much as the corresponding English terms do. Good- ness is benevolence and beneficence ; righteousness is adherence to the rule of right. Yet both are used for moral excellence in general. The evil and the good, included all classes of the vicious and the virtuous. Good works are works of any kind which are morally excellent. When however the words are contrasted as in Rom. 5, 7, or distinguished as in Rom. 7, 12, good means benevolent or beneficent; and righteous, just or upright. Goodness is that quality which adapts a thing to the end for which it was designed, and renders it serviceable. Hence we speak of a good tree, of good soil, as well as of a good man. Lighteousness ean properly be predicated only of persons or of what is susceptible of moral character ; as it means conformity to law ; or if predicated of the law itself, it means con- formity to the nature of God, the ultimate standard of rectitude. Zruth, here means religious or moral truth, or religion itself. The fruits of light, therefore, are all the forms of piety and virtue.
V.10. Verse 9 is a parenthesis, as the 10th verse is grammatically connected with the 8th. ‘ Walk as children of the light, proving, &c.,” περιπατεῖτε---δοκι- μάζοντες., Δοκιμάζειν is to try, to put to the test, to examine ; then to judge or estimate; and then to ap- prove. Thus it is said, “The fire shall try every man’s work ;” God is said “Τὸ try the heart ;” we are said ‘““'To be renewed so as to prove the will of God,” Rom. 12, 2, that is, to examine and determine what the will of God is. And so in this passage believers are re-
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quired to walk as children of light, examining and determining what is acceptable to the Lord. They are- to regulate their conduct by a regard to what is well pleasing to Him. That is the ultimate standard of judging whether any thing is right or wrong, worthy or unworthy of those who have been enlightened from above.
The word Lorp is in the New Testament so pre- dominantly used to designate the Lord Jesus Christ, that it is always to be referred to him unless the con- text forbids it. Here the context so far from forbid- ding, requires such reference. For in the former part of the sentence Lord evidently designates Christ. “ Ye are light in the Lord, therefore, walk as children of the light, proving what is acceptable to the Lord.” This, therefore, is one of the numerous passages in the New Testament, in which Christ is recognized as the Lord of the conscience, whose will is to us the ultimate standard of right and wrong, and to whom we are responsible for all our inward and outward acts. It is thus that the sacred writers show that Christ was their God, in whose presence they constantly lived, whose favour they constantly sought, and on whom all their religious affections terminated. He was not merely the God of their theology, but of their religion.
V.11. The apostle having in the previous verse insisted on the duty of Christians of so walking as to show by their works that they were the subjects of divine illumination, adds here a statement of their duty in reference to the sins of those still in darkness. Those