles him, but he has his honor within himself, that is, the testimony of his conscience, and the honor before God. It will doubtless in time come to pass, that your honor, which you have within yourselves, will be acknowledged also by other people. But if you have your honor only from others, it will surely come to pass, that the shame and ignominy, which you have now inwardly concealed in your heart, will in time become manifest to other people also.—Starke:—Daily self-examination is one of the most important of all the duties of a Christian. A Christian must always look more at himself than at others, and examine his own life more than another’s; for God will judge each man according as He finds him to be in himself and before his own conscience.—Rieger:—To seek one’s glory by self-comparison with others, or even, it may be, by disparagement of others, by divulging their faults, is a perilous course, and will avail nothing, when hereafter each one shall have to give account of himself before God.
Gal_6:5. Heubner:—Every genuine self-examination will certainly always have humiliation as its result.—[Wordsworth:—We cannot make the burdens of our own sins lighter by imputing a heavier burden of sins to others. Praise of ourselves, whether it proceeds from our own lips or those of others, cannot lighten our burdens. Because we are heavy laden, Christ exhorts us to take His light burden. Thus he converts our heavy burdens into light wings. The wings of birds are their weights, which they bear and which bear them. Let thy soul have the weight of Christ’s burden; it has the pinions of peace and the wings of charity, and will bear thee to heaven, Thus bear thy own weight and it will bear thee.—R.]
Gal_6:6-10. The more carefully one avoids judicial severity and other unwarranted assumptions in regard to others, the more room there is to make our intercourse with one another profitable for love and good works.
Gal_6:6. Luther:—I do not love to expound such sentences, which speak for us, that are ministers of the Word; moreover, it may look, if one is zealous to treat such texts before the people, as if he did it on account of avarice. But one must nevertheless instruct the people thereabout, that they may know what degree of honor and support they owe to their teachers. This is also good for us, that are in the ministry, to know, that we may not take our deserved recompense with uneasy conscience, and as if we had no right thereto.—Rieger:—The Scripture has not accounted it superfluous, to put into His Word, that remains good for all time, the admonition to communicate in all good things with him who teaches. But it is to be left wholly to this same Spirit and His prompting, when he will bring the observance of this admonition so into effect, that it exercises faith and strengthens faith.—Starke:—Between teachers and hearers there should be a lovely exchange and joyful barter. A hearer needs not to complain as though he suffered disadvantage in this exchange. Whoever will not give our Lord God a penny, gets his due, when he is forced to give the devil a dollar.—In general the world requites the very greatest benefits bestowed upon it with the very basest unthankfulness.—[Calvin:—It is one of the tricks of Satan to defraud godly ministers of support‚ that the church may be deprived of their services. Paul’s recommendation arose from a desire to preserve a gospel ministry.—Brown:—It had been well for the church and for the world‚ had Christianity been sustained and extended solely by the voluntary exertions and the voluntary contributions of those who themselves had experienced its invaluable blessings‚ and who felt the obligations under which both duty and gratitude laid them to supply the temporal wants of those who ministered to their spiritual necessities. Here‚ as in every other case‚ the foolishness of God is wiser than men.11—R.]
Gal_6:7. In Starke:—Mock on: God will endure it for awhile‚ and will not send a thunderbolt at once; yet will He not always be silent‚ but early enough will hold discourse with thee in wrath.—Whoever under any manner of apparent excuses seeks to deceive his neighbor‚ such an one mocks the omniscient God and does himself the greatest conceivable injury.—Heubner:—Besotted man would fain persuade himself that God’s severity‚ His threatenings and judgments are not to be taken so very much in earnest. God is directly mocked when He is blasphemed‚ indirectly‚ when His commandments are presumptuously neglected.
Gal_6:7‚ 8. In Starke:—The realm of nature has many vestiges of Divine wisdom‚ goodness‚ righteousness in it‚ which show forth and reveal themselves yet more gloriously in the realm of grace.—It is undoubtedly agreeable to the Divine order‚ as in the realm of grace so in that of nature‚ that every one should enjoy what he himself sows or does‚ whether good or evil. But whoever does evil and yet hopes for good‚ opposes himself to God’s order in vain‚ and his hope is lost.—The sowing to the flesh cannot possibly be followed by anything but an evil harvest‚ unless such a harvest before it ripen‚ be uprooted by true repentance.—Our whole life is nothing but a seed-time‚ with which the future harvest in eternity is inevitably connected. Ah! let every one take heed that he scatter not tares and yonder be compelled to reap the curse.—Corruption does not really come from God, either directly or indirectly, but from the flesh.—Rieger:—How slight and insignificant good and evil often appear when first sown! But how steadily they grow day and night, unnoticed by man. How late, but how infallibly do they reappear at the harvest! How irrevocable is the neglected seed time! Who can force it into being an unsown harvest?—Heubner:—Future and present stand in the strictest connection. Our future state will not only follow our present, but will be in the very strictest sense its product; the two will stand in as real a nexus as the seed sown and the harvest.—There is a double seed-time and harvest! Sowing to the flesh does not consist merely in a gross carnality of life, such as is followed by the most wretched want and pain, but in all living and working, even that which, materially considered, is the most beneficent and laudable, when it proceeds from an impure motive. Sowing to the Spirit is not merely the spiritual vocation, but every sowing, which is done at the leading of the Spirit.—[Calvin:—Our liberality is restrained by the supposition that whatever passes into the hands of another is lost to ourselves, and by the alarm we feel about our own prospects in life. These views Paul meets here.—Burkitt:—The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, will also raise us up at the great day, and reward our present parting with the things of this life which we cannot keep, with eternal life which we shall never lose.—R.]
Gal_6:9. Starke:—This admonition is uttered as an encouragement, as a way which has the least appearance of authority assumed over others. It is a way therefore which preachers should incline to use.—Christians may become weary in the race, for they find many an assault and many a hindrance. Happy are they who encourage themselves with this word: Let us not be weary in well doing! The more laborious the seedtime has been, the richer shall the harvest be. The harvest comes hereafter; the first fruits of the present time are a small matter compared with what is to come.—Christians are not greedy for reward, and do not demand it from God on the ground of merit, but they do suffer their work to be sweetened, and themselves spurred up to activity and faithfulness by the prospect of the reward.—[Fatigue is not weariness.—In well doing we are more apt to be weary than fatigued.—Weariness may come from habits of slothfulness.—The due season is God’s season.—If we work on, feeling weary, yet not fainting, we shall reap.—R.]
Gal_6:10. Heubner:—The incalculable value of the present life consists in this, that we have opportunity to do good. The fleshly minded cannot hereafter make up the good which he had the vocation and opportunity to do, e. g., the hard hearted rich man, the negligent father or pastor, etc.—Starke:—One should not put off remembering the poor till death. Quod moriens das, ideo das, quod tecum ferre non poles; da igitur, dum vivis, et mercedem habebis.—[Brown:—The Christian knows no limits in doing good, except those which are fixed by his power and opportunity of doing good.—For a Christian to be unkind to a Christian is not only wrong, it is monstrous.—R.]—Rieger:—As the house of God, the church, is of two kinds, the visible and the invisible, so are also those of the household of two kinds, namely, those who belong to the visible church, and then the true believers, whose faith and sincerity of heart are invisible. From this it follows, that one owes more love to his fellow-believers, even such as are so but in profession, than to those of another religion; but most to really believing fellow-members, to whom the appellation: they of the household of faith, especially applies. In the present day it is our business to seek out those who have pressed through from the service of the letter into the life of religion, into the service of the Spirit, and to count them for the members of the household of faith chiefly commended to us.—Spener:—The more closely one, besides the general bond, is connected with any one by a special bond also, the more is he under obligation towards such a one. Thus a man is bound to his wife, parents to their children, brothers and sisters and blood relatives to one another, masters to their servants, citizens of one town or dwellers in one house to each other, in respect to works of love, more than they are to others; yet always without prejudice to the general love of our neighbor.
On the whole Section:—Wherein Christians’ walk in the Spirit should especially show itself in their conduct towards one another: (1) In this, that no one exalts himself above others, but that one helps another up when he falls and assists him to bear his burdens: (2) in this, that no one grudgingly withholds what is his from another, but willingly lets him share in all and is unwearied in doing good (especially towards those who impart to one the bread of life in the word of God).—Sarwey:—If ye live in the Spirit, then walk in the Spirit; if ye walk in the Spirit, then walk in humility and forbearance, and in thankfulness towards your teacher and in liberality towards your brethren; and if ye walk therein ye walk in blessing.—Glöckler:—Concerning the spirituality of the children of God: (1) What people are in the word of God called spiritual; (2) what their duties are towards others and those of others towards them; (3) whether it is necessary for all that wish to be saved, to be be spiritual men; (4) how and when then one is to set about becoming a spiritual man.—Hengstenberg:—Christian love of neighbors as a chief part of a walk in the Spirit: it shows itself: (1) in loving converse with our neighbor, and that (a) in unambitious humility; (b) in helpful long-suffering; (c) in enduring patience; (2) in loving activity for our neighbor’s good: (a) in willing advancement of church and school in our own dwelling place, see Gal_6:6; (b) in ready zeal for giving and helping for the sowing of the gospel in still wider circles (Gal_6:7-8); (c) in general, in untiring doing of good of all kinds, especially to those of the household of faith (Gal_6:9-10).
On Gal_6:1-5 : Self-exaltation. (1) Wherein it shows itself. In this, that it docs not do, what is mentioned in Gal_6:1-2. (2) What secures against it: Self-examination.
The single verses of the whole section almost all afford a theme at once, especially as several have the character of apothegms.
Gal_5:25. Text and theme of a Whitsunday sermon in Nitzsch (Auswahl I. p. 177):—(1) The grounds of this Whitsuntide declaration. (a) The spiritual life requires to be demonstrated and revealed in the walk, or it does not exist; (b) it requires to be maintained and augmented by the walk or it is lost. (2) The substance of this requirement: not=abandon the world and kill the body; nor yet=no longer esteem the word and violate the law; but=in the power of the atonement pursue after holiness.
Gal_6:2. Suitable text for a wedding discourse; Gal_6:7-8, Fast-day, or New Year’s eve, or harvest text; Gal_6:9, also a harvest text.
Footnotes:
[33]Gal_5:25.—[The dative Πνεύματι has perhaps a slightly different force in each member of this verse, but “by” will express the meaning in each case, better than “in.”—R.]
[34]Gal_5:26.—[“Become vain-glorious” is both a more literal and a more correct rendering of γινώμεθα κενόδοξοι.—R.]
[1]Gal_6:1.—[“Even if” preserves the force of καί.—R.]
[2]Gal_6:2.—Ἀναπληρώσετε is strongly supported; and is to be preferred (with Lachmann and Schott) to the reading σατε; the latter was perhaps occasioned by the preceding imperatives. It is found however in א., where, singularly enough, we have the moods reversed, βαστάσετε occuring in the preceding clause. א3. however reads βαστάζετε. [The future, ἀναπληρώσ ετε, is the reading of א3. B. F. G., most versions; it is adopted by Meyer, De Wette, Mill, Ellicott, Light-foot. The aorist imperative, σατε, is found in A. c. D. E. K., most cursives, Tischendorf (later eds.), Alford, Wordsworth. The aorist imperative is rare, and this is an argument in favor of retaining it. If it be retained, the E. V. is correct, with the other reading, it must be emended as above. The question is not easily settled, since the external authority is so nearly balanced.—R.]
[3]Gal_6:4.—[Ellicott paraphrases as above. The E. V. is not satisfactory. See Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[4]Gal_6:5.—[“Load” is a good rendering. “Burden” is open to this great objection, that it does not discriminate between φορτίον and βάρη (Gal_6:2).—R.]
[5]Gal_6:9.—[Ἐγκακῶμεν is the correct reading. א. A. B. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Lightfoot. It is doubtful whether ἐκκακεῖν (Rec. ἐκκακῶμεν) is a genuine word.—R.]
[6]Gal_6:10.—[Ἄραοὖν “accordingly then,” see Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[7]Gal_6:10.—[Ἐργαζώμεθα. The reading ἐργαζόμεθα is too weakly supported. [So all modern Editors. Lachmann at first adopted the latter reading, but soon discarded it.—R.]
[8][Lightfoot calls attention to the fact that this proverb occurs in 2Co_9:6, in reference to the collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem, to which object the Galatians had been asked to contribute (1Co_16:1); he therefore conjectures that this implies a general censure of their habitual niggardliness.—R.]
[9][Perhaps as Lightfoot suggests to bring out the idea of selfishness. It need not be made emphatic, but is best retained in English by “to his own flesh.”—R.]
[10][Alford and Ellicott deny this reference, but any other meaning seems insipid, and might have been better expressed in some other way.—R.]
[11][The principle of voluntaryism so plainly implied in the verse has found its happiest exemplification in our own country. Dr. Brown represents one of the few European churches (United Presbyterian Church of Scotland), that has not only acted upon, but stoutly contended for this principle.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv22–25 love--the leader of the band of graces (Co1 13:1-13).
love--the leader of the band of graces (Co1 13:1-13).
gentleness--Greek, "benignity," conciliatory to others; whereas "goodness," though ready to do good, has not such suavity of manner [JEROME]. ALFORD translates, "kindness."
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faith--"faithfulness"; opposed to "heresies" [BENGEL]. ALFORD refers to Co1 13:7, "Believeth all things": faith in the widest sense, toward God and man. "Trustfulness" [CONYBEARE and HOWSON].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv22–25 22, 23. The cluster of the fruits of the…
22, 23. The cluster of the fruits of the Spirit, in reverse to the above works of the flesh. It is works that are produced by the flesh, and fruit by the Spirit; both by influence, for it is the man himself who responsibly produces both. Rom_7:4.
There is a grouping of these “fruits” into three parts. The first includes the inner graces, as love, joy, peace; the second, their action upon others, as longsuffering, gentleness, goodness; the third, manifold traits of character, as faith, meekness, temperance.
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22. Three inward graces.
Love—Placed at the head, (as hate is placed at the opposite head of malign emotions, Gal_5:20,) as fountain of all the rest.
Joy—Springing from sense of love from and to God and man.
Peace—The calmer state of quiet and permanent joy. These are the three felicities and blessednesses of Christian life, giving existence and strength to all the Christian virtues.
Next come the three active graces of longsuffering, gentleness, and goodness.
Longsuffering—Enduring from others, as being sustained by a central love and peace within.
Gentleness—A kindly disposition and dealing with others.
Goodness—In active benevolence.
Next, the manifest qualities of character.
Faith—Good-faith, fidelity, trustiness, and trueness.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 25 22, 23. The works of the flesh are many,…
22, 23. The works of the flesh are many, the fruit of the Spirit is one, yet manifold. The works of the flesh are in a measure independent of each other. It cannot be said that every unregenerate man commits all of them. But he who has the Spirit of Christ has in him the root of all Christian graces. The ‘fruit of the Spirit’ is described elsewhere as consisting in ‘all goodness and righteousness and truth’. Eph_5:9.
It is possible, though not necessary, to group these graces in three triads. In any such artifical arrangement, there is a danger of limiting or torturing the several terms to make them fall in with a preconceived scheme.
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love] This stands first, not as distinct from, but as including all the rest.
joy] ‘joy in the Holy Ghost’ (Rom_14:17), manifesting itself in cheerfulness of demeanour, and so recommending the religion of which it is the fruit—not a selfish emotion, but a sun whose rays warm and gladden all within the sphere of its influence. The people of God are frequently exhorted to rejoice, e.g. Psa_33:1; Psa_97:12; Php_4:4, &c.
peace] In the conscience, pervading the soul, calming the passions, manifested in the disposition and conduct.
longsuffering] An attribute of God, 1Ti_1:12; 1Pe_3:20; 2Pe_3:15. Here it means, patience sustained under injuries and provocation.
gentleness] Rather, kindliness. A term frequently applied to God, e.g. Tit_3:4, where it is rendered by both A.V. and R.V. ‘kindness’. So in the LXX. version of Psa_24:9; Psa_33:8, &c.
goodness] ‘beneficence’.
faith] Either ‘fidelity’, ‘trustworthiness’; or ‘trustfulness’ as opposed to distrust in dealings with others. It may include both. The latter is the consequence of the former. The heart which is conscious of integrity is ever least prone to entertain suspicion.
meekness] A grace of the soul which consists in habitual submission to the dealings of God, arising from a sense of His greatness, and the man’s own littleness and sin. Hence the meek will regard all the insults and wrongs inflicted by men as permitted by God and a part of His discipline. This word is coupled with ‘longsuffering’, Col_3:12, with ‘lowliness’, Eph_4:2. For a critical distinction between them see Trench On N. T. Synonyms, pp. 142–148.
temperance] ‘self-mastery’, not to be limited, with some of the Fathers, to continence in the sense of virginity, or with many moderns, to abstinence from fermented drinks. The Christian, like the ancient athlete, ‘exercises self-control in all respects’. 1Co_9:25.
against such there is no law] There is a recurrence to what the Apostle had said above, Gal_5:18. ‘If ye are led by the Spirit’ (i.e. if ye bring forth the fruits of the Spirit) ‘ye are not under the law’, for there is no law to prohibit or condemn such things as these. It is, however, possible to understand ‘such’, as masculine, such characters or persons. Comp. 1Ti_1:9-10 where the law is described as aimed not at crimes but at those who commit them. Jowett observes that the law ‘neither prohibits nor enjoins Christian graces, which belong to a different sphere.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–25 (22) The fruit of the Spirit.—There does not seem…
(22) The fruit of the Spirit.—There does not seem to be any essential difference between this term and that used above: “the works of the flesh.” The fruit of the Spirit is that which naturally grows out of the operation of the Spirit, in which it naturally results. The expression “fruit” is, however, generally used by St. Paul in a good sense.
The list which follows brings out in a striking manner the peculiar finish and perfection which belongs to the Christian morality. It will be seen at a glance how it differs from any form of pagan or philosophic ethics. At the head of the list is “love,” which Christianity takes as its moving principle—not being, perhaps, alone in this, but alone in the systematic consistency with which it is carried out. Next comes “joy,” a peculiarly Christian grace, which has a much deeper root than mere natural cheerfulness of temper, and is rather the unfailing brightness and equanimity which proceeds from calm and settled principles animated by the Divine Spirit itself. It may be questioned whether “peace” is here the tranquility which is shed abroad in the heart by the sense of reconciliation with God, or rather, from the context that follows, peaceableness towards men. The remainder of the list, it will be seen, is made up of those delicate and fragile forms of virtue which the ordinary course of society is least likely to foster. Patriotism, courage, generosity, prudence, fortitude, are virtues that would be produced by the regular action of natural selection left to itself. “Long-suffering,” “gentleness,” “goodness,” “faith,” “meekness,” “temperance,” need a more spiritual process for their development.
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Gentleness, goodness.—Perhaps, rather, kindness, goodness. The difference between the two Greek words and the ideas which they denote would appear to be somewhat similar to the difference between these two words in English. The second would represent a rather more positive tendency of disposition than the first.
Faith.—Rather, perhaps, faithfulness; not here in the sense peculiar to St. Paul, in which faith is the primary Christian virtue, but rather (as the context shows) “faithfulness,” or “trustworthiness” in dealing with men, along with, perhaps, that frank and unsuspicious temper which St. Paul ascribes specially to charity (1Co_13:7).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv22–25 But the fruit of the Spirit (oJ de karpomatov).…
But the fruit of the Spirit (oJ de karpomatov). As it was with a hortatory purpose, to warn, that the apostle has before enumerated the vices into which the Galatian Christians would be most in danger of falling, so now with an answering hortatory purpose, to point out the direction in which their endeavours should lie, he reckons up the dispositions and states of mind which it was the office of the Holy Spirit to produce in them. In the Epistle to the Colossians, (Col_3:12-15) written several years after, most of the features here specified reappear in the form of direct exhortation ("kindness, meekness, long-suffering, love, peace, thankfulness") being there implicitly represented by thankfulness. The word fruit here takes the place of "works" in ver. 19, as being a more suitable designation of what are rather states of mind or habits of feeling than concrete actions like most of those previously enumerated "works." The word "fruit," moreover, describing in the vegetable world a matured product, is very commonly used in the New Testament with reference to such product as is not only of a pleasant but also of a useful kind; thus, "fruits meet for repentance;" the fruit of the True Vine in Joh_15:2-16 which glorifies God; the abundant fruit of; (Joh_12:24) the fruit of righteousness (Php_1:11; Heb_12:11) the fruit gathered by an evangelist (Joh_4:36; Rom_1:13) so that it was no doubt introduced here, as also in Eph_5:9, with the intended suggestion, that the graces here specified are results answering to the design of the great Giver of the Spirit"s influences, and are in their own nature wholesome and grateful. The singular number of the noun is employed in preference to the plural, which is found e.g. Php_1:11 and Jam_3:17, inconsequence probably of the feeling which the apostle had that the combination of graces described is in its entirety the proper outcome in each individual of the Spirit"s agency; the character which he will fain evolve in every soul subject to his dominion, comprises all these features; so that the absence of any one mars in a degree the perfection of the product. The relation expressed by the genitive case of the noun, "of the Spirit," is probably much the same as is expressed by the corresponding genitive, "of the flesh;" in each case meaning "belonging to," or "due to the operation of;" for the agent who in the one case does the works is not the flesh, but the person acting under the influence of the flesh; so here, the fruit-bearer is not "the Spirit," but the person controlled by the Spirit. Rom_7:4, "that we might bring forth fruit unto God;" Joh_15:8, "that ye bear much fruit." These fruits do not appear upon us without strenuous endeavour on our own part. Accordingly the apostle exhorts the Philippians (Php_2:12, 13) to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, because they have so august a co-Agent working with and in them. Indeed, it is for the very purpose of prompting and directing such endeavour that this list of gracious fruits is here given (comp. ver. 25). The enumeration does not expressly mention such dispositions of mind as have God for their object. These, however, may be discerned as lying couched under the three first named, "love, joy, peace," and possibly under "faith;" certainly joy and peace are the proper products of our hearty acceptance of the gospel, and of that alone; they presuppose the establishment of a conscious state of reconciliation with God. But just here the apostle seems more especially concerned to show how blessed, under the Spirit"s guidance, the Christian"s state will be, and in what manner Christians as thus led will act towards one another (cf. vers. 15 and 26). The Christian life is habitually regarded by the apostle much more as a corporate, fellow-Christian, life, than, owing to various causes, some of which we may hope are now in course of removal, we modern Christians, and especially English Church, men, are in the habit of regarding it. Is love (estin ajgaph). We cannot separate this branch of Christian character from those which follow, as in essence distinct from them; it is organically connected with them, and in fact, as stated above (ver. 14), involves them all, being "the bond of perfectness". (Col_3:14) in the "dithyramb of love," chanted in 1Co 13., the apostle triumphantly proclaims this truth; as also on the other had in 1Ti_1:5 he affirms that true Christian love has its root in "a pure heart, a good conscience, and genuine faith." The soul cannot be free for the activity of genuine love, towards fellow-believers and towards fellow-creatures in general, as long as it is restrained in its emotions toward the supreme common Father of all; the inward vice of mind, whatever it may be, which darkens the spirit towards heaven must inevitably cramp and benumb benevolent action universally. (comp. 1Jn_5:2) In truth, ajgaph means a loving temper of mind which, like the love which God bears towards us, is in a degree irrespective of merit, welling forth towards all being, so far as circumstances permit; though with greatest intensity towards God and those in whom it can recognize the image of God. Hence St, John is able to reason as he does in 1Jn_4:20, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen." Joy (cara) It is impossible to accept Calvin"s notion, that this means a cheerful carriage towards fellow-Christians, though it includes it; it must mean the glad-heartedness produced by entire faith in God"s love to us. (Rom_14:17 Rom_15:13) The exhortation which is here implied, that such sentiments should be carefully cherished, is elsewhere given explicitly and with reiteration; as e.g. 1Th_5:16; Php_4:4. There is thus much ground for Calvin"s view, that the inward feeling of satisfaction and joy, which is the proper fruit of a true Christian"s faith in the gospel, cannot fail to manifest itself in his behavior towards his fellow-men by a sacred species of light-heartedness and hilarity which it is impossible for us to manifest or to feel, as long as we have within a consciousness of estrangement from God, or a suspicion that things are not well with us in relation to him. It is probable that the apostle, in writing down this word, did it with a consciousness of the contrast which is presented by the coldness and severity of feeling towards others which are begotten by the bondage of legality. (comp. 1Pe_1:22) Peace (eijrhnh), This is conjoined with "joy" in the two passages of the Romans just before cited: (Rom_14:17) "The kingdom of God i.e. its great blessedness is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit;", (Rom_14:13) "The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit;" in both which passages the "peace" referred to is the serenity of soul arising from the consciousness of being brought home to the favour of God and to obedience to his will. On the other hand, the term as here introduced seems likewise intended to stand in contrast with those sins of strife and malignity noted before among the works of the flesh, and therefore to point to peacefulness in the Christian community. The two are vitally connected: the Spirit produces peaceful harmony among Christians by producing in their minds, individually, a peaceful sense of harmony with God and a compliancy in all things with his providential appointments. This resigned trustfulness towards God quells at their very fountain-head those disturbances of passion and that inward fretting and impatience in reference to outward things, including the behaviour of others, which are the main causes of strife. The interdependence between inward and outward peace is indicated in 2Co_13:11; ei, Col_3:14, Col_3:15. If "the peace of God rules, is arbitrator (brabeu) in our hearts" individually, if it "holds guard over our hearts and our thoughts", (Php_4:7) it cannot fail to produce and maintain harmony amongst us towards one another. Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness (makroqumia crhstothv ajgaqwsunh); longsufferng, kindness, goodness. These are actings of the all-comprising grace of love. " For the two first, comp.etai);" 1Co_13:4, "Love suffereth long, is kind (makroqumei crhsteu) while the third, "goodness," sums up the other actings of love enumerated in vers. 5 and 6 or the same chapter. It is difficult to distinguish between crhstothv and ajgaqwsunh, except so far as that the former, which etymologically means "usableness," seems to signify more distinctly "sweetness of disposition," "amiability," "a compliant willingness to be serviceable to others." It is, however, repeatedly used by St. Paul of God"s benignity (Rom_2:4 Rom_11:22; Eph_2:7; Tit_3:4) as ajaqwsunh also is by many thought tonh, 2Th_1:11, which last point, however, is very questionable. This latter term, ajgaqwsu occurs besides in Rom_15:14 and stiv Eph_5:9, as a very wide description of human goodness, apparently in the sense of active benevolence. Faith (pi) faith or faithfulness. It is disputed in what precise shade of meaning the apostle here uses this term. The sense of "fidelity," which beyond question it bears in Tit_2:10, seems out of place, when we consider the particular evils which are now in his eye as existing or in danger of arising in the Galatian Churches. Belief in the gospel suits this requirement perfectly, and presents us with the apparently needed contrast to the "heresies" of ver. 20. If this sense seems not to be favoured by the immediate neighbourhood on one side of "kindness" and "goodness," it is, however, quite coherent with the "meekness" on the other, if we understand by this latter term a tractable spirit, compliant to the teaching of the Divine Word; comp. Jam_1:21, "receive with meekness the implanted word," and Psa_25:9, "The meek Septuagint, praeiv will he guide in judgment, the meek (praeiv) will he teach his way." in Mat_23:23, "judgment, mercy, and faith," the term seems (comp. Mic_6:8) to refer to faith towards God. in 1Ti_6:11, "righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness," there is no reason for interpreting it otherwise than as faith in God and his gospel; and if so, its collocation there with "love, patience, meekness," countenances us in taking it so here, where it stands in a very similar collocation. Comp. Eph_6:23, "Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Vers. 22, 23.
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The fruit of the Spirit.
Here we have the picture of a lovely garden, with all the choicest growths of the Spirit.
I THE NINE GRACES OF THE SPIRIT.
(1) The apostle speaks of the nine as constituting the knit of the Spirit, as if to imply that it takes all the nine, and no mere selection of graces out of them, to form the one fruit of the Holy Spirit. Christian character must be fully and harmoniously developed.
(2) Mark the difference between the works of the flesh and the knit of the Spirit. Sin is our work; the graces are the Spirit"s growth in us.
(3) The nine graces throw themselves naturally into three groups, each group consisting of three the first group, "love, joy, peace," touching our relations to God; the second group, "long-suffering, gentleness, goodness," touching our relations to our fellow-men; the third group, "faith, meekness, temperance," touching the regulation and conduct of our own individual Christian life.
1. First group. "Love, joy, peace." They all spring out of the filial relation into which we are brought by faith in Christ. Love is the tie that binds our hearts to God as our Father; joy is the glad emotion that springs up after our reconciliation with God; peace is the summer calm that settles down upon the soul that has entered into its rest. Love has been called the foundation of the fabric; joy, the superstructure; peace, the crown of the work. Love has a primary place, for it is "shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost." Joy is dependent upon love, and may well be called "joy of the Holy Ghost." It is enshrined in the very heart of love. It rises and falls, with love itself, like the thin thread of mercury in the thermometer, by the action of the surrounding atmosphere. Peace is linked with joy "in believing." Peace and joy are the two ingredients of the kingdom of God. (Rom_14:17) It is "the peace to which we are called in one body", (Col_3:15) which will keep our hearts and minds in the midst of all worldly agitations.
2. Second group. "Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness." The first group blends naturally into the second, for there is a near relation between peace and long-suffering. The graces of this group begin with the passive and end with the active, for long-suffering is the patient endurance of injuries inflicted by others; goodness is an active principle, not a mere kindly disposition; while gentleness or kindness is something between the two a principle, however, which tends largely to promote the usefulness and the comfort of life, lessening the friction that enters more or less into all our intercourse with our fellow-men.
3. Third group. Faith, meekness, temperance." These three graces refer to the regulation of Christian life. It is curious to find faith seventh, and not first, in this list of graces. Faith is the root-principle of all graces. It goes before love itself, for it "worketh by love," and it precedes joy and peace, which both spring from our believing. (Rom_15:13) It has, therefore, been suggested that faith is here taken for fidelity. There is no reason, however, for any departure from its usual meaning. Faith is here regarded, not as the means of salvation or as the instrument of our justification, but as the principle of Christian life, which controls and guides it. Thus faith supplies the strength of self-control that is implied in temperance, and is the secret spring of that meekness which is an ornament of great price. Temperance comes last in the list of graces, because self-control is the end of all Christian life. Like the governor in machinery, it adds nothing to the power at work, but it equalizes the power so as to produce a uniform type of work.
II MARK THE SPECIAL PRIVILEGE THAT ATTACHES TO THESE NINE GRACES. "Against such there is no Law." There is Law against the seventeen works of the flesh to condemn them; but there is no Law to condemn the nine graces of the Spirit. There is Law to restrain the sinner it exists for the purposes of this restraint but in the graces of theSpirit there is nothing to restrain. They all chime in with the requirements of the Law, because they radiate from that love which is the very fulfilling of the Law. Thus those who are led by the Spirit are not under Law.
Vers. 22, 23.
The fruit of the Spirit.
I THE GRACES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE GROW OUT OF THE INDWELLING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD. Neither of the two rival theories of Greek philosophers that virtue comes by practice and that it is taught by instruction would commend itself to St. Paul. Nor would he agree with Plato that it arises in the intuitive recollection of innate ideas, nor with Aristotle that it is the result of habits. Neither would he permit the modern separation of religion from morals. Morals need the inspiration of religion. Religion when truly alive must control conduct. The first great essential is for our spirit to be possessed by the Spirit of Christ through faith in him. Then Christian graces will appear as fruits of the Spirit. We must begin within. We cannot produce fruits by manipulating the outside of a dead stump. Life is the one essential, and from life within grows fruit without. Only internal spiritual life can produce external Christian graces.
II NEVERTHELESS, THE CHRISTIAN GRACES NEED TO BE DIRECTLY CULTIVATED. Although the tree produces the fruit from its own life, the branches must be pruned and trained and the fruit sheltered from cold and protected from vermin and wild birds. It is not enough to think only of the inmost sources of a holy life. We must watch the course of it and guide it aright throughout. Christian ethic is an important branch of religious instruction, and is not to be ignored as unimportant because it is only serviceable in subordination to the cultivation of the inner spiritual life.
III THE CHRISTIAN GRACES HAVE SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR OWN. Such a list as is here given by St. Paul has a character of its own. Some of its constituent parts might be found in a heathen moralist; perhaps all of them; for there is a common conscience in all mankind. But the selection as a whole and the form and character of it are foreign to the atmosphere of paganism. The one significant fact about it is that it is a portrait of Christ. Christianity is putting on Christ. He is our great Exemplar. Our true life is walking in his footsteps. In particular note:
1. Attention is directed to internal principles rather than to external rules of conduct. St. Paul cared little for casuistry.
2. Emphasis is laid on the gentler graces. Pagan ethics treat chiefly of masculine virtues. Christian ethics add what are commonly called the feminine. Yet there is nothing unmanly in the gentleness of true nobility of character thus revealed.
3. Charity and its fruits receive the principal place in the list.
IV THE PARTICULAR GRACES IN THE LIST GIVEN BY ST. PAUL ARE WORTHY OF SEPARATE CONSIDERATION,
1. Three graces of general disposition:
1. love, the root of all joy;
2. the special joy of self-sacrificing love; and
3. peace, attained later, but more constant when attained.
1. Three graces in our conduct with others:
1. passive long-suffering;
2. kindness, which wishes well to others; and
3. beneficence, which does it.
1. three more general graces:
1. fidelity, not made necessary by general kindness;
2. meekness when opposed by the evil in other men;
3. self-control in keeping under the evil in ourselves. "Against such." says St. Paul, with a touch of humor, "There is no law. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love.
Gal_5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love.
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The spiritual life
The works of the flesh are manifest, known and plain to all. But the fruit of the Spirit is not so manifest: the life of God in the soul is a hidden life: still it is a real life, producing genuine fruit; cherish therefore and cultivate it.
I. The Spirit Himself is the source of all spiritual fruit. Ii. The nature of this fruit. The list here given is not exhaustive. Nor does it admit of very definite classification. The following three groups of three each have been suggested.
1. Christian states of mind in their more general aspect.
2. Those special qualities which affect a mans intercourse with his neighbours.
3. Certain general principles which guide a Christian mans conduct.
III. The connection between, and mutual dependence upon each other, of the fruits of the Spirit.
1. They are all from one and the same source.
2. They all conform to one rule, the law of God.
3. Each Christian must possess them all, at least in germ. Grace in the soul is the reflection of Christs glory (2Co_3:12); but that can be no true reflection which lacks any leading features of the moral glory of the Saviour.
IV. Practical inferences.
1. Be careful to cultivate all the graces of the Christian character. Without this there can be no symmetry and harmony.
2. Growth in grace is the best security for the crucifixion of the flesh.
3. Be filled with the Spirit. Avoid whatever grieves and tempts Him to withdraw His presence. Yield readily to His godly motions, His guidance, His teaching.
4. Pray for increase of grace. The daily life must be lived, whether we will or no. It rests with us whether it shall be lived in the power and under the influence of the Spirit. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
Spiritual fertility
See the fertility and fruitfulness of the soul that is in a state of grace and therefore in the love of God. First of all, here is the relation of the soul with God Himself: Love is that which unites us with God; joy, which means the thanksgiving and the consciousness of Gods infinite goodness, in which we live and mote; peace, whereby we are at rest with God, and in ourselves, and with all mankind. Then there are the fruits which have relation to our neighbour; and the first is patience. Do we bear with our neighbours? Are we irritable, revengeful, resentful, malicious? If so, the fruits of the Holy Ghost are not in us, because the benignity of God is not in us. Long-suffering is another name for patience. Just as equity is the most delicate form of justice, long-suffering is the most perfect form of charity, the perpetual radiance of a loving heart, which, in its dealings with all around, looks kindly upon them and judges kindly of their faults. It means also perseverance, the not being wearied in well-doing, not throwing up and saying, I have tried to do good for such a one, I have tried to correct his faults. I have tried to win him; but he is ungrateful, incorrigible, and I will have no more to do with him. Our Lord does not so deal with us. Long-suffering means an unwearied perseverance in doing good. Gentleness means kindness and forbearance, the dissembling of wrong, the absence of the fire of resentment and of the smouldering of ill-will. Next comes goodness; as a fountain pours out pure water, so the good heart is perpetually pouring out goodness and diffusing goodness on all around. Faith means veracity, so that a mans word is as good as an oath. And then, lastly, there are certain fruits which have relation to ourselves. They are, first, modesty, (=meekness?) which is both within and without--modesty of bearing, modesty of conduct, of dress, of demeanour, a chastened and sensitive regard for others, in all that is due from us to them, which keeps us from obtrusiveness, and from transgressing the delicate consideration which is their right. Temperance or continence means most especially the repressing of passions--the passion of anger, the inclination to pleasure, to honour, to wealth; it is the transparent purity of the soul, and the custody Of the senses, because they are the avenues to the soul by which sin enters. Such, then, are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Every soul that is in the grace of God has in it this fertility. It may not bear them all in equal measure, but it bears them all in some proportion. (H. E. Manning.)
Spiritual fruit in the Church
Look at the world before the Son of God came into it. Find one institute of mercy in it. Find a hospital, or an asylum for the widow or for the orphan. Find a home for those who were bereft of reason. Find a ministry of charity to the sick. The culture of classical nations was as cold as the ice, as hard as a stone. The sacred heart of the Incarnate Son of God cast fire upon the earth. And the Christian world kindled and broke forth into all the works of charity. As soon as the widows and the orphans among those who believed were known to be destitute, the apostles set apart a special order--the sacred order of Deacons--to be the ministers of the charity of Jesus Christ to His poor. The law of alms came in, which had no existence in the heathen world. The life of community--not the communism of those that do not believe in Jesus Christ, but the community of all things among those who, being members of His Body, hate a sympathy one with another, and share in each others sorrows, and joys, and in their hunger, and thirst, and nakedness. The miseries of mankind as they were seen by the Son of God Himself are before the eyes of His Church. All the miseries of mankind, of body and soul, are open to the heart that is illuminated and kindled with the love of God and our neighbour. The Church from the beginning has shown an inventiveness of charity, in finding out how it may apply the help of the love and of the mercies of God to every form of human suffering. And what the Church does as a body the saints of the Church have done one by one. The life of St. Charles, the great pastor of Milan, was inexhaustible in compassion. St. Vincent of Paul, who did not commence his works of mercy until he was forty years of age, has filled the whole world with the exercise of the most various forms of Christian love, ministering to every form of disease and suffering. And what there is in the lives of saints there ought to be in its measure in every one of you. Do not say, I have a preference for this or/or that kind of charity, and I am not called to other things. You are called to show all these fruits of the Holy Ghost on every occasion in which it is possible, at least in some measure or in some degree, and that to all. (H. E. Manning.)
Mans productive capabilities
Fruit, regarded in the light of the orchard, the garden, or the vineyard, is the most perfect form of development to which a tree or plant can come. Fruit is the thing for which all the enginery of roots and branches and leaves was appointed. All these are servants. They toil and wait. The fruit only sits regent; it is the final result--the perfect; thing. The tree can never go a step further than its fruit. It can stop, and go back and begin again; but it goes only to that limit; and when it has reached that, it has reached perfection. The fruit is the measure of the trees possibility. So when we speak of man as a tree, or a vine, and when we speak of the fruit of that tree or vine, we refer to that Divine summer which quickens man, and renders him productive, and brings forth in him the highest results of which he is capable. When a man comes to that which is called the fruit of the Spirit, he reaches his full limit as a creature of time. When the fruit of the Spirit in man is spoken of, that which is meant is the fairest, the noblest, the best thing that he can be brought to, by the brooding of the Divine mind. It is the final result which is wrought out by all the influences for good which are brought to bear upon him. It is that which his higher nature ultimates in …. Here is the ideal of a perfect manhood. It must have these marks--love, joy, peace, etc. It must be characterized by these qualities. A man may be resplendent; he may dramatise as Shakespeare; he may paint as Raphael; he may carve as Michael Angelo; he may colour as Titian; he may build as Bramante; he may subdue the material globe, and conquer by physical forces; but these things do not represent manhood. A man may think till his thoughts shoot as far as the starlight shoots; a man may speak with an eloquence which is transcendent; a man may be endowed with all conceivable intellectual endowments; but these do not represent manhood. That which distinguishes the true man is not the capacity to command physical substances. It is not the power to analyse and use things created out of material. It is not any of the lower forms of power; nor even the influence of mental strength. None of these things constitute the truest manhood. It is the fruit of the Spirit--man being the stalk on which that fruit is growing, and out of which it is to be developed. (H. W. Beecher.)
Fruit of the Spirit
This is a rich coronet of graces, with which the apostle decks the character of the Christian believer. He tells us here what a spiritual life in Christ means, a life that has its ripe fruit in these real virtues of the man. It is no exact classification of the religious graces, but we may find an inward harmony, as if he thought of them as following a law of personal growth. Love, joy, and peace are the inmost dispositions of the heart, flowing from communion with the heart of Christ; long-suffering, gentleness, goodness are social dispositions toward others; and faith, meekness, temperance (or self-restraint) are qualities of conduct. (E. A. Washburn, D. D.)
Spiritual tests
We believe that we pass from sin to holiness, not of ourselves, but by the grace of God working in us. How, then, do we recognize the reality of such a Divine life? It must be by the real dispositions and the real graces that are in us. There is no other possible way. What is the grace of the Spirit? If a spiritual grace be a mysterious something, which has no test save our individual feeling, it may be an imagination. If a man should say, I see the grass to be red: it may be so to his eyes, but it only shows his eyes to be in a diseased state. So with our spiritual perceptions. If a man should say, The spirit has revealed to me that Christ shall appear next week on the earth: we should reply, What proof do you bring that you are not an enthusiast? And so if any one say, I am assured that at a certain time I was convicted of sin, and passed from death to life; we have still to ask, How do you know that this is not a fancy, a will o the wisp, shining out of the swamp of a morbid feeling. It is not enough to say, I have an extraordinary peace of conscience, a sense of pardon and joy; for any one who knows human nature and his own, knows that we can be more readily cheated by our religious emotions than all else, and may mistake the spirit of self-conceit for the Spirit of God. It must be a test beyond our inner feeling. It must be a test seen and known by others. It must be a test of a permanent kind. What is it? There can be only one answer. We know the Divine Spirit by the likeness of our characters to His, as we know the sun in his beams, the plant in its blossom. The Spirit of Christ is of love and peace; it shows itself in the conquest of our unloving, warring passions. It is of long-suffering and goodness; it is known in our unselfish goodness toward our fellowmen. It is of meekness and temperance; it is known in our self-restraint. This is reality. There is no outward surface morality in it; but the genuine morality of heart and life. If we have these positive graces, if our religion create this true joy of a cheerful, happy spirit; this peace not of a self-satisfied conscience, but of one void of offence; this gentleness, this goodness which prompts our action in daily life; this temperance, which keeps us from all unholy appetites of wealth or selfish pleasure; if it be this in the household, in the social circle, in the calling of business--then we have the only assurance we can have of the presence of the Holy Spirit. There can be no mistake about it. And so as to others. If I recognize these genuine graces in any, whether his religious experiences tally with mine or no, I know that he is a living disciple of Christ, as I know the flavour of a peach, although it may not be of my garden. (E. A. Washburn, D. D.)
Danger of substituting any other test for this
There is a religion calling itself spiritual, which substitutes a vague notion of the Divine grace for the plain rule of the apostle. Let such a notion enter, and what more sure to make the doctrine of the Holy Spirit the apology for every morbid mistake! What strange doubts in regard to the plainest duty, what vagaries in feeling, what contradictions between faith and life? You meet one class of sincere Christians, who make religion an inward self-torment; always asking whether they can find signs of their conversion, distressed about their states of mind, instead of testing the grace of God by their simple acceptance of His promises and daily growth in duty. It is the saddest of inversions. As well dig up the roots of the rose bush every hour to know if it have life, when you should see it in the fragrance and bloom of the rose. You meet others, who believe that some strong conviction is the assurance of the Spirit. I know nothing more unreal than that. In proportion as we believe in this assurance of our own unchanging state, we lose our humble sense of our weakness. The assurance we have is in God. But there is none that we have that life in us, unless we keep it by our growth. I have even known those, who hold this notion of religion, speak very doubtfully of the moral virtues, of integrity, honour, purity, benevolence, as a mere morality which might be without any spiritual piety at all. Let us beware of such conceits. When men indulge in this theory, it often ends in machinery, in the mechanical exercise of feeling, and leaves the real life barren. Try the spirits by the rule of Christ; and when you see that the figs do not grow on the thistles, that the spiritual experience is one thing, and the real man another; a lofty faith here, and a selfish conduct there; grace that has no graces; a change within that makes no change without--then learn the difference between the subtleties of men and the plain Word of God. (E. A. Washburn, D. D.)
New leaves pushing off the old
Old leaves, if they remain upon the trees through the autumn and the winter, fall off in the spring. We have seen a hedge all thick with dry leaves throughout the winter, and neither frost nor wind has removed the withered foliage, but the spring has soon made a clearance. The new life dislodges the old, pushing it away as unsuitable to it. So our old corruptions are best removed by the growth of new graces. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. It is as the new life buds and opens that the old worn-out things of our former state are compelled to quit their hold of us, Our wisdom lies in living near to God, that by the power of His Holy Spirit all our graces may be vigorous, and may exercise a sin-expelling power over our lives: the new leaves of grace pushing off our old sere affections and habits of sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The fruit of the Spirit visible
If the sun is sparkling on the healthy leaves of a fruit-tree, and heavenly airs are fanning them, and the good soil lies below, we do not try to prove by abstract rules that probably the fruit will somehow drop down of a sudden on the twigs. The eye sees the work going on, and doubts about contingencies and dangers seldom disturb the husbandman. If there is a work of grace now stirring, if the Christ-thoughts become more and more our thoughts, if the world below sinks in value, and the character deepens on sound things, on truer judgments, on simpler goodness and wisdom, we need not to look to some far-off future to find hope. (C. H. Hall, D. D.)
Symmetrical fertility
The fruits of the Spirit do not always appear, even in every true Christian, in their Divine order and symmetrical proportion. Grace works on very different natures, and is subject to an endless variety of conditions and modifying influences; so that while the great change has been wrought, the seeds of the new life have taken root in the heart, the form and degree of development will greatly vary in different persons, and different conditions and surroundings. In one, faith predominates, in another, love, in another, charity, etc. Seldom do we see in this world a perfectly rounded symmetrical Christian character. Grace has not its perfect work here: and yet the conversion may be genuine. The believer should not despair, if he fails to discover in his heart and daily life, at one and the same time, all the fruits of grace here enumerated. (American Homeletic Review.)
Catechism of religion
When I ask you, Do you believe in religion? I do not mean to ask you whether you believe in creeds, and ordinances, and Church organisations. When I want to know whether a man believes in religion or not, I do not ask, Do you believe in Sunday, and in ministers, and in the Bible For a man may believe in all these things, and not believe in religion. And a man might not believe in any of them, and yet believe in religion. If I were going to question you to ascertain whether you were a Christian or not, I would say, Do you, sir, believe in love, as the transcendent element of manhood? Where is the man who would say No to that? Where, in the whole round of creation, would be found a man who, if the question were put to him, Do you believe in the validity, and authority, and divinity of love? I would not say, I believe? That is the first question in the catechism. The second is, Do you believe in joy, supernal, ineffable, Divine, bred in the soul of man, and in the highest realm of the soul? Do you believe that all the faculties of man, like the pipes of an organ, conspire in ringing out sweet symphonies? If the question were asked, Do you believe in joy? where is the man who would not say, I believe? Do you believe in peace? I believe. Do you believe in long-suffering? I believe. Do you believe in gentleness? I believe. Do you believe in goodness? I believe. Do you believe in faith? I believe. Do you believe in meekness and temperance? I believe. Answer me, hungry heart--you that have wandered from church to church, and have not been fed; you that have tried pleasure, and aspiration, and ambition, without being satisfied, and have become wearied and discouraged; you that have listened to discourse on discourse, and enigma on enigma, and had spectacular views which purported to be religion, and have fallen off, wearily saying, Ah, there is no religion in these things!--is there no religion? Do not you believe in religion? If you were to see a man filled with the fruit of the Spirit, would you not believe in that man? Yes, you say, but there is no such man. But is not that an ambition which every man may most worthily set before him, and press toward with all the power that is in him? Is not that worth living for? And if men come together, and say, We will bear with each other, and will uphold each other, and together we will press toward that high conception of manhood, is not that a worthy reason for coming together? Is there anything in pleasure, or business, or citizenship which is comparable in dignity and worth to coming together earnestly bent on having the fruit of the Spirit as it is here depicted?… I spread before you this reality of love, and joy, and peace, and long-suffering, and gentleness, and goodness, and faith, and meekness, and temperance, and say, This is what you are to be and to do. And you can help each other to be and to do that. Take hold of hands. Avail yourselves of what advantage there may be in social power. If you are wanderers and discouraged, join one with another that you may inspire each other with hope and find rest. This is the whole economy of religion. It is the whole philosophy of the Church. (H. W. Beecher.)
The influence of the Holy Spirit perceptible
When the rays of the sun fall on the surface of a material object, part of those rays are absorbed; part of them are reflected back in straight lines; and part of them refracted this way and that in various directions. When the Holy Ghost shines upon our souls, part of the grace He inspires is absorbed to our own particular comforts; part of it is reflected back in acts of love, joy, prayer, praise; and part of it is refracted every way in acts of benevolence, beneficency, and all moral and social duty. (A. M. Toplady.)
The fruit of the Spirit is love: Love an abiding quality
Not love like a June day breaking out in March, and everybody saying, Was there ever such a beautiful day? But you mustnt expect more such days. There are a good many people who have love like that. It is a rare thing with them. But the quality is to be permanent, pervading, atmospheric, automatic, spontaneous. You are to be clothed with it, and it is to abide with you. What if men had to run to an air reservoir every time they wanted any atmosphere--taking a breath, then going as long as they could, and then going back to get another breath! But in this world of hurlyburly, strifes, conflicts, envyings, jealousies, selfishness, and various attrition, a sweet, universal, unvarying, atmospheric love is almost as rare as the illustration would indicate. Yet we are brought into circumstances where every vengeful passion plays, and threatens to supersede all our grace. We have to get up our grace. It is as if a man, having laid aside his armour in time of warfare, and hearing some warning bell strike, and being in his house, should spring up and cry, Where is my spear, my arrow, my armour? I must get on my things, and go out to fight. That may do for warfare; but so sharp are our appetites and temptations, that we have no time to put on our armour. Circumstances require us to wear it all the time. Put on the whole armour of God. If you leave off any piece at any time, that is the point where death will enter. Love, automatic, continuous. You see it now and then. You will see it in a greatsouled man. He never moves from the stability of that state of mind; or if he moves, it is only as an overfull vessel sometimes spills herself on one side and on the other. Now and then you see it in a great-souled and saintly woman, not only where she makes herself radiant, but where the whole household is filled with the atmosphere of her graciousness and her goodness. This is what you see in the Indian summer of life in the aged often--namely, that they have worn out, as it were burned out, the passions, and have been released little by little from the temptations of the aggressive life. They have brought themselves into a continued exercise of the higher Christian states of mind, until, as they sit waiting for their sun to go down, that it may rise again and never set, they are luminous and are clothed, and in their right mind. (H. W. Beecher.)
The fruit of the Spirit is love: The Christian the only true lover of mankind
Is it not the fact, that religion unlocks the closest bosoms, softens the most rugged nature, touches the heart of stone, and melts it into tenderness and love? I have lately been called to watch the last years of an individual, who, during a life of more than eighty years, barred out every feeling of compassion and generosity; but no sooner did the beams of the blessed gospel pierce his heart, than I myself saw every sterner quality at once subdued, and all that was large and generous and sympathizing occupy the vacant place; no sooner did he learn his own condition, as a sinner redeemed with the precious blood of Christ--no sooner had he been taught that, if saved at all, he must be saved by an act of sovereign and unmerited grace and compassion, than the frost of his soul seemed dissolved, his heart expanded, his affections were new-born, he looked over the world with a new eye, and literally drained himself to supply the spiritual and temporal necessities of those around him. And he is not, by any means, an isolated instance; but simply a sample of the Spirits work in the souls of the regenerate. Who, I ask, was Howard--and who are the men that tread in his steps, and dive into the depths of the dungeon, and take the guage of misery in all nations of the world? Who was Wilberforce--and who are those upon whom his mantle has fallen, the men that give tyranny no rest, and count no sacrifice too great to break the staff of the oppressor, and let the prisoner go free? In all cases the answer is the same. These are the men who look to the Spirit of God only, as the source of all that is good and great as the living fountain of love, as their only stay and prop, as the Author and Finisher of all real schemes of benevolence; they are men, in short, whose help and trust are placed in God alone. (J. W. Cunningham, M. A.)
The voice of love
Oh! there is a voice in love; it speaks a language which is its own; it has an idiom and a brogue which none can mimic; wisdom cannot imitate it; oratory cannot attain unto it; it is love alone which can reach the mourning heart; love is the only handkerchief which can wipe the mourners tears away. And is not the Holy Ghost a loving Comforter? Dost thou know, O saint, how much the Holy Spirit loves thee? Canst thou measure the love of the Spirit? Dost thou know how great is the affection of His soul towards thee? Go, measure heaven with thy span; go, weigh the mountains in scales; go, take the oceans water, and tell each drop; go, count the sand upon the seas wide shore; and when thou hast accomplished this, thou mayst tell how much He loveth thee! He has loved thee long, He has loved thee well; He loved thee ever, and He still shall love thee; surely He is the person to comfort thee, because He loves. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The harmony of manhood
Oh, what a grand thing human nature is when it is working smoothly! There is the will sitting supreme, informed from above, through channels and means, by all the grace of God which the Spirit supplies. There is conscience, its spiritual assessor, waiting and warning and testing with unerring accuracy. There is the inner circle of the intellect, presenting to it all that is good, noble, or useful. Memory, bringing in its treasures from the past. Imagination, bringing in ornament and beauty from the present, and even from the future. There is the body beneath, with its active slaves ceaselessly conveying materials through the senses. There are the passions and the emotions, with their hidden fires, all ministering to the great work which is going on within. And surely it is worth the effort to be all that is meant by spiritual, to set ourselves to work in the best way. And to this end it will be helpful to consider those virtues which the apostle tells us are the fruit of the Spirit--those fruits and productions which spring up within us out of the harmomous working of our being--working, that is, as God means it to work, with all its several parts acting according to the will of God concerning us. It may be that we have not as yet learnt to use the machine aright; perhaps we have shrunk from, it, and God drives us in upon ourselves by the admonition of adversity or the reproofs of conscience. Perhaps, it may be, there is a large piece of this worlds grit sticking somewhere within which needs to come away. Perhaps there may be a sense that we are, after all, our own masters, instead of workers for God, which hinders our perfection. If so, let us try to think what we might be if all these parts of our being were entire, if we were working smoothly for Him. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
The right use of human capabilities
Now it is obvious that this human nature, if rightly used, is a machine of delicate and wonderful powers, only some employ it as they might use some beautiful musical instrument, using but a part of it, with no combination of stops, no intricacies of effect, or concentration of action; while some maim it as they use it, and spoil it altogether. What a frightful perversion, for instance, is the man who is, as it were all body!--in whom the governing power has passed over to the lower senses, who perverts his mental faculties to the procuring of mere animal gratification, who stifles out all the spiritual yearnings and pleadings within him that he may be more and mere carnal and sensual. And if this be so, it is also true that there may be an intellectual deformity as well, higher and nobler if you will, but still a deformity, where the body is despised or dishonoured, where the spirit has been shut off in its higher regions, and is to all intents and purposes without any influence upon life. The first perversion is obvious; we may see it any day at almost any tavern door. But the other may also be traced in many an impartial biography, where on a review of the whole life before us, it cannot be said that the spirit, soul, and body have been preserved entire (ὁλόκληρα), that the owners might be presented whole (ὁλοτελεῖς) before God. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
The fruits of the spirit
A hard thing it is, to bring an overweening hypocrite to a true understanding of himself; for pride and hypocrisy are two such things as few men are willing to own. That they might therefore with better certainty be able to discern whether they were indeed spiritual, or but yet carnal, the apostle proceedeth to describe the flesh and the Spirit by their different effects. The thing we are to take notice of now is the differences that may be observed between the titles under which St. Paul hath entered the several particulars of both sorts. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, etc., the other in the beginning of Gal_5:22 : But the fruit of the Spirit is love, etc.
1. The first difference, which ariseth from the nature of things themselves, as they relate to their several proper causes, is of the four the most obvious and important: and it is this: that whereas the vicious habits and sinful actions catalogued in the former verses are the production of the flesh, the graces and virtues specified in the text are ascribed to the Spirit, as to their proper and original cause. They are not the works of the flesh, as the former, but the fruit of the Spirit. First, clear it is, that all the wicked practices recited and condemned in the foregoing verses, with all ether of like quality, do proceed merely from the corruption that is in us, from our own depraved minds and wills, without any the least co-operation of the Holy Spirit of God therein. It cannot stand with the goodness of God to be the principal; and neither with His goodness nor greatness to be an accessory, in any sinful action. He cannot be either the author or the abettor of anything that is evil. Secondly, it is clear also that all the holy affections and performances here mentioned, with all other Christian virtues and graces accompanying salvation, not here mentioned, though performed immediately by us, and with the free consent of cur own wills, are yet the fruit of Gods Spirit working in us. All those very many passages in the New Testament, which either set forth the unframeableness of our nature to the doing of anything that is good--Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think a good thought; In me, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing, and the like: or else ascribe our best performances to the glory of the grace of God--Without me you can do nothing; All our sufficiency is of God; Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; It is God that worketh in you both the will and the deed, and the like, are so many clear confirmations of the truth.
(1) The necessity of our prayers. It is true, our endeavours are necessary: God that doth our work for us, will not do it without us.
(2) A duty of thankfulness. If by His good blessing upon our prayers and endeavours we have been enabled to bring forth any fruit, such as He will graciously accept; take we heed we do not withdraw the least part of the glory of it from Him, to derive it upon ourselves, or our own endeavours. Enough it is for us, that we have the comfort onward, and shall have an unmeasurable reward at the last, for the good we have done (either of both which is infinitely more than we deserve); but far be it from us to claim any share in the glory: let all that be to Him alone.
2. The evil effects proceeding from the flesh are called by the name of works; and the good effects proceeding from the Spirit are called by the name of fruits. The query is, why, being both effects alike, they are not either both alike called works, or both alike called fruits; but the one works, the other fruit--the works of the flesh there, here, the fruit of the Spirit? For answer whereunto, I shall propose to your choice two conjectures. The one more theological, or rather metaphysical, which is almost as new to me as perhaps it will seem to you (for it came not into my thoughts till I was upon it); the other more moral and popular. For the former, take it thus. Where the immediate agent produceth a work or effect, virtute propria, by his own power, and not in the virtue of a superior agent, both the work itself produced, and the efficacy of the operation whereby it is produced, are to be ascribed to him alone; so as it may be said properly and precisely to be his work. But where the immediate agent operateth virtute aliena, in the strength and virtue of some higher agent, without which he were not able to produce the effect, though the work done may even there also be attributed in some sort to the inferior and subordinate agent, as the immediate cause, yet the efficacy whereby it was wrought cannot be so properly imputed to him, but ought rather to be ascribed to that higher agent in whose virtue he did operate. If this seem but a subtlety and satisfy not, let it go; the other, I presume, will, seeing it is so plain and popular. The word fruit mostly relates to some labour going before. The reason is, because no man would willingly undergo any toil or labour to no end; he would have something or other in his eye that might in some measure recompence his pains; and that is called the fruit of his labour. Where the flesh ruleth all, the work exceedeth the fruit; and therefore, without ever mentioning the fruit, they are called the works of the flesh. But where the Spirit of God ruleth, the fruit exceedeth the work; and therefore, without ever mentioning the work, it is called the fruit of the Spirit.
3. The works of the flesh are spoken of as many, works, in the plural: but the fruit of the Spirit is spoken of as one, fruit, in the singular. Many works, but one fruit. There is such a connection of virtues and graces, that albeit they differ in their objects and natures, yet they are inseparable in the subject. As when many links make up one chain, pull one, and pull all: so he that hath any one spiritual grace in any degree of truth and eminency, cannot be utterly destitute of any other. But as for sins and vices, it is not so with them: they are not only distinct in their hinds, natures, and definitions (for so are virtues too), but they may also be divided from one another, and parted asunder in respect of the subject wherein they are we are told (and if we were not told it, we could not but see reason enough in these times to believe it) that a man may hate idolatry, a work of the flesh; and yet love sacrilege well enough, a work of the flesh too. There is no necessity that a swearer should be an adulterer, or an adulterer a slanderer, or a slanderer an oppressor, or an oppressor a drunkard, or a drunkard a seditious person; and so of many other. The reason of the difference is, because all spiritual graces look one way: they all run to the same indivisible point, wherein they concentre; to wit, almighty God, who is unchangeable and one: even as all moral virtues concentre in the same common point of right reason. But sins, which turn from God to follow the creature; and vices, which are so many deviations from the rule of right reason, do not all necessarily run towards the same point, but may have their several tendencies different one from another. Because though God be one, yet the creatures are manifold; and although the straight way from one place to another can be but one, yet there may be many crooked turnings, by-paths, and deviations. Even as truth is but one and certain, but errors are manifold and endless.
4. The last difference is, that the works of the flesh are expressly said to be manifest; but no such thing is affirmed of the fruit of the Spirit. The most probable reasons of which difference are, to my seeming, one of these two following.
(1) The commonness and frequency of those above these everywhere abroad in the world. The works of the flesh, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatreds, emulation, debate, wrath, strifes, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, gluttony, drunkenness, and such like (I name them, because the bare recital of them will save me the labour of further proof), do so abound in all places, that you can scarce look beside them. Turn your eyes which way you will, ye shall see cursed examples of some or other of these every day, and in every street, and every corner. Alas, the works of the flesh are but too manifest! But the fruits of the Spirit are not so. Love, peace, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance, and the rest--these are very thin grown in the world; they are rarities not everywhere to be met withal. Hips and haws grow in every hedge, when choicer fruits are but in some few gardens; and every soil almost yields stones and rubbish, but gold and precious stones are found in very few places.
(2) The works of the flesh may be said to be manifest, and the fruits of the Spirit not so, with respect to our judgments of them, and the easiness of discerning the one sort more than the other. (Bishop Sanderson.)
On the influence of the Holy Spirit
I. The reality of the Spirits influence upon the mind. That it is possible, must surely be admitted by all. It is the highest reach of presumption to deny that God can, in a manner far beyond our comprehension, direct and control all the secret springs and movements of the human soul. The only question then is, whether He will, in this way, exert His power and communicate His grace. Scripture leaves us in no doubt as to this. See especially 1Co_3:16-17; 1Co_6:19.
II. The nature of the Spirits influence upon the mind.
1. To lighten the understanding, and rectify the judgment (2Co_4:6; Joh_16:13-14.)
2. To awaken the slumbering conscience, and to subdue the obstinate, rebellious will. Sin is a fatal opiate, by which the soul is intoxicated, and bewildered with visionary pleasures, and rendered insensible to its danger.
III. The absolute necessity of the Divine Spirits influence. The perfect purity of heaven forbids us to indulge the thought that either sin, or those who are infected with it, can have admission there. O, let it never be forgotten that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. So great is the change that must pass upon us, before we can be made truly happy, that nothing short of the Holy Spirit can produce it. This change, in the Scriptures, is called a new birth, a resurrection from the dead, and a new creature.
1. It is sometimes called a new birth (Joh_1:12-13; Joh_3:3.)
2. Sometimes the change that must pass upon us before we can be fitted for heaven is called a resurrection from the dead.
3. Sometimes this great change is called a new creation.
IV. The evidence of the Holy Spirits influence on the mind.
1. One evidence of the Holy Spirits special influence is a strong, prevailing, and permanent aversion to sin, in all its kinds and degrees. The nature of the cause is known by the quality of the effects produced by it.
2. Another evidence of these heavenly influences on the mind is a spirit of humble, unfeigned, and animated devotion.
3. Another evidence of the Holy Spirits influence is a supreme regard to the Word of God as our rule, the glory of God as our end, and the immediate presence of God as our ultimate and complete happiness.
4. An other evidence of the Spirits influence is a sweet persuasion of our acceptance with God, and adoption into the household of faith. It is, says Bishop Hopkins, but an airy assurance, a void evidence, an insignificant charter for heaven, which hath not on it the print of the Spirits seal. Now the impress of this seal is the very image and superscription of God, which, when the heart is, like wax, made soft and pliable, is, in a mans regeneration, enstamped upon it.
V. I shall now answer some objections which are usually urged against this doctrine.
1. It has been boldly asserted, that none were ever endowed with the Holy Spirit, but prophets, spastics, and evangelists. But shall we then deny that gracious, though ordinary influence, which renovates the mind, and which was evidently bestowed upon common believers as well as apostles?
2. It is said, the influence of the Spirit on the mind is too mysterious to be comprehended, and therefore the doctrine which teaches it is unworthy to be believed. Who then will dare, in the fulness of his self-conceit, to deny a doctrine of Divine revelation, which has been the comfort of good men in every age, because it surpasses his comprehension?
3. It is objected, that the doctrine of the Spirits influence has a bad tendency, opening a door to licentiousness, opposing the liberty of the human will, and discouraging our honest endeavours. The whole of this objection is founded on a mistake. The same Scriptures which authorize us to expect the Divine influence, require us to honour God in the use of His own appointed means. (John Thornton.)
The transition from the works of the flesh to the fruit of the spirit
Have you ever heard a clever organist undertaking to show what can be done in the gymnastics of music? He goes screwing his way up through all the chromatic scale with all sorts of thunderous conjunction of sound until he has shown that the organ is devilish, or you feel so, but at last he modulates and gives out some rare strain such as Beethoven and Mozart has given birth to. So out from the cacophony of harsh and ugly affections and passions the text modulates into the very melody and music of religion. (H. W. Beecher.)
The fruit of the Spirit
I. Contrasts with the produce of the sinful nature.
II. Can only be accounted for by the new life and the new influences of the Spirit.
III. Is sweet, serviceable, and acceptable, not only to God but to man. (Family Churchman.)
I. The soil is prepared by the Spirit of God.
II. He quickens the seed--the truth which is instinct with a Divine vitality.
III. He fosters the life: like sunshine and showers on the seed sown.
IV. He matures the fruit: creating for it a congenial climate. (Family Churchman.)
I. We have here the inspired definition of Christianity.
1. A great many men have religion who have no Christianity.
(1) They are devout, but inspired by fear.
(2) Orthodox, being learned in theology.
(3) Moral, being controlled by law.
2. Christianity is a life of liberty, spirituality, and joyous love.
II. This representation of Christianity is eminently fitted for the young, who are repelled by many representations.
III. The inspiration of the ministry is the practical experience of the Spirit and the development of His fruits.
IV. The fruit of the Spirit is the antidote to infidelity.
1. Men may question the doctrines of Christianity.
2. They cannot deny its practical effect. (H. W. Beecher.)
Hindering Christianity
1. The secret of Christs power was the goodness of God as manifested in His character and life, raising up a permanent moral influence and capable of remoulding the character and life of man.
2. Why, then, has Christianity made so little advance after nineteen centuries of history? For remember that the growth of Christianity does not consist in the diffusion of the knowledge of it or the extension of its organizations, but in the development of the fruits of the Spirit of Christ. Those who have set forward Christianity have--
I. Adopted a coercive policy. But--
1. You cannot coerce men into loyalty in the State.
2. You cannot coerce the growths of nature.
3. Much less can men be coerced into love, joy, peace, etc.
II. Formulated theological and ecclesiastical systems, and endeavoured to extend them, critically, controversially, and in an anathematizing spirit. But it is just as reasonable as placing violets and roses in an atmosphere of biting frost or consuming fire and expect them to grow, as for the fruits of the Spirit to develop in these ways.
III. Aimed at knowledge, not charity. Knowledge can only puff a man up; charity will build him up. The knowledge of love may deceive a man that he has it, but will not make him loveable; and, the disunited state of Christendom being witness, has not.
IV. Placed organic Christianity in the room of personal Christianity Physical life may be left to organize itself, which it does perfectly. In Christian life the loving, joyous, peaceful, etc., will make the most harmonious and orderly Church.
V. Hidden the character of Christ, and misrepresented the character of God. (H. W. Beecher.)
The fruit of the Spirit an element of Christian assurance
The last witness is the comfort and contentment the conscience takes in doing good works, and bringing forth the fruits of the new obedience; that though he knows his best doings are straitened with corruptions and imperfections, yet because they are the end of his vocation and the justifiers of his faith; because the gospel thereby is graced, wicked men amazed, some of them converted, the rest confounded, weak Christians confirmed, the poor relieved, devils repining at them, angels rejoicing for them, God Himself glorified by them; I say because of these and other reasons he doeth good deeds with humility and cheerfulness, and findeth a singular joy in his soul resulting therefrom. (T. Fuller, D. D.)
The ultimatum of Christian life
The ultimatum of all vegetation is matured fruit. You take that oak tree; a few months ago it budded and blossomed, and now you see the matured acorn upon it. Since the appearance of the little acorn, the tree has bent all its energies towards furnishing it nutriment; it draws food from its roots, and drinks in from the atmosphere all the vital forces, and pours its life into the little acorn. I see that little acorn growing and developing and extending until, by and by, there is a well-rounded, ripe, symmetrical acorn; and then the tree goes back into its winter quarters. So with all vegetation. Now, I grant that there are many intervening difficulties between the bud and the ripe fruit. There are worms that gnaw at the vitals of the tree; there are the cold winds and the frosts; but the tree is only valuable as it overleaps them all and matures the fruit. Just so the ultimatum of Christian life is the maturing of Christian fruitage. (Samuel P. Jones.)
The analysis of grace
Dr. J. Hamilton says: The chemist who can analyse the fruit of the vine finds many ingredients there. Of these no single one nor any two together would form the juice of the grape, but the combination of all yields the polished and delicious berry which everyone knows so well. In the best specimens nine ingredients are found, but that is not a good cluster where any is wanting. The application is easy.
Love.
Love, the fruit of the Spirit
The fruit of the Spirit is love. You know what the fruit as it hangs on the tree is. It is the result of many causes. Look at the apple as it hangs ripe and ready for the mouth, on the bough. What a wonderful production! How symmetrical its shape! How beautiful its colour! How mellow its substance! How pure and gracious to the palate is its juice! Whence came it? It came from below and from above. The earth owns part of it; the sun owns part of it; the dews have a claim--even the wind and the stars have done something to make it what it is. A dozen ministries--angels of the earth and the air, ingenious and active, have joined hands in its manufacture. Fruit, then, is the last result--the ultimate product of many forces acting conjunctively. Fruit is not crude; it is finished. It is not a process; it is the end of a process; the end of many processes; the consummation to which time and cause have alike tended. Now there is one result in character which has the Divine Spirit for its cause; it is love. It may be in embryo; it may be in maturity; it may be weak or strong. It may rule the life wholly; it may rule it only in part. But in whatever degree of growth it may be--to whatever point it may have been carried forward and upward, the element and principle of affection in human nature never happens by chance, never occurs by accident. To understand the works of the Spirit, and how its fruits are generated and ripened, you must understand the nature on which it works and the forces in connection with which its potency is rendered efficient. I say forces, for human nature is a forceful nature. It is a co-operative nature. It is not played on like an instrument of music that has only a responsive power; it is powerful itself; it is acted upon and re-acts. It has its own capabilities. It is strong enough to be resistful, and is essentially independent. A great many think of God only as outside of themselves--think of the Spirit as coming down upon them as winds come upon the sea, being blown from afar. The action of the Spirit is thus made to seem instantaneous, and the changes wrought arbitrary. Many even think that it would in some sort disparage the work of the Spirit if its actions were made in any sense dependent on the human will, or to any considerable extent co-operative with human faculties. But, friends, he who exalteth his own power exalteth God; for is not God the maker of his power? The father is honoured in the honour of his son, and the whole family becomes distinguished through the glory of one. Let it be known, then, to all of you, that the work of the Spirit is a co-operative work. He works in alliance with our own natural capacity. Alas! that He is often compelled to work in resistance to it. Nor is the saving work of God sudden. It is a peculiarity of destruction that it is always swift. God kills in an instant, but He grows things slowly. The lightning smites the tree in a flash, which a hundred years with laborious chemistry have grown. Is it less honourable to God that He works through method and climbs to His consummations through spiritual processes? After our way of thinking, the Spirits work in man is a slow work. Exceptions there may be, but swiftness of operation is not the law. Human nature never blooms suddenly. Some are born blossoms, but those that are born in the bud, as most of us were, sweeten, colour, and unfold slowly. The work of the Spirit is to bring back and reinstate in its original regnancy the Divine characteristic of loving. This is what it is striving to do in your bosom, fellow Christian. Faith in the Christ is valuable, because it is the means, the great and glorious means, of this reinstatement. By faith we perceive the loveliness of this principle; by faith we are made appreciative of it and are filled with longing that we may overflow with it; by faith we are thus quickened into this new life of concord and amiability and good-will toward men, and hearty affection toward God. Now, to start with in life, love is selfish. The love of the child, how unlike the love of the mother! Hence, we all say that we love mother better as we grow older. And why is this true? Because the selfishness which was in our early loving is eliminated. To start with, we loved our mothers with our bodies, so to speak. We have grown to love them with our minds and our spirits. Some of us have had them taken from us. In their love for us they have passed out of the body; and we, too, in our love for them have passed out of the body. They are spirits, and we love them with our spirit. And thus has love been perfected in us. The best love is never perfect until it becomes thus unselfish. And the work of the Spirit, as I understand it, is operating in human hearts to this end. When it is made perfect in Christ, or after the manner of Christs love, what will it not do? what will it not bear? what will it not give? And one thing, especially, is worthy of note in respect to this love which is the fruit of the Spirit in the human heart: that it not only prompts them and enables them to die for the Christ, and that truth, wide as the world of being and deep as the nature of things of which He was the embodiment, and is and will be for ever the cardinal illustration: but it qualifies them to die for it as men receive a favour. It was not a task for men and women to give up their mortal lives in evidence of their faith. They counted it joy so to do. They were in love with the immortality which waits upon such sacrifice, and death was to them the happy ministry which wedded them to it for ever. What power is this, that charges into human nature such sublime courage; gives to human minds such forecast of wisdom; and lifts human souls so high that they forget the earth and are mindful only of heaven? What power is this that renews the mind, transforms the spirit, and gives to us inhabitants of the earth the sensation of angels and the serenity of the skies? It is the Spirit. It is the glory of the Christian character that in it, through the work of the Spirit, is generated strength to bear all things and hope all things. The courage that you need is the courage to live--the courage to bear yet a while and faint not; to do this hopefully, patiently; to find happiness amid your tears; to so order your sorrows that they shall bloom; to look at emptiness as if it were fulness, and at poverty as if it were wealth--this can only come as the fruit of the Spirit. The love which enables you to do this must be the love of right things; the love of truth; the love of God. They who have this love have a new sight come to their eyes. They see things far off and far up and far ahead. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
Love produced by the Spirit in regeneration
I. I am to show that the Spirit of God, in regeneration, produces nothing but love. He does, indeed, often strive with sinners, and sometimes very powerfully, without softening or subduing their hearts in the least degree. He commonly alarms the fears and awakens the consciences of those sinners whom He intends to renew, some time before He effectually changes their hearts. This He does to prepare them for regeneration, in which He forms them vessels of mercy. The only question now before us is, whether, in the act of regeneration, He produces anything besides love. And here we may safely say that He does not produce anything besides love in regeneration, because there is no need of His producing any other effect in that saving change. Sinners possess all the natural powers and faculties which belong to human nature, and which are necessary to, constitute them moral agents, before they are made the subjects of grace. Manasseh was as capable of doing good as of doing evil, before he was renewed; and Paul was as capable of promoting as of opposing the cause of Christ, before he was converted. This is true of all sinners, who are as much moral agents, and as proper subjects of moral government, before as after regeneration. Whenever, therefore, the Divine Spirit renews, regenerates, or sanctifies them, He has no occasion of producing anything in their minds besides love.
II. That love is the effect which He actually does produce in regeneration. The fruit of the Spirit is love, says the apostle in the text. His words are very plain and emphatical. He does not say that the fruit of the Spirit is a new taste, or relish, or disposition, or principle; but is love, and nothing which is previous to it, or the foundation of it.
III. That love, which the Holy Spirit produces in regeneration, is the essence and source of all holy or gracious affections. It is generally supposed that regeneration lays the foundation of all the exercises of grace. Benevolent love is the root from which all holy feelings and conduct naturally spring. It produces everything which the law requires, and which is necessary to perfect obedience. When the Holy Spirit produces love in the soul in which there was nothing before but selfishness, he effects an essential change in the heart, and forms the subject of grace after the moral image of God, and prepares him for the kingdom of heaven. And this is as great and as good a change as can be produced in the human heart. Conclusion:
1. If the Spirit of God produces nothing but love in regeneration, then there is no ground for the distinction which is often made between regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. They are, in nature and kind, precisely the same fruits of the Spirit.
2. If the Spirit of God in regeneration produces nothing but love, then men are no more passive in regeneration than in conversion or sanctification.
3. If the Holy Spirit, in regeneration, produces nothing but love, or holy exercises, then the regenerate are as dependent upon Him for their future, as for their first, exercises of grace.
4. If the Spirit of God produces nothing but love in regeneration, then it is no more a supernatural work on the part of God than any other Divine operation upon the minds of men.
5. If the Spirit of God produces nothing but love in regeneration, then sinners have no more excuse for not beginning to love God, than saints have for not continuing to love Him. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
On holy love
There can scarcely be a more gross abuse of language, than to call that rational religion in which the affections have no share. It is clear, from the Scriptures, that the heart is the seat of true religion. The sincere Christian is animated and distinguished by the grace of holy love.
I. The objects of this love.
1. God as the source of all being, and the centre of all perfection and excellency, claims the chief place in our affection. The Christian, being renewed in the spirit of his mind, feels his heart pant after God. He views the Lord as his portion, and sets his affections on things above.
2. As God is the supreme object on which holy love fixes, so creatures ought to have a subordinate measure of love, according to the degree in which they bear His image.
3. There is a clear distinction between a love of complacence and a love of benevolence. By the former, we delight in God and what resembles Him; by the latter, we show a regard for the welfare of bad men, though we detest their ways. In this sense, the worst enemies must not be shut out of our affections.
II. The leading properties of this love.
1. Love is the purest principle of obedience. How many appear actuated in all they do by the hateful principle of pride. Surely it is plain, without bringing arguments to establish the point, that no works can be acceptable in the sight of God, but such as spring from a principle of love, and are directed to promote His glory. Wherever this noble motive habitually prevails, it will in a good degree harmonize the passions, bring the scattered thoughts and purposes into subserviency to one grand end, and produce a simplicity of intention, and uniformity of character, which peculiarly distinguish the consistent Christian.
2. Holy love is the strongest principle of obedience. Love invigorates and animates the soul. Many obstacles cannot destroy its force; many waters cannot quench its fire.
3. Holy love is the most permanent principle of obedience. All kinds of religious affection are not lasting. The fire on Gods altar was kept alive by being constantly fed; but the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu was but for a moment. Cold chills not unfrequently follow feverish heats. But the love which the true Christian feels to his God, and all that bears the stamp of His authority or likeness, is not a vapour in the brain, or a vision in the fancy, but a deep-rooted principle in the heart. He knows the solid excellency of Divine realities. His faith is not grounded on slippery deductions of reason, or slender conjectures of fancy, or on musty traditions, or popular stories; but on the sure testimonies of God.
III. The origin of this love, and the way in which it may be increased.
1. It is by the eyes of the understanding being enlightened to see the perfections of God, the excellencies of Christ, and the unspeakable value of eternal realities, that Divine love is kindled in the soul.
2. It is by the exercise of living faith that the flame of holy love is enkindled and preserved in the heart. The objects which most men love are such as strike the senses, or in some way relate to their present interests.
3. It is by communion with God, and one another, that holy love is promoted and increased.
Concluding reflections:
1. How awful is the state of those who are destitute of this love!
2. How happy is their state, who live under the habitual and powerful influence of Divine love! Love, in the heart, melts the stubborn will to sweet submission, consumes, the dross of sin, and fits the believer as a vessel of honour for the Masters use. (John Thornton.)
Love
I. The source of love. Love is of God. God is love.
II. Its excellence.
1. It is the life of the soul and of the moral universe.
2. It is the bond that unites all holy intelligences.
3. It is the supreme grace.
4. Its production is the end of Christs mission and of all religious ordinances.
5. It renders all our services acceptable.
6. Its excellence is manifest in its influence on the heart and life.
(1) It casts out fear.
(2) It expels whatever is inconsistent with itself.
(3) It kindles aspirations after holiness.
(4) It makes obedience easy.
(5) It inspires self-sacrifice.
(6) It makes the soul beautiful.
III. Characteristics of true love.
1. It is practical.
2. It embraces God and man.
IV. Love to God.
1. God must be loved for His own sake:
2. God must Himself kindle our love to Him.
3. It is capable of being cultivated.
4. It leads to trust in God.
V. Love to the brethren.
1. The badge of Christs disciples.
2. Our love must be like Christs.
3. We must love what is Christlike in them.
4. We must love them on account of what they are to be. (R. A. Bertram.)
Love
I. The nature of this love.
II. The objects on which it is exercised.
III. The marks of it.
I. The love which stands first in the apostles catalogue stands first also in the estimate of God. Our Lord says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment (Rom_13:10). This is the grace of which so beautiful a description is given in 1Co_13:1-13. It is set forth as a privilege, without which all gifts are worthless. This love is no natural product of the human heart; on the contrary (Rom_8:7; 1Jn_4:7).
II. The objects on which this love is exercised. These are three principally--
1. The Father.
2. Christ the Son.
3. Our brother.
III. Some marks of this love.
1. As regards God.
(1) In the desire to be like Him--holy in all manner of conversation (Eph_5:1).
(2) In aiming at His glory.
(3) In delighting in communion with Him.
2. As regards Christ. Love shows itself--
(1) In obedience (Joh_14:15).
(2) In loving Christ still, though Providences be dark, and all things seem against us.
3. As regards the saints, love shows itself especially.
(1) In praying one for another.
(2) Bearing one anothers burden, entering into their troubles, helping and sympathising.
(3) By forbearing and forgiving one another, even as God, for Christs sake, hath forgiven you. (J. Reeve, M. A.)
The Divine source of love
As one familiar with the sonatas and the symphonies of Beethoven, while passing along the street in summer, gets from out of the open window a snatch of a song or of a piece that is being played, catching a strain here and another there, and says to himself, Ah, that is Beethoven! I recognize that; it is from such and such a movement of the Pastoral, or whatever it may be; so men in life catch strains of God in the mothers disinterested and self-denying love; in the lovers glow; in the little childs innocent affections. Where did this thing come from? No plant ever brought out such fruit as this. Nature, dumb and blind, with her lizards, and stones, and thousand accumulations of matter, never thought anything like that. This and that harmony of light, the few hints which we see here and there--these have been sprinkled into life, dropping from above. And there is a fountain where exist elements and attributes of which these are but the souvenirs. And to me they all point back to something which we have not seen. As birds, when after moulting they begin to sing, break down in mid-song, and give only a snatch here and a snatch there of the full volume of their summer strains; so these hints, these little tinkling notes of love on earth, beautiful as they are in themselves, are not perfect, and are not understood until we trace them back, and feel that there is above somewhere One whose nature epitomises all these things. Go and look on the south side of the Highlands. You shall see that, detached from the rocks there, and lying in a long trail, for miles and miles, are blocks of syenite, or of trap, or of granite, as the case may be. And there is many a block which, if you choose, you can trace back to the very spot where the ice pried it out, or from which the flood or the iceberg drifted it along the mountain side. Now, as it is with those blocks of stone, so it is with these scattered elements and traits that have drifted out, as it were, from the mountain of God, and sweetened the household, and refined civilized life. They are, after all, but the outflowing, the drift, as it were, of the great Divine Soul, in this world. (H. W. Beecher.)
Love, the heat of the universe
It is the heat of the universe. Philosophers tell us that without heat the universe would die. And love in the moral universe is what heat is in the natural world. It is the great germinating power. It is the ripening influence. It is the power by which all things are brought steadily up from lower to higher forms. (H. W. Beecher.)
Love casts out fear
Love and fear are like the sun and moon, seldom seen together. (Newton.)
Love lightens duty
Love to God would make duties of religion facile and pleasant. I confess to him that hath no love to God, religion must needs be a burden; and I wonder not to hear him say, What a weariness is it to serve the Lord. It is like rowing against the tide. But love oils the wheels; it makes duty a pleasure. Why are the angels so swift and winged in Gods service, but because they love Him? Jacob thought seven years but little for the love he did bear to Rachel. Love is never weary; he who loves money is not weary of toiling for it; and he who loves God is not weary of serving Him. (T. Watson.)
Nothing is difficult to love: it will make a man cross his own inclinations to pleasure those whom he loves. (Archbishop Tillotson.)
Labours of love light
It is of the utmost importance to keep up our interest in the holy work in which we are engaged, for the moment our interest flags, the work will become wearisome. Humboldt says that the copper-coloured native of Central America, far more accustomed than the European traveller to the burning heat of the climate, yet complains more when upon a journey, because he is stimulated by no interest. The same Indian who would complain, when in botanizing he was loaded with a box full of plants, would row his canoe fourteen or fifteen hours together against the current without a murmur, because he wished to return to his family. Labours of love are light. Routine is a bad master. Love much, and you can do much. Impossibilities disappear when zeal is fervent. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Love ennobles
True love alone can awaken and evoke all the nobility and grandeur of human nature. Then we are like musical instruments touched by a masters hand. That organ yonder, many fingers have moved over its keys and drawn out its stops; but the harmonies have not surprised us, our listening has not even deepened into interest. But one day a stranger came and sat before it, and presently rich, exquisite melodies began to pour forth, new and wondrous depths and changes of tone trembled in the air and thrilled our souls. It seemed like a living thing interpreting the secrets of our hearts, so that we hardly dared to breathe lest we should destroy the charm. What a revelation that was! We never dreamed that the old instrument could discourse such marvellous strains. But the capacity was there, only the soul of the musician was needed to inspire it. Thus too can love elicit in answer to its skilful touch the grandest responsive harmonies from the lowliest human heart. And it is by love--Gods love--that our great nature shall reveal all its greatness. (W. Braden.)
Test of love
A loving wife, when her husband returns home from a far country, as soon as she is sensible of his approach or hears his voice, although she be ever so much engaged in business, or forcibly detained from him in the midst of a crowd, yet her heart is not withheld from him, but leaps over all other thoughts to think on her husband who is returned. It is the same with souls that love God; let them be ever so busy, when the remembrance of God comes near them, they lose almost the thought of all things else, for joy to see that this dear remembrance is returned; and this is an extremely good sign. (Francis de Sales.)
Love, the test of discipleship
So peculiar is this blessing to the gospel, that Christ appoints it for the badge and cognisance by which they should not only know one another, but even strangers should be able to know them from any other sect and sort of men in the world. A noblemans servant is known, as far as he can well be seen, by the coat on his back, whose man he is; so, says Christ, shall all men know you, by your mutual love that you retain to Me and My gospel. (W. Gurnall.)
A sermon to wives
I. Love your husband, he can beat you in argument and stubbornness, but you can beat him in love.
II. Make your homes joyous, and you will keep your husbands at home.
III. Be peaceable and there will be no domestic jangles. Let others do all the quarrelling.
IV. Bear with your household and you will conquer if you suffer long enough.
V. Be gentle, and like the gentle horse all work will be easy.
VI. Be temperate, and do not live beyond your means. (Samuel P. Jones.)
Love first
Love is the fruitful mother of bright children. A multitude of babes around her hung, Playing their sport that joyed her to behold. Her sons are Strength, and Justice, and Self-control, and Firmness, and Courage, and Patience, and many more besides; and her daughters are Pity with her sad eyes, and Gentleness with her silvery voice, and Mercy whose sweet face makes sunshine in the shade of death, and Humility all unconscious of her loveliness; and linked hand in hand with these, all the radiant band of sisters that men call Virtues and Graces. These will dwell in our hearts, if Love, their mighty mother, be there. If we are without her we shall be without them. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Nature is love
And all things are possessed with the spirit of giving, Flowers spend their strength that they may make the air fragrant; fountains become streams, that they may water the valleys; trees give us foliage, blossom, fruit, and beauty; the clouds weep over us, swell, dissolve, and give themselves away; the distant heavens send down their light; the universe is instinct with the free, generous, glowing spirit of love. (Thomas Jones.)
Love
There is the great machine of life, standing ready in all its beauty and power, with its wide open senses, its advising mind, its warning conscience, its governing will; with the mighty flood of spiritual power pouring into it from above; and its first fruit, the subtle influence which pervades it, the direction given to it, is love. For that Holy Spirit of order, as He pours His influence into us, has a definite work for our energy to spend itself upon, amidst all the vast and complicated machinery of the world; and love is the initial, the foundation motive, which is to start our force, our passions, our motives, our imagination, our intellect, our strength, into their proper groove amidst the great labyrinth-scheme of the Providential working of God. For love means, without any attempt at a definition, a giving out of self to God, to Man, to Nature.
We live by admiration, hope, and love.
And love secures that all this splendid machinery and endowment of strength shall be used for the right objects; not for self-advantage or self-display, not for rivalry, or in the interests of pride; but that it shall be at the disposal of God, the disposal of man, and of the world, for good; and this not by an effort, not by a forced resolution of surly resignation, but in a bright spirit of instinctive willingness. Yes, there is no doubt about it; if we are spiritual; the first fruit of the Spirit will be love. One glance will be sufficient to show us the importance of love as a motive principle, the strength of this loving nature becoming fulfilled with the growing fruit of the Spirit. It is very hard to do Gods will: it is harder still sometimes to love it. We talk in a helpless way of resignation, as we feel ourselves tossed up and down, and whirled hither and thither in the irresistible currents of uncontrollable force. But the spiritual man wants something more than resignation to circumstances which he cannot control; he wants love, not to wish them otherwise--a far higher step. Love is just that spirit in which a man offers himself entirely to God. O God, I offer myself wholly to Thee, and then to whatsoever work Thou givest me to do. And equally true is it if we look towards our fellow-men, that love is a foundation virtue. Ah! love throws open wide all those points of contact with our friend and our neighbour, that is with the world: and does it not need love? Nothing but the infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life. And the Spirit pours into the great machinery of our being, which finds it only too easy to be rough and hard, the germ of that infinite pity in His gift of love. Love your enemies. Love is not a weak word, or a weak emotion, and never can be. Love knows how to send for its two body-guards, resentment and justice, and to prevent any enfeebling of its strength or diminishing of its power. There is no doubt whatever that love of our enemies, and nothing short of it, is required of us. And further, perhaps we may believe that this Love will develop itself within us, when our powers are working rightly under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And perhaps this principle of love should be carried further still. Perhaps our Master would have us feel that we ought to move amidst what we call Nature with a loving tread, as a mediator between Him and the lower creation, to discover, to develop, and mature all the varied resources of the world, and to try, as much as in us lies, to roll away some of that failure (ματαιότης), which has passed through from us to them, who share in the sorrows of the Fall, as they also share in the hope of Redemption. Yes; surely this love, this fruit of the Spirit, will carry us as far as this. Let us try now and see one or two characteristics of love, one or two signs of its indwelling, abiding presence. First of all love will be thoughtful. If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. How much thoughtfulness may we.trace in the love of God! God so loved us. There is all the thoughtfulness which lies around our creation, the beauty of the world we live in, the wonderful adaptation of our life, the daily tenderness and forethought of God, who clothes the lily, who feeds the ravens, and marks the fall of the sparrow to the ground, who bids us cast out our cares and lay aside anxiety, for He is caring for us, and marking all our needs and wants. Or, look again, if we may say so with reverence, at all the thoughtfulness which lies around our Redemption. Or look once more at the thoughtfulness which surrounds our sanctification. And so, must not our love be equally thoughtful? Must we not try to do all we can to open up life to our fellow-men? Ought we not to be thoughtful in trying to help on all those special works of thoughtful love which are in the world, such as schools, and penitentiaries, and hospitals, and the like? And a second characteristic of love will be sacrifice. Love is ready at any moment to sacrifice itself. Think how our Divine Lord and Master gave up His quiet and His retirement, His food and His sleep, at the calls of love. Think how patient He was with the misconception, the ignorance, and the unbelief which He encountered t Ah, yes! It is good for us to think of all the work done out of sight for this hungry, selfish world. It is good for us to think of those who labour in the deep mines of life, that we may be wanned and enlightened, of those who work the hidden machinery, that we may cut the waves more freely, and barter and exchange in the community of social commerce. It is good for us to think of the missionary toiling under the burning sun of Africa, leaving home and kindred and advancement, that he may spread among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ. Wherever we see it, wherever we find it, self-surrender is a beautiful thing; it is the second characteristic of that fruit of the Spirit growing within, which is love. And a third characteristic is surely unweariedness. Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Ah, yes! That continual uninterrupted love is hard and difficult to maintain when the child of our love ceases to be interesting; when it is rough and uncouth, and as yet unable to come back to us with any return in its hands. It is difficult to love on in disappointment after disappointment. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Joy.--
Joy, a fruit of the Spirit
It is a very fortunate thing that the assertion that the fruit of the Spirit is joy is in the Bible: for if it were not, it is the last thing that many people would associate with the Spirit. To many the Spirit has very little ministry on the earth save to convict sinners of their sins and sanctify saints. They conceive of Him as a peripatetic that travels around among the churches producing what is known as revivals. His chief work seems to these people to be among the sinners, or the saints that have fallen from grace. To startle these from their lethargy, to strike them through and through with remorse, to fill their eyes with tears and their mouths with groanings, is the work of the Spirit. That the work of the Spirit is to make a person happy--actually and positively light-hearted:--that His aim is to add to the laughter of the world, to its pleasures and its enjoyments, has never occurred to these people as among the possibilities. Religion to them means a certain strict, decorous, and godly way of living; but that it means a happy way of living--if to happiness you give the same significance that other people give it--has never occurred to them. In the first place, it is impossible that the Holy Spirit should produce or seek to produce in human nature any result that is not in entire harmony with the Divine Nature. The Spirit; seeks to make man like God--to bring the human nature into nearer and nearer similitude with the Divine. If we are made joyous by the Spirit, then is it certain that God Himself is a joyous Being. There is one conclusion, the proof of which runs like a cord spun from wool of gold through the entire woof of things, and the entire woof of time; and which, therefore, no one who discerns the true nature of things and reads aright the lessons of time, can deny; and this conclusion is, that the aim and object of all Gods creation is for His own happiness, through the happiness of the creatures He has made. And this makes His own happiness self-receiving indeed, but most royally unselfish. For he who labours for self only in labours for others, treads that broad mosaic of right-doing, or righteousness, whose pavement is finer than if inlaid with stars; and which stretches in beauty through the eternity of things as to their extent, and the eternity of time as to its duration. But one might say, If God created the world and man for happiness, how is it that misery has come upon the earth; and sorrows, from which there is no deliverance as yet, have come upon man? I answer: These miseries are the result of sin which has broken in upon and disrupted the state of peace which was, and is still, the normal state of things. If you say farther: But how could sin come into the world if God is all-powerful and all-wise, and its coming brought interruption to His plan, and hence disappointment to Himself? I answer frankly: Of this I know nothing; and furthermore it is safe to say, that of this no one knows anything. Conjectures have been made and may be made. But in respect to deep spiritual truth conjecture availeth nothing. The fruit of the Spirit, it is said, is joy; but the results of God as wrought in nature and man, are not arbitrarily bestowed: they come in the way of a process and spring from a cause. The Christ could say, My peace I leave with you, because the causes that made His bosom peaceful He had implanted in their bosoms. If I should collect seeds of all the flowers in my garden and give them into a neighbours hand, or go down and plant them in that neighbours garden, I could go to him and say, Neighbour, my flowers I have given unto you. So the results of the Spirits work in human nature are results, not gifts. And the joy which the Spirit gives to us comes as the outgrowth of a cause or causes that He has implanted within our bosoms. If you sing, is it not because you have the capacity and the desire of song? If you laugh, is it not because your mouth is framed for laughter, and your spirit capable of delight? If you have joy, is it not because the cause or causes of joy have been born within you? Yea, is it not because the well-spring of gladness itself has been opened and set flowing in your hearts? Happiness is not given to us; we grow up into it. Misery is not an infliction; it is a self-generated state. The Christ said, in speaking to His followers, The kingdom of God is within you; and thereby did He teach us that the happiness of the heavenly state comes through interior development. Now, among the causes of joy which result from the Spirits work within us, is, first of all, perhaps, an increase of spiritual discernment. What a pleasure it is to grow in mental vision I--to feel that you are able to look deeper and deeper into the heart of things. Now, the Spirit makes man wise. It co-operates with the natural faculties and gives them that instruction in observation and discernment that they need. Did you ever think that most of the misery of life can be traced to this lack of right vision in people--this lack of accurate discernment as to the value of things? One man looks to the wine.cup and sees happiness in it. Oh, if he could see the snake that is in it I II he could see the torture and the torment that are in it; the ruin it will bring to his reputation; the woe it shall work to his family; the overthrow which it shall bring to his honour; the disgrace and the beggary that lurk in that cup, do you think he would drink? And this is why the Spirit of God is so efficacious in its work of reforming drunkards. It brings a revelation to them--a revelation which they need and which they had not; and which having, compels them to reform. It gives unto him the sight to see the loveliness and the nobleness of a wise ordering of his habits; it takes deceit out of temptation, and causes him to perceive the danger of yielding thereto. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
The Christians joy
I. The grounds and reasons of the Christians joy, and the way in which it springs from the influence of the Holy Spirit.
1. He has access to all the blessings of the great salvation procured by Christ.
2. The Christian has cause to rejoice in the warrant which he possesses of claiming God as his portion. It is by the influence of the Holy Spirit that we are enabled to claim God as our God. It is the very nature of Divine grace to inspire a humble and holy confidence. Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
II. The qualities of that joy which is the fruit of the Spirit.
1. This joy is sincere and refined. Much of what is called joy in the world is little better than an illusive show. Pleasure is the profligates great Diana. To this gay goddess he sacrifices his health, property, time, talents, comfort, credit, present peace, and future happiness. The joy of the believer, issuing from the purest springs, is suited to the noble faculties and sublime hopes of the heaven-born soul: it is what the understanding approves, and the conscience allows.
2. That joy which is the fruit of the Spirit, is refreshing and invigorating. We are passing through a wilderness, to seek a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God: As sojourners, we are therefore subject to many toils, dangers, and trials. Without are fightings, within are fears. Yet we are not left destitute and comfortless. God has both a kingdom for them that love Him, and many rich blessings to cheer us while we are in the way to it. With a cordial composed of ingredients brought from the celestial country, and mingled with consummate wisdom, the languid, drooping spirit is quickened and filled with holy resolution and ardour. The Christian traveller never makes so much progress, as when he goes on his way rejoicing.
3. That joy, which is the fruit of the Spirit, is solid and lasting. Dion Pruseus tells us, that when the Persians had got a victory, they would pick out the noblest slave, make him a king for; three days, clothe him with royal robes, and feast him with all kinds of dainties and, at last, put him to death as a sacrifice to folly. Such is the fate of the gay profligate. He has, at most but a short season of mirth and mock majesty, accompanied with the terrors of a guilty conscience, anticipating his final doom. But the Christian has joy in review, joy in possession, and still brighter joy in prospect.
III. Answers to objections.
1. Nathanael exclaimed, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And too many seem to think, neither profit nor pleasure can come from the religion of the despised Nazarene. Let the reader be on his guard against misapprehensions and misrepresentations of religion. Gross ignorance and slavish fear produce many false notions and absurd practices.
2. But perhaps the objector may ask, Do not the Scriptures require us to take up the cross daily, etc.? Can the deeps of humiliation, the tears of penitence, and the toils of zealous, unabated exertion, be consistent with comfort and joy? Certainly they are. The design of those precepts which call us to subdue pride, restrain corrupt passions, and root out evil habits is to conform us to the Divine will, and fit us for the kingdom of heaven.
3. Some persons, from a natural debility, have their trembling nerves exceedingly shaken, and their spirits greatly depressed, by the slightest accidents. When symptoms of this unhappy weakness appear in pious people, many cry out, These are the fruits of religion. Their prayers have brought them into a sad state of moping melancholy. But the truth is, many of the depressions and fears which are imputed to religion as the cause, have no connection with it. They have their seat in the body, rather than in the soul.
I shall conclude with an exhortation addressed to three classes of persons.
1. I shall address those who neither possess, nor desire, that joy which is the fruit of the Spirit.
2. I shall address those who possess not, but desire that joy which is the fruit of the Spirit.
3. I shall address those who possess that joy which is the fruit of the Spirit, but have to lament that it is so much deadened and interrupted.
That you may have this blessing in a richer measure, let me exhort you to--
1. Exercise yourselves daily, to keep a conscience void of offence, both towards God and man.
2. Employ all your time, your talents, and privileges, in zealous endeavours to do good, and promote the Divine glory.
3. Be often renewing your covenant engagements with God. (John Thornton.)
Joy in Jesus
Three hundred years ago, a martyr was burned for his religion in the city of Rome. He must have felt the truth of the words just quoted; for the last letter that he wrote to his friends, just before his death, he dated, not from prison, but from the most delightful pleasure-garden. In that letter he wrote thus: Who will believe that which I now state? In a dark hole, I have found cheerfulness; in a place of bitterness and death, I have found rest, and the hope of salvation. Where others weep, I have found laughter; where others fear, I have found strength. Who will believe that in a state of misery I have had great pleasure; that in a lonely corner I have had glorious company, and in the hardest bonds, perfect repose? All these things Jesus, my Saviour, has granted me. He is with me; He comforts me; He fills me with joy; He drives bitterness from me, and gives me strength and consolation. (Dr. Newton.)
Christians a joyful people
There is a room in Rome that is filled with the busts of the emperors. I have looked at their heads; they look like a collection of prize-fighters and murderers. Brutal passions and cruel thoughts deprived the lords of Rome of all chance of joy. Turn now to the poor hunted Christians, and read the inscriptions left by them in the catacombs; they are so calm and peaceful that they say instinctively, A joyous people were went to gather here. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Benefits of joy
Why should Christians be such a happy people? Why, it is good in all ways. It is good for our God; it gives Him honour among the sons of men when we are glad. It is good for us; it makes us strong. The joy of the Lord is your strength. It is good for the ungodly; for when they see Christians glad, they long to be believers themselves. It is good for our fellow Christians; it comforts them and tends to cheer them. Whereas, if we look gloomy we shall spread the disease, and others will be wretched and gloomy too. For all these reasons, and for many more that can be given, it is a good and pleasant thing that a believer should delight himself in God. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Joy
is the response of each of the higher faculties of a mans soul when it is brought up to concert pitch. (H. W. Beecher.)
Can you give any special directions how we are to get a joy when we have not one? We reply, no man can make the sun rise, but he can go into the sunshine; we can make our dark room bright by opening the shutters and letting in the day. We often think of a state we want to remove, and not of those things that will remove it. (T. T. Lynch.)
The joy of the Christian man in the darksome time is that, like the lark, he sings in the rain as well as in the sunshine. (T. T. Lynch.)
The relation of joy to love
In the Supreme Nature the two capacities of perfect love and perfect joy are indivisible. Holiness and happiness, says an old divine, are two several notions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions of opposition to love and opposition to bliss. Unless, therefore, the heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable. (A. H. Hollam.)
Christian joy
The farthest that any of the philosophers went in the discovery of blessedness was but to come to that--to pronounce that no man could be called blessed before his death; not that they had found what kind of better blessedness they went to after death, but that still, till death, they were sure every man was subject to new miseries, and interruptions of anything which they could call blessedness. The Christian philosophy goes farther: it shows us a perfecter blessedness than any conceived for the next life also. The pure in heart are blessed already, not only comparatively, that they are in a better way of blessedness than others are, but actually, in a present possession of it; for this world and the next world are not, to the pure in heart, two houses, but two rooms, a gallery to pass through and a lodging to rest in, in the same house, which are both under one roof, Christ Jesus. So the joy and the sense of salvation which the pure in heart have here is not a joy severed from the joy of heaven, but a joy that begins in us here, and continues, and accompanies us thither, and there flows on, and dilates itself to an infinite expansion. (John Donne, D. D.)
There is a great difference between the joy of the Christian and the joy of the worldling
The one is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning; the other is steady and abiding, as the light of a fixed star. The Christians joy is like the sea shells in the depths of ocean, which lie undisturbed by the violence of the waves. There reigns within a holy calm which comes from Christ. (J. G. Pilkington.)
Duty of joy
Christians, it is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore. Even in your deepest griefs, rejoice in God. As waves phosphoresce, let joys flash from the swing of the sorrows of your souls. (H. W. Beecher.)
Of joy
1. It is a delightful passion. Joy is a sweet and pleasant affection, which eases the mind, exhilarates and comforts the spirits.
2. It ariseth from the feeling of some good. Joy is not a fancy, or bred of conceit; but is rational, and ariseth from the feeling of some good, viz., the sense of Gods love and favour. Joy is so real a thing that it makes a sudden change in a person; it turns mourning into melody. As in the spring-time, when the sun comes to our horizon, it makes a sudden alteration in the face of the universe; the birds sing, the flowers appear, the fig-tree puts forth her green figs, everything seems to rejoice and put off its mourning, as being revived by the sweet influence of the sun: so, when the Sun of Righteousness ariseth on the soul, it makes a sudden alteration, and the soul is infinitely rejoiced with the golden beams of Gods love.
3. By it the soul is supported under present troubles. Joy stupefies and swallows up troubles; it carries the heart above them, as the oil swims above the water.
4. The heart is fenced against future fear. Joy is both a cordial and an antidote; it is a cordial which gives present relief to the spirits when they are sad; and an antidote, it fenceth off fear of approaching danger: I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me (Psa_23:4).
How is this joy wrought?
1. It ariseth partly from the promise; as the bee lies at the breast of the flower, and sucks out the sweetness from it, so faith lies at the breast of a promise, and sucks out the quintessence of joy: Thy comforts delight my soul (Psa_114:19) that is, the comforts which distil from the limbec of the promises.
2. The Spirit of God, who is called the Comforter (Joh_14:26), doth sometimes drop in this golden oil of joy into the soul. What are the seasons when God doth usually give His people these Divine joys?
Five seasons:
1. Sometimes at the blessed Supper; the soul oft comes weeping after Christ in the sacrament, and God sends it away weeping for joy.
2. Before God calls His people to suffering: Be of good cheer, Paul (Act_23:11). God candies our wormwood with sugar.
3. After sore conflicts with Satan. Now, when the soul hath been bruised with temptations, God will comfort this bruised reed: He now gives joy to confirm a Christians title to heaven.
4. After desertion: God keeps His cordials for a time of fainting. Joy after desertion is like a resurrection from the dead.
5. At the hour of death, such as have no joy in their lifetime, God puts in this sugar in the bottom of the cup, to make their death sweet. What are the differences between worldly joys and spiritual.
The gleanings of the one are better than the vintage of the other.
1. Spiritual joys help to make us better, worldly joys do often make us worse: but spiritual joy makes one better; it is like cordial water, which, as physicians say, doth not only cheer the heart, but purges out the noxious humours; so Divine joy is a cordial water, which doth not only comfort but cleanse. As some colours do not only delight the eye, but strengthen the sight, so the joys of God do not only refresh the soul, but strengthen it. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
2. Spiritual joys are inward, they are heart joys: your heart shall rejoice (Joh_16:22). Seneca saith, true joy is hidden within; worldly joy lies on the outside, like the dew that wets the leaf, who glory in appearance (2Co_5:12), in the Greek, in the face. It goes no farther than the face, it is not within, in laughter the heart is sad. Like a house which hath a gilded frontispiece, but all the rooms within are hung in mourning. But spiritual joy lies most within: your heart shall rejoice. Divine joy is like a spring of water which runs underground.
3. Spiritual joys are sweeter than others, better than wine (Son_1:2). Divine joys are so delicious and ravishing, that they do very much put our mouth out of taste to earthly delights; as he who hath been drinking spirits of alkermes, tastes little sweetness in water.
4. Spiritual joys are more pure, they are not tempered with any bitter ingredients; a sinners joy is mixed with dregs, it is imbittered with fear and guilt; spiritual joy is not muddied with guilt, but like a crystal stream, runs pure; it is all spirits and quintessence, it is joy and nothing but joy, it is a rose without prickles, it is honey without the wax.
5. These are satisfying and filling joys: ask, that your joy may be full (Joh_16:24). Worldly joys can no more fill the heart, than a drop can fill a cistern.
5. These are stronger joys than worldly: strong consolation (Heb_6:18).
7. These are unwearied joys: other joys, when in excess, oft cause a loathing, we are apt to surfeit on them, too much honey nauseates, one may be tired with pleasure as well as labour: Xerxes offered a reward to him who could find out a new pleasure: but the joys of God, though they satisfy, yet they never surfeit; a drop of joy is sweet, but the more of this wine the better; such as drink of the joys of heaven are never cloyed; the satiety is without loathing, because they still desire the joy wherewith they are satiated.
8. These are more abiding joys; yet these joys which seem to be sweet are swift, like meteors, they give a bright and sudden flash, and then disappear.
Why is this joy to be laboured for?
1. Because this joy is self-existent, it can subsist in the want of all other carnal joy.
2. Because spiritual joy carries the soul through duty cheerfully; the Sabbath is a delight, religion is a recreation. The oil of joy makes the wheels of obedience move faster.
3. It is called the kingdom of God (Rom_14:17), because it is a taste of that which the saints have in the kingdom of God. What shall we do to obtain this spiritual joy? Walk accurately and heavenly; God gives it after a long and close walking with Him. Then see that religion is no melancholy thing; it brings icy; the fruit of the Spirit is joy--it is changed, but not taken away. If God gives His people such joy in this life; O then, what glorious joy will He give them in heaven! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord (Mat_25:21). Here joy begins to enter into us, there we shall enter into joy; God keeps His best wine till last (T. Watson.)
The method and variety of spiritual joy
It is, therefore, the use that we make of Divine truth, the reception we give to it, the obedience we pay to it, the taking it up into our life, that constitutes the possibility and makes the variety of such experience. Our hearts and minds are like an organ that God is willing to play upon, sends His heavenly organists to play upon, with the very music of heaven; but if the organ itself is out of tune, what becomes of the melody? If we have let the chords be broken, if we have suffered the instrument to get out of order, if the dust of the earth, the defilement of sin, and sinful affections, and the discord of a rebellious, selfish will are there, the master melodist of the choirs of heaven could not breathe harmony through it, nor could the angels sing with it. But when it is in tune by Gods Spirit, and God breathes upon it, strike but the keynote of one of the great anthems, and the whole being is a spontaneous living utterance and pursuit of the strain. But there is great variety in the music, as there is in the instrument. All hearts and minds are not organs; and God will not have a monotony in His praises. There is great variety in Christian experience, even when it is all taught and inspired by Gods Spirit and grace. Some hearts are like an Eolian harp, always an undertone of sadness, sometimes from some peculiarity of organization or of temperament, sometimes from the effect of a long and saddening discipline. But if such a harp is kept in tune, if it is strung for the love of Jesus, open the windows of Divine truth anywhere, and set it in the breeze of heaven, and it will breathe forth exquisite melody. But it would not do this if the chords were rusted, neglected, loosened. Then the sadness, that even in a perfect harp might be most musical, most melancholy, almost drawing tears by its pathos, would be jarring with despair, would converse of guilt and misery. We must keep our hearts with all diligence, in order to bear a part without discord, without jarring, in the full harmony of Gods grace. The state of the affections has everything to do with it, and the manner in which they are disciplined, the habits in which they are trained. God does not make extempore melodies in hearts habitually set upon other things; neither, even by regeneration, does He create a perfect instrument, and develope all its powers at once. There is a constant gradual training, a training to the sentiments, capacities, experiences, of happiness and joy as a permanent fulness of life. The growth of love, joy, faith, hope, every grace, is like the growth of the foliage of a tree in nature. The law of life works, and works well; but God does not create the trees full blossomed, full leaved, any more than He does the grain full ripened; but it is first the blade, peeping out of the ground, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. But all this is the work of growth and gradualism, and just so it is with our Christian affections and habits. Some Christians are like a tree covered with foliage; every leaf is sensitive to the light, and rejoices in it; the branches dance in the wind; the birds nestle and sing among the branches; the cattle repose under the cool shade. Other Christians again seem like a tree in winter; no sensitive, sympathizing, playful affections, to tremble in the wind, reflect the light, perform the ministry of life, joy, and love. There may be life, but it is too exclusively in the roots, a life so hidden, that indeed it is not only out of sight, but out of office, so that it is an uninviting rather than a joyful spectacle. (George Cheever, D. D.)
Joy
I. The nature of this joy. It is spiritual joy, joy in the Lord, and in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is its author. Sometimes He produces this joy by showing the soul its interest in Christ, and thus it is essentially a joy of faith. It is peculiar to faith or to believers, for it springs from believing the record that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son (1 St. Joh_5:11); from believing that He loved me, and gave Himself for me. Indeed, it is inseparable from faith, it is joy in believing--in the very act. (Rom_15:13; Act_8:37; Act_16:34.)
II. Some grounds of our joy.
1. Bear in mind it is a joy of faith, which appropriates to itself all God is as its own. Gods wisdom, power, truth, faithfulness, goodness, grace, mercy, on all matters of joy.
2. His election in Christ is matter of joy to the believer (St. Luk_10:17-20). S. The covenant of grace is another ground of joy.
4. Again, salvation is a ground of joy (Psa_20:5). Again, the hope of glory is a privilege which believers rejoice in.
III. Some properties of this joy.
1. It is a holy joy.
2. An elevating joy. It lifts the heart above the world.
3. A self-denying joy. Nothing so shrivels up self as joy in Christ.
4. A satisfying joy.
5. It is a joy a stranger intermeddleth not with.
6. It is independent of circumstances.
7. The icy of the Lord is our strength.
Let me close with a word of caution how you should preserve the sense of it in your heart.
1. Beware of sin and worldliness.
2. Keep close to a throne of grace and the study of the Scriptures.
3. Beware of grieving the Holy Spirit. (J. Reeve, M. A.)
Joy
And what is joy? Equally with love it seems to elude and escape definition, and in some sense to baffle an intelligible description of its nature. But possibly joy may be something like this, an outward expression of a happiness which is absorbing and real. There is, for example, the genuine joy of a little child shouting in his games, absorbed in the pursuit of the moment; there is the deeper joy penetrating even to the face of an intellectual man, as he is enjoying some scientific pursuit; and there is a joy, the peculiar property of the soul, which hangs with a pervading fragrance round the writings of the saints and their books of devotion, so much so, that sometimes their words seem strange and unreal to our colder hearts; a joy which indicates a satisfaction which the world can neither give nor take away. So that we might further describe joy as the radiant atmosphere which plays around pleasure; and if pleasure is, roughly speaking, satisfaction, and the highest pleasure the highest satisfaction, joy will be the illumination, half conscious, half unconscious, which plays about the life of true pleasure. Sometimes we may fancy that even an inanimate machine, with its beautiful adjustments and nice mechanism, seems to work with a smoothness which is almost joy; but in this great engine of life it is no fancy; its harmonious working is joy, and joy gives it strength to cut and carve the various materials, rough and smooth, which come before it. And icy gives it strength, so that there shall be no slurred or jagged or twisted or perverted work. The joy of the Lord is your strength. The excellence of the work is, caeteris paribus, in proportion to the joy of the workman. And it has been pointed out in a recent sermon that this was the dominant note which rang through the first proclamations of Christianity--joy. Sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing, is the very watchword of The Christian. It is joy which is in the very front of our Saviours teaching in the Beatitudes: it is His last legacy before His Passion, These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Your joy no man taketh from you. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. It is the peculiar province of the Church, that it is fulfilled with a ministration of joy. And the simple power of being pleased is in itself not to be despised. We mistake sometimes our coldness and sternness, and that dignified nil admirari, for something else than it really is. There is such a thing as rust, and the dust of long work, and the wearing out of unrenewed strength, over which the oil of gladness has no power. Remember that man alone can laugh, and delight in the deeper joys of nature and the glories of art. Ah, there are innumerable little ducts and channels through which it seems meant that the oil of gladness should be poured into our life. Consider the lillies, says our blessed Lord, as if parts of nature were designed expressly to give us delight, in the unfolding beauty and splendour displayed before our eyes! What fields of wonder and enchantment open upon us through the imaginative faculty! What subtile and pure pleasures art and music conjure up before us! What force there is in such words as recreation and amusement! Nothing short of a complete renewal of our jaded nature, or the very enchanting us away by the thraldom of an engrossing delight. Are all these things to be lightly set aside or despised? Is companionship nothing, or the society of books which brings us into contact with the great minds of all ages? And joy has its distinguishing marks and characteristics, as well as love, the freshness and verdure which mark out its course. And one of these surely will be hopefulness: joyful through hope, is what we pray that every baptized person may be, as he passes through the difficulties of the world. It is a characteristic of joy that makes us so hopeful; so that in the warm rush of delight a man does not even know when he is beaten, but presses on to victory, through failure and defeat which had otherwise crushed him. How many a man has surmounted apparently insuperable obstacles, because joy has whispered to hope, and hope has said, It can be done. And a second characteristic will be brightness. It makes all the difference to life if joy is shining within. It sheds a rainbow light across the darkest storm. And brightness not only makes a difference to our own lives, but also to the lives of other people, if instead of the creaking, groaning machinery, they have in its place the smooth, easy, joyous life before their eyes.. Benevolent people talk of brightening the homes of the poor, and it is a blessed work to attempt; but bright lives do a great deal to cheer and help all around them. Perhaps others are bearing their cross better, or doing their work with greater ease, because they can walk in our brightness; whereas gloom and melancholy, and the indolent rebellion of complaint, would cause them to loosen their hold from very weariness, and then to fall crushed and broken below. And a third characteristic of joy may well be evenness. A life in which there is nothing of those alternations of depression and excitement, of exultation and despair, which cause it to expand and contract with a suddenness which well-nigh cracks it in two; a variableness so wearisome to the man himself, so painful to his friends. Instead of this, joy sheds abroad a quiet, even glow, all over work, just as God Himself, in His wondrous love, has an evenness of beauty in all forms of His working. There is the beauty of the spring life and the beauty of the autumn decay, the beauty of-the summer sun and the beauty of the winter cloud. So with us, however varied and diversified the work of our life may be in its vicissitudes and changes, still the evenness of joy with which we work may be uniform, until death itself comes as only one more days experience with God onwards. Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, rejoice. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Peace.--
Peace, a fruit of the spirit
The earth is full of war. Nor is it a new thing; it is an old thing. Since brother smote brother, fighting has been popular. Race has contended with race, nation with nation. One island of the sea, century after century, has carried arms against a neighbouring island. The warlike element is strong in human nature. Read history. Its letters are all red. History tells little of the triumphs of peace. Seventeen-twentieths of her pages are crowded from top to bottom, to tell the student of the triumphs of war. Triumphs of war! War has no triumphs. War is all disaster, all calamity, all ruin. There is in the universe a Spirit of right, a Spirit of goodness, a Spirit of love, and this we call God. This Spirit is an energetic Spirit. Its object is to have everybody to do right--to have everybody good, and to establish the reign of universal love--love towards Himself as the beautiful embodiment of these sweet and sublime principles, and love to all lesser ones whose nature and condition make them the object of benevolent designs and the recipient of benevolent efforts. This great Spirit, whose characteristics are what we have suggested, has within His bosom these benevolent wishes, and His wishes when expressed become law unto us and unto every order of being. Man contends against them; man rejects them. In so doing man declares war against God. And this God, against whom man is at war, is not a Being disconnected from us, whose Spirit is separate from our spirit; but He is a Being associated with us, and whose Spirit is mingled with our spirit. He is not a power that is remote, foreign, arbitrary; He is a power that is nigh, that is native, and whose workings are co-operative with our faculties. It is the Fathers Spirit lovingly contending with the childs spirit, striving to bring it into sympathetic alliance with that which is good. The war, therefore, on the part of man with God, is a war within his own members; a war between that which is right and wrong in tendency and principle, between that which is pure and impure in passion, between that which is holy and unholy in deed. The evil in man contends with that which is good in him. The war is the war with nature. The fight is spiritual. The Waterloo is the Waterloo of the soul. Indeed, man might be likened to a globe composed of two hemispheres, whereof the one is black, the other white. Over civilized people the evil does not hold dominion; it seeks dominion and fights for it. In civilized classes men are not possessed of the devil; the devil striveth to possess them. This is the cause of the war, then. The elements in him are of opposite character and in actual contention. And only when the evil in him is eradicated, and the good in him is not only thoroughly rooted in him, but moves upward and develops in the course of its growth unmolested, will the war within him cease, and his nature find its original but long-lost heritage of peace. The text says that the fruit of the Spirit is peace. The ultimate result of those Divine operations which work their change in men is peacefulness; and this word peacefulness is one of those mirror-like words which are framed into every language, because of its fine capacity to receive and reflect happy impressions. Home is one of these words. Mother is another, and peace is a third. Looking into its reflected depths you behold a sky without a cloud; a sun whose rays are genial without being fierce; fields waving with abundant harvests; broad stretches of territory on which no armies manoeuvre. In the plains no battles smoke; in the cities no sack nor pillage; in the hamlets no blazing cottage; on the sea no hostile armaments. These are the scenes, the lovely scenes, the charming scenes which the word reflects in reference to material interests and prosperity. But other and more lovely images are in it. Men and women find therein reflection--men and women with happy faces, with countenances that glow in innocent pleasure; men and women with no war within their natures; whose passions are orderly and under correct government; whose feelings are pure, whose emotions are all noble, whose aspirations are heavenly, whose consciences are undisturbed; men and women at peace with themselves, with surrounding nature, and with God. The earth shall come to such a day. Its mountains shall behold the rising of its sun. The hills shall clap their hands at its coming, and its fields through all their bounteous growth shall laugh as they receive of the benevolence of its quickening beam. The golden age of which the ancient poets sang, the old star-gazing dreamers dreamed, and the prophets who saw with eyes that looked not out of mortal sockets, predicted; when the swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and the spears be turned into pruning-hooks; when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them--this age, I say, shall come. And the human race, which has been like a ship long tossed on stormy waves, and which many times has come nigh unto utter wreck, shall sail in toward a coast whose winds blow fair, and be wafted by favouring and fragrant gales into the wished-for harbour of repose. But how shall the race come to such a time? you ask; and by what power shall man be changed--as he must be--or ever he can stand like a perfect note in this sweet psalm? By the Spirit of God, I answer. Ay, the work of the Spirit shall bring it about, and by the operations of the Spirit shall it be caused. The Spirit that is mighty; that is pure; that is peace-working; that bloweth like the wind whose home is all lands, and which moveth its salutary influences through all climes;--the Spirit of God shall bring it about. Here we see the philosophy of that peace which is the fruit of the Spirit. Its causes are found in the enlightenment of the understanding and the regeneration of the soul, by which men are made to see what is for their true and lasting happiness, and to seek after it with all the energy of their natural powers, reinforced with other and superior energies imparted to them by the Author of their souls. And when this twofold work is accomplished, the nature of a man cometh unto peace, because out of it have been eradicated the causes that produce war. The sons of God are, therefore, with peculiar aptness, called the sons of peace. They are peaceful in their disposition; peaceful in their conduct; peaceful in their lives, and peaceful in their resignation when they come to die. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
On spiritual peace
I. Show wherein spiritual peace consists.
1. Spiritual peace consists in that sweet and calm serenity of conscience, which arises from a well-grounded persuasion of our reconciliation to God.
2. Spiritual peace consists in that amiable frame of mind which disposes a believer to live in harmony, concord, and quietness with his fellow-men. This is called the fruit of the Spirit, in opposition to hatred, variance, emulations, wraths, strifes, etc., which are reckoned among the works of the flesh. The amiable temper which religion inspires, sheds its tranquilizing influence over all the relations of life. It has a tendency to produce
(1) harmony in the family;
(2) unity in the Church. Those who are in covenant with God ought to be ever in harmony with each other.
(3) Quietness in society at large
II. Point out the means by which peace is enjoyed and preserved.
I. Let us show by what means peace is enjoyed and preserved in the conscience.
(1) To enjoy and preserve peace in the conscience it is necessary to have an extensive and intimate acquaintance with the revealed will of God. None but the paths of wisdom are the paths of peace; and the blind cannot pursue, because they cannot discern them.
(2) To enjoy and preserve peace in the conscience, it is necessary to put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
(3) To enjoy and preserve peace in the conscience, there must be obedience to the Divine commands. Any neglect of known duties, or indulgence of secret sins, will as certainly distress the mind as Achan with his accursed thing troubled the camp of the Israelites.
2. I shall now show by what means we may promote peace among our fellow-men, and Christian brethren.
(1) While we are in the world, we must have dealings with some who are strangers, and others who are enemies to religion. You may perhaps say, therefore, What peace can there be with such persons? Concord or unity of spirit is not to be expected. But we are required to act in such a manner, as to give no real cause of offence, and endeavour to conciliate their good will, rather than provoke their displeasure. A likely way of attaining this end, is to keep in the sphere where Providence has placed us. Another means which we should use to live at peace with all men is an unwearied endeavour to do them all the good we can. Should, however, all these means fail to soften and conciliate the enemies of religion, there is one thing yet left for us to do, which ought never to be neglected; I mean, to pray for them.
2. It will have a useful tendency to promote peace among Christian brethren, if we seriously consider the unhappy consequences that attend the want of it. Where envying and strife are, there are confusion and every evil work. To promote peace among Christian brethren, cultivate a charitable and forbearing temper. Never conclude that all must be fatally wrong, who do not think just as you think. We cannot find two faces exactly alike; why then should we expect to meet many minds that in every respect correspond with our own? If you really love and pursue peace, you must judge favourably and speak candidly of others. When a breach is made, you must try to close, rather than widen it. (John Thornton.)
Peace, a treasure
Peace is greater than all other treasures, but no philosophy can bestow it; for how can philosophy cleanse from sin? Nor can works; for how are they able to justify Descend into whatever mine, shake whatever tree, knock at whatever door in the world thou wilt, the poor world cannot offer it thee. Peace is but one: One only has peace; One only can give it--the Prince of Peace. (Krummacher.)
Peace in poverty
I have seen the Christian man in the depths of poverty, when he lived from hand to mouth, and scarcely knew where he should find the next meal, still with his mind unruffled, calm, and quiet. If he had been as rich as an Indian prince, yet could he not have had less care. If he had been told that his bread should always come to his door, and the stream which ran hard by should never dry; if he had been quite sure that ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning, and again in the evening--he would not have been one whit more calm. There is his neighbour on the other side of the street not half so poor, but wearied from morning till night, bringing himself to the grave with anxiety. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Armour of peace
He that hath peace with God, is armed cap-a-pi: he is covered from head to foot in a panoply. The arrow may fly against it, but cannot pierce it; for peace with God is a mail so strong, that the broadsword of Satan himself may be broken in twain ere it can pierce the flesh. Oh, take care that you are at peace with God; for if you are not, you ride forth to to-morrows fight unarmed, naked; and God help the man who is unarmed when he has to fight with hell and earth. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace
When the soul in every part of itself is stayed upon some good centre, upon God and Christ in the love of God--when every part of the soul ceases to be hungry, when it has no clamour, no sorrow, but is restful, glad, and perfectly composed in a sweet harmony with itself, that is peace. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christian peace
The peace which Christ gives, the peace which He sheds abroad in the heart, is it aught else than such a glorified harmony--the expelling from mans life of all that was causing disturbance there, all that was hindering him from chiming in with the music of heaven, all that would have made him a jarring and dissonant note, left out from the great dance and minstrelsy of the spheres, in which now shall mingle for ever the consenting songs of redeemed men and elect angels? (Abp. Trench.)
Peace is love reposing
It is love on the green pastures, and beside the still waters. It is that great calm which comes over the conscience when it sees the atonement sufficient and the Saviour willing. It is unclouded azure in a lake of glass. It is the soul which Christ has pacified, spread out in serenity and simple faith, and the Lord God, merciful and gracious, smiling over it. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
Peace
We now reach the third note of the spiritual life, a third fruit of the Spirit, which is peace. That peace which is the tranquility of order, which, like the other fruit, joy, settles down in a blessed calm over the steady working of our being when all its different parts are moving harmoniously. Now peace is not an ordinary nor a common fruit; rather it is terribly rare Men are rifling the earth of its treasures and secrets, its beauties and pleasures, but peace does not seem to brood over their efforts. But, so it is, the fruit of the Spirit is peace: not the ἀπάθεια, the calmness of the Stoics, to be won by a deliberate crushing out of feeling; not the mere Hedonism of the Epicureans, which cannot allow even a painful thought; but with every sensitive nerve finely strung, with passion, feeling, and affection all alive and warm within us, the pursuing our way in tranquility, calm and unruffled, protected by an influence which is nothing else than an armed escort--the peace of God. Now there would seem to be two great counter influences to jar and disturb and throw out this peace. The one is a godlessness, of which we are oftentimes unconscious; the other is the presence of Satan, molesting, harassing, disturbing, even where he fails to kill. Neither is God in all his thoughts. Here is the description of that first adverse influence. Why is it that, in the face of Gods promises, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee; Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world, that yet, as far as we are concerned, He is absent from large portions of our life? There is that anxiety which divides up our life and maims our energies, which burns deep into the channels of our activity, and sometimes impairs us altogether. Is anxiety sent from God? Has he not said, Take no anxious thought, casting (down) all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. It is we who drop the hand of God and try to walk alone. We do not believe that God, who governs the world, can remove a petty trouble from our clouded life. We use the realm of the possible, which was given for man to hope, only to fear in. So again it is with depression, which weighs our footsteps to the earth. We walk and are sad, because our eyes are holden so that we do not know the Companion who wishes to cheer us, and resolve the doubts and fears which harass us. And this is what we need to alter, if this fruit of the Spirit is to grow within us. We must secure the abiding presence of God, not only when we are in His house or on our knees, and in times of our better moments, but always, everywhere, and in all circumstances. The second disturbing influence which is hostile to the tranquility of peace is the adverse presence of Satan to tempt, to harass, and, if possible, to destroy. Temptation, as we commonly call it, is one of the most serious troubles which can beset the life of man. And we are by nature terribly exposed to its influence. There are great tracts of our being which are being constantly swept by its fury and malignity, and we are day by day and hour by hour assaulted and shaken by it. First of all there is the vast region of thought. It is Satans purpose, if possible, to get the command of this instrument, to feed it with what is evil, and to produce out of it sin. He bribes the senses with pleasures, he dazzles the imagination with fascinating pictures, he plies the memory with scenes of past iniquity. If facts fail his purpose, he knows where to find poisonous fiction: he can employ music and painting, and art of all kinds; he even knows how to manipulate religion to his purpose; he labours hard, and out of the heart proceeds an evil thought. And then this quickly spreads, and the senses are ever ready for a mutiny. We know what it means; but is there any reason why this should disturb our peace? Most surely not. We have learnt at least these two great facts.
1. That every one is tempted, and that not even the holiness of the Son of God was exempted from it.
2. That temptation is not sin, but rather the material out of which vice and virtue is formed. What a call to that which we are so apt to forget--watchfulness, and self-discipline, and self-distrust! And then it does us a still further service--it drives the soul back on its supports in prayer, and, like a frightened child in its mothers embrace, feels a sense of safety; so confidence returns to us as we feel the pressure of the everlasting arms. Further, it makes the soul feel its own strength and security by Gods help; for just as we never value so much the shelter of a good roof and stout walls as when the wind is howling and whistling and battling with its storm-blasts against the house, so the storm of temptation may but intensify the peace within. Thou wilt keep him in perfect, peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee. Peace may come in the very midst of temptation, the peace of a well-ordered security. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Peace
I. The nature of this peace.
1. It is an inward spiritual peace--peace of soul.
2. There is a peace arising from easy circumstances, from good health, position, friends, relatives, happy families, tender affections, prosperous affairs. This is not the peace of God; for these things make to themselves wings and fly away.
3. Then there is the peace of the world, though but few seriously call it so.
4. Again, there is a peace which may be aptly called the peace of the devil. The strong man, armed, keeps his goods in peace.
II. The source of this peace.
1. A clear sense of the favour of God.
2. Submissiveness to the will of God. There can be no peace without this.
3. Power to appropriate the promises of God, so as to be able to say, They are mine.
III. How it is seen.
1. In the disposition and temper. It makes a man, if not bright and cheerful, at least calm and quietly happy.
2. In the circumstances. When prosperity is gone, the peace of God still remains.
3. In the hour of temptation (Php_4:7).
4. In spirituality of mind. To be spiritually-minded is life and peace (Rom_8:6).
It is worth keeping.
1. Pray against unbelief.
2. Pray against disobedience.
3. Pray against levity. Nothing sooner destroys peace than a trifling spirit.
4. Pray against fretful and murmuring tempers.
5. Pray against self-righteousness. (J. Reeve, M. A.)
Long-suffering.--
Long-suffering, a fruit of the Spirit
You all know what long-suffering means. It means the power to bear up under a burden--a power to endure--a power to resist pressure--the capacity to stand a tremendous strain. The idea of endurance is that which gives emphasis to the word. The ancients realized both the desirableness and the nobility of the quality, and the noblest among them set themselves to the task of acquiring it. They said, Weakness is unmanly; it is ignoble. Strength is magnificent--is godlike. We will be strong. We will he braced so as to resist all pressures. Though an avalanche fall on us, though we stand in the very path of it, yet we will not be moved from our foundations. They said, Pain shall not make us groan. Danger shall not appal. Peril shall not intimidate. The shocks and ills of life shall not disturb our equanimity. Bereavement and loss may come; but they shall not jostle us from the fine poise of perfect self-control. The extent of their success showed what human will can do. Men called them Stoics. They called themselves Stoics. The philosopher Zeno was the master of this school. To him many disciples flocked. They were blown to the stern severity of his presence by the ills and adversities of life, as ships are blown by tempests into harbours encircled by mountains, and whose narrow entrances are guarded by immovable cliffs. He taught them that men should be free from passion; unmoved by joy or grief; and that they should submit without complaint to the unavoidable necessities by which, as he supposed, all things were governed. This, I believe, was the nearest approach to what is known in Christian ethics as long-suffering, that the ancients made. It is easy to discern how far they climbed, and yet how near the base of the majestic pyramid of Christian serenity, amid the storms of trouble, they remained. They had the right idea, hut they did not have the Divine help. They relied on themselves, and hence their inspiration was insufficient. Their stoicism was not the upspringing of a Divine patience in their soul, or the light of a Divine illumination shining into their minds, but was only the result of human determination. Their long-suffering was only the discipline of the nerves and the muscles. To endure when one has lost his sensibility, is taking the very virtue from endurance; but to bear up against trouble to which one is keenly sensitive; to be resigned to losses that divide the very life, so to speak, and rend it asunder; to be patient in the face of provocation strongly felt; to endure what taxes the highest forces in ones life--not because of a sullen faith that you cannot escape them if you would, but because of a sublime trust which supplies you with a feeling that you would not escape them if you could--this is the triumph of Christian teaching. Herein is the Christ seen superior to Zeno, and the marvellous beauty of the work of the Spirit apprehended. The question, therefore, naturally at this point arises: How does the Spirit accomplish this work? By what process of development is this effect produced? Is it of the mind? Is it of the soul? Or is it of both conjoined? I find God everywhere--in the works of nature, etc. But, beyond what I find Him in the works of Nature, I find Him in myself; not in that part of myself which is material, which the trees on the hills outlive, and on the grave of which the sun will some day look and the stars will some night shine; but in that part of me which is immaterial, beside whose life the life of the tree is as nothing, and which shall live on and on when the sun, which now wheels his sure course above us, shall have set for ever; and when, for aught I know, the stars themselves, which now make the heavens glorious by night, shall be quenched in their every beam. I find Him most, I say, within my soul; yea, in the works of that Spirit of whose fruit I am speaking; in the energies of its puissant action; in the conservative pressure of its guidance; in the fine enlightenment of its illumination; in the life-giving quickening of its vitalising touch, and in the sanctifying influence of its presence. I find Him, I say, most of all in my spirit; and because of the benevolence of His operation, my spirit loveth the Spirit that moveth it aright, and worships at the throne which is white because it symbolizes a power which is innocent. And to those who tell me that the works of the Spirit are mysterious, I say: Not so. They are plain as the work of the day when the flowers open on the hills; plain as the movement of the white clouds when the force which eye cannot see rolls their snowy formation upward; plain as the power of love which gives, when it is apprehended by the love which receives. Let us answer, then, the interrogation as to how the Spirit develops the capacity of long-suffering in the soul? How does He make man able to bear losses, disappointments, vexations, bereavements, and all the ills that flesh is heir to? We answer, that the Spirit accomplishes this effect by teaching us the relative value of things; and this I will illustrate. Take, e.g., the matter of wealth. Who of you that are wealthy could see your wealth pass from your hands without a murmur? Who of you could endure the loss of your gains--the gains of honourable and lifelong toil--with patience? And who of you could see the noble properties which you have inherited from the industry and affection of the past taken from your control, and pass from the ownership of your name with equanimity? In how many Gases do cheerfulness and patience decline with the decline of profits! In how many cases have men who were rich in this worlds goods, when their riches have suddenly vanished, committed suicide, as if all that made life desirable had gone with their treasures! But if the Spirit of God, dear friends, has brought true enlightenment to the mind; has given it discernment as to the comparative value of things; has brought the next world into conjunction with this, and made one to see the lasting glory of the one and the evanescent splendour of the other; the man, I say, in whom this blessed work has been wrought out can see his wealth depart without loss of courage, of patience, or of hope. For he knows that what is taken, looked at in the large way and viewed in the light of eternity, was not essential to his nature. He knows that his character is independent of it. He knows that it was but an accident, collateral to his life, and not the true life itself. And he realizes the affirmation contained in the question of the Saviour when He exclaimed: Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment? And thus were they enabled to endure the deprivation without murmuring. Thus was the sublime element of long-suffering developed in them, and the fruit of the Spirit amply realized. I might illustrate farther. I have seen those to whom health was most desirable, lose it, and yet through all their sickness be upheld by the thought implanted in their minds, and ripened into a conviction by the Spirit, that they would soon enter into a realm where sickness is unknown, into which pain never enters, and where health is the only expression of existence. We have seen the beautiful lose their beauty; and yet, though they knew that the loveliness of the flesh had left form and feature for ever, they bore their loss with sweetest patience--with cheerfulness, even, as if they had lost but a trifle, because that within them was being born a loveliness that should never fade, and beauty which once possessed in the heavens would never depart. Ay, and we have seen men and women stand over coffins, in which lay the form once inhabited by their darling, without a tear. We have seen them stand on the edge of the grave and look into the darkness of death, as into a great sunrise, because they knew by discernment between the mortal and the immortal that their loved ones had only passed on and gone up, and that their feet as they climbed the sky-tending path had left the radiance of their ascension to light them upward to a happy and endless reunion when they should be called to go Thus do we see how it is by enlightenment of the mind and the soul as to the comparative value of things, that the Spirit worketh as one of its fruits the capacity of long-suffering, the capacity to bear without murmuring, to endure without complaint, and in the midst of grief live sustained by consolations. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
Long-suffering, a patience
In every station, and through every stage of life, we are involved in troubles. So necessary is self-possession, that a man without it resembles a ship without a rudder, left to the mercy of the winds, over which the pilot has no command. Yet we cannot possess or govern our own minds in times of trouble, except we possess patience.
I. I shall define Christian patience, or show what it is. That patience which is the fruit of the Spirit stands opposed to irritability of temper, undue eagerness of expectation, fretfulness under sufferings, and weariness in well-doing. Christian patience must he distinguished from constitutional fortitude and stoical apathy. Some, as if formed of tougher materials, are much more capable of enduring sufferings than others. But there is nothing to be commended in that sort of hardihood which is the effect of callousness or insensibility: for where there is no feeling, there is no patience. Dr. Barrow ingeniously calls Christianity, the special academy of patience; wherein we are informed, are inured, are trained up, and tried to bear all things. In this academy, the Holy Spirit is the Great Teacher, by whose gracious influence we become conformed to the will of God. How poor and contemptible were the best lessons of the school of Zeno, compared with those taught in the school of Christi How empty and vapid were the choicest products of pagan philosophy, contrasted with the rich fruit of the Spirit!
II. I shall now point out the happy effects of patience. A celebrated modern writer asserts, that philosophy overcomes past and future ills; but present ills easily overcome philosophy. If it be so, philosophy itself is not worth pursuing. Who would seek such a miserable comforter? It is when the wound smarts, that we need the healing balm; when the fainting fit comes on, that we want the reviving cordial. Religion does not merely follow our path, or come forth to meet us; but goes with us to lighten our burdens, to relieve our wants, and redress our griefs.
1. Patience in affliction is profitable to ourselves. We are naturally impetuous and self-willed. We wish to wear the crown without bearing the cross; and to find some shorter and smoother road to the heavenly kingdom than that which leads us through the perilous and tedious wilderness. It is.not without repeated trials, sanctified by Divine grace, that we are brought to a more submissive spirit. There are lessons to be learned, and duties to be performed, for which patience is an indispensable preparation.
2. Patience in affliction is advantageous to others. It- excites mutual sympathy, and imparts much encouragement.
3. Patience in suffering gives honour to God.
(1) It acquiesces in the will of God.
(2) It bows to the sovereignty of God.
(3) It acknowledges the justice of God.
(4) It confesses the faithfulness of God.
(5) It admires the wisdom of God.
III. I shall endeavour to show how the grace of patience may be cultivated.
1. Let us seek a larger measure of the Holy Spirit, and take heed that we do not provoke Him to withdraw His influences from us.
2. To cultivate the grace of patience, let us seriously consider our afflictions, in their short continuance, and glorious issue.
3. To cultivate the grace of patience, it will be useful to have a special regard to the promises which belong to a state of trial. A good man put this among his daily prayers: Lord, teach me the art of patience while I am well, and the use of it when I am sick. In that day, either lighten my burden, or give me strength to bear it.
4. To cultivate patience, set before you the brightest examples of His grace. (John Thornton.)
Long-suffering
Look at that matron who through the years of early life inherited bereavement and sorrows, the thinning out of the precious flock, the dishonoured names of the husband, the death, the rolling upon her of the responsibility of rearing the whole flock, the unwearied fidelity, the inexhaustible patience, furrow after furrow that experience is ploughing upon her brow; at last the children had come to ripeness, and they in their turn are lifting her out of trouble, and she sits down serene at the close of life more beautiful than the going down of the sun. Is there any object in life that a man can look upon that is more beautiful than long-suffering. (H. W. Beecher.)
Long-suffering
A fourth mark of the spiritual life, a fourth fruit of the Spirit, is long-suffering. And long-suffering is perhaps that power which enables us to suffer on, which will not let us become ruffled, or put back, or paralyzed, or overwhelmed by difficulties as they come upon us. And we do well to realize that we have to exercise long-suffering quite early in our spiritual life, in our very dealings with the great and good God Himself. We remember how in His mercy He is ever urging us to be strong. Sometimes we ourselves have wondered why in Gods good providence we are given a work to do which is a special temptation to us. And at last the truth becomes apparent that God has some signal favour to bestow upon us; that He wishes us to recover, by using it, the power in some maimed limb, to make whole by painful exercise some impaired faculty. To walk upon it, to stretch it, to move it, with many a cry of anguish and many a secret groan, and then at last to feel a new strength in an unlooked-for department of life. Or further, it may be some distinguished grace, some pre-eminent honour, that He is waiting to bestow upon us; but He has to delay until He can see whether we can bear the preliminary cutting and carving which is to prepare our souls to receive it. Vae his qui perdiderunt sustinentiam: [Woe to them that have lost the power of bearing!] and what will ye do when the Lord shall visit you? (Sir_2:14.) And it is just the same with Gods methods of working, which He consigns to our care, and puts as instruments into our hands. His methods seem terribly slow to our impatience, We have to deal with a system of work which of necessity demands much time, where planting and watering and maturing all must have their ordered course, where the bud precedes the flower and the flower the fruit, and forming has to develop into ripening, and ripening into full maturity. Roots are ugly things, and when they are buried the garden looks very bare. Sometimes it is covered with snow, or dried up with the frost, or pulverised with the east wind, or the growing plants are scorched by the sun or dashed with the wet. What a temptation it is to try and plant the bed with forced flowers, just to make a show while we are here; or to damage the tree that we may hasten its untimely fruit. Is it not a characteristic of the present day that we are all very impatient in our work? It is so in politics, everything must be done at once; it is so in religion, method after method is attempted and cast away, as if it were a worn-out garment almost before it has been used; it is so in education, give us results at any cost, and let competitive examinations settle everything. But if we are to work together with God, we shall need a great deal of patience. You can hurry man, said Bishop Milman, but you cannot hurry God. And if we are tempted to be impatient with Gods methods of working, are we not equally tempted to grow out of heart, to be sullen and displeased with the character of the actual portion of work which is assigned to us? Truly it requires some degree of long-suffering if we aspire in any way, within or without, to work together with God. But this is not all. We shall need long-suffering also in our intercourse with our fellow-men. There is a want of refinement very often, as well as misunderstanding, which we have to deal with, coupled with injustice, misrepresentation, imputation of motives, or ingratitude. Ah! yes: there is no strain so continuous as that of helping the weak friend to climb. Every footstep has to be steadied as he laboriously ascends; he gets fatigued, he gets giddy, he disdains the use of the rope; perhaps he slips and falls; his constant stumbles seem to imperil our very existence. Shall we leave him? He keeps us back, he makes our progress slow; we cannot enjoy the prospect by the way, nor the delight of climbing; but yet it is a trust which we may not betray. He is given to us; we are, indeed, before God and angels and men, our brothers keeper. Alas! we are always trying to push away from us the responsibilities of this mediator-life. The priest, the man of wealth, the man of science, the politician--all are sometimes tempted to forget it. But this was the glory of the early Christian Church; it waited for the little children, the old, the helpless, the infirm, all which the busy empire would spurn from its hurried path. Do not let us think that we shall reach greater heights by neglecting those who, from the realms of duty or affection or simple circumstance, are crying out, Wait for me. But all this will require the development within us of long-suffering. And yet further still, beside God and our neighbour, who each in their mysterious way demand the exercise of this virtue, there is self. We must learn to bear long with ourselves. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Long-suffering--meekness
I. The graces themselves. By long-suffering we should understand a frame of mind which would endure, with manly firmness and resignation, the various trials of life in the service of God.
II. How they are exhibited.
1. Long-suffering sees Gods hand in afflictive dispensations, and so is quieted under them. (Psa_39:9; 2Sa_16:11; Job_1:21.)
2. In respect to the fulfilment of Gods promises (Rom_4:19).
3. In respect of patient perseverance in well-doing.
4. In bearing the infirmities of the brethren (Rom_15:1).
5. To bear, moreover, the unjust suspicion of others.
6. To receive reproof.
Thus far I have spoken of the passive grace of long-suffering, let us look now at the active grace of meekness.
1. In bearing injuries, and putting up with affronts.
2. In forgiving injuries.
3. In recompensing good for evil.
4. In not fretting against evil-doers. (J. Reeve, M. A.)
Gentleness.--
Gentleness, a fruit of the Spirit
Gentleness is derived from gentle, and hence we must find the meaning of the word gentle, or ever we can understand what the work of the Spirit, as it relates to gentleness, is. In the first place, we find that gentle does not primarily refer to manners. It is often used, and properly too, as descriptive of manners, but when so used the root idea is not brought out. Gentle primarily refers to disposition, and disposition relates to the structure of ones nature--it refers to the way in which a man is put together morally. A man with an evil disposition is a man whose moral structure inclines him toward evil; a man with a good disposition, on the other hand, is one whose moral structure inclines him toward good. Gentleness primarily, therefore, is descriptive of the nature and not to manners; descriptive of the soil in its chemical qualities, and not in respect to its colour; descriptive of the character of the seed, and not of the shape of the blade or of the tree that grows up from it. A gentle person, therefore, is one whoso nature is so constructed that it works itself out naturally in sweet and benevolent action. We can get a better idea of it, perhaps, by looking at it in contrast with its opposite; even as we get a better idea of light when contrasted with darkness. The opposite of gentleness is rudeness, boisterousness, coarseness. A gentle person is just the opposite of a rude person, or a coarse person. You know there are rude dispositions. We say of a man, He has a coarse nature, or He has a very rude disposition, and such persons are the moral opposite of a gentle person. The first fact brought out, therefore, by the text, when analyzed, is the peculiar character of the Spirits work; and it may be summed up in the assertion that the Spirit of God operates on the disposition. This is a most important fact, and one that we all should fully realize, because it proves what the Spirits work is, and whom He represents. It shows that His work is a Divine work, and that He represents God. Who knows when the work of the Spirit begins in the formation of life--in the perfection of what would otherwise be imperfect results? Do we not know that the sweetness of the apple comes from the sweetness of the root--that the bloom is only the expression of the floral and fragrant element in the stalk? There are streams whose waters are pure; and why are they pure? Because the springs from whence they flow are pure, and the channel-beds over which they glide are clean and white. I have no doubt but that innocence in motherhood and fatherhood would invariably mean innocence in the child. It did in the case of Jesus-begotten of the Spirit, and born of a virgin. Well might the wise men bring their gifts of gold and myrrh and frankincense to the manger cradle I Wise were they in seeing the innocence of Nature. And when the same innocence came in human shape, the sweet old men knew it at a glance, and bowed down and worshipped. Yes, there are some that are born gentle; or so nearly so that our eyes cannot see wherein they fail. I have known a few such, so have you. God took some of them, out of Fatherly fear, perhaps, that the earth might soil them. God let some stay awhile, out of his love for the earth and we imperfect ones who live on it, that we might have a better Bible than words can frame, and a stronger inspiration to be gentle ourselves, than we might through invisible channels receive. I had a dovecote once on my farm, full of white doves. They were bred to a feather, and white as snow. And I have seen them on a clear, crystal, sunny day spread their white wings and sail up and up until they actually disappeared from my eyes, vainly shaded to follow them, in the glory of the sun. And I have seen dove-like spirits sail up at death just so. For death to them was not night: it was broad noon--the broad noon of life everlasting--and God shone in the dome of it brighter than ten thousand suns. And their white spirits flew into His presence; and His glory hid them from the earthly eyes that strained their vision in vain to fellow them in their ascension. Yes, I can well believe that some are born gentle; but their gentleness is not by accident. It floweth out from a crystalline cause. The cause is the same as in the case of those who become gentle in death, only the operation is reversed. They receive in being born what most, who receive it at all, receive when they come to die. Their spiritual and their natural birth are contemporaneous. Indeed, there is a deal of unrecognized piety in the world. There is a moral sweetness that is not known as such. It is called natural sweetness; and so it is. But it is a sweetness of grace, nevertheless. Nothing is more false in conception than to suppose that grace is something opposite from Nature. Grace is the highest phase of Nature, or Nature in her finest mood. God is natural; Jesus was natural; the angels are all natural; and so are saints if they be perfect enough. Sin is Nature in discord. Piety is Nature keyed and tuned for perfect harmony. How many amiable people there are, kindly and gentle-hearted, that never know they are saints. Some receive the Spirit as the bud receives the sunshine: slowly, subtilely, and in ways peculiar to its own composition and order of growth. Some take the Spirit as they take medicine; it creates a disturbance in order to cure. Others take it as the mouth takes cream; it is rich and delicious, and they are happy in receiving. They eat of it secretly, as it were. And we should not know they had eaten, were it not for the way they grow! That reveals at what table and of what food they have eaten. I love to think of the sweet flowers that are unnamed. I find them in the fields; I take them home and say to my friends, Do any of you know what the name of this flower is? And no one can tell. I find them in the hedgerows and down in the damp places, and even in the foul places. Most of them are small; they hide easily. Some have a strong fragrance. Some are so rich in aroma that they scent the air. Others are so faint in their odour that you must breathe long to scent them at all; but when you breathe long and gently, your sense interprets them, and their sweetness is so fine, so delicate, so satisfyingly exquisite, that you wish you could breathe it for ever! So God has saints--has morally sweet ones scattered all up and down through the world. In the fields and the hedgerows, ay, and in the damp and foul places of life you will find them. But you will not find them unless you look closely. Nor will you know their sweetness unless you come nigh to them. And should you take them into your churches and say, Will this Church please tell me by what name to call this exquisite life? the Church will look it over and say, This does not look like a Calvinistic plant. And another will say, This did not sprout from a Presbyterian seed. And another will say, I dont think this belongs to any of our Unitarian gardens And so you may go the whole rounds and not a Church will know by what name to call the sweet life you have brought to them--unless it be the Quakers. I think the Quakers might know, for they have a sense to know piety without form, and which has never been classified or catalogued in the herbarium of the Church. But the Spirit knows, and the angels in heaven know, and God who giveth the angels wisdom knows, that all sweetness, whether found in field or hedgerows or down in the swamps of human life, is His, and He calls it by its name. And there is not on all the face of the globe a life that is being lived in gentleness, however small it be, or however evilly placed, that is not known of God, and has not the name by which He knows it written in letters of light on its forehead. And this leads me to remark that much of the really best evidence of piety is not regarded as such in the churches. You can think about God as much as you please, and commune with Him as you say--that is, silently; but if you talk your thoughts out to Him as you would to an earthly being, they will call you insane. But, friends, cannot the reverential and loving soul have daily companionship with God? Cannot gentle spirits confide their thoughts to Him and hold converse with the Supreme Spirit from whom they have caught their gentleness, and into whose gentleness they grow as boys grow into the likeness of their father? Then do not all natures as they age and are spiritualized into this gentleness find God more and more companionable to them? I think I have seen this in old folks as they come to what we call the second childhood. We make it the period of weakness because we measure it by the body. Should we not regard it as the beginning of immortal strength if we forgot the body and measured it by the growing state of the soul? Let me teach you that the finest evidence of piety is that gentle appropriation of God which childlike trust makes of Him. Let me teach you that among the fruits of the Spirit you should set in the front rank the increasing gentleness of your nature. The stream is noisy amid the hills, for there it runs swift and sends the murmur of its roar far out on the air; but when it reaches the level meadow and widens out for entrance into the great sea, it flows with smooth surface, so that the stars come and bathe in it. It makes no noise. It disturbs not itself or others; but it reflects the whole sky and receives for its own ornament all the glory that is domed above it. And so lives are noisy at first; for they flow swift. They turn many wheels, and keep many industries in motion; but when they have flowed on and[ have come nigh to the magic line where the here and the hereafter touch, where the seen and the unseen join, they widen out, move easily--so gently that you can scarcely say where the stream ended and the sea began; scarcely say where the earthly passed into the heavenly, And so, friends, we will say in the language of the text: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness. By-and-by, perhaps, we shall all become gentle. By-and-by we shall have done with economic industries and the friction they put upon our tempers, and enter into eternal entertainment. By-and-by we shall talk without harshness and live in neighbourhoods of peacefulness, unvexed by jealousy and unflushed with the inflammation of hate. Nor will we, even now, forget the example of the incarnated Gentleness that took human shape for our instruction. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
Gentleness
Real gentleness is the subjugation, or rather the right use and government of strong feelings. The word gentle has a Latin root, and means literally that which suits or belongs to a high race, a good family. And if we take it so, what ought not our gentleness to be who belong, or profess to belong, to the race of the Holy One--to the generation of saints--to the family of God? Let me consider with you, for a few minutes, how gentleness is to be attained and cultivated. First, let me advise you, by looking back and looking into yourself, to get a more accurate and definite knowledge where your want of gentleness chiefly lies; with whom, and on what occasions, you have been most ungentle. Ask forgiveness of anybody in the world to whom you feel you have been ungentle; and let the facts remain to be your beacons. Get more general self-knowledge, and trace the steps which have led you down. Find the roots, try to eradicate those roots which have led to ungentleness--selfishness, temper, jealousy, the neglect of watchfulness, want of prayer at the right moment. Then lay down yourself some strong rules upon the subject, and pray that you may remember those rules and keep them. Tune your heart to gentleness before you leave your room in the morning. Want of health has a great deal to do with ungentleness. Put on a double match when you fee! poorly. Do not be discouraged by failures; only humble yourself and watch and pray the more. Be very gentle to those who are below you in social rank--especially to your servants. I would say to men--if you are young--be like a son or a brother to those you meet; if you are old, be as a father to those you meet. I would say to women--if you are young--be like a daughter or sister to any one; if you are old, be as a mother to every one. There are some persons with whom you feel it particularly difficult to be gentle. You can scarcely say why, but so it is. They are specially provoking to us, perhaps even in their look. Or perhaps that which would not provoke you in others, irritates you in that person. Put on a double guard when you are with that person. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Gentleness and goodness
I. The graces themselves.
1. Gentleness has reference to the demeanour of a Christian. Gentleness is not mere polish and politeness. It shows itself in a desire to please others for Christs sake, because it would please God and commend His gospel. Gentleness has nothing to do with indecision and vacillation, so that it may be turned this way and that without regard to principles.
2. By goodness we may understand not only goodness in general (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness), but here especially benevolence and munificence.
II. How these graces are exhibited.
1. Of gentleness.
(1) Gentleness is seen in its perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ.
(2) In the exercise of authority. The true grace of power and authority is gentleness.
(3) In taking the best view of others characters.
(4) In being considerate to peoples feelings.
(5) In administering reproof.
2. Of goofiness. (J. Reeve, M. A.)
Gentleness
The greatest results are accomplished by gentle, quiet influences. Not long ago, I saw a man mounted on a dray, very heavily loaded, beating his poor half-starved horse most cruelly, because the wheels had got stuck fast in the mud, and the beast was too feeble to pull them out. The more the man whipped, and swore, and wished the horse might go to the bad place, the more frightened the animal became, and the less able to perform what was so unreasonably demanded. As I witnessed the painful sight, I could not but hope that Mr. Rarey, the horse-tamer, might some time come along, and teach the cruel driver that kind and cheering words would prove much more effectual in making the horse do as he desired. You may ask me, perhaps, whether one who is born cross, and crabbed, and cruel, can ever hope to become gentle. He can. Just listen to the text. The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. The Spirit here spoken of is God the Holy Ghost, who teaches, and guides, and blesses us. He it is who helps to make us gentle. The word gentleness (which is one of the virtues which the Holy Spirit helps us to cultivate) means, in the text, goodness and kindness. It is the opposite of a harsh, crooked, and crabbed temper. It is a disposition easy to be pleased, and in our idea of this Christian gentleness we must include mildness and politeness. The power of gentleness is really irresistible. The blustering wind could not make the traveller take off his cloak, but the only effect was that he wrapped himself up the more tightly in it. When, however, the gentle sunbeams shined softly and steadily on him, he was glad to remove it. Gentleness must not be confounded with cowardice, and with a mean, truckling spirit. No one would doubt General Washingtons courage; and yet he could practise gentleness. After the Revolution was well over, and the country had become settled and quiet, he was making a long journey in his carriage, attended by several gentlemen who travelled in a conveyance of their own. One afternoon, as night was fast approaching, and they were all anxious to reach the neighbouring town before dark, they found the road almost blocked up by a large wagon drawn by four horses, proceeding at a snails pace. Wishing to go faster than this wagon, a gentleman in the foremost carriage called out to the teamster, with a lordly air, to turn out and let them pass. As might be supposed, the man merely looked angry, and refused to budge. Seeing how matters were, General Washington spoke politely to the driver, and explaining why they wished to hasten forward, asked him to allow the carriages to go by. The power of gentleness prevailed in a moment; and the weary travellers were soon enjoying a good supper at the village inn. Two little boys were once rolling a hoop over the frozen ground, and, in running carelessly after it, Gerald, the younger, being behind, came in contact with his brother Thomas, and both fell down with violence, the younger on top of the elder. Thomas was severely bruised, and rose up in a terrible passion. He scolded Gerald, in the most offensive words he could think of, and then began to beat him. Instead of crying out, or striking back, the little fellow put his hand into his pocket hurriedly, fumbled about among his treasures, and drawing out a stick of candy, thrust it into Thomass mouth, even while he was scolding and beating him. Thomas instantly stopped, and looked confused and ashamed. And thus his wrath was turned aside by the spirit of gentleness which his younger brother manifested. I ought to say for your comfort and encouragement, that such a spirit is not natural to us, nor easy to acquire; and yet, the Holy Spirit will help us to gain it, whenever we show a real desire to do so. The Holy Spirit, gentle and loving Himself, is the best teacher we can have. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
Gentleness
I. I shall describe the nature of that gentleness which is the fruit of the Spirit. It has its seat in the heart, and pervades all the faculties and powers of the man. It consists in humility, candour, sweetness of temper, and tenderness of feeling.
II. Let us specify some cases in which gentleness appears to be particularly necessary.
1. Gentleness is required in the exercise of authority. While Nero remained a subject, he was noted for condescending manners; but after he was made Emperor of Rome, he became a monster of cruelty. Now, as there can be nothing more odious and injurious than authority exerted with fierce unrelenting severity--so there can be nothing more amiable and beneficial, than authority exercised with firmness and lenity. When true religion sways the heart it teaches kings to sway the sceptre and rulers to use their power with moderation and justice. Nor is it less necessary that authority should be exercised with gentleness by the head of a single family, than by the chief of a province or the head of a nation.
2. Gentleness is required in a suitable manner, to give warnings and administer reproofs.
3. Gentleness is necessary in attempting to allay animosities.
4. Gentleness is necessary in the treatment of strangers,
5. Gentleness is necessary to preserve, uninterrupted, the endearments of friendships. Without genuine tenderness there can be no union of hearts.
III. I shall endeavour to point out some causes which impair Christian gentleness, and recommend the means adapted to promote it.
1. Nothing more directly tends to impair gentleness than eagerly grasping at the things of the world. Though Christians are in the world they ought not to be of the world. It is remarked of some insects that they resemble the colour of the plants on which they live and feed. Those who wholly mind earthly things are of a low, grovelling spirit. By plunging into the cares of this life they are continually ruffled and distracted. They are linked so closely to the world; by so many sides they touch every object and every person around them, that they are perpetually hurt and hurting others. The spirit of true religion removes us to a proper distance from the grating objects of worldly contention.
2. Taking an eager part in political disputes tends to impair the gentleness of The Christian.
I shall now recommend some means adapted to promote gentleness.
1. Retire often into the calm, undisturbed region of solitude.
2. Set constantly before you the perfect example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Scipio declared that he was inflamed with a virtuous and heroic spirit, by viewing the statues of his ancestors. And for what end have we exhibited before us the matchless excellence of Jesus Christ? Is it not that we may imitate it? The fairest characters we can find have some blots and stains. Here we have a pure unblemished pattern. He was meek and lowly in heart; amiable and unassuming in conduct. How condescendingly did He instruct His disciples! How faithfully, yet gently, did He reprove their faults l
3. Pray for more abundant communications of the Holy Spirit. Every other means must derive efficacy from the Divine Spirit, or we shall gain no real profit. Reading, prayer, retirement, and reflection are all in vain, unless His gracious influence open the mind, and animate the heart. (John Thornton.)
Gentleness: its strength
Ive noticed often that the strong, skilful men are oftenest the gentlest to women and children; and its pretty to see em carrying the little babies as if they were no heavier than birds, and the babies often seem to like the strong arms best. (George Eliot.)
Description of gentleness
Gentleness is love in society. It is love holding intercourse with those around it. It is that cordiality of aspect, and that soul of speech, which assure us that kind and earnest hearts may still be met with here below. It is that quiet influence, which, like the scented flame of an alabaster lamp, fills many a home with light, and warmth, and fragrance altogether. It is the carpet soft and deep, which, whilst it diffuses a look of ample comfort, deadens many a creaking sound. It is the curtain which, from many a beloved form, wards off at once the summers glow and the winters wind. It is the pillow on which sickness lays its head and forgets half its misery, and to which death comes in a balmier dream. It is considerateness. It is tenderness of feeling. It is warmth of affection. It is promptitude of sympathy. It is love in all its depths, and all its delicacy. It is everything included in that matchless grace, the gentleness of Christ. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
Power of gentleness
By invincible, self-controlling gentleness, the mother at last wins back to virtue the son whom no threats, no severities, no storms and upbraidings of passion could subdue. Geologists tell us that the calm and silent influence of the atmosphere is a power mightier than all the noisier forces of nature. Rocks and mountains are worn down and subdued by it. (Anon.)
Need of gentleness
Wishing to seal a letter, Gotthold called for a lighted candle. The maid obeyed his orders; but, proceeding too hastily, the flame, which had not yet gathered sufficient strength, went out. Here, said Gotthold, we have that which may well remind us of the gentleness and moderation to be observed in our comportment towards weak and erring brethren. Had this candle when first lighted been carried slowly, and shaded by the hand from the air, it would not have been extinguished, but would soon have burned with vigour. In like manner, many a weak brother might be set right, if we only came to his help in the right way and with kindly advice.
Gentleness
And we ought, it may be, always to move with great gentleness amidst the handiwork of God; with a feeling of reverence amidst the order, life, and beauty of this world; with some of that holy reserve, which the builders of our great Gothic cathedrals understood when they reared the tong mysterious aisles, and veiled in retiring beauty the glories of the sanctuary; or such reserve as the early Christians displayed in the allegory of the fresco, or the secrecy of their worship, or the shutting off of the sacred truths of God from all danger of heathen pollution; or such a holy retirement, again, as belonged to the religious life of men fifty years ago more perhaps than it does now. With some such feeling we should move in a world where all breathing life is yet warm with the impress of God. And with reverence will mingle a feeling of responsibility; the lilies, and the ravens, and the waving corn, and the growing tares, are all speaking to us, and proclaiming, So they are without excuse: if when they know God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful. And with reverence and responsibility will mingle a feeling of awe; what is the destiny of the creatures around me? What mean the mysteries which throng my path? And more especially when we look at man, at ourselves--the work, the purchase, and the temple of God--there is still greater need of that gentleness, χρηστότης, benignitas, which makes us move amidst all these wonders with something of the manners and the refinement of one who is of the race of heaven. It is written that the Creator of all things beheld them, not in that they were beautiful, but in that they were good. This gentle goodness, benignitas, is a true mark of a heavenly life. So we shall guard against an overweening confidence, or a roughness and impatience which thinks that the minute splendour and wondrous works of God can be seen at a hurried and unloving glance, ending either in a dogmatism or a scepticism which a wider and a deeper view would have dissipated. So we shall guard equally against self-assertion; how often comes that command in the midst of wonders, accompanied sometimes with actual sternness, See thou tell no man? How silently, how quietly God works! You cannot ever quite catch a glimpse of His hand. Man is sometimes so loud, so self-asserting, even when doing good and serving God, that he seems to have forgotten his gentleness, or that he is a fellow-servant with the angels, and a fellow-worker even with God. Above all, we shall guard against flippancy, the coarsest form of the ungentle spirit; that flippancy which displays itself in an irreverent treatment of Revelation in the hasty criticism, or cheap jest; in the light handling of history, which parodies great scenes of national calamity or great moments of political life; in the vulgar profanity which insults nature, or degrades self. Such as are gentle, them shall He learn His way. Gentleness will teach us more especially the way of God. Is it creative work? Whatever it may be, in all such things we shall need gentleness; not the imperiousness of Moses, or the vengeance of Boanerges, or the stern persecution of Saul; these are but rough ways of dealing with error and human infirmities; and the rough hand often does a great deal of harm; it engrains the dust and smears it, where a gentle hand would have brushed it off. Christian hands must not wield the sword of vengeance and anger. Granted that people are very provoking, and circumstances distorted. Just as Baxter said when his friends told him that he was going where the wicked cease from troubling--Yes, and where the good cease from troubling too. Redemptive work also requires a gentle hand; there must be no breaking of the bruised reed, no quenching of the smoking flax. Think of His gentle words and actions. Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do, spoken amidst all the pain and derision of Calvary. And yet gentleness means equableness, a firm hand; not at one time hardly to be felt, at another time rough and severe; and means also tenderness. Where God and His holy angels are dealing with the man; who am I that I should despise him? And gentleness, again, means a good kind of self-consciousness. We ourselves are owing to our Master ten thousand talents, which He has freely forgiven us, while we are dealing with a man who owes us only a hundred pence, in injury, or insult, or violation of human laws. We can only say with ourselves, If thou, Lord, will be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord, who may abide it? Conscious to ourselves of Gods manifold gentleness, we must needs be gentle too. His way! Sanctifying work equally requires a gentle hand. We need to be gentle even with ourselves. The wind bloweth where it listeth; let us think of the manifold ways in which grace comes to us. And, so doing, we shall learn to work quietly. We are not working to secure some brilliant effect. Why should we finish up work hastily to make a display before its time, rather than labour at detail? Oh, what a temptation it is! Results, anyhow, by any means, at any cost! It is the temptation which besets the clergy, who shall boast of the largest congregation? It is the temptation of great restitutions for good, to make a show, to rival one another in hurried emulation; and when this reaches the region of our soul, it is doubly dangerous. Publicity is always dazzling, sometimes it is fatal. All this power will I give thee, whispers Satan, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Give up the Cross: give up the old methods; give up thoroughness; give up the unseen work; brush away the failures! Anything for brilliancy! Brilliancy dazzles, but it does not last, and it burns deep down into the socket. Have we then this gentleness? It grows upon us, it develops within us, as the mighty machine of life goes working on, habitually in the presence of God; as we realize that all our work, whatsoever we do, is done for God, and in His sight. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Goodness.--
Goodness, a fruit of the Spirit
Goodness embraces so much and suggests so much that it is hard to circumscribe its radiating significance within a definition. And this will be seen when our theme of to-day is placed in contrast with the themes we have already treated. Love, for instance, refers to one class of emotions, and is therefore definable. Joy is one phase of the emotions. Peace is a particular state of being. Long-suffering is an element of character. Gentleness is a habit of the disposition. These characteristics are, you see, definable. Their significance has its limitations, and the boundaries of our treatment were therefore clearly marked. But goodness is not one emotion, nor a single element of character, nor a particular state of being, nor any one habit of disposition. Goodness is larger than either of these excellences--larger than they all. These, and many other virtues of equal fervency, are only the rays which goodness, like a solar orb, sends forth through the moral atmosphere as it rolls forward in its beneficent career, enlightening the darkness and quickening the otherwise dormant life of the world. A good man! Who shall describe him, or with what language shall we depict him? In his heart is love. In his bosom is joy. The atmosphere of his nature is peace. Enthroned within him is divinest patience. Gentleness spreads its mild light over his countenance, and falls in charming language from his lips. But in him, too, is courage; courage to do and die. Strength also braces him like a girdle. Temperance orders his life with discretion. Purity keeps his record stainless. Faith steadies his footsteps as he walks the high level of his aspirations. And Hope, ever by his side, points him to a fairer world and a nobler destiny beyond the grave. In short, can we say less than this, that goodness implies perfection of moral being, perfection of spiritual state, perfection of manhood, in all things which adorn the same, and move it upward in that amplifying growth which the ordering of a good God has provided as the destiny for good beings. The fruit of the Spirit, therefore--its object and aim--is to produce a good man--a perfect man by that standard of measurement which God Himself, in His infinite wisdom and Fatherly ambition, applies to the character of His children. Goodness is a thing that must be born; and the query therefore comes, whence this birth? With the exception of Jesus, who was a gift from above, there has been no perfect man on the earth. Human power has never produced one. The good man or the good men that are to be must be born, not after the birth of the flesh, but after the birth of the Spirit. We assume that this birth of goodness does occur in human nature; nor should it surprise one, at least into incredulity, for God is a Spirit, and hence it is only natural for Him to operate in and upon spirit. With my hands it is natural for me to mould plastic matter, because it is subject to pressure, and my power is sufficient. But it is as natural--why should it not be?--for the great Almighty Spirit to mould spirits that are plastic as for me to mould clay. Not only so, but I can produce life. That is, I can take a seed, plant it in the earth, and from it a tree shall spring. Why strange, then, that God should take a principle germinant with virtues and plant it in mans understanding--in mans consciousness--in mans affections--and from it goodness should spring up? The moment that God is acknowledged in the understanding as the Author of life--the moment that this power is accredited to Him--that moment faith in the new birth--the birth of goodness in the depraved, unfortunate or lacking soul--springs up. We take it for granted, therefore, we say, that the life of goodness, even in its largest definition, can begin in the soul. And what a perspective of possibility is opened up to him who accepts this sublime and most encouraging view! How silly and untruthful even seem the words of those who are ever degrading man in their descriptions of him morally! For when you contemplate man from this point of view, the vast expenditure of forces which Heaven has put forth for mans salvation appears accountable. Knowing now, through the revelations that come to us in Jesus, what we can be--knowing that goodness is both the highest ornament and noblest object of living, the question recurs to each one in the Divine presence here, What am I doing to be good? Have I taken the first step? If you should ask me, What is the first step? I should reply, Spiritual connection with Gods Spirit. If you say, I dont understand it, I respond, You do understand it, or you can understand it. If you should ask me, What is the first step to take in order that I may love people? I should reply, Put yourself on amiable relations with lovable people; and the reply would cover the whole ground. For in your mood of desiring to love, you could not be a single week in the company of those that were lovable, and not find your heart going out towards them. And this result would not be dependent upon any decision of your will, but would be the natural result arising from the workings of your nature. If you say, therefore, What is the first step in being good? I should say, Put yourself in connection with Gods Spirit. And you perceive that my answer is the right one. If you say, But how am I to find this connection? How can my spirit come under the influence of the Divine Spirit? I reply, There are many ways, all plain; and perhaps the best one is the plainest one--prayer. Pray to the Spirit. Say, Spirit of Good, come and influence my spirit that I may be good. Yes, some men are changing for the worse. They are growing into badness, and badness is growing into them--the black branches of conduct stretching outward, and the blacker roots of desire striking deeper and deeper into them. But if you make this spiritual connection, as I have pointed out, you will find yourselves, the moment it is made, beginning to change for the better, and to grow sweeter. And from this thought comes such happiness as comes from no other source, for man must be happy in himself if he is happy at all. Others may minister greatly to him, but unless he is great enough to receive the ministry, it shall be barren of joy unto his soul. And what other inward happiness is there so fine and helpful as that which springs from the thought--from the consciousness, rather--that you are growing better. The highest expression of manhood is Goodness; before its expression men bow in acknowledgment, and lifting their heads pronounce their applause. It is a law of our nature to abhor villainy; to despise the sneak and avoid a scamp. This is Natures tribute to honesty, and frankness, and uprightness. There is no weakness in Goodness, for it symbolises the strength of Heaven. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
Goodness
The production of a strawberry-wine, or of an orange-tree, is pleasant and palatable, while the fruit of a crab-tree is sour and disagreeable. One might fasten the most delicious, rosy-checked peaches or apricots, by strings or bits of wire, to the limbs of a poplar, but these would not be the fruit of it. The whole thing would be a sham. In the text, goodness is described as the fruit of something. Of what? Why, of the Holy Spirit of God. The Blessed Spirit is God, and He can do all things. He is spoken of in the Creed, as The Lord and Giver of Life. A skilful gardener can take a most unsightly, stony waste, and by bestowing much care and culture on it, he can change it into a spot covered with luxuriance and beauty. So the Holy Spirit accomplishes His wonderful work in our hard and stony hearts. During the autumn of 1799, the retreating French army left three hundred wounded men at Bobbio, the capital of Piedmont. Although the soldiers were enemies both to the religion and the country of the Waldenses, yet they received the kindest treatment at their hands. The people of Piedmont were extremely poor, but they cheerfully shared their scanty provisions with the strangers, bound up their wounds, and nursed them as carefully as if they had been near friends. At length provisions became still more scarce, and finding that if they kept the French soldiers during the winter all must starve together, the good Waldenses performed the wonderful and dangerous feat of carrying them across one of the most difficult of the Alpine ranges, then covered with ice and snow, and leaving them safe within the borders of their own land. The meaning of God is the Good One, and they who are like Him abound in acts of goodness. That you may the better understand this, I shall go on to tell you some things which goodness prompts people to do.
I. Goodness makes them willing to forgive wrongs, A gentleman once came to Sir Eardley Wilmot in great anger at an injury which he had suffered from a person of high rank, and on whom he wished to be avenged. Would it be manly to resent it? Yes, answered Sir Eardley, but God-like to forgive it.
II. Goodness teaches people to be considerate and generous. Joseph William Turner, one of the greatest of English landscape painters, was one of the committee whose business it was to arrange about hanging the pictures sent for exhibition to the Royal Academy. The walls were already crowded, when his attention was attracted by one which had been painted by an unknown artist from some distant town, and who had no friend to advance his interest. A good picture, exclaimed Turner, as soon as his critical eye rested on it: it must be hung up, and exhibited. Impossible! replied the other members of the committee, with one voice. The arrangement cannot be disturbed. Quite impossible! A good picture, persisted the generous Turner; it must be hung up; and, so saying, he took down one of his own pictures, and put the unknown Mr. Birds in its place.
III. Goodness prompts people to be conscientious and enduring. There lived in a Scotch village a very little boy, Jamie by name, who set his heart on being a sailor. His mother loved him very dearly, and the thought of giving him up grieved her exceedingly, but he showed such an anxiety to go and see the distant countries which he had read about, that she finally consented. As the boy left home, the good woman said to him, Wherever you are, Jamie, whether on sea or land, never forget to acknowledge your God. Promise me that you will kneel down, every night and morning, and say your prayers, no matter whether the sailors laugh at you or not. Mother, I promise you I will, said Jamie; and soon he was on shipboard bound for India. They had a good captain, and as several of the sailors were religious men, no one laughed at the boy when he kneeled down to pray. On the return voyage things were not quite so pleasant. Some of the sailors having run away, their places were supplied by others, and one of these proved to be a very bad fellow. When he saw little Jamie kneeling down to say his prayers, this wicked sailor went up to him, and giving him a sound box on the ear, said in a very decided tone, None of that here, sir. Another seaman who saw this, although he swore sometimes, was indignant that the child should be so cruelly treated, and told the bully to come up on deck, and he would give him a thrashing. The challenge was accepted, and the well-deserved beating was duly bestowed. Both then returned to the cabin, and the swearing man said, Now, Jamie, say your prayers, and if he dares to touch you, I will give him another dressing. The next night the devil tempted Jamie to do a very foolish thing. He does not like to have any one say his prayers, or do right in any way, and so he put it into the little boys mind that it was quite unnecessary for him to be creating such a disturbance in the ship, when it could easily be avoided, if he would only say his prayers very quietly in his hammock, so that nobody would observe it. Now, see how little he gained by this cowardly proceeding. The moment that the friendly sailor saw Jamie get into the hammock, without first kneeling down to pray, he hurried to the spot, and dragging him out by the neck, he said, Kneel down at once, sir! do you think I am going to fight for you, and you not say your prayers, you young rascal? During the whole voyage back to London, this reckless, profane sailor watched over the boy as if he had been his father, and every night saw that he knelt down and said his prayers. Jamie soon began to be industrious, and during his spare time studied his books. He learned all about ropes and rigging, and when he became old enough, about taking latitude and longitude. Several years afterwards, the largest steamer ever built--the Great Eastern--was launched on the ocean, and carried the famous cable across the Atlantic. A very reliable, experienced captain was required for this important undertaking, and who should be chosen but the little Jamie of whom I have been telling you! When the Great Eastern returned to England, after this successful voyage, Queen Victoria bestowed on him the honour of knighthood, and the world now knows him as Sir James Anderson.
IV. Goodness makes people heroic. Two houses were once wrapped in flames, at Auch, in France, and from one of them was heard the piteous cry, Save my child! The archbishop came hurrying to the place, and worked as long as his strength would allow, in helping to put out the fire, when he said, I will give twenty-five louis dor to the man who will save this woman and her child. At this appeal several of the crowd came a few steps nearer to the burning building, but the heat was so great that they as quickly retreated from the danger. Fifty louis dor to the man who will save the mother and the child! shouted the archbishop, still louder than before, but no one moved. Now, by the lurid light of the fire, the archbishop himself was seen to take a cloth, and having flipped it in a bucket of water, to wrap it round his body, and then to mount the ladder which had been placed against the shaking wall. Soon he reached a window, which he bravely entered, and, in a few moments more, a group was seen at this window--the archbishop, the mother, and the little child. The good man had scarcely reached the ground, before he sank on his knees, to bless God for His protecting care, and then, rising, he said to the poor mother, who had lost everything by the fire except her precious child--My good woman, I offered fifty louis dors to the man who would save you. I have won the sum, and now I present it to you. See that English clergyman, Mr. Ancient, venturing out in his little cockle-shell boat, to rescue those who are holding fast to the shattered remnant of the proud steamer Atlantic, wrecked on the treacherous coast of Nova Scotia! He has been living for years in that little hamlet with a few fishermen and wreckers as parishioners--ruling and civilizing them by love; and now, in this awful moment, when so many lives are in peril, he is proving himself a hero. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
Goodness is
I. The necessary and indispensable corrective of self-culture, and completes the education of the whole man.
II. The principal test of piety.
III. The corrective of the harsher forms of theology.
IV. The destroyer of all church exclusiveness.
V. The only and universal antidote to scepticism (H. W. Beecher)
Youthful goodness
I remember once on the deck of an Atlantic steamer, one wild autumn night, how a little child, overwhelmed with a violent illness through the heaving sea, was just beginning, so to speak, to get her feet under her. A friend who was by took the child something to relieve the sense of utter sickness, and I remember as we stood by the little one trying to say some kind things to encourage her, as she received the gift from the stranger, how she suddenly sprang to her feet and said, Let me take it to my father, he is worse than I am. And we watched the little creature for a moment tottering along the deck eager, bright-eyed, determined, while the ship reeled, and my friend turning to me said, There is the making of a glorious character there. That is what I call goodness. (Canon Knox-Little.)
On goodness, or benevolence
I. Let us contemplate the excellency of Christian benevolence: it is the most amiable and noble part of charity.
1. It must be acknowledged by all, that there is something peculiarly amiable in that goodness which springs from the influence of the Holy Spirit. It wears a mild and winning aspect. It possesses a powerful and prevailing charm. It brings forth abundant fruit, at once pleasant to the eye and wholesome to the taste. This grace has something in it peculiarly amiable and attractive. Goodness is a God-like attribute, that finds pleasure m diffusing happiness. It is the gospel embodied.
2. That goodness which is the fruit of the Spirit, is a most noble and exalted grace. It is genuine, disinterested, cheerful, and unostentatious benevolence.
II. Let us point out the field which opens for the exercise of Christian benevolence.
1. We must exert ourselves to do good in the world.
(1) By using every proper means to suppress folly, vice, and immorality in the world.
(2) By relieving the sick, and assisting the poor.
(3) By instructing the ignorant, or contributing to promote their instruction.
2. We must exert ourselves to do good in the Church.
III. I shall adduce some considerations as motives to the exercise of benevolence.
1. Consider that the express commands of God require you to be active in doing good.
2. As another motive to do good, consider the bright examples of benevolence set before you.
3. As another motive to do good, consider the present pleasure there is in all the exercises of benevolence.
4. As a motive to do good, consider the amazing love and condescension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
5. As another motive to do good, consider that your continuance on earth is both short and uncertain. Opportunity has been called the flower of time; let it not bloom and wither neglected. Be on the watch, to seize every occasion that offers for doing good. There are favourable circumstances which ought to be instantly improved. While the soil is soft, let the seed be cast in; while the sun shines, defer not to secure the precious harvest. (John Thornton.)
Value of goodness
The homage which the bad give to the principle of goodness is seen in this, that bad men almost always wish their children to be good. (Dr. J. Duncan.)
Perseverance in goodness
We live in the fall of the leaf; divers trees did put forth fair blossoms, but their flattering spring is turned into an unfruitful winter; and their clear mornings have been overcast with the thickest clouds. The corn which promised a large harvest in the blade of profession, is blasted in the ear. The light remains no longer than while the sun shines. The flowers of Paradise would quickly wither on earth, if they were not watered with drops from heaven. To see a ship sink in the harbour of profession, is more grievous than if it had perished in the open sea of profaneness. (Archbishop Seeker.)
True goodness
True goodness is like the glow-worm in this, that it shines most when no eyes, except those of heaven are upon it. (A. W. Hare.)
Goodness
Goodness is love in action, love with its hand at the plough, love with the burden on its back. It is love carrying medicine to the sick, and food to the famished. It is love reading the Bible to the blind, and explaining the gospel to the felon in his cell. It is love at the Sunday-class, or in the ragged-school. It is love at the hovel-door, or sailing far away in the missionary ship. But, whatever task i undertakes, it is still the same,--love following His footsteps, who went about continually doing good. (Dr. J. Hamilton.)
Goodness
Our spiritual life, our love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and gentleness, all set us free for this--to do good. Just as we read in those mysterious words how our Blessed Lord said, For their sakes I sanctify Myself. What a world it is, With all its myriad woes and troubles! He who would do good seems, as he steps into it, to be swept away by the very multitude and persistency of the calls upon him, like a man who goes down with a basket of food into a hungry crowd. To do good is to do something in the great work of putting the world right And then there comes the further question, how to do good? How are we to set to work to make our influence felt, and to cause our good desires to take effect? A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth that which is good (Luk_6:45). If any asks how to do good, the answer surely will be this, be good. A letter was once written to an old clergyman whose ministry had been greatly blessed. My people, said the writer, are cold and heartless. Tell me how I can effect a revival of religion in my parish: The answer was very brief. My brother, he said, revive thyself Are we the right people to do good? Are we trying to be perfect? Jesus Christ was perfect, and told us to be perfect also. No one could have met Him, even in the ordinary walks of life, without experiencing some electric shock of goodness, as it were, of that virtue which went out of Him. Are we, again, in sympathy with all the world? Does that invitation, As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, find a response in our hearts? Not in interesting cases merely, or among the intelligent and hopeful, but to all men; to the uninteresting, the unintelligent, the brutal, the selfish, the contemptible. There will after this arise the third question, Where can I do good? What is my mission? What am I called to do? What am I fitted for? There is the priesthood, the medical profession, the masters of education, the missionaries, the superintendents of homes, penitentiaries, religious bodies, and the like. These are our representatives in the manifold work of goodness. Do we recognize this? Do we recognize that here comes in the solemn obligation of alms giving? And what a blessed thing it is, this goodness, this Αγαθωσύνη, this Bonitas. Think of the gratitude, therefore, the prayers which follow the path of the good man. And yet it is a virtue so delicate, a fruit with such a tender bloom, a spring so very delicate, that it soon becomes injured. A good man is a popular character, and a good man has dangers to contend with which we must never lose sight of while we gaze at the beauty of the character. St. Barnabas, the good man of Holy Scripture, failed from good-nature in a matter involving important doctrinal issues: he failed, also from good-nature, in a difficult matter which concerned his friend and kinsman St. Mark. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Faith.--
Faith, a fruit of the Spirit
We are in a world, the fashion of which--to us at least--is passing away. I cannot believe that annihilation can be asserted of any creation of God; for annihilation means the destruction of the substance of things; and the substance of things, whatever change may come to their outward embodiments or their visible expression, eternally endures. But while the substance of things may remain, yet the fashion of things is continually passing away. With the lower which is passing, and the upper which is abiding, man alike lives in copartnership. In his body he is connected with that which is transient. He knows that his life, measured by his earthly connections, is as a vapour--a cloud of the morning--and happy is the thought that it is a cloud of the morning and not of the night; that, when it disappears, it disappears not because darkness has swallowed it up, but because a greater splendour has captured it with its own nature and given it its own sublimity. It is one thing to disappear into the night. It is another thing to be mingled with and be made a part of the morning. It is one of the most satisfactory reflections which the mind of man can entertain, that this faith in his inherent indestructibility is race-wide and race-deep. It is native to every clime and coexistent with every age. Even grossness has been unable to conceal the lustrous evidence of this pure and exalted instinct. However deep and black the alluvia, still mingled with the foulness were grains of purest gold, so that it might almost be said that the very flats of humanity are full of this priceless evidence, as if the shining proofs had been sown broadcast from the hand of God. It can be said that a dim instinct, at least, of immortality is a part of the inevitable bestowment made by God to the human being in his very inception. Indeed, I cannot conceive of God as creating one in His image devoid of this instinct. It seems to me to constitute the essential characteristic of the resemblance. It is enough to satisfy the longing of legitimate pride to reflect that by nature, at least, we are children of God. And I envy no man his way of looking at himself, if he look at himself along any lower level. My self-respect roots itself in the remembrance of my parentage. I am myself--in the endlessness of my existence--in the progressiveness of my vitality--in the capacities which I express--a fruit of the Spirit; a ripe result of operations which culminated in the birth of my being. Whence came we then?--There is but one answer: we came out of God. By nature we are His children. Being thus born, we came into the world organized for a sublime faith. Being thus born, we cannot mistrust ourselves so far as to think of ourselves as being only creatures of a day. Out of our very structure proceeds a voice of prophecy. And in ourselves is written, as ineraseable letters on an indestructible tablet, the predictions of a dignified and exalted destiny. The present is not our home; it is only the vestibule through which we are passing in order that we may come and enter into our everlasting home. It was for the enlargement of your faith that history was called into existence to record the birth of the world and the creation of man. It was for the confirmation of your faith that men with eyes to look into eternity were ever and anon, as the centuries passed, born of women, who spoke as they were moved by the sublime visions that they saw, and whose fervent testimony, flaming into lyric splendour, lighted up the darkness of ignorance, and made the heavenly city stand out to sight as if a supernatural sunrise had poured its light through time into eternity. It was for the enlargement of your faith in yourself, as well as in God, that heaven loaned its central Life to the earth for the space of a generation, and put so much of its sweet wisdom into human speech, and so much of its loving into human affection, that they who heard the heavenly speech grew wise as the angels, and they who felt through Him the heavenly love, had born within their breasts an answering affection. It was for the education of your faith that this wonderful Being not only condescended to be born of woman, but to live a life which subjected Him to base reproach, and finally to endure the pangs--the pangs such as only the noblest nature might feel--of a shameful and cruel death, in the which, although pure in His nature and stainless in record as snow, He nevertheless was made an exhibition of as if He had been evil born and lived a life of evil deeds. And this was done that you might have faith in God--not as existent in the far-off heavens, above cloud, and star, and the blue rim of eight--but as existing in innocent manhood just such as yours ought to be--yes, that you might have faith in God in man, or as the Scripture phrases it, Immanuel, God with us. I have called your attention to three sources of this faith: birth or nature; history; the teachings, life, and death of Jesus. There is one more for us to consider: the present work of the Spirit, as an enlightening and sanctifying influence in our faculties as they are momentarily exercised, by which we are enabled to see things rightly and incline to do only right things. And he who is enabled to see things rightly is sure to have a faith which is correct in its nature and abundant in its strength. And this we will illustrate. You may take this matter of worldliness, or of loving overmuch this world, its pursuits and its gains. It is a common mistake, and yet it is a mistake that could not occur if we had been enlightened of the Spirit to see things rightly. For when you look at this world rightly you see first that it is only a temporary residence--and that is a truth which none of you can deny. We see--
1. That it is only a temporary residence;
2. That its pursuits are chiefly valuable because they educate us. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
On faith, or fidelity
I. Let us show wherein consists that fidelity which is an effect of the Holy Spirit. It will be better understood from a view of its relative bearings, than from an abstract definition.
1. We must be faithful to God.
(1) Faithfulness to God includes undisguised sincerity in His service.
(2) Faithfulness to God is unreserved obedience to His revealed will.
(3) Faithfulness to God includes an inflexible adherence to the profession of the gospel.
2. We must be faithful to men.
(1) This requires truth in our words (Eph_4:25).
(2) Faithfulness to men requires justice in our actions.
(3) Fidelity to man requires stedfastness in our engagements.
(4) Faithfulness to men requires a bold and conscientious discharge of all the relative duties of life.
II. Let us prove the vast importance of faithfulness.
1. This grace is absolutely necessary to give value to every other branch of religion. What is a lofty, widespreading tree, with a rotten trunk? What is a spacious and beautiful house built on the sand, which must be sapped by the rising flood, or overthrown by the wintry storm? And what are the gifts, talents, and attainments of one who is destitute of faith and sincerity? We condemn, in strong language, the man who basely betrays his friend; the subject who traitorously lays schemes for the life of his lawful sovereign; or the prince, who sells the liberties and lives of his people to gratify a boundless ambition. But what shall we say of the man, who denies his God, crucifies the Saviour afresh, and trucks away the gem of truth for the poor glittering baubles of the world?
2. The importance of faithfulness is obvious, as it is necessary to our own comfort. Though a person could wrap himself so closely in the cloak of hypocrisy, and so artfully manage his vizard, as never to be detected by his fellow-creatures, would he thus make sure of happiness? No; in the path of deceit there is no peace. Conscience will renew, from time to time, her troublesome accusations.
3. The importance of faithfulness is obvious, as it is necessary to the credit of religion and the honour of Christ. Nothing has brought so much scandal on the gospel as the conduct of hypocrites and apostates. The men of the world are always on the watch to spy defects in professing Christians.
III. Let us inquire what are the leading marks, or signs, by which this faithfulness may be known.
1. A faithful man is willing impartially to examine his own state.
2. A faithful Christian has a deep sense of the deceitfulness and danger of sin.
3. A faithful Christian fixes his whole dependence on Divine grace. (John Thornton.)
Faith
is sanctified imagination; it is having the horizon above the world; it is believing that there are things that have no mortal forms, in a future, in a whole assembly of intelligence above your head; it is having a life hereafter, a greater life than this. Ah! the man who sits in his house all day knows exactly what he knows--that is the fireplace, that is the rug, that is the fender, that is the door. That is what is called a practical person, who knows what he does know. But out of doors the whole heaven is above his head, night and day, filled with inestimable treasures. (H. W. Beecher.)
Faith is the fullest and completest exercise of reason. It is the conscious trusty dependence of our whole nature upon God. It will not make the sun rise sooner, but it will make the night seem shorter. (T. T. Lynch.)
Faith
The balance of probability and authority would lead us to regard that πίστις which is the fruit of the Spirit, as faithfulness. The spiritual man is faithful--faithful to his God, to his work, to himself. The life of faithfulness is a life of truth. And we remember again how, in earthly matters at all events, we pride ourselves on keeping our word. We recall the glow of splendour which lingers still around famous scenes in history, where men have risked anything and everything to keep a trust. We trace its magic power still, where the historian ascribes the influence of Livingstone over the affections and sympathies of the savage African tribes to that moment of noble faithfulness when he gave up the gratification of an earnest longing for home, and rest, and distinction, which bewitchingly offered itself to him at the end of his weary march, that he might keep faith with the natives who trusted to him for guidance, albeit that faith meant disappointment, weariness, wandering, and perhaps death. And although we might well recall ourselves by the thought, Who art thou that repliest against God? still it is not hard to see, not the reasonableness only, but the strength of the vow, and the great part which faith or faithfulness has to play in the spiritual life. In the baptismal vow there is the promise to renounce, the promise to believe, and the promise to do certain things. The child starts out into the foggy night, where there are the dazzling lights of the streets, the confusion of the cross-ways, the seductions of evil, the perplexity of the path; and it is no slight strength to such a child to say to him, Promise to go straight on; if any one asks you to turn into that brilliant tavern, say, I have promised not to do so: if any one says, This is not the way, turn down that broader street, and more attractive path, say, I have promised to keep straight on: if any one says, Come with me and enjoy yourself first, say, No, I am intrusted with a trust, I must do my bidding and discharge my obligation. All this is a strength and support to him in the conflict of seduction with duty. And further still, the vow is reciprocal. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. The renunciation of evil is to clear the way for the advent of good; the belief in God and His truth is the prelude to the influx of that glorious tide of mercy; the doing His will is to tread in those paths where we most certainly shall meet Him and be cheered by Him. His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. And the life of fidelity is doubtless a hard one. Faith is nothing else than a fruit of the Spirit. The renunciation is severe: to give up, and have nothing whatever to do with, the devil, the world, and the flesh. And here we remember that the fruit of the Spirit is faith or faithfulness; it is a gift of God. It is possible now, by Gods mercy, to be faithful; it is possible to pay our vows. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Meekness.--
Meekness, a fruit of the Spirit
The popular definition or conception of meekness is not the scriptural one in two particulars; for, in the first place, the popular conception of meekness pictures it as a state of mind or mood of spirit in one man toward another man; whereas the scriptural idea makes it appear as a state of mind or mood of soul which a man has toward his God. I can be a meek man, for instance, and not be meek toward man at all; meekness relates to God. In ether words, whatever definition you put upon meekness, it does not describe my feelings toward or for others; it simply describes the attitude of my mind and soul towards the Deity. And this distinction, you can see, is of a character to change the entire line of thought running through the discourse. If meekness were a term descriptive of a state of a mans feelings toward his fellow-men, the line of thought would be in one direction; but if meekness be a term descriptive of a mans feelings toward his God, then the line of thought would run in altogether a different direction. To illustrate: When the Bible speaks of Moses as being the meekest man, does it describe the state of his disposition or the mannerism of his bearing toward his fellows; or does it describe the state of his disposition and the mannerism of his bearing toward the Deity? The apprehension of this distinction shed the first light my mind received on this subject: and I said, Very well; if meekness has nothing to do with ones attitude toward his fellow-men, but is strictly and beautifully descriptive of the souls feeling toward God, I know which way the path of my examination lies. This is the first difference I discerned between the popular and the scriptural conception of meekness. The second difference is as to the quality of meekness, or its character as a feeling. What is the feeling that we call meekness? We have found out what the proper object of it is; now let us discover, if we may, what the feeling is. In the first place, mark what it is not: it is not weak. Many a man and many a woman who has been filled with meekness toward God, has at the same time stood up in the might of a majestic strength and defied the power of man, even when that power appeared in the terrible guise of cruellest death. Then again, here is another characteristic of meekness. The Saviour said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. In other words, a man in whose soul is developed the filial fear of God-in whose soul is this inner strength which enables him in the face of all human opposition to do right even at the cost of his life--is a man fitted to possess the whole earth. Pile all the treasures of the world into one heap; bring together its gems, its precious metals, its priceless ores, its beauties that grow out of the earth and hang pendant from the skies--bring these all together, I say, and over against them place the man who fears God and does not fear man, and he is worthy to possess them, is fit to use them, is great and noble enough to own and handle them. Not only so; but the soul that has in it this feeling toward God has in it also a sensing power to receive the richness of all this accumulated wealth. Nothing but love can appreciate the gifts of love; and love does appreciate such gifts invariably. So then, we conclude that meekness is--
1. Descriptive of a state of mind and soul toward God and not man;
2. Is strong and not weak;
3. Is expressive of a disposition that can receive of the beauty of the Lord as it stands revealed in the earth, and hence might truly be said to inherit it. It is not the kings of the earth, not its warriors, not those who are mighty in their command of material forces, and who are only thus mighty, that shall inherit the earth; not those who are proud in the sufficiency of their self-conceit, that shall own the earth; but those who have within them this spiritual enlightenment to apprehend the spirit that is hidden from eyes not thus enlightened, those who are humble before God, those who are meek, and therefore fully and sweetly receptive in their spirits, that shall possess the untold treasures which God bestows upon those that love Him. And if this were the day and the hour of Divine inspection and decision, if this were the moment for us all to be judged as to our inward state and ripeness of capacity, should we be of the number of those who are meek--should we be of the number of those within whom and upon whom the Divine Spirit has moved with its enlightening and refining influence? In thinking of this trait being fostered in your disposition, do not think of it as you stand related to men; but think of it as if you were not connected with men at all--as if there were no men living, if that will help your imagination, and you stood connected with God only. This brings out the blessed ministry of meekness. It connects us with God. And this makes it priceless to the soul; for what is so priceless as that which binds us so closely and happily to Him? (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
Meekness an evidence of connection with God
Are there any here who are absent from home? Are there any of you here who, being thus absent, have a picture of a loved one with you, a picture that you often look at--look at when alone by yourself, and suddenly hide if you hear one coming, not because you are ashamed of being seen looking at the picture, but because the picture is too sacred to be seen by another? Have any of you your mothers picture--the picture of a mother who is away from you, divided by a distance on the earth, or perhaps divided not by any distance, but because your eyes cannot see into the heaven that holds its atmosphere for ever around you, as sunshine is around the blind? Have any of you in your houses at home, hanging somewhere in the wall, the picture of the house in which you were born; of the dear old place where you began to live, which to-day stands associated with mother and father, with brother and sister and youthful companions--the old place, known in every curve of the banks, in every slope of the hills, in every rock by the roadside, in every footpath and every stone in the footpath; known as you know no other spot on earth, not even the house in which you used to live--have any of you, I say, any such picture? If you have, they will serve as an illustration. Just as these pictures bind you to mother, father, loved one, and the dear old home of your earlier days and perhaps your happiest--as these pictures, when you look at them, bring back the faces and scenes that you once saw so vividly that you realize them as you might not otherwise do--realize them so that your heart grows warm and the eye perhaps yields the mist of affectionate remembrance; so in the face of this heaven-born meekness, when once it has become a trait of your disposition, you can see the evidence of your connection with God, the proof that you are His--His in a sense and a way that no distance can separate you, and no passage of time can sever the connection. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
On meekness
Patience keeps the mind firm and unshaken under sufferings; meekness renders it calm and unruffled amidst provocations. These kindred graces may be easily distinguished, but cannot be separated.
I. Here i shalt point out the nature and exercise of Christian meekness. Meekness is a disposition which keeps the mind from aspiring after things too high for us. Being fixed in our proper place, it makes us easy there. Meekness is opposed to all those troublesome passions, which, when an extravagant self-estimation is cherished, the thwarting opinions and vexatious humours of other men never fail to excite. Meekness is the growth of pure religion, cherished in the heart, and displaying its fruits in the life.
1. Christian meekness fits the mind to receive or impart spiritual instruction. Pride blocks up the passage through which truth enters the heart. Receiving in meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls.
2. Meekness disposes a Christian to refrain from stirring up angry passions in others, and renders him calm under their provocations. A meek man will not rekindle the dying embers of resentment, by lending his breath to blow them, much less add fuel to heighten the flame. He feels it his duty to guard his heart against the tumults of impetuous passions.
3. Meekness disposes the mind to forgive injuries.
4. Meekness will dispose the Christian to suppress the first risings of a murmuring spirit, and to live contented with the allotments of Providence.
II. I shall adduce a few considerations to recommend the cultivation of meekness.
1. Meekness is one of the clearest evidences of personal religion.
2. Meekness is one of the brightest ornaments, as well as one of the clearest evidences of personal religion. Think of its permanence. Meekness makes no ostentatious display to the eyes; but investing the hidden man of the heart, it will wear well. It is said, like the soul itself, to be incorruptible. When all the beauties of the visible creation are faded, and all its glories extinguished, this fair ornament will shine with untarnished and evergrowing lustre. Think of its unspeakable value. Some things are fondly admired by children, which are despised by men, and those things which are highly prized and eagerly sought by men, appear but worthless toys to angels. But a meek and quiet spirit, in the view of all good men, in the eyes of holy angels, and in the sight of God, is of great price.
3. Meekness will enable you to achieve the noblest victories. Have you with well-doing put to silence the ignorance of foolish men? you have gained a greater trophy, than if, like Brutus, with a vengeful hand you had stabbed a tyrant to the heart. Have you by mild forbearance or winning kindness, conciliated an enemy, or brought a profane hardened scoffer to weep and pray? you have obtained a nobler victory than if you had subdued an empire. The honour which arises from overcoming evil with good, will be read in the book of Gods remembrance, when time shall be no longer!
III. I shall offer some directions that may be useful in promoting Christian meekness.
1. Set a watchful guard over your tempers and passions. The tradesman must keep his shop, or he cannot prosper; the cultivator must keep his vineyard, or it will not be fruitful; and the Christian must keep his heart, or he cannot be safe. Better were it to admit a thief into your house, than this incendiary into the soul. Shut every gate, bar every door, and block up every avenue where it is wont to gain success.
2. Avoid, as much as possible, all occasions which excite and nourish pride and passion. The remains of corruption in them are like sediment at the bottom of a pool which rises when the water is troubled. Let it, then, be your care to avoid those causes, which stir up your proud and angry passions.
3. Place before you the brightest examples of meekness.
4. Seek meekness by meditation and prayer. (John Thornton.)
Definition of meekness
Meekness is a mild and placid disposition of mind, which subdues and restrains our angry passions; which gives sweetness to our tempers, dignity and kindness to our words and actions. Free from censoriousness, and reluctant to offend, it is not easily ruffled by provocation. It blends the harmlessness of the dove with the gentleness of the lamb; it bears injury without resentment, or a disposition to revenge. It covers the faults of others with the mantle of love, and while it is censured and reviled, it remains undisturbed as the island amid the raging of the stormy waves around. (W. H. Elliott, M. A.)
Meekness is love at school--the Saviours school
It is Christian lowlihood. It is the disciple learning to know himself; learning to fear, and distrust, and abhor himself. It is the disciple practising the sweet but self-emptying lesson of putting on the Lord Jesus, and finding all his righteousness in that righteous other. It is the disciple learning the defects of his own character, and taking hints from hostile as well as friendly monitors. It is the disciple praying and watching for the improvement of his talents, the mellowing of his temper, and the amelioration of his character. It is the loving Christian at the Saviours feet, learning of Him who is meek and lowly, and finding rest for his own soul. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
Power of meekness
One day, as he strolled along a river, Gotthold came to a straight and stately alder tree, growing upon the bank, and said to himself: This kind of timber is the softest, and can without difficulty be split, cut, and wrought; and yet experience proves the fact that it does not rot in water. In fact, the greater part of the city of Venice stands upon piles of alder, which sunk in the sea, forms the foundations of great massive buildings. It is the same with meek hearts. There is no better basis for important undertakings of public or private utility, than that intelligent modesty, which is gentle indeed, and ready to yield as far as a good conscience will allow, but which nevertheless lasts and continues stable in the flood of contradiction.
Meekness
This Christian grace is universal in its operation--submission Godward, meekness manward, which seems to be its special reference. The meek man bears himself mildly; submissively; in all things, like a weaned child; neither arraigns God, nor avenges himself on man. (J. Eadie, D. D.)
Advantage of meekness
There is nothing lost by meekness and yielding. Abraham yields over his right of choice: Lot taketh it. And, behold! Lot is crossed in that which he chose; Abraham blest in that which was left him. As heaven is taken by violence, so is earth with meekness. And God (the true proprietor) loves no tenants better, nor grants larger leases to any, than to the meek. (John Trapp.)
Test of meekness
As we do not keep tinder in every box in the house, so we do not keep the sense of anger in every faculty. When one comes against the door of some faculties with an injury, we look over the railing, and say, Ill forgive you for that; for you did not get in. But by-and-by, when the faculty where we are sensitive is entered, then we grind our teeth, and say, I could have forgiven him for anything but that! We must not arrogate to ourselves a spirit of forgiveness, until we have been touched to the quick where we are sensitive, and borne it meekly: and meekness is not mere white-facedness, a mere contemplative virtue; it is maintaining peace and patience in the midst of provocations. (H. W. Beecher)
Example of meekness
When Sir Matthew Hale dismissed a jury because he was convinced that it had been illegally chosen to favour the Protector, the latter was highly displeased with him; and when Sir Matthew returned from the circuit, Cromwell told him in anger that he was not fit to be a judge; to which all the answer he made was, that that was very true.
Meekness and forgiveness
Joseph Bradford was for some years the travelling companion of Mr. Wesley, for whom he would have sacrificed health and even life, but to whom his will would never bend, except in meekness. Joseph, said Mr. Wesley, one day, take these letters to the post. B. I will take them after preaching, sir. W. Take them now, Joseph. B. I wish to hear you preach, sir; and there will be sufficient time for the post, after service. W. I insist upon your going now, Joseph. B. I will not go at present. W. You wont? B. No, sir. W. Then you and I must part. B. Very good, sir. The good men slept over it. Both were early risers. At four oclock the next morning, the refractory helper was accosted with, Joseph, have you considered what I said--that we must part? B. Yes, sir. W. And must we part? B. Please yourself, sir. W. Will you ask my pardon Joseph? B. No, sir. W. You wont? B. No, sir. W. Then I will ask yours, Joseph. Poor Joseph was instantly melted; smitten as by the word of Moses; when forth gushed the tears, like the water from the rock. He had a tender soul; and it was soon observed, when the appeal was made to the heart, instead of the head. (Anecdotes of the Wesleys.)
The secret of Christian fruitfulness
Plutarch asks how it is that the fig-tree, whose root, stem, branches, and leaves are so extremely bitter, should bear such sweet and pleasant fruit. It may also be asked how the sweet fruits of the Spirit can grow on the bitter stock of nature. Not otherwise but by faith and repentance being grafted into the stock of Christ Jesus. (Spencer.)
Meekness
A pushing man in a crowd does not push himself very far after all--he knocks down a few children, or thrusts aside a few women; but the broad shoulders and strong arms make themselves broader and stronger and sterner, where perhaps they would relax, yield, and give way to a child or to a weak woman, or to one who was gentle. But after all that can be said, meekness is a difficult virtue. There is something in that impassiveness, (ἀοργησὶα)to which Aristotle opposed it, which has a real existence still as a spiritual counterfeit. Meekness is rare; it is unpopular. Pride is a sin which especially fastens on the good; and meekness suffers from spurious imitations of some of its accidents, and we know, only to despise, such tares among the wheat as little-mindedness, affectation, or that which we style in contemptuous pity, an amiable weakness. How then is this grace, so tender, so delicate, yet so beautiful, to be encouraged within our hearts, without any of that false admixture of mock humility, which is only pride in another form? The first step surely will be to keep out pride; and, in order to effect this, resolutely to stop all the avenues through which it comes, that pride which feeds upon us as a parasite upon a tree. Seeking for praise, is such an avenue, wherein pride fastens upon us with a restless hunger, snatching surreptitious crumbs of comfort even from the ruin of anothers credit, or picking them up out of his depreciation. Putting ones self forward, is another avenue by which pride, entering m, makes us think that we are necessary to the very well-being of society. Want of simplicity, is a very wide avenue; so are self-gratification, criticism, comparison, talking of self--all these are inlets through which it enters with a full stream--rising up through vanity, conceit, and self-love, with a polluting, stifling flood, until it annihilates the love of God on the high places of our soul, carrying away with it mercy, truth, charity, and meekness, the very charter of our inheritance as sons. And individuality as such is never a pleasing trait; the maker of the shield who so worked in his name that you could not destroy it without destroying the shield, is not a noble conception; it contrasts harshly with true artistic greatness, and is like the memorial stone of some modern ecclesiastical building glaring out of She wall, as compared with the foundation-stone of some grand old cathedral buried deep in the ground, unknown and forgotten as the very builders themselves, who were contented if they had but raised a building in which posterity might worship God. Good work is often spoilt by the affectation of the workman. Yes, apart from any higher motives, if we are to possess the earth, let us stop these avenues through which that deadly satisfaction comes, which ends in pride, and the fatal assertion of a disproportionate self. And, after all, what is self? Is not this another way in which to kill pride--to know ourselves? What class am I in, as it were? It is no credit to a schoolboy to remain high up in the second class, if that only means that if he were removed he would be at the bottom of the first. And taking all our life with all its mistakes, is it so very wonderful? Just as children sometimes amuse themselves with painting, and some kind friend tells them that the result is good, meaning that it is good for them--so is all our work, only good for us; before it can be ]presented, it will need to be touched anew and remodelled by a Higher hand, and what is crowned will not be our merits but His gifts: And if all our life were known, all our thoughts, our meanness, our pettiness, our narrowness, where would satisfaction be? Ah! if only we knew ourselves, this knowledge would keep us humble! If only we had before our eyes the rough, dirty, unkempt, ragged figure which we presented before God took us in hand, and clothed us and taught us, and made us what we are! And another way still, is surely to try and know other people as well as to know ourselves. Perhaps the person about whom we have roughly followed the general classification in placing him among publicans and sinners, will stand out an apostle; while the apostle who, as we thought, was busied in actions of mercy to the poor, will turn out a traitor; and the publicans and harlots will be stepping into heaven before those who coarsely taunted them with their sins. Oh! how much good there is in the world! Let us remember this. It was said in one of those revolutionary disturbances which from time to time have broken over Paris that when the party of order had the courage to take to the streets, they were surprised to find how many they were; if we could see the good that is going on all around us, it would not only cheer us, but make us humble. Those who are moving up and down among the wounded in lifes conflict, to heal, to cheer, and to soothe, are not so conspicuous as the glitter and glare of arms and accoutrements, and the flash and gleam of battle. The grand ship cuts her way through the waves with swift and powerful motion, and we do not stop to think of those who are working out of sight to secure that motion. The strength and beauty of life around us is owing, it may be, to those whose left hand does not know what their right hand is doing. Where God, who is provoked every day, is so meek and gentle with us, we, at all events, cannot afford to be proud, and rough, and harsh with others. And yet another way still to this end, is to accept humiliation. It is said that when Louis XVI. of France, previously to his execution, was about to be bound, he showed signs of resistance; but that upon his confessor (the Abbe Edgeworth) reminding him that our Lord submitted to be bound, the king immediately acquiesced with a remark to this effect; assuredly it needed nothing less than His example to induce me to undergo so great an indignity. We read in the Life of the Pere Lacordaire of the austerities which he practised to crush in himself all feeling of self-satisfaction after his splendid conferences in Notre Dame. God has plenty of these wholesome humiliations in store for us; there are those, certainly, which follow hard upon most of our active work for Him: criticism, which scourges our self-complacency; rejection, which wounds our self-love; and defeat, which shatters our self-superiority. And we are the servants of a God who works by defeat. All such things are an excellent corrective to pride; to be superseded by some one who does the duty so much better than we did; to be withdrawn, in all the healing bitterness of the feeling I am not needed; to have to recognize a superior hand, just to miss the going into the premised land, and to hand it over to Joshua. And then further, we are in the presence of perfect goodness. If we say a prayer, think whither our prayers have to penetrate, and who it is who presents them! How can an inferior singer venture on some well-known song in the presence of any great or illustrious performer, who has made that song his own! And then further still, we are in the presence of the Giver, it is all His. His grace, His strength, His body, His soul, His spirit; What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Therefore, perhaps, we have come to this. Humility and meekness are a sign of greatness; they show that we have at least an ideal. Alas, I am satisfied! this was the lament of a great sculptor who feared in this thought a sign of the decadence of his art. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Temperance.--
Temperance, a fruit of the Spirit
Order has been called the first law of God. And order implies perfect control on the part of intelligence over all things within its domain. And we know--slight as our real knowledge is of the natural forces that are around us in the earth and air and waters under the earth--how essential that the bond which binds all forces together in orderly connection should not be cut or weakened in a single strand. The nobility of self-control, as well as the absolute necessity of it, is perceived in the study of the nature and the administration of God. It can also be seen as we study the nature and doings of man. Now, man has his realm, In it he is sovereign; and his realm is first his own nature, and secondly the space circumscribed within the influences which that nature exerts. In the first place, I say, man must have control over himself. He must treat himself as a force that needs control, as a collection of energies that need restraint and direction, as a being of emotions that must not rise save in certain directions, as a creature of appetite which must be kept subordinate; and by appetite we mean any strong desire, any urgent craving after a thing. In looking into the matter of human appetites, perhaps the most prominent fact you discover is that they are natural. They are found imbedded in the organic structure of man. The physical appetites reveal themselves first; but the mind has its native cravings as truly as the body. The spirit also--by which we mean that faculty in us which holds relations to the moral realm--has its natural characteristics. Neroes and Caligulas are born. Their gratification in cruelty made them monsters. Even time, that rounds off so many angles and mellows so much that is garish, refuses to soften a single line of their harsh vices, or soften the fierce and baleful expression of their career. Bonapartes and Caesars are born as truly as drunkards--born with the appetite for fame, for glory, for power. History tells us to what excesses these mental appetites can carry persons, and into what miseries they can plunge mankind. These men and their like were born with violent appetites, unruly desires, an inordinate craving after prominence, power, and the splendour of a great career. What to them were sacked cities, burning villages, and blazing hamlets? What to them the dying agonies of slaughtered troops, the widows wail, the orphans cry, the imprecations of men and the indignation of God? These men knew no moderation. Their appetites, uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable by mortal power, urged them into such excesses that Justice, forgetting her function in her righteous rage, smote their memories with her scales as if she would not deign to weigh them in her balances; and Mercy herself refused to champion their cause, being utterly alienated in her sympathy by the number and magnitude of their dreadful crimes. Observe, now, the actions of physical appetites. How gross the spectacle of the animal exhibition we behold! In our country gluttony is not in vogue; but the time has been when it flourished in nations of highest civilization, and I think it may be said, as a natural adjunct of the civilization. In our age intemperance crops out not in eating but in drinking. We stimulate the nerves instead of gorging the stomach. We sin against the mind more directly than against the body. The sin of intemperance springs from two causes: a physical appetite and a mental habit. The mental habit is acquired, and is especially acquired by brain-workers. But the question may be asked--and I have often asked it myself--why did the Creator make us so? Why did He who designed our structure and mingled the elements of our nature, not make us more moderate, self-contained, and less impulsive? Why did He kindle in us such fiery heats, or build, as it were, into the very walls of the edifice such combustible material? In reply. Our creation, as it seems to me, is as it is because it is one of power and dignity. Greatness is great because of the strength of its tendencies, the warmth of its emotions, and its liabilities to overdo and go astray. We could have been made more moderate if we had been made weaker; but we could not have been made more moderate and possessed the strength, the force, the impulsive and emotional energies that we do. Now and then you come across a man who is all moderation; not because of any masterly control he has over himself whereby he holds the outgoing forces of his nature back with benevolent restraint; but because he lacks the force and energy. What small sinners some people are! They sin weakly. Their morality is limp. It takes a great angel to make a great devil. It takes great strength to be monumentally virtuous or monumentally wicked. It seems to me, then, that we were made as we are in order that we might become truly great. And how do men and women become great? They become great through great resistances, great struggles, and great victories. One must wrestle with the angels of light and the angels of darkness both, if he would be thewed and corded with spiritual power. Therefore, temperance, or a wise and noble control of ones nature touching every outgoing of ones power, does not imply negation, but the strongest kind of affirmation. And again: Self-control is the only kind that really covers the whole man. Laws control the actions; but actions are only the results of emotional causes. And while the actions can be dictated to by law, can be checked--yet the emotional causes strike their roots deeper into the nature than the hand of law can reach. You may arrest a thief and put him into the prison cell, and thereby restrain his thievish actions; but his thievish instincts remain untouched, remain in all their force laughing from the depths in which they are imbedded at your attempts to reach them, when you only pass your hand, as it were, over the surface far beneath which they lurk. Nothing short of, nothing less penetrative, nothing less potent or radical than, the Spirit of God can put its arrest upon the instincts of man. The central idea of the word temperance, which in our text is named as one of the fruits of the Spirit, is self-control. And this self-mastery relates first and with greatest emphasis to ourselves. It is the foundation on which all nobility of nature must be builded. Without it, character is essentially unsound and likely to become corrupt. For your own selves, therefore, for your peace of mind, for your self-esteem, for that satisfaction in living which comes from the consciousness that you are living rightly, we should all alike make it the first object of our endeavours. To be able to stand up against the pressure of any current, from whatever direction it may come, and with whatever force it may strike us--to be able to bit and bridle our passions and control the otherwise wild and runaway forces of our nature--is a consummation so devoutly to be wished that all others may be regarded as subordinate. Nor should we fail to put ourselves in connection with any helpful agencies. If Christianity can help us, then we should avail ourselves of the teachings, and above all of the spirit, of Christianity. If the power needed for such a sublime service can only be received from heavenly bestowment, then heaven should not go unbesought of us. If the Father can help us, then the Fathers aid should be invoked. This is a conclusion in respect to which I feel confident, whatever may be our views and opinions touching subsidiary questions, we can unite in common and hearty agreement. But we cannot and we do not live alone. The social structure of the world, based upon our social natures common to all men, makes isolation impossible to us. We are knitted and knotted together. We are interwoven as threads when they have been, by the skill of men and the pressure of machinery, incorporated into one fabric. We cannot help influencing others, nor can we protect ourselves from that interaction of influences which, as we affect others, causes others to affect us. We mar or make the happiness of many. The joy of many lives holds to us the same relation that the flowers in spring-time hold to the sun. From us they receive those warm and vivifying influences which, and which alone, make them floral. We can be the sun or we can be the frost unto thousands. We are strong enough in our capacities of imparting pleasure to make them happy. We are strong enough in our capacity to impart pain to make them wretched. If we hold ourselves in such control that the going forth of our natures is salutary and blessed to them, then do we indeed make their lives, If, lacking this self-control, the forces of our natures go forth lawlessly, then it is not only their happiness, but even the existence of their virtue, put in peril. How solemn, therefore, is the exhortation which comes to us from these grave and tender considerations that we become temperate in our lives; that we surrender our natures to the influences of that Spirit that worketh out in them so desirable a result! For what is the use of living unless we can make some one happy? Why do we draw breath? Why do we toil? Why do we pile our backs with burdens? Why do we fill our mouth with laughter, and yield our eyes to tears, unless in so doing we supply our own souls with their natural food for good, and give unto others the support, the pleasure, and the consolation that they need? (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
On temperance
I. A brief outline of temperance.
1. To be temperate we must use with moderation the common comforts that Providence bestows for the support of nature. The Christian must neither insult the God of providence by despising His gifts, nor provoke Him by wasting and abusing them.
2. To be temperate we must possess that chastity which is opposed to lascivious passions.
II. It will be necessary to assign some reasons why temperance is called the fruit of the Spirit.
1. Nothing can be justly denominated a virtue, but that which is produced by a proper motive, and referred to a proper end. A principle of rectitude, or purity, must influence the heart. Now nothing can change and effectually renew the heart, but Divine grace. The operations of the Divine Spirit only can produce that which strictly deserves the name of temperance.
2. The operations of the Holy Spirit, applying Divine truth to the heart, have recovered many from the most fixed and inveterate habits of gross sensuality, to a life of sobriety and purity. To confirm this observation, we need only refer to the first fruits of their ministry, whom Christ first employed to preach the gospel. But such instances were not confined to that age: in every age, some have been brought, by the power of Divine grace, from the vilest intemperance to a life of sobriety and chastity. Colonel Gardiner, who before his conversion, was so much given up to profligacy, particularly to lewdness, that he used to say, God Himself could not reform him without giving him a new constitution, declared that afterwards he felt no temptation from what had once been his besetting sin. Mr. Brainerd, whose labours were so eminently blessed to the conversion of many American Indians, after that remarkable outpouring of the Spirit, which attended the preaching of Christ, and Him crucified, among them, observes, that a very visible and happy change immediately followed in their conduct. Numbers, says he, of these people are brought to a strict compliance with the rules of morality and sobriety, and to a conscientious performance of the external duties of Christianity, without their having been frequently inculcated upon them, and the contrary vices particularly exposed. When the great truths of the gospel were felt at heart, there was no vice unreformed, no external duty neglected. Drunkenness, their darling vice, was broken off, and scarcely an instance known of it for months together. The practice of husbands and wives in putting away each other, and taking others in their stead, was quickly reformed. The same might be said of all other vicious practices: the reformation was general, and all springing from the internal influence of Divine truth upon their hearts.
3. The operations of the Holy Spirit, applying the word of truth to the heart, subdue those strong propensities to intemperance, which would break out and gather strength by indulgence, if not prevented by a powerful counteracting cause. Spiritual-mindedness cannot consist with the sickening scenes of riot and lewdness. They that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
III. We shall mention some of the advantages of temperance.
1. There is a noble kind of freedom invariably attending Christian temperance. The believer is not only free from the curse, but also from the reigning power of sin. The senses, appetites and passions, become subject to the enlightened understanding and renewed will. The inferior powers of our nature are brought to obey, rather than rule, the higher faculties of the soul. This is justly styled, The glorious liberty of the children of God.
2. Temperance ensures the best enjoyment of those comforts which the God of providence imparts. Meat kills more than muskets; and the board destroys more than the sword. I have read of a very extraordinary mode of executing capital offenders practised in some heathen country. There is an engine shaped like a beautiful lady, which the criminal salutes, and afterwards retires. He returns again to salute the fatal machine: the figure opens its arms, and cuts him through the heart! Whether such a custom now actually prevails in any place, I cannot engage to affirm. I quote the story for the sake of the allusion it supplies: it presents us with a true image of that flattering but cruel goddess, sensual pleasure. Those who eagerly press into her arms, are sure to fall and perish at the last. But the temperate man enjoys the benefit designed in earthly things, while he still looks for something higher and better.
3. Temperance assists the exercise of benevolence. Temperance, by moderating our passions, and lessening, rather than multiplying our wants, puts us in circumstances capable of benefiting our fellow-creatures. Some Christians of no great wealth, have been remarkably useful in society.
4. Temperance prepares us to engage in the various duties of religion.
IV. Specify some means which may be useful in the cultivation of temperance.
1. Consider all the blessings you enjoy as talents, which you are solemnly called to use and improve.
2. Take heed what company you keep.
3. Let your attention be chiefly directed to the attainment of spiritual and Divine blessings.
4. Seek a larger measure of the Holy Spirits influence. Rules of discipline alone will prove insufficient to govern and purify the mind. If we are not taught by Divine grace, we shall learn nothing aright. The fruit of the Spirit was never yet produced on the stock of unrenewed nature. Let, then, your eyes be daily lifted up to that Being, who is the Fountain of all purity and bliss. (John Thornton.)
Definition of temperance
Temperance is love taking exercise, love enduring hardness, love seeking to become healthful and athletic, love striving for the mastery in all things, and bringing the body under. It is superiority to sensual delights, and it is the power of applying resolutely to irksome duties for the Masters sake. It is self-denial and self-control. Fearful lest it should subside into gross carnality, or waste away into shadowy and hectic sentiment, temperance is love alert, and timeously astir; sometimes rising before day for prayer, sometimes spending that day on tasks which laziness or daintiness declines. It is love with girt loins, and dusty feet, and blistered hands. It is love with the empty scrip, but the glowing cheek; love subsisting on pulse and water, but grown so healthful and hardy that it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
Temperance
I. Under any circumstances is self-mastery.
II. With respect to the senses, self-control.
III. In relation to food, moderation; to drink, soberness; to both, abstemiousness.
IV. In relation to the sexes, continence.
V. In anger, forbearance; in temper, self-control.
VI. In action, modesty; in success, humility; in defeat, hopefulness.
VII. In desire, self-restraint;
VIII. in pleasure, self-denial. (Orby Shipley.)
God hath made several objects pleasing to mans senses. The affections of the soul are apt to follow the senses of the body. Hence sensual pleasures are apt to draw us into vice. It is therefore our great duty and interest to moderate our affections to sensual pleasures.
I. In keeping our affections subject to reason and religion, and so denying them what is unlawful (Tit_2:12).
II. In abstaining especially from such lusts, as by our calling, condition, or constitution we are most subject to (1Pe_4:2-4).
III. In abstaining from the inward desires as well as the outward act of intemperance (Col_3:5; Rom_8:13; Mat_5:28).
IV. In not being too much lifted up with the increase, nor cast down with the loss of sensual pleasures (1Co_7:29-31; 2Co_6:10). (Bp. Beveridge.)
Temperance is the right handling of ones soul. (H. W. Beecher.)
Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in the face, and decorum in the person; it gives you the command of your head, secures your health, and preserves you in a condition for business. (Jeremy Collier.)
Temperance is corporeal piety; it is the preservation of the Divine order of the body. (Theodore Parker.)
Temperance
Temperance (Εγκράτεια) seems to be the last, the crowning fruit of the Spirit, as if the very greatness of the riches which await the perfect man needed a regulating and discriminating power. There is a phrase in St. Peters writings which is eloquent with the same warning, ἐν δὲ τῇ γνώσει τὴν ἐγκρατέιαν, and to knowledge temperance; as if each sense, each feeling, each power, when it has aroused its dormant energies, were moving amidst fresh possibilities of wealth and satisfaction, which needed regulating. And so there grows up this splendid ἐγκράτεια, temperance, as a regulating principle, showing us the when, the how, the how much, and the how long, with undeviating instinct. In the spirit of those grand lines--
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power;
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for), but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.
Is not this true temperance, the moderating, the regulating, the due admixture, as time and season require, of all that goes to make up life; so much pleasure, so much pain, so much work, so much recreation; memory, imagination, body, soul, and spirit--all contributing, and nothing in excess, μηδὲν ἄγαν And the words quoted above may surely give us a good analysis of the formation of temperance, self-reverence, this may well be the first element; reverence even for the less comely parts of our nature. Self-knowledge, again; how necessary this is as a constituent part! Each knows for himself what he can do; each knows for himself what he is bound to avoid. Some can make good use even of poisons in their skilful mingling, while to others the most wholesome meat is to them the veriest poison. Self-knowledge is all-essential, as showing US what we can do and what we cannot do, and in helping us to gauge all those delicate tendencies which are latent in us from heredity, or pass into us from environment and which in themselves go to make or mar the man. And then as a third element we have self-control--that master-spirit which has all its slaves under its dominion, obedient to the nod of the will, which in itself can submit to the Masters call, which has learnt to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. There are two stages in the development of this temperance which we may do well to consider. First of all, as a preliminary step, we may place what we call self-denial--that sort of learning not to touch--the free, detached mode of walking through the world. And the uses of self-denial are obvious; it makes us more prepared for the assaults of the devil. Being indifferent in things lawful, we are not likely to be tempted in things unlawful. Our appetites are all under guard; the circle of the wails is vigilantly patrolled; the watchword is passed on from tower to tower of prayer; and all the bush of pride and luxury has been cut down. So self-denial cuts off occasion; while as a further stage still, it makes us more fit for Gods work. And self-denial will make us more continent, so to speak, amidst all the allurements of the world; where one less braced would become enervated and lifeless. We have become mortified, dead to the world; all the channels of evil have been stopped and cut off. And now, if we have secured this great principle of self-denial, we shall be daily and hourly called upon to practise self-restraint--a higher stage still; and this in the most far-reaching, the most comprehensive manner. There are, for instance, the eyes, the ears, the thoughts, the imagination, the understanding, which all need restraining, just as we restrain the lower appetites themselves. Modesty we all feel the need of; vigilance we know is of the utmost importance; but recollectedness, perhaps, we are not so careful to cultivate as we ought to be. What a force it is, in its simple concentration of powers, whether at study, or in prayer, or when simply alone. How we grow unable to commune silently and seriously with our own souls, because we have shrunk from the discipline of solitude when it was offered for our acceptance. And self-restraint does not stop here, it goes higher and it goes lower. It goes higher, up to that self-will, in all its unteachable obstinacy, fancies, and dislikes. It goes lower, to that self-indulgence, which, to say the least of it, is taking off the hardness which it was the object of self-denial to produce. It is required for the tongue, to stop its misuse, and misdirection. It is required for the actions, to stop hastiness, imprudence, unsteadiness, or self-abandonment out of the due proportion of life. It is required even for the soul, to bring it back from its favourite doctrines to the proportion of faith, to drive it into the wilderness, after scenes of holy peace at Jordan; to stop untaught enthusiasm and uninstructed zeal; landing the life at last in that perfect temperance, where all things mingle in their due proportion in that perfect man, where each part rejoices in the excellence of each, for the excellence of each part is the joy of the whole. Above all things let us be spiritual. Spirituality is a power in the world, quite separate and distinct by itself; some are as ignorant of it as our forefathers were of electricity; but there is no power like it; and this power may be ours. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Against such there is no law.--
The spirits relation to law
The object of law is education. There is no law made for any other use, so far as law applies to human beings. God never rested a law of His on force. Every law He has made rests on love. No law was ever passed in order to punish people, but to save people from punishment. Looked at in this light the value of, law cannot be over-estimated. It might be called the free, the impartial, the universal educator of men. Into the realm of human rights which for ages lingered in prolonged night--a night without a star--it rises like a sun, and the realm of darkness becomes illuminated. Nothing is more unfortunate than to have people suppose that love is one thing and law is another, even its opposite. If it were so, then is my mind one thing and my arm another when, in obedience to my will, it makes a movement. For law is only the armed extension of love; doing its wish, serving its purpose, and therefore one with itself. To deify force, even non-intelligent force--force governed in no other law in its outgoings than the law of change--is sad enough; but to deify force that is not only intelligent, but is so cruel that it delights in the suffering it can inflict, is infamous. Such a theology, or such a travesty on theology, is but a mockery of the Christian religion. Now, then, we have come to the understanding of the use of law and its relation to love. We have ascertained that law, in its use, is education as it relates to man; and as it relates to God it is only a servant to love--a means of wisely expressing unto mortals His affection for them. We now come to the further statement, that while law is valuable both as a method of education and as a means of expressing His love, yet in relation to both of these objects it has its strict limitations; that is, it can only carry the moral education of man up to a certain point, which point is by no means sufficiently high to meet the necessities of the soul; and that it can only in a very imperfect manner proclaim to the universe the Divine affections. Now, the necessities of the soul are the necessities of our whole being. For the word soul is an all-including word, and within its significance every faculty, power, and sense are embraced. But the necessities of our whole being can never be met by mere knowledge, which is all that law can give. Nor can it reveal unto us the nature of God in any such degree as we crave to know it. For law can only reveal to us the conscience of God, while His affections, His mercies, His sympathies are not directly expressed by it. And while God is the highest embodiment of conscience that we can imagine; while He is the superlative expression of moral sense, He is more than this. There is another thought in this connection that may help some of you, that not only is law unable to express God, but Gods design aims at a finer expression of Himself than law can give. The master recognizes the inability of his servant, and therefore calls upon other assistance. And this is seen if you will ask and answer this question: What is Gods design as it stands related to moral beings? Is it to make fashionable a class of conduct or a class of character? A class of character, assuredly. In this connection the interrogation might not be amiss, nor lacking just application to us all, What sort of a character under our profession of piety are we growing, granted that the outward conduct is in strict conformance with religious requirements? What is the actual inner state? Are we in our natures as good as we are in our behaviour? Are we as faultless in our dispositions as Gods eye sees them as we are in that deportment which mens eyes see? These are questions that penetrate us, friends. God grant they do not carry fire on their point as they enter into us. One other thought touching this matter of law as it relates to the fruits of the Spirit. Let me ask you this question: What is the highest form of law? Dont think of the legislature, of the statute book, of the Decalogue, no, nor of the Sermon on the Mount; for in none of these will you find Jaw expressed in its highest form. Where then? In man, if he be good enough, in God always. The highest form of law is impersonated law, law that has been translated out of statute into character; out of the enactment into the act, and out of the act into the spirit. Enshrined in that spirit like a pure element in a transparent substance, the law shines forth with an expression so fine that the obedience of earth and the piety of heaven alike take it as their guiding star. This was precisely the condition of things in the case of Jesus of Nazareth. In Him the spirit of all good law found embodiment. He was, as it were, the breathing, living, walking genius of justice; that justice which was utterly just because it kept its own alliance with the love, the mercy, and the pity of the skies. They who heard Him speak heard the law speak; hence the people recognized that He spake as one having authority--a crude, popular way of expressing a sublime perception only dimly sensed. One thing I cannot refrain from suggesting: never think that the object of the Spirits work is to deliver you from penalty. Heaven is something more and finer than an escape from hell. No one ever shuns hell; he grows up above it. Heaven is character; and he whose character is being grown daily by the culture of the Spirit is growing daily into the heavenly state. Ah, it is not what the Spirit mercifully holds me back from, but what it graciously leads me unto, that makes me love Him. He has led me to knowledge without which I should not have had the powers and pleasures of intelligence. He has led me into sensitiveness touching my own rights and the rights of others, and thereby has given me self-dignity, and with it humanity. He has brought me into emotional neighbourhood with God; so that I live in the same city with Him--His own city--and am one of His subjects, and have the honour of serving Him day and night. Not only so, but this blessed Spirit has utilized the subtle forces of my own mind and nature in my behalf--forces which lurk in nerves of feeling that the anatomist has never found, and which move in strong currents through channels of my soul that psychologists have never discovered. (W. H. Murray, D. D.)
No law against the spiritual
Against such there is no law! God be thanked, no! When a mans whole soul has been illuminated, so that it burns day and night with the lambent, sweet flame of love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, and hopefulness, when this is his habitual frame of mind, or a frame of mind so nearly habitual that only the occasion is necessary to bring it out in full force, then there is no law for him. Under such circumstances men do right, not because the way of doing right is laid down before them. It was once; but long ago they digested it just as food is digested, and it has become part and parcel of their organization. This is to be a Christian--a ripe Christian. A man may be a Christian, and excel in many things; but here is the portraiture; and an imperfect portrait is no portrait at all. If a portrait-painter should draw one half of a face and leave the other half blank, nobody would take it; or, if he should draw the forehead and eyes perfectly, and leave the nose out, nobody would take that. The glory of the face is in the symmetry of all its parts; and the glory of a Christian character does not lie in this excellence or that excellence--good as it may be and desirable--but in the harmony of all excellences … This is the measure by which we can examine ourselves; not to know whether we are in the faith, but to know how far we have progressed in the faith. How many things are yet burdensome duties? How many things are yet done with a painful self-denial: I believe in self-denial; but I believe that all self-denial should, after a very short time, become gracious and sweet; for all self-denial is in its last analysis but the overcoming of a lower impulse by the interference of a higher one; and every single step we take up, should make that which in the beginning was painful less and less so, until it positively becomes pleasurable. How many victories of that kind have you gained? How many are you striving after: Do you ask yourselves how many of you have been constant in family prayers, constant in the Sunday-school, constant in the Word of God? All of these things are very good; but they do not produce fruit necessarily, any more than if a farmer should go round his farm every day, clear to the boundaries, but never plant anything, never hoe anything, never plough anything, but simply look at everything, and people should say: Oh, he is a good farmer, isnt he: A good farmer is known at reaping time. There are a great many people who read the Bible and pray. That is all very well indeed; but they do not practise so much. These are the outward indications of what is right and proper; but it is the inward registration that tells. And in all self-examination it must come to this. How much of my nature is really exalted? How much of it has become automatic: How much of my mind is pure and high, according to the gracious qualities of my Master? Am I living in these states of mind from day to day, and habitually? (H. W. Beecher.)
Law is needed up to a certain point; but if a man can go higher than that point, he does not need law
Wings would help me; but angels do not need wings--though painters have represented them as having wings. An angel, according to our conception, is one that can lift itself up, and move hither and thither, by its own spontaneity. In proportion as men have these thoughts, in proportion as they live by the force of them, they do not need the wings, the feet, the helps, the schoolmasters, the directors, the wardens, that laws are. Laws are simply aids to weak folks, to tell them where to go, to help them to go, and to make them remember the next time if they do not go. Laws are mens servants; and they are servants which serve them in that way. But if a man has a direct inspiration of God; or if his culture has gone so high that he does not need these external stimulants; or ii he has another sphere of influences which lead him to the same things from a higher point of view, the lower ones drop, not because they are wrong, but because the man is doing the Same things better by a different set of instruments. Therefore it is that there is no law to some men. A man who needs a law is yet a child. There is not one man in a hundred who ever does live by the laws of the land that he is in. We do not live by the laws of our land. You do not know one quarter of the laws that are on our statute books. A virtuous and honest man does not need to know what the laws are. The greatest proportion of men live and die without hearing once in all their life a tenth or a hundredth part of the laws that pertain to good conduct. They do right of their own accord, and therefore the law has no force on them. So it is in respect to true manly living. As far as a real, upright man goes, he goes voluntarily. He does from spontaneity and from choice what men lower down do from necessity, or from fear of punishment. The consequence is that men live toward freedom in proportion as they live toward fidelity. (H. W. Beecher.)
Law exists for the purpose of restraint, but in the works of the Spirit there is nothing to restrain. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Law neither prohibits nor enjoins Christian graces, which belong to a different sphere. (B. Jowett, M. A.)
Whether with regard to the fruits of the earth there may be a natural law, whether it be true of the natural creation that by the force of law the seasons may fail, the rain be too heavy, or the sun too slight, it can be boldly said that against the fruit of the Spirit there can be no law. (Canon Knox-Little.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v22 Chapter 25
Chapter 25
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT.
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Gal_5:22-23
"THE tree is known by its fruits." Such was the criterion of religious profession laid down by the Founder of Christianity. This test His religion applies in the first instance to itself. It proclaims a final judgment for all men; it submits itself to the present judgment of all men-a judgment resting in each case on the same ground, namely that of fruit, of moral issue and effects. For character is the true summum bonum; it is the thing which in our secret hearts and in our better moments we all admire and covet. The creed which produces the best and purest character, in the greatest abundance and under the most varied conditions, is that which the world will believe.
These verses contain the ideal of character furnished by the gospel of Christ. Here is the religion of Jesus put in practice. These are the sentiments and habits, the views of duty, the temper of mind, which faith in Jesus Christ tends to form. Pauls conception of the ideal human life at once "commends itself to every mans conscience." And he owed it to the gospel of Christ, His ethics art the fruit of his dogmatic faith. What other system of belief has produced a like result, or has formed in mens minds ideas of duty so reasonable and gracious, so just, so balanced and perfect, and above all so practicable, as those inculcated in the Apostles teaching?
"Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." Thoughts of this kind, lives of this kind, are not the product of imposture or delusion. The "works" of systems of error are "manifest" in the moral wrecks they leave behind them, strewing the track of history. But the virtues here enumerated are the fruits which the Spirit of Christ has brought forth, and brings forth at this day more abundantly than ever. As a theory of morals, a representation of what is best in conduct, Christian teaching has held for 1800 years an unrivalled place. Christ and His Apostles are still the masters of morality. Few have been bold enough to offer any improvements on the ethics of Jesus; and smaller still has been the acceptance which their proposals have obtained. The new idea of virtue which Christianity has given to the world, the energy it has imparted to the moral will, the immense and beneficial revolutions it has brought about in human society, supply a powerful argument for its divinity. Making every deduction for unfaithful Christians, who dishonour "the worthy name" they bear, still "the fruit of the Spirit" gathered in these eighteen centuries is a glorious witness to the virtue of the tree of life from which it grew.
This picture of the Christian life takes its place side by side with others found in Pauls Epistles. It recalls the figure of Charity in 1 Cor. 13, acknowledged by moralists of every school to be a masterpiece of characterisation. It stands in line also with the oft-quoted enumeration of Php_4:8 : "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are reverend, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are chaste, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are kindly spoken, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." These representations do not pretend to theoretical completeness. It would be easy to specify important virtues not mentioned in the Apostles categories. His descriptions have a practical aim, and press on the attention of his readers the special forms and qualities of virtue demanded from them, under the given circumstances, by their faith in Christ.
It is interesting to compare the Apostles definitions with Platos celebrated scheme of the four cardinal virtues. They are wisdom, courage, temperance, with righteousness as the union and co-ordination of the other three. The difference between the cast of the Platonic and Pauline ethics is most instructive. In the Apostles catalogue the first two of the philosophical virtues are wanting; unless "courage" be included, as it properly may, under the name of "virtue" in the Philippian list. With the Greek thinker, wisdom is the fundamental excellence of the soul. Knowledge is in his view the supreme desideratum, the guarantee for moral health and social well-being. The philosopher is the perfect man, the proper ruler of, the commonwealth. Intellectual culture brings in its train ethical improvement. For "no man is knowingly vicious": such was the dictum of Socrates, the father of Philosophy. In the ethics of the gospel, love becomes the chief of virtues, parent of the rest.
Love and humility are the two features whose predominance distinguishes the Christian from the purest classical conceptions of moral worth. The ethics of Naturalism know love as a passion, a sensuous instinct (ερως); or again, as the personal affection which binds friend to friend through common interest or resemblance of taste and disposition (φιλια). Love in its highest sense (αγαπη). Christianity has re-discovered, finding in it a universal law for the reason and spirit. It assigns to this principle a like place to that which gravitation holds in the material universe, as the attraction which binds each man to his Maker and to his fellows. Its obligations neutralise self-interest and create a spiritual solidarity of mankind, centring in Christ, the God-man. Pre-Christian philosophy exalted the intellect, but left the heart cold and vacant, and. the deeper springs of will untouched. It was reserved for Jesus Christ to teach men how to love, and in love to find the law of freedom.
If love was wanting in natural ethics, humility was positively excluded. The pride of philosophy regarded it as a vice rather than a virtue. "Lowliness" is ranked with "pettiness" and "repining" and "despondency" as the product of "littleness of soul." On the contrary, the man of lofty soul is held up to admiration, who is "worthy of great things and deems himself so,"-who is "not given to wonder, for nothing seems great to him,"-who is "ashamed to receive benefits," and "has the appearance indeed of being supercilious" (Aristotle). How far removed is this model from our Example who has said, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." The classical idea of virtue is based on the greatness of man; the Christian, on the goodness of God. Before the Divine glory in Jesus Christ the soul of the believer bows in adoration. It is humbled at the throne of grace, chastened into self-forgetting. It gazes oft this Image of love and holiness till it repeats itself within the heart.
Nine virtues are woven together in this golden chain of the Holy Spirits fruit. They fall into three groups of three, four, and two respectively-according as they refer primarily to God, love, joy, peace; to ones fellowmen, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith; and to oneself, meekness, temperance. But the successive qualities are so closely linked and pass into one another with so little distance, that it is undesirable to emphasise the analysis; and while bearing the above distinctions in mind, we shall seek to give to each of the nine graces its separate place in the catalogue.
1. The fruit of the Spirit is love. That fitliest first. Love is the Alpha and Omega of the Apostles thoughts concerning the new life in Christ. This queen of graces is already enthroned within this chapter. In Gal_5:6 Love came forward to be the minister of Faith; in Gal_5:14 it reappeared as the ruling principle of Divine law. These two offices of love are united here, where it becomes the prime fruit of the Holy Spirit of God, to whom the heart is opened by the act of faith, and who enables us to keep Gods law. Love is "the fulfilling of the law"; for it is the essence of the gospel; it is the spirit of sonship; without this Divine affection, no profession of faith, no practice of good works has any value in the sight of God or intrinsic moral worth. Though I have all other gifts and merits-wanting this, "I am nothing". {1Co_13:1-3} The cold heart is dead. Whatever appears to be Christian that has not the love of Christ, is an unreality-a matter of orthodox opinion or mechanical performance-dead as the body without the spirit. In all true goodness there is an element of love. Here then, is the fountain-head of Christian virtue, the "well of water springing up into eternal life" which Christ opens in the believing soul, from which flow so many bounteous streams of mercy and good fruits.
This love is, in the first instance and above all, love to God. It springs from the knowledge of His love to man. "God is love," and "love is of God." {1Jn_4:7-8} All love flows from one fountain, from the One Father. And the Fathers love is revealed in the Son. Love has the cross for its measure and standard. "He sent the Only-Begotten into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love: hereby know we love". {1Jn_3:16; 1Jn_4:9-10} The man who knows this love, whose heart responds to the manifestation of God in Christ, is "born of God." His soul is ready to become the abode of all pure affections, his life the exhibition of all Christlike virtues. For the love of the Father is revealed to him; and the love of a son is enkindled in his soul by the Spirit of the Son.
In Pauls teaching, love forms the antithesis to knowledge. By this opposition the wisdom of God is distinguished from "the wisdom of this world and of its princes, which come to nought". {1Co_1:23; 1Co_2:8; 1Co_8:1; 1Co_8:3} Not that love despises knowledge, or seeks to dispense with it. It requires knowledge beforehand in order to discern its object, and afterwards to understand its work. So the Apostle prays for the Philippians "that their love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment". {Php_1:9-10} It is not love without knowledge, heat without light, the warmth of an ignorant, untempered zeal that the Apostle desiderates. But he deplores the existence of knowledge without love, a clear head with a cold heart, an intellect whose growth has left the affections starved and stunted, with enlightened apprehensions of truth that awaken no corresponding emotions. Hence comes the pride of reason, the "knowledge that puffeth up." Love alone knows the art of building up.
Loveless knowledge is not wisdom. For wisdom is lowly in her own eyes, mild and gracious. What the man of cold intellect sees, he sees clearly; he reasons on it well. But his data are defective. He discerns but the half, the poorer half of life. There is a whole heaven of facts of which he takes no account. He has an acute and sensitive perception of phenomena coming within the range of his five senses, and of everything that logic can elicit from such phenomena. But he "cannot see afar off." Above all, "he that loveth not, knoweth not God." He leaves out the Supreme Factor in human life; and all his calculations are vitiated. "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? "
If knowledge then is the enlightened eye, love is the throbbing, living heart of Christian goodness.
2. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy dwells in the house of Love; nor elsewhere will she tarry.
Love is the mistress both of joy and sorrow. Wronged, frustrated, hers is the bitterest of griefs. Love makes us capable of pain and shame; but equally of triumph and delight. Therefore the Lover of mankind was the "Man of sorrows," whose love bared its breast to the arrows of scorn and hate; and yet "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame." There was no sorrow like that of Christ rejected and crucified; no joy like the joy of Christ risen and reigning. This joy, the delight of love satisfied in those it loves, is that whose fulfilment He has promised to His disciples. {Joh_15:8-11}
Such joy the selfish heart never knows. Lifes choicest blessings, heavens highest favours fail to bring it happiness. Sensuous gratification, and even intellectual pleasure by itself, wants the true note of gladness. There is nothing that thrills the whole nature, that stirs the pulses of life and sets them dancing, like the touch of a pure love. It is the pearl of great price, for which "if a man would give all the substance of his house, he would be utterly contemned." But of all the joys love gives to life, that is the deepest which is ours when "the love of God is shed abroad in our heart." Then the full tide of blessedness pours into the human spirit. Then we know of what happiness our nature was made capable, when we know the love that God hath toward us.
This joy in the Lord quickens and elevates, while it cleanses, all other emotions. It raises, the whole temperature of the heart. It gives a new glow to life. It lends a warmer and a purer tone to our natural affections. It sheds a diviner meaning, a brighter aspect over the common face of earth and sky. It throws a radiance of hope upon the toils and weariness of mortality. It "glories in tribulation." It triumphs in death. He who "lives in the Spirit" cannot be a dull, or peevish, or melancholy man. One with Christ his heavenly Lord, he begins already to taste His joy, - a joy which none taketh away and which many sorrows cannot quench.
Joy is the beaming countenance, the elastic step, the singing voice of Christian goodness.
1. But joy is a thing of seasons. It has its ebb and flow, and would not be itself if it were constant. It is crossed, varied, shadowed unceasingly. On earth sorrow ever follows its track, as night chases day. No one knew this better than Paul. "Sorrowful," he says of himself, {2Co_6:10} "yet always rejoicing": a continual alternation, sorrow threatening every moment to extinguish, but serving to enhance, his joy. Joy leans upon her graver sister Peace.
2. There is nothing fitful or febrile in the quality of Peace. It is a settled quiet of the heart, a deep, brooding mystery that "passeth all understanding," the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, the Sabbath of God. {Heb_4:9} It is theirs who are "justified by faith". {Rom_5:1-2} It is the bequest of Jesus Christ. {Joh_14:27} He "made peace for us through the blood of His cross." He has reconciled us with the eternal law, with the Will that rules all things without effort or disturbance. We pass from the region of misrule and mad rebellion into the kingdom of the Son of Gods love, with its ordered freedom, its clear and tranquil light, its "central peace, subsisting at the heart of endless agitation." After the war of the passions, after the tempest of doubt and fear, Christ has spoken, "Peace, be still!" A great calm spreads over the troubled waters; wind and wave lie down hushed at His feet. The demonic powers that lashed the soul into tumult, vanish before His holy presence. The Spirit of Jesus takes possession of mind and heart and will. And His fruit is peace-always peace. This one virtue takes the place of the manifold forms of contention which makes life a chaos and a misery. While He rules, "the peace of God guards the heart and thoughts" and holds them safe from inward mutiny, outward assault; and the dissolute, turbulent train of the works of the flesh find the gates of the soul barred against them. Peace is the calm, unruffled brow, the poised and even temper which Christian goodness wears.
3. The heart, at peace with God has patience with men. Charity "suffereth long." She is not provoked by opposition; nor soured by injustice; no, nor crushed by mens contempt. She can afford to wait; for truth and love will conquer in the end. She knows in whose hand her cause is, and remembers how long He has suffered the unbelief and rebellion of an insensate world; she "considers Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself." Mercy and longsuffering are qualities that we share with God Himself, in which God was, and is, "manifest in the flesh." In this ripe fruit of the Spirit there are joined "the love of God, and the patience of Christ." {2Th_3:5}
Longsuffering is the patient magnanimity of Christian goodness, the broad shoulders on which it "beareth all things". {1Co_13:7}
1. "Charity suffereth long and is kind." Gentleness (or kindness, as the word is more frequently and better rendered,) resembles "longsuffering" in finding its chief objects in the evil and unthankful. But while the latter is passive and self-contained, kindness is an active, busy virtue. She is moreover of a humble and tender spirit, stooping to the lowest need, thinking nothing too small in which she may help, ready to give back blessing for cursing, benefit for harm and wrong.
2. Kindness is the thoughtful insight, the delicate tact, the gentle ministering hand of Charity.
1. Linked with kindness comes goodness, which is its other self, differing from it only as twin sisters may, each fairer for the beauty of the other. Goodness is perhaps more affluent, more catholic in its bounty; kindness more delicate and discriminating. The former looks to the benefit conferred, seeking to make it as large and full as possible; the latter has respect to the recipients, and studies to suit their necessity. While kindness makes its opportunities, and seeks out the most needy and miserable, goodness throws its doors open to all comers. Goodness is the more masculine and large-hearted form of charity; and if it errs, errs through blundering and want of tact. Kindness is the more feminine; and may err through exclusiveness and narrowness of view. United, they are perfect.
2. Goodness is the honest, generous face, the open hand of Charity..
3. This procession of the Virtues has conducted us, in the order of Divine grace, from the thought of a loving, forgiving God, the Object of our love, our joy and peace, to that of an evil-doing, unhappy world, with its need of longsuffering and "kindness"; and we now come to the inner, sacred circle of brethren beloved in Christ, where, with goodness, faith- that is, trustfulness, confidence- is called into exercise.
The Authorised rendering "faith" seems to us in this instance preferable to the "faithfulness" of the Revisers. "Possibly," says Bishop Lightfoot, "πιστις may here signify trustfulness, reliance, in ones dealings with others; comp. 1Co_13:7;" we should prefer to say "probably," or even "unmistakably," to this. The use of pistis in any other sense is rare and doubtful in Pauls Epistles. It is true that "God" or "Christ" is elsewhere implied as the object of faith; but where the word stands, as it does here, in a series of qualities belonging to human relationships, it finds, in agreement with its current meaning, another application. As a link between goodness and meekness, trustfulness, and nothing else, appears to be in place. The parallel expression of 1 Cor. 13, of which chapter we find so many echoes in the text, we take to be decisive: "Charity believeth all things."
The faith that unites man to God, in turn joins man to his fellows. Faith in the Divine Fatherhood becomes trust in the human brotherhood. In this generous attribute the Galatians were sadly deficient. "Honour all men," wrote Peter to them; "love the brotherhood". {1Pe_2:17} Their factiousness and jealousies were the exact opposite of this fruit of the Spirit. Little was there to be found in them of the love that "envieth and vaunteth not," which "imputeth not evil, nor rejoiceth in unrighteousness," which "beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things." They needed more faith in man, as well as in God.
The true heart knows how to trust. He who doubts every one is even more deceived than the man who blindly confides in every one. There is no more miserable vice than cynicism; no man more ill-conditioned than he who counts all the world knaves or fools except himself. This poison of mistrust, this biting acid of scepticism is a fruit of irreligion. It is one of the surest signs of social and national decay.
The Christian man knows not only how to stand alone and to "bear all things," but also how to lean on others, strengthening himself by their strength and supporting them in weakness. He delights to "think others better" than himself; and here "meekness" is one with "faith." His own goodness gives him an eye for everything that is best in those around him.
Trustfulness is the warm, firm clasp of friendship, the generous and loyal homage which goodness ever pays to goodness.
3. Meekness, as we have seen, is the other side of faith. It is not tameness and want of spirit, as those who "judge after the flesh" are apt to think. Nor is meekness the mere quietness of a retiring disposition. "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." It comports with the highest courage and activity; and is a qualification for public leadership. Jesus Christ stands before us as the perfect pattern of meekness. "I intreat you," pleads the Apostle with the self-asserting Corinthians, "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ!" Meekness is self-repression in view of the claims and needs of others; it is the "charity" which "seeketh not her own, looketh not to her own things, but to the things of others." For her, self is of no account in comparison with Christ and His kingdom, and the honour of His brethren.
Meekness is the content and quiet mien, the willing self-effacement that is the mark of Christlike goodness.
4. Finally temperance, or self-control, - third of Platos cardinal virtues.
By this last link the chain of the virtues, at its higher end attached to the throne of the Divine love and mercy, is fastened firmly down into the actualities of daily habit and bodily regimen. Temperance, to change the figure, closes the array of the graces, holding the post of the rear-guard which checks all straggling and protects the march from surprise and treacherous overthrow.
If meekness is the virtue of the whole man as he stands before his God and in the midst of his fellows, temperance is that of his body, the tenement and instrument of the regenerate spirit, It is the antithesis of "drunkenness and revellings," which closed the list of "works of the flesh," just as the preceding graces, from "peace" to "meekness," are opposed to the multiplied forms of "enmity" and "strife." Amongst ourselves very commonly the same limited contrast is implied. But to make "temperance" signify only or chiefly the avoidance of strong drink is miserably to narrow its significance. It covers the whole range of moral discipline, and concerns every sense and passion of our nature. Temperance is a practised mastery of self. It holds the reins of the chariot of life. It is the steady and prompt control of the outlooking, sensibilities and appetencies, and inwardly moving desires. The tongue, the hand and foot, the eye, the temper, the tastes and affections, all require in turn to feel its curb. He is a temperate man, in the Apostles meaning, who holds himself well in hand, who meets temptation as a disciplined army meets the shock of battle, by skill and alertness and tempered courage baffling the forces that outnumber it.
This also is a "fruit of the Spirit"-though we may count it the lowest and least, yet as indispensable to our salvation as the love of God itself. For the lack of this safeguard how many a saint has stumbled into folly and shame! It is no small thing for the Holy Spirit to accomplish in us, no mean prize for which we strive in seeking the crown of a perfect self-control. This mastery over the flesh is in truth the rightful prerogative of the human spirit, the dignity from which it fell through sin, and which the gift of the Spirit of Christ restores.
And this virtue in a Christian man is exercised for the behoof of others, as well as for his own. "I keep my body under," cries the Apostle, "I make it my slave and not my master; lest, having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway"-that is self-regard, mere common prudence; but again, "It is good not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor to do anything whereby a brother is made to stumble or made weak." {Rom_14:21}
Temperance is the guarded step, the sober, measured walk in which Christian goodness keeps the way of life, and makes straight paths for stumbling and straying feet.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv22–25 22, 23. But the fruits of the Spirit. The…
22, 23. But the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits named are not our fruits, but of the Spirit in us. If we bear these fruits we show that we have the Spirit. There are four groups: (1) Love, the Christian grace which works out the whole law. (2) Joy and peace, which are the normal state of the Christian. (3) The graces which relate to others, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity (faith), meekness. (4) The last fruit looks to oneself, temperance, or self-control. It implies not only abstinence from injurious drinks and food, but control of the temper, the tongue, the desires, the passion for money or power.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v22 Gal_5:22. The fruit of the Spirit.—The singular fruit, as…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Gal_5:22. The fruit of the Spirit.—The singular fruit, as compared with the plural works, suggests that the effect of the Spirit’s inworking is one harmonious whole, while carnality tends to multitudinousness, distraction, chaos. We are not to look for a rigorous logical classification in either catalogue. Generally, the fruit of the Spirit may be arranged as: I. Inward graces—“love, joy, peace.” II. Graces towards man—“longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.” III. A more generic form of inward graces—“meekness, temperance.”
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Gal_5:23. Against such there is no law.—So far from being against love, law commands it.
Gal_5:24. Have crucified the flesh.—Not human nature, but depraved human nature. With the affections and lusts.—Affections refer to the general frame of mind; the lusts to special proclivities or habits.
Gal_5:26. Not be desirous of vainglory, provoking [challenging], envying one another.—Vaingloriousness provokes contention; contention produces envy.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gal_5:22-26
The Fruit of the Spirit—
I. Is evident in manifold Christian virtues.—
1. Virtues describing a general state of heart. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace” (Gal_5:22). Love is foremost of the group of Christian graces, and gives a nameless charm to all the rest, for there is an element of love in all true goodness. Love derives its power from being in the first place love to God. When the soul centres its affection in God through Christ all its outgoings are influenced and regulated accordingly. Joy is the product of love. A philosophy or religion which has no room for the joy and pleasure of man is as little conversant with the wants of man as with the will of God. “Joy in the Lord quickens and elevates, while it cleanses all other emotions. It gives a new glow to life. It sheds a diviner meaning, a brighter aspect, over the common face of earth and sky. Joy is the beaming countenance, the elastic step, the singing voice, of Christian goodness.” Peace is the holy calm breathed into the soul by a pardoning God. It is the gift of Christ, giving rest to the soul in the midst of external agitations. “It is a settled quiet of the heart, a deep, brooding mystery that ‘passeth all understanding,’ the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, the Sabbath of God. It is the calm, unruffled brow, the poised and even temper which Christian goodness wears.”
2. Virtues exercised in the Christian’s intercourse with his neighbour.—“Longsuffering, gentleness, goodness.” Charity suffereth long. The heart at peace with God has patience with men. Longsuffering is the patient magnanimity of Christian goodness, the broad shoulders on which it “beareth all things.” Gentleness (or kindness, as the word is more frequently and better rendered) resembles longsuffering in finding its chief objects in the evil and unthankful. But while the latter is passive and self-contained, kindness is an active, busy virtue. It is the thoughtful insight, the delicate tact, the gentle ministering hand of charity. Linked with kindness comes goodness, which is its other self, differing from it as only twin sisters may, each fairer for the beauty of the other. Goodness is perhaps more affluent, more catholic in its bounty; kindness more delicate and discriminating. Goodness is the honest, generous face, the open hand of charity (Findlay).
3. Virtues indicating the principles which regulate the Christian’s life.—“Faith [honesty, trustworthiness], meekness, temperance” (Gal_5:22-23). The faith that unites man to God in turn joins man to his fellows. Faith in the divine Fatherhood becomes trust in the human brotherhood. He who doubts every one is even more deceived than the man who blindly confides in every one. Trustfulness is the warm, firm clasp of friendship, the generous and loyal homage which goodness ever pays to goodness. Meekness is the other side of faith. It is not tameness and want of spirit; it comports with the highest courage and activity, and is a qualification for public leadership. It is the content and quiet mien, the willing self-effacement, that is the mark of Christ-like goodness. Temperance, or self-control, is the third of Plato’s cardinal virtues. Temperance is a practised mastery of self. It covers the whole range of moral discipline, and concerns every sense and passion of our nature. It is the guarded step, the sober, measured walk in which Christian goodness keeps the way of life, and makes straight paths for stumbling and straying feet (Ibid.).
II. Violates no law.—“Against such there is no law” (Gal_5:23; comp. Gal_5:18). The fruit of the Spirit is love; and the law, so far from being against love, commands it (Gal_5:14). The practice of love and all its works is the fulfilling of the law and disarms it of all terror. The expression, “Against such there is no law,” so far from being more than superfluous, as Hofmann asserts, is intended to make evident how it is that, by virtue of this, their moral frame, those who are led by the Spirit are not subject to the Mosaic law. For whosoever is so constituted that a law is not against him, over such a one the law has no power.
III. Indicates the reality of a great spiritual change.—
1. The old self-hood is crucified. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” (Gal_5:24). This well expresses how sin must, little by little, be disabled and slain, for the crucified man did not die at once. He was first made fast with nails to the cross, and then kept there, till through hunger and thirst and loss of blood he became weaker and weaker, and finally died. We are to be executioners, dealing cruelly with the body of sin which caused the acting of all cruelties on the body of Christ.
2. A new law now regulates the life.—“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal_5:25). The life is governed, not by the law of the flesh, but of the Spirit. The electrician can demagnetise and remagnetise a bar of iron, but the biologist cannot devitalise a plant or an animal and revivify it again. Spiritual life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant in the soul. The Spirit who created the life within sustains it and directs all its outgoings.
3. Everything provocative of strife and envy is carefully avoided.—“Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another” (Gal_5:26). Vaingloriousness was a weakness of the Galatic temperament; and is not unknown in modern Christian life. Superiority, or fancied superiority, in talents or status is apt to proudly display itself. It is indeed a pitiable exhibition when even spiritual gifts are made matter of ostentation, exciting the jealousy of inferior brethren, and creating discontent and envy. The cultivation of the fruit of the Spirit is the best remedy against all bitterness and strife.
Lessons.—
1. The fruit of the Spirit a suggestive contrast to the works of the flesh.
2. Consistency of life is the test of genuine religion.
3. The operations of the Spirit are in harmony with the highest law.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Gal_5:22-23. The Fruit of the Spirit.
I. Love.—
1. The love of God.
(1) Shown in a desire of fellowship with God.
(2) To love the word of God above all earthly treasure, and to tread our own will underfoot.
(3) The love of them that love God and Christ.
2. The love of our neighbour. This is love indeed, to show love and to do good to them that wrong and abuse us.
II. Joy.—
1. To rejoice in the true acknowledgment of God.
2. To rejoice in the work of our regeneration.
3. To rejoice in the hope of eternal glory.
III. Peace.—To maintain peace and concord:
1. Neither take offence nor give offence.
2. Seek to edify one another; either do good or take good.
IV. Longsuffering.—To moderate our anger and desire of revenge when many and great wrongs are done us. Set and sow this plant in the furrows of your heart, and consider:
1. The goodness of God, who forgives more to us than we can forgive.
2. It is the duty of love to suffer and forbear.
3. It is a point of injustice to revenge ourselves, for then we take to ourselves the honour of God, and against all equity—we are the parties and judge and witness and all.
4. We are often ignorant of the mind of men in their actions, and of the true circumstances thereof, and so may easily be deceived.
V. Gentleness.—Right courtesy is with an honest heart to bless when we are wronged.
VI. Goodness.—The virtue whereby we communicate to others good things, for their good and benefit.
VII. Faith.—Faith towards man, which means:
1. To speak the truth from the heart.
2. To be faithful and just in the keeping of our honest promise and word. This faith a rare virtue in these days. The common fashion of them that live by bargaining is to use glorying, facing, soothing, lying, dissembling, and all manner of shifts. They that deal with chapmen shall hardly know what is truth, they have so many words and so many shifts.
VIII. Meekness.—The same in effect with longsuffering. The difference is that meekness is more general, and longsuffering the highest degree of meekness.
IX. Temperance.—The moderation of lust and appetite in the use of the gifts and creatures of God.
1. We must use moderation in meats and drinks. That measure of meat and drink which serves to refresh nature and make us fit for the service of God and man is allowed us of God and no more.
2. We must use moderation in the getting of goods.
3. In the spending of our goods—contrary to the fashion of many who spend their substance in feasting and company, and keep their wives and children bare at home.
4. In our apparel. To apparel ourselves according to our sex, according to the received fashion of our country, according to our place and degree, and according to our ability.
X. Against such virtues there is no law.—
1. No law to condemn.
2. No law to compel obedience. Spiritual men freely obey God, as if there were no law; they are a voluntary and free people, serving God without restraint.—Perkins.
Gal_5:22. Love an Attendant of Regeneration.—
1. Love is a delight in happiness.
2. Is universal.
3. Is just.
4. Is disinterested.
5. Is an active principle.
6. Is the only voluntary cause of happiness.
7. Is the only equitable spirit towards God and our fellow-creatures.
8. Is the only disposition which can be approved or loved by God.—Dr. Dwight.
The Powers of Love.—If these be the fruit of the Spirit, they cannot be mere matters of temperament. When philosophy gives an account of the human soul it can find only constitutional propensities and voluntary acquisitions. When we interrogate Christianity we are told besides of communicated sanctities, states of mind which inheritance cannot give or resolution command, which need some touch of God to wake them up, which are above us and yet ours, and seem to lie on the borderland of communion between the finite and the infinite Spirit.
I. There is humane love, which constitutes the humblest and most frequent form of unselfish feeling. It finds its objects among the miserable, and attaches itself to them in proportion to their woes. In human pity there is a strange combination of repulsion and attraction, which it is the paradox of philosophy to state, and the mercy of God to ordain; it cannot endure the sight of wretchedness, and yet can never leave it. But there is a work ordained for us which this impulse will not suffice to do. Fastening itself on suffering alone, it sees nothing else. Yet beneath the smooth and glossy surface of easy life there may hide itself many an inward disease which the mere glance of pity does not discern. Flourishing iniquity that gives no seeming pain it lets alone; invisible corruption may spread without arrest.
II. There is imaginative or æsthetic love, which attaches itself to objects in proportion as they are beautiful, kindles the enthusiasm of art, and completes itself in the worship of genius. Yet is this affection very barren until thrown into the midst of others to harmonise and glorify them. No reciprocal sympathy is requisite to this sentiment; that which is admired as beautiful does not admire in return. And above all there is a direct tendency to turn with indifference or even merciless repugnance from what is unlovely.
III. There is moral love, which has reference to persons only, not to things, which attaches itself to them in proportion as they are good, judges them by the standard of an internal law, and expresses itself in tones, not of tenderness as in pity, or of admiration as in the trance of beauty, but of grave and earnest approval. Even this moral love is not without imperfections. Its characteristic sentiment of approbation has always in it a certain patronising air not welcome to the mercy of a true heart, and more like the rigour of a Zeno than the grace of Christ.
IV. There is a divine love, directed first upon God Himself, and thence drawn into the likeness of His own love, and going forth upon other natures in proportion to their worth and claims. This is the crowning and calming term of all prior affections, presupposing them, and lifting them up from clashing and unrest to harmony and peace. The humane, the beautiful, the right, remain only scattered elements of good till they are gathered into the divine and blended into one by the combining love of God.—Dr. Martineau.
Love the Perfection of Character.—The fruit of the true vine has been analysed, and in the best specimens nine ingredients are found. In poor samples there is a deficiency of one or other of these elements. A dry and diminutive sort is lacking in peace and joy. A tart kind, which sets the teeth on edge, owes its austerity to its scanty infusion of gentleness, goodness, and meekness. There is a watery, deliquescent sort which, for the want of longsuffering, is not easily preserved; and there is a flat variety which, having no body of faith or temperance, answers few useful purposes. Love is the essential principle which is in no case entirely absent, and by the glistening fulness and rich aroma which its plentiful presence creates you can recognise the freshest and most generous clusters, whilst the predominance of some other element gives to each its distinguishing flavour, and marks the growth of Eshcol, Sibmah, or Lebanon.—Dr. James Hamilton.
The Power of Meekness and Affection.—Once in Holland a person of high rank invited Tersteegen to be his guest. This individual imagined himself to have attained to a state of peculiar inward peace, and took occasion during dinner to criticise Tersteegen for being too active, and for not sufficiently knowing the ground on which he wrought. Tersteegen attended meekly and silently to all that was said; and when dinner was over he offered up a fervent prayer in which he commended his host to the Lord in terms of such affection and compassion that this great and warm-tempered man was so much struck and affected by it that his feelings overpowered him, and he fell upon the neck of his guest and begged his forgiveness.
Who are the Meek?—A missionary in Jamaica was once questioning the little black boys on the meaning of Mat_5:5, and asked, “Who are the meek?” A boy answered, “Those who give soft answers to rough questions.”
The Grace of Gentleness.
I. It is not a gift, but a grace.—It is not a natural demeanour, amiable and courteous, a soft, feminine compliance, but a grace of the Spirit which takes into it the strength of the divine. You may have the instinct of delicacy, a natural tenderness and affability, yet not have this grace of the Spirit which impels you for Christ’s sake to deal gently and save men. It is the underlying motive which determines whether grace or nature reigns. How is it when your ideas and methods of doing good are thwarted? Moses seems to have in Zipporah what Socrates had in Xantippe, yet her abuse had no more abiding effect on him than the spray which angry waves toss against the rock. Calvin hearing of Luther’s in said, “Let him hate me and call me a devil a thousand times; I will love him and call him a precious servant of God.”
II. The cultivation of this grace will cost you many a struggle.—You are to get the better of your temper on your knees. No minstrel as in the case of Saul can do the work. We must forgive in our heart those who offend us.
III. The grace of gentleness is a queen with a train of virtues.—It ennobles our whole nature. An English nobleman could not be bound to keep the peace, for it was supposed that peace always kept him. So we should suppose that every professed Christian would have this grace; but if you should put your ear to the door of some Christian homes, it would be like listening to a volcano. If you did not behold a sulphurous flame bursting out, you might hear a continual grumbling. A man said to me once, “When I see Mr. So-and-so my passion is bigger than myself, and I long to make him feel it.” The Spirit of Christ leads us to pray for those who despitefully use us. Only as His temper prevails in us shall we be able to illustrate the beauty of divine greatness.—Homiletic Monthly.
Constant Joy.—Father Taylor, the Boston sailor-preacher, when going out to make a call, said to his host on the doorstep, “Laugh till I get back.”
Gal_5:24. Crucifying the Flesh.
I. What is meant by being Christ’s.—It is to accept of and have an interest in Christ in His prophetic, kingly, and sacerdotal offices. By His prophetic office we come to know His will; by His kingly office, ruling and governing us, we come to yield obedience to that will; and by His sacerdotal or priestly office we come to receive the fruit of that obedience in our justification.
II. What is meant by the flesh.—The whole entire body of sin and corruption; that inbred proneness in our nature to all evil, expressed by concupiscence.
1. It is called flesh because of its situation and place, which is principally in the flesh.
2. Because of its close, inseparable nearness to the soul.
3. Because of its dearness to us. Sin is our darling, our Delilah, the queen-regent of our affections; it fills all our thoughts, engrosses our desires, and challenges the service of all our actions. This reveals:
(1) The deplorable state of fallen man.
(2) The great difficulty of the duty of mortification.
(3) The mean and sordid employment of every sinner—he serves the flesh.
III. What is imported by the crucifixion of the flesh.—
1. The death of it. He that will crucify his sin must pursue it to the very death.
2. A violent death. Sin never dies of age. The conquest need be glorious, for it will be found by sharp experience that the combat will be dangerous.
3. A painful, bitter, and vexatious death.
4. A shameful and cursed death.
IV. The duty of crucifying the flesh.—
1. A constant and pertinacious denying it in all its cravings for satisfaction.
2. Encounter it by actions of the opposite virtue.—Robert South.
Gal_5:25. Life and Walk in the Spirit.—Life relates to what is inward, walk to what is outward.
I. To live in the Spirit.—
1. The Spirit begins the life of God in the soul.
2. The Spirit gives new desires and changes all the motives of life.
3. The Spirit lives in us.
II. To walk in the Spirit.—
1. The walk will follow from the life, for every kind of life is after its own kind and development.
2. Every outward manifestation will correspond to the inward principle of life, and will be marked by love to God and love to man.
3. Reputation will correspond to character and conduct to life.
III. To be led by the Spirit.—
1. The Christian’s life is a growth, his walk a progress; but he is led and guided by the Spirit.
2. No new revelation is made by the Spirit. He leads and guides by what is written in the word.
IV. Learn our relations to the Spirit.—
1. We live under the Spirit’s dispensation.
2. He is the Spirit of God, and so of life, truth, and authority,
3. He is the Spirit of Christ, and so unites us to Him.
4. If we live by the Spirit, let conversation and conduct be answerable thereunto.—Homiletic Monthly.
Walking in the Spirit.—
I. Is to savour the things of the Spirit.—To subject a man’s soul to the law of God in all the faculties and powers of the soul. The things revealed in the law are the things of the Spirit, which Spirit must at no hand be severed from the word.
II. To walk in the path of righteousness without offence to God or man.
III. To walk not stragglingly, but orderly by rule, by line and measure.—To order ourselves according to the rule and line of the word of God. The life of a man will discover to the world what he is.—Perkins.
Gal_5:26. Vaingloriousness.
I. The exciting cause of many quarrels.
II. A source of envy and disappointment.
III. Unbecoming the dignity and aims of the Christian life.
The Vice of Vainglory and its Cure.
I. Vainglory is a branch of pride, wherein men principally refer all their studies, counsels, endeavours, and gifts to the honouring and advancing of themselves. They who have received good gifts of God are often most vainglorious. Whereas all other vices feed upon that which is evil, this vice of vainglory feeds upon good things. A man will sometimes be proud even because he is not proud.
II. The cure of vainglory.—
1. Meditation.
(1) God resisteth all proud persons and gives grace to the humble, because the vainglorious man, seeking himself and not God, robs God of His honour.
(2) It is the work of the devil to puff up the mind with self-liking and conceit, that thereby he may work man’s perdition.
(3) There is no religion in that heart that is wholly bent to seek the praise of men. The man who desires to be talked of and admired by others gives notice to the world that his heart is not sound in the sight of God.
2. Practice.
(1) Endeavour to acknowledge the great majesty of God, and our own baseness before Him.
(2) We ought to ascribe all good things we have or can do to God alone, and nothing to ourselves.
(3) In all actions and duties of religion we must first endeavour to approve ourselves to God, and the next place is to be given to man.
(4) When we are reviled we must rest content; when we are praised take heed. Temptations on the right hand are far more dangerous than those on the left.
(5) Men who are ambitious, if they be crossed, grow contentious; if they prosper, they are envied by others. Abhor and detest vainglory; seek to preserve and maintain love.—Perkins.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v22 Gal 5:22-23
Galatians
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
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Gal 5:22-23
‘The fruit of the Spirit,’ says Paul, not the fruits, as we might more naturally have expected, and as the phrase is most often quoted; all this rich variety of graces, of conduct and character, is thought of as one. The individual members are not isolated graces, but all connected, springing from one root and constituting an organic whole. There is further to be noted that the Apostle designates the results of the Spirit as fruit, in strong and intentional contrast with the results of the flesh, the grim catalogue of which precedes the radiant list in our text. The works of the flesh have no such unity, and are not worthy of being called fruit. They are not what a man ought to bring forth, and when the great Husbandman comes, He finds no fruit there, however full of activity the life has been. We have then here an ideal of the noblest Christian character, and a distinct and profound teaching as to how to attain it. I venture to take the whole of this list for my text, because the very beauty of each element in it depends on its being but part of a whole, and because there are important lessons to be gathered from the grouping.
I. The threefold elements of character here.
It is perhaps not too artificial to point out that we have here three triads of which the first describes the life of the Spirit in its deepest secret; the second, the same life in its manifestations to men; and the third, that life in relation to the difficulties of the world, and of ourselves.
The first of these three triads includes love, joy, and peace, and it is not putting too great a strain on the words to point out that the source of all three lies in the Christian relation to God. They regard nothing but God and our relation to Him; they would be all the same if there were no other men in the world, or if there were no world. We cannot call them duties or virtues; they are simply the results of communion with God--the certain manifestations of the better life of the Spirit. Love, of course, heads the list, as the foundation and moving principle of all the rest. It is the instinctive act of the higher life and is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. It is the life sap which rises through the tree and given form to all the clusters. The remaining two members of this triad are plainly consequences of the first. Joy is not so much an act or a grace of character as an emotion poured into men’s lives, because in their hearts abides love to God. Jesus Christ pledged Himself to impart His joy to remain in us, with the issue that our joy should be full. There is only one source of permanent joy which takes possession of and fills all the corners and crannies of the heart, and that is a love towards God equally abiding and all-pervasive. We have all known joys so perturbed, fragmentary and fleeting, that it is hard to distinguish them from sorrows, but there is no need that joys should be like green fruits hard and savourless and ready to drop from the tree. If God is ‘the gladness of our joy,’ and all our delights come from communion with Him, our joy will never pass and will fill the whole round of our spirits as the sea laves every shore.
Peace will be built upon love and joy, if our hearts are ever turning to God and ever blessed with the inter-communion of love between Him and us. What can be strong enough to disturb the tranquillity that fills the soul independent of all externals? However long and close may be the siege, the well in the castle courtyard will be full. True peace comes not from the absence of trouble but from the presence of God, and will be deep and passing all understanding in the exact measure in which we live in, and partake of, the love of God.
The second triad is long-suffering, kindness, goodness. All these three obviously refer to the spiritual life in its manifestations to men. The first of them--long-suffering--describes the attitude of patient endurance towards inflictors of injury or enemies, if we come forth from the blessed fellowship with God, where love, joy, and peace reign unbroken, and are met with a cold gust of indifference or with an icy wind of hate. The reality of our happy communion and the depth of our love will be tested by the patience of our long-suffering. Love suffereth long, is not easily provoked, is not soon angry. He has little reason to suppose that the love of God is shed abroad in his heart, or that the Spirit of God is bringing forth fruit in him, who has not got beyond the stage of repaying hate with hate, and scorn with scorn. Any fool can answer a fool according to his folly, but it takes a wise and a good man to overcome evil with good, and to love them that hate; and yet how certainly the fires of mutual antagonism would go out if there were only one to pile on the fuel! It takes two to make a quarrel, and no man living under the influence of the Spirit of God can be one of such a pair.
The second and third members of this triad--kindness, goodness, slide very naturally into one another. They do not only require the negative virtue of not retaliating, but express the Christian attitude towards all of meeting them, whatever their attitude, with good. It is possible that kindness here expresses the inward disposition and goodness, the habitual actions in which that disposition shows itself. If that be the distinction between them, the former would answer to benevolence and the latter to beneficence. These three graces include all that Paul presents as Christian duty to our fellows. The results of the life of the Spirit are to pass beyond ourselves and to influence our whole conduct. We are not to live only as mainly for the spiritual enjoyments of fellowship with God. The true field of religion is in moving amongst men, and the true basis of all service of men is love and fellowship with God.
The third triad--faithfulness, meekness, temperance--seems to point to the world in which the Christian life is to be lived as a scene of difficulties and oppositions. The rendering of the Revised Version is to be preferred to that of the Authorised in the first of the three, for it is not faith in its theological sense to which the Apostle is here referring. Possibly, however, the meaning may be trustfulness just as in 1 Corinthians xiii. it is given as a characteristic of love that it ‘believeth all things.’ More probably, however, the meaning is faithfulness, and Paul’s thought is that the Christian life is to manifest itself in the faithful discharge of all duties and the honest handling of all things committed to it. Meekness even more distinctly contemplates a condition of things which is contrary to the Christian life, and points to a submissiveness of spirit which does not lift itself up against oppositions, but bends like a reed before the storm. Paul preached meekness and practised it, but Paul could flash into strong opposition and with a resonant ring in his voice could say ‘To whom we gave place by subjection, No! not for an hour.’ The last member of the triad--temperance--points to the difficulties which the spiritual life is apt to meet with in the natural passions and desires, and insists upon the fact that conflict and rigid and habitual self-control are sure to be marks of that life.
II. The unity of the fruit.
We have already pointed out the Apostles remarkable use of the word ‘fruit’ here, by which he indicates that all the results of the life of the Spirit in the human spirit are to be regarded as a whole that has a natural growth. The foundation of all is of course that love which is the fulfilling of the law. It scarcely needs to be pointed out how love brings forth both the other elements of the first triad, but it is no less important to note that it and its two companions naturally lead on to the relations to men which make up the second triad. It is, however, worth while to dwell on that fact because there are many temptations for Christian people to separate between them. The two tables of the law are not seldom written so far apart that their unity ceases to be noted. There are many good people whose notions of religious duties are shut up in churches or chapels and limited to singing and praying, reading the Bible and listening to sermons, and who, even while they are doing good service in common life, do not feel that it is as much a religious duty to suppress the wish to retaliate as it is to sit in the sunshine of God’s love and to feel Christ’s joy and peace filling the heart. On the other hand many loud voices, some of them with great force of words and influence on the popular mind, are never wearied of preaching that Christianity is worn out as a social impulse, and that the service of man has nothing to do with the love of God. As plainly Paul’s first triad naturally leads to his third. When the spiritual life has realised its deepest secret it will be strong to manifest itself as vigorous in reference to the difficulties of life. When that heart is blessed in its own settled love, abounding joy and untroubled peace, faithfulness and submission will both be possible and self-control will not be hard.
III. The culture of the tree which secures the fruit.
Can we suppose that the Apostle here is going back in thought to our Lord’s profound teaching that every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit? The obvious felicity of that metaphor often conceals for us the drastic force of its teaching, it regards all a man’s conduct as but the outcome of his character, and brushes aside as trifling all attempts at altering products, whilst the producer remains unaltered. Whether Paul was here alluding to a known saying of Jesus or no, he was insisting upon the very centre of Christian ethics, that a man must first be good in order to do good. Our Lord’s words seemed to make an impossible demand--’Make the tree good’--as the only way of securing good fruit, and it was in accordance with the whole cast of the Sermon on the Mount that the means of realising that demand was left unexpressed. But Paul stood on this side of Pentecost, and what was necessarily veiled in Christ’s earlier utterances stood forth a revealed and blessed certainty to him. He had not to say ‘Make the tree good’ and be silent as to how that process was to be effected; to him the message had been committed, ‘The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity.’ There is but one way by which a corrupt tree can be made good, and that is by grafting into the wild briar stock a ‘layer’ from the rose. The Apostle had a double message to proclaim, and the one part was built upon the other. He had first to preach--and this day has first to believe that God has sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin--and then he had to proclaim that, through that mission, it became possible that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who ‘walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.’ The beginning, then, of all true goodness is to be sought in receiving into our corrupt natures the uncorrupted germs of the higher life, and it is only in the measure in which that Spirit of God moves in our spirits and, like the sap in the vine, permeates every branch and tendril, that fruit to eternal life will grow. Christian graces are the products of the indwelling divine life, and nothing else will succeed in producing them. All the preachings of moralists and all the struggles after self-improvement are reduced to impotence and vanity by the stern, curt sentence--’a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.’ Surely it should come to us all as a true gospel when we feel ourselves foiled by our own evil nature in our attempts to be better, that the first thing we have to do is not to labour at either of the two impossible tasks of the making our bad selves good, or of the getting good fruits from bad selves, but to open our spirits through faith in Jesus for the entrance into us of His Spirit which will change our corruption into incorruption, and cleanse us from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Shall we not seek to become recipient of that new life, and having received it, should we not give diligence that it may in us produce all its natural effects?
These fruits, though they are the direct results of the indwelling Spirit and will never be produced without its presence, are none the less truly dependent upon our manner of receiving that Spirit and on our faithfulness and diligence in the use of its gifts. It is, alas! sadly too true, and matter of tragically common experience that instead of ‘trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord’ heavy with ruddy clusters, there are but dwarfed and scrubby bushes which have scarcely life enough to keep up a little show of green leaves and ‘bring no fruit to perfection’. Would that so-called Christian people would more earnestly and searchingly ask themselves why it is that, with such possibilities offered to them, their actual attainments should be so small. They have a power which is able to do for them exceeding abundantly above all that they can ask or think, and its actual effects on them are well on this side of both their petitions and their conceptions. There need be no difficulty in answering the question why our Christian lives do not correspond more closely to the Spirit that inspires them. The plain answer is that we have not cultivated, used, and obeyed Him. The Lord of the vineyard would less often have to ask ‘Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?’ if we listened more obediently to the pathetic command which surely should touch a grateful heart--’Grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.’
IV. How this is the only worthy fruit.
We have already pointed out that the Apostle in the preceding context varies his terms, and catalogues the actions that come from the godless self as works, whilst those which are the outcome of the Spirit are fruit. The distinction thus drawn is twofold. Multiplicity is contrasted with unity and fruit with works. The deeds of the flesh have no consistency except that of evil; they are at variance with themselves--a huddled mob without regularity or order; and they are works indeed, but so disproportionate to the nature of the doer and his obligations that they do not deserve to be called fruit. It is not to attach too much importance to an accidental form of speech to insist upon this distinction as intended to be drawn, and as suggesting to us very solemn thoughts about many apparently very active lives. The man who lives to God truly lives; the busiest life which is not rooted in Him and directed towards Him has so far missed its aim as to have brought forth no good fruit, and therefore to have incurred the sentence that it is cut down and cast into the fire. There is a very remarkable expression in Scripture, ‘The unfruitful works of darkness,’ which admits the busy occupation and energy of the doers and denies that all that struggling and striving comes to anything. Done in the dark, they seemed to have some significance, when the light comes in they vanish. It is for us to determine whether our lives shall be works of the flesh, full, perhaps, of a time of ‘sound and fury,’ but ‘signifying nothing,’ or whether they shall be fruits of the Spirit, which we ‘who have gathered shall eat in the courts of His holiness.’ They will be so if, living in the Spirit, we walk in the Spirit, but if we ‘sow to the flesh’ we shall have a harder husbandry and a bitterer harvest when ‘of the flesh we reap corruption,’ and hear the awful and unanswerable question, ‘What fruit had ye then of those things whereof ye are now ashamed?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv22–25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,…
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v22 But the fruit
But the fruit
Christian character is not mere moral or legal correctness, but the possession and manifestation of nine graces: love, joy, peace--character as an inward state; longsuffering, gentleness, goodness--character in expression toward man; faith, meekness, temperance-- character in expression toward God. Taken together they present a moral portrait of Christ, and may be taken as the apostle’s explanation of Gal 2:20 "Not I, but Christ," and as a definition of "fruit" in Joh 15:1-8 This character is possible because of the believer’s vital union to Christ; Joh 15:5; 1Co 12:12; 1Co 12:13 and is wholly the fruit of the Spirit in those believers who are yielded to Him. Gal 5:22; Gal 5:23.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v22 The fruits of the Spirit:
The fruits of the Spirit:
v. 22. but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
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v. 23. meekness, temperance; against such there is no law.
v. 24, And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
v. 25. if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
v. 26. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another.
In contrast to the sins and vices which the apostle has enumerated above, he here offers a brief, but comprehensive list of Christian virtues, calling them fruits of the Spirit, since they, through the power of the Spirit, grow forth out of true faith in Christ. See Joh 15:1-6. As the first fruit of the Spirit Paul names love, the highest of all Christian gifts and works, the supreme virtue, which includes all the rest. 1Co 13:1-13. Out of this love flows joy over the neighbor’s welfare, the very opposite of envy and jealousy. He that loves his neighbor and rejoices in his good fortune will furthermore live in peace with him, always showing a peaceable disposition, avoiding all quarrels. And in order that a Christian may exhibit this desire for peace with all men, he himself shows patience, even under provocation; he is long-suffering and gentle. Yea, more: he shows kindliness and generosity, he meets his neighbor more than half way; he is always benevolently inclined, never harsh. He exhibits faithfulness, not only in positions of trust, but whenever his word is pledged. Instead of being eager for revenge, his behavior is characterized by gentleness; and instead of giving way to voluptuousness and impurity, the Christian always practices chastity, being chaste and decent in thoughts, words, and deeds, guarding also against all intemperance in food and drink and all other forms of physical indulgence, lest he defile the garment of holiness which is supposed to adorn him. Of all these virtues Paul says: Against such the Law is not, for such works agree fully with the Law of God, they are in accordance with His holy will. He that is found walking in such fruits of the Spirit will not come under the condemnation of the Law, will be free from the coercion and curse of the Law. See 1Ti 1:9.
In summing up the characteristic attitude of the Christians, the apostle writes: They that belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and lusts. They that are Christ’s, that belong to Jesus Christ, are those that have entered into fellowship with Him, that have become His own. When the Holy Spirit wrought faith in their hearts, they crucified their flesh, they renounced the old Adam, their sinful nature. They are now living and walking in the Spirit; that is the sphere in which they live and move. Their crucified flesh may sometimes attempt to break away from the cross, but in the end it must die, and with it all the evil affections, passions, and desires. No matter how bitterly it hurts the flesh that it can no longer gratify its lusts, it must submit. It means a great deal of self-denial on the part of the believer; there is no lack of suffering and battling. As with Christ, so it is with the Christians: through tribulations they go to glory.
In close connection with this thought the apostle writes: If we live in the Spirit, in the Spirit let us also go forward. Let us not become desirous of vainglory, to provoke one another, to envy one another. The life which is in the believers by the power of the Spirit should also be impressed and stamped upon their entire conduct, should cause them to make progress in their spiritual life. They should turn neither to the right nor to the left, but follow the norm of the Spirit, in the strength given by the Spirit. And one way in which the Christians should show their progress in spiritual life is this, that they should not be seekers after vainglory, that they do not strive for personal honor and glory, as every man is inclined to do by nature. Everyone wants to be more than his neighbor, in ability, in social position. False ambition has brought untold misery upon the Church of Christ. For it is due to that attitude that men provoke one another, assume a challenging position, question the ability and the motives of one another, are jealous of one another’s success in any line of effort, seek to minimize real accomplishments by adverse criticism. If the desire for vainglory rules in a person’s heart, the result will be the rapid loss of brotherly love, followed by dissension, quarrels, jealousy, and hatred.
Summary
Paul admonishes the Galatians to hold fast their Christian liberty, to avoid the leaven of false doctrine and the works of the flesh, and to walk in the Spirit, bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22, 25 the fruit of the Spirit is love ... self-control
the fruit of the Spirit is love ... self-control
Here "fruit" here is a metaphor for "result" or "outcome." AT: "what the Spirit produces is love ... self-control" or "the Spirit produces in God's people love ... self-control" (See: Metaphor)
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have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires
Paul speaks of Christians who refuse to live according to their sinful nature as if it were a person and they have killed it on a cross. AT: "refuse to live according the sinful nature with its passions and desires, as if they killed it on a cross" (See: Personification and Metaphor)
the sinful nature with its passions and desires
The sinful nature is spoken of as if it were a person that had passions and desires. AT: "their sinful nature, and the things they strongly want to do because of it" (See: Personification)
translationWords
fruit
Holy Spirit
love
joy
peace
good
faith
self-control
law
Jesus
crucify
flesh
evil
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22–25 5:22 Unlike following the sinful nature (5:19-21), letting the…
5:22 Unlike following the sinful nature (5:19-21), letting the Holy Spirit guide (5:16) produces a life pleasing to God, which human effort and the law cannot do (cp. John 15:1-8). • These virtues directly address the issues in the church of Galatia. • love: The greatest Christian virtue encompasses all the others (1 Cor 13:4-7). Only the Spirit of God can produce in us love for those who hate us (Matt 5:43-48; Luke 6:35-36). • Joy produced by the Spirit does not depend on circumstances (Rom 15:13; 2 Cor 6:10; 8:2; 1 Thes 1:6). • Peace with God creates internal well-being (Rom 5:1; Eph 2:15; Phil 4:6-7; Col 1:20) that spills into our relationships with others so that we become peacemakers (Matt 5:9; Rom 8:6; 12:18; 14:17-19; 2 Cor 13:11; Eph 4:3; 6:15). • Patience (or tolerance, or long-suffering) gives us forbearance toward other people and endurance under unfavorable circumstances (Eph 4:2; 2 Tim 4:2; Jas 5:10-11). God is patient with us (Exod 34:6; Ps 103:8; Rom 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim 1:16; 2 Pet 3:15) and promises his presence with those who are patient with others (Isa 57:15). • Kindness connotes generosity, a giving spirit that reflects how God treats us (Rom 2:4; 11:22; Titus 3:4-6). • goodness: Cp. Rom 15:14; Eph 5:9; 2 Thes 1:11. • Faithfulness (or faith) means exercising good faith and fidelity in our relationships, just as God does with us (1 Cor 1:9; 10:13; 2 Thes 3:3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.