+I. We must resist and withstand every particular sin.+--One sin is
able to defile the whole life of man. One fly is sufficient to mar a
whole box of sweet ointment. One offence in our first parents brought
corruption on them and all mankind; yea, on heaven and earth.
+II. We must endeavour to the utmost to cut off every bad example in
the societies of men.+--One bad example is sufficient to corrupt a
whole family, a town, a country. A wicked example, being suffered,
spreads abroad and does much hurt.
+III. We are to withstand and cut off the first beginnings and
occasions of sin.+--We say of arrant thieves they began to practise
their wickedness in pins and points. For this cause, idleness,
excessive eating, drinking and swilling, riot, and vanity in apparel
are to be suppressed in every society as the breeder of many
vices.--_Perkins._
Ver. 11. _The Perversion of Apostolic Preaching._--There are two
attempts or resolves in constant operation as to the cross. One is
man's, to accommodate to human liking and taste; the second is God's,
to raise human liking and taste to it.
+I. The aim of man.+--The following may be named as the principal
exceptions taken to the cross by those who rejected it:--
1. _It was an improbable medium of revelation._--Man can talk loudly
how God should manifest Himself. Shall the cross be the oracle by
which He will speak His deepest counsels to our race?
2. _It was a stigma on this religion which set it in disadvantageous
contrast with every other._--It was unheard of that the vilest of all
deaths should give its absolute character to religion, and that this
religion of the cross should triumph over all.
3. _It was a violent disappointment of a general hope._--There was a
desire of all nations. And was all that the earliest lay rehearsed,
all that the highest wisdom enounced, only to be wrought out in the
shameful cross?
4. _It was a humiliating test._--Ambition, selfishness, insincerity,
licentiousness, ferocity, pride, felt that it was encircled with an
atmosphere in which they were instantly interrupted and condemned.
Man is desirous of doing this away as a wrongful and unnecessary
impression. He would make the offence of the cross to cease: (1) By
fixing it upon some extrinsic authority. (2) By torturing it into
coalition with foreign principles. (3) By transforming the character
of its religious instructions. (4) By applying it to inappropriate
uses. (5) By excluding its proper connections.
+II. The procedure of God.+--1. _It is necessary, if we would receive
the proper influence of the cross, that we be prepared to hail it as
a distinct revelation._ Science and the original ethics of our nature
do not fall within the distinct province of what a revelation
intends. Its strict purpose, its proper idea, is to make known that
which is not known, and which could not be otherwise known. Not more
directly did the elemental light proceed from God who called it out
of darkness than did the making known to man of redemption by the
blood of the cross.
2. _When we rightly appreciate the cross, we recognize it as the
instrument of redemption._--This was the mode of death indicated by
prophecy. The cross stands for that death; but it is an idle,
unworthy superstition that this mode of death wrought the stupendous
end. It is only an accessory. We must look further into the mystery.
"He His own self bore our sin in His own body on the tree." It is
that awful identity, that mysterious action, which expiates, and not
the rood.
3. _When our mind approves this method of salvation, it finds in the
cross the principle of sanctification._--A new element of thought, a
new complexion of motive, enter the soul when the Holy Spirit shows
to it the things of Christ. We are new creatures. We reverse all our
sins and desires. We are called unto holiness. (1) Mark the
_process._ We had hitherto abided in death. But now we are quickened
with Him. (2) Mark the _necessity._ Until we be brought nigh to it,
until we take hold of it, the doctrine of the crucified Saviour is an
unintelligible and uninteresting thing. (3) Mark the _effect._ There
is a suddenly, though a most intelligently, developed charm. It is
the infinite of attraction. All concentrates on it. It absorbs the
tenderness and the majesty of the universe. It is full of glory. Our
heart has now yielded to it, is drawn, is held, coheres, coalesces,
is itself impregnated by the sacred effluence. The offence of the
cross has ceased.--_R. W. Hamilton._
Ver. 12. _Church Censure._--The spirit of error may so far prevail
among a people that discipline can hardly attain its end--the shaming
of the person censured, and the preservation of the Church from being
leavened. In which case the servants of God should proceed with slow
pace, and in all lenity and wisdom, and should rather doctrinally
declare the censures deserved than actually inflict the censure
itself.
_Judgment on the Troubles of the Church._
+I. God watches over His Church with a special providence.+
+II. The doctrine of the apostles is of infallible certainty+
because the oppugners of it are plagued with the just judgment
of God.
+III. Our duty is to pray for the good estate of the Church of God,+
and for the kingdoms where the Church is planted.--_Perkins._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 13-18.
_Love the Highest Law of Christian Liberty._
+I. Love preserves liberty from degenerating into licence.+--"Only
use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh" (ver. 13). Christian
liberty is a great boon, but it also a solemn responsibility. It is
hard to win and is worth the most gigantic struggle; but the moment
it is abused it is lost. Men clamour for liberty when they mean
licence--licence to indulge their unholy passions unchecked by the
restraints of law. Christian liberty is not the liberty of the flesh,
but of the Spirit, and love is the master-principle that governs and
defines all its exercises.
"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides."
We know no truth, no privilege, no power, no blessing, no right,
which is not abused. But is liberty to be denied to men because they
often turn it into licentiousness? There are two freedoms--the false,
where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is
free to do what he ought. Love is the safeguard of the highest
liberty.
+II. Love is obedience to the highest law.+--"For all the law is
fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself" (ver. 14). "By love serve one another" (ver. 13). We may be
as orthodox as Athanasius and as scrupulous as Jerome, we may be
daily and ostentatiously building to God seven altars and offering a
bullock and a ram on every altar, and yet be as sounding brass and as
a clanging cymbal, if our life shows only the leaves of profession
without the golden fruit of action. If love shows not itself by deeds
of love, then let us not deceive ourselves. God is not mocked; our
Christianity is heathenism, and our religion a delusion and a sham.
Love makes obedience delightful, esteems it bondage to be prevented,
liberty to be allowed to serve.
"Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security."--_Wordsworth._
+III. Love prevents the mutual destructiveness of a contentious
spirit.+--"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye
be not consumed one of another" (ver. 15). The condition of the
Galatians at this time was very different from the ideal Paul set
before them. The quick, warm temperament of the Gauls was roused by
the Judaistic controversy, and their natural combativeness was
excited. It was easy to pick a quarrel with them at any time, and
they were eloquent in vituperation and invective. The "biting"
describes the wounding and exasperating effect of the manner in which
their contentions were carried on; "devour" warns them of its
destructiveness. If this state of things continued, the Churches of
Galatia would cease to exist. Their liberty would end in complete
disintegration. Love is the remedy propounded for all ills--the love
of Christ, leading to the love of each other. Love not only cures
quarrels but prevents them.
+IV. Love by obeying the law of the Spirit gains the victory in the
feud between the flesh and the Spirit.+--"Walk in the Spirit, and ye
shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh: . . . these are contrary the
one to the other" (vers. 16, 17). The flesh and the Spirit are
rivals, and by their natures must be opposed to and strive with each
other. The strong man is dispossessed by a stronger than he--the
Spirit. The master must rule the slave. "This soul of mine must rule
this body of mine," said John Foster, "or quit it." The life of a
Christian is lived in a higher sphere and governed by a higher
law--walking in the Spirit. Christianity says, "Be a man, not a
brute. Not do as many fleshly things as you can but do as many
spiritual things as you can." All prohibitions are negative. You
can't kill an appetite by starvation. You may kill the flesh by
living in the higher region of the Spirit; not merely by ceasing to
live in sin, but by loving Christ. The more we live the spiritual
life, the more sin becomes impossible. Conquest over the sensual is
gained, not by repression, but by the freer, purer life of love.
+V. Love emancipates from the trammels of the law.+--"If ye be led by
the Spirit, ye are not under the law" (ver. 18). The Spirit of love
does not abolish the law, but renders it harmless by fulfilling all
its requirements, without being compelled to it by its stern
commands. Law does not help the soul to obey its behests, but it has
nothing to say, nothing to threaten, when those behests are obeyed.
To be under the law is to be under sin; but yielding to the influence
of the Spirit, and living according to His law, the soul is free from
sin and from the condemnation of the law. Freedom from sin, and
freedom from the trammels of the Mosaic law--these two liberties are
virtually one. Love is the great emancipator from all moral tyrannies.
+Lessons.+--1. _Love is in harmony with the holiest law._ 2. _Love
silences all contention._ 3. _Love honours law by obeying it._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._