your other debts: for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Always, then, be discharging, each to the other, this everlasting debt of Christian affection, knowing that, in your love to others, will be found your true obedience to every precept. For the commandments, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet, and, indeed, every other commandment which has reference to our relative duties, may all of them be comprehensively summed up in the single saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. It must be so: for love does no evil to its neighbour. But is it not the object of the moral law

is paid by us, and, the more persons The well-known lines of Milton we pay it to, the more plentiful | (Par. Lost, iv.) will here occur to

does it become.'

most readers:

'What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks,
How due? Yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice. Lifted up so high,
I sdeigned subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome, still paying, still to owe,
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged: what burden then?'

With the divine doctrine of Christian charity, Bloomfield contrasts the misanthropic spirit of most

heathen writers, of which he gives a curious instance in a Greek epigram from the Anthol. i. 15, 6.

Εὐδαίμων πρῶτον μὲν ὁ μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλων· Εἶτα δ' ὁ μὴ γήμας· τὸ τρίτον ὅστις ἄπαις. (Happiest is he who nothing owes of debt to any one: Next he who never had a wife: then he who has no son.) P See Matt. xxii. 39, 40; Gal. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 5; and James, ii. 8. The apostle does not observe an exact order in his arrangement of the commandments. See Mark,

x. 19. The words, Thou shalt not bear false witness, are not found in many MSS., and are omitted by Griesbach, as spurious.

to prevent men from doing evil to their neighbours? Certainly it is. Then love does what the law intends to do, and therefore is truly the whole law's fulfilment: for once let the divine principle of Christian unselfish love be active within our souls, and, so far from attempting to inflict injury on our neighbours, we shall only seek in every possible way to benefit and bless them.

11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time for us to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12 The night is far spent: the day is at hand. Let us therefore put away the works of darkness, and let us clothe ourselves in the armour of light. 13 Let us walk becomingly, as in the day: not in revellings and drunkenness; not in chamberings and lasciviousness; not in strife and envy. 14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, so as to fulfil its lusts.

Work, therefore, as I exhort you, the Christian works of love to others. And work them with so much the more energy and earnestness of purpose, because you know the time in which you are living. For now is the time of the Saviour's gospel: now, therefore, it is high time for us, who have believed the gospel, to awake out of sleep. Slumbering indolence becomes not those,

r See Heb. x. 25, where the words Kai Toσoury μãλov (and so much the more), correspond with Kai TOUTO (and that) in this passage. s Sleep is often used by the apostle as an expressive image of the spiritual condition of those who have not yet received the gospel of Christ, and are destitute, therefore,

of that holy influence of Christ's Spirit, by the power of which we become awake, as it were, to everything which is good. (See Eph. v. 14, and 1 Thess. v. 6.) But here the apostle is speaking, not of Jews and Gentiles, but of Christians-of those who have believed. Sleep, therefore, in this passage, means,

on whom the day of Christ, with its bright promise of increasing splendour, has already dawned. Let us work, then, hopefully and joyfully, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. O blessed thought! that, since we first accepted Christ as our Saviour, every departing hour has been leading us on towards the perfection of our glory! Yes: the night is far spent; and, though there are still shadows, they are fast retiring before the advancing light, and the brilliant noon-day will soon be here.

Let us, then, as children of light, put away from us every work of darkness, renouncing every unholy thought and action of our past unchristian state of

not a state of Judaism or Heathenism, but a state of imperfect Christianity, retaining much of that carelessness and indolence which properly belong to the time before belief in Christ.

We should be very careful, in our attempt to understand the exact force of all such apostolic expressions, to consider the different occasions on which they are used. Thus, in contrasting generally the state of Jews and Gentiles with that of Christians, Paul says that the former are asleep, but that the latter are awake. But, in describing the state of careless and indolent Christians, he has no hesitation in telling them that their state also is sleep, in comparison with the more Christian condition of watchfulness and activity. Thus, also, Christians, as contrasted with those who are not Christians, are said to have come out of the darkness into the light (Eph. v. 8; and 1 Pet. ii. 9): yet it is quite necessary to remind the children of the light and of the day (1 Thess. v. 5), that they must put

away the works of darkness, and not sleep, as do others.

t

'This night, then, is near its end, and the day is drawing near. Let us henceforth do what belongs to the latter, not to the former. For this is what is done in the things of this life. When we see the night pressing on towards the morning, and hear the swallow twittering, we each of us awake our neighbour, though it be night still.

But so soon as it is actually departing, we hasten one another, and say, It is day now! And we all set about the works of the day, dressing, and leaving our dreams, and shaking our sleep thoroughly off, that the day may find us ready, and we may not have to begin getting up and stretching ourselves when the sun-light is up. What, then, we do in that case, let us do here also. Let us put off imaginings, let us get clear of the dreams of this life present, and let us lay aside its deep slumber.'-Chrysost.

ignorance and sin. And let us clothe ourselves in the armour" of light. I say, in the armour of light: for the spiritual enemies of our former darkness have not yet lost all their power to hurt us. We must still, for a time, be God's warriors, fighting, not with our old carnal weapons, but with our new bright arms of faith and hope and love. Let us, then, live becomingly, as in the day. Deeds of darkness befit not those who walk in the daylight. So let us leave the evil works of our past lives buried, as it were, in the grave of that night, from which, by the grace of God, we have now emerged. There for ever lie our revellings and drunkenness, our chamberings and lasciviousness, our strife and envy." They will not bear the pure rays of the Christian morning, and must be rejected, as abominations, by all those who have passed from darkness to light.

W

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. By close and

" See Eph. vi. 13—18.

▾ This verse and the following one are historically remarkable, as having been considered by Augustine as the means of his conversion. After describing himself (Confess. viii.) as in great bitterness of soul, and unable to find peace of mind, he writes: 'I heard a voice, as from a neighbouring house, repeating frequently, Take up and read, take up and read. I paused, and began to think whether I had ever heard boys use such a speech in any play, and could recollect nothing like it. I then concluded that I was ordered from heaven to take up the book and read the first_sentence I cast my eyes upon. I returned hastily to the place where my friend Alypius was sitting: for there I had placed the book of Paul's epistles. I seized it, opened

it, and read what first struck my eyes: Not in revellings and drunkenness, not in chamberings and lasciviousness, not in strife and envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, so as to fulfil its lusts. I did not choose to read more, nor had I occasion. Immediately at the end of this sentence, all my doubts vanished.'

w See Gal. iii. 27. Amongst the Greeks, to put on (vdveolai) any person meant to imitate him. We can only imitate Christ by becoming more and more filled with his Spirit. See Col. iii. 12, where Christians are exhorted to put on (ἐνδύσασθε) bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long-suffering; and 1 Pet. v. 5, where they are told to clothe themselves (¿ykoμbwoaσ0e) with humility:

continual communion with him, seek to be wholly filled with his spirit of holiness and love. Let him dwell so richly within your souls as to cause you to make no provision for the flesh so as to fulfil its lusts. Under his sanctifying influence, your spirits must now be your highest care. Instead, therefore, of studying, as you once did, merely to gratify your fleshly appetites, devote yourselves to the superior interests of your minds, and provide for the fulfilment of those spiritual desires, which Christ, by his gospel and his spirit, has awakened and is cherishing within you.

'In order that we may escape from sin, let us put on Christ, and be with him continually. For this is what putting him on is: never being without him; having him evermore visible in us, through our sanctification, through our moderation. So we say of friends, such an one is wrapped up in such another, meaning their great love and their keeping together incessantly. For he who is wrapped up in anything, seems to be that which he is wrapped in. Let, then, Christ be seen in every part of us. And how is he to be seen? If thou doest his deeds.'-Chrysost. The apostle does not forbid a proper care of the body, but only indulgence in its lusts.

'Paul,' says Chrysostom, 'is for taking care of the body, but only for health, and not for wantonness. That you may form a clearer notion of what he means by making provision for it so as to fulfil its lusts, and may shun such a provision, just call to mind the drunken, the gluttonous, those that pride them selves in dress, those that are effeminate, those that live a soft and relaxed life, and you will see what is meant. -But do thou, who hast put on Christ, prune away all those

things, and seek for one thing only

to have thy flesh in health. And to this degree do make provision for it, and not any further, but spend all thine industry on the care of spiritual things.

Eat, then, only so much as to break thy hunger, have only so much over thee as to be sheltered, and do not curiously deck thy flesh with clothing, lest thou ruin it. For thou wilt make it more delicate, and wilt do injury to its healthfulness, by unnerving it with so much softness. That thou mayest have it, then, a meet vehicle for the soul, that the helmsman may be securely seated over the rudder, and the soldier handle his arms with ease, thou must make all parts to be fitly framed together. For it is not the having much, but the requiring little, that keeps us from being injured. For the one man is afraid even if he be not wronged: the other, even if he be wronged, is in better case than those who have not been wronged, and even for this very thing is in better spirits. Let, then, the object of our search be, not how we can keep any one from using us spitefully, but how, even if he wish to do it, he may be without the power :