1 C. F. Aked.
These Three.
v
Literature.
Abbott (E. A.), Oxford Sermons, 86.
Alexander (S. A.), The Christianity of St. Paul, 50.
Bevan (LI. D.), in Welshmen in English Pulpits, 266.
Bigg (C), The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, 260.
Bryant (S.), The Teaching of Christ, 98.
Campbell (L.), The Christian Ideal, 175.
Church (R. W.), Advent Sermons, 89 ; Village Sermons, iii. 74.
Clifford (J.), Typical Christian Leaders, 153.
Collyer (R.), Nature and Life, 62, 72.
Cross (J.), Pauline Charity, 239, 254.
Daplyn (E.), One with the Eternal, 62.
Davies (J.), The Kingdom without Observation, 103.
„ (J. LI.), Spiritual Apprehension, 26. Drummond (H.), The Greatest Thing in the World, 1.
„ (R. J.), Faith's Certainties, 235.
Gairdner (W. T.), The Three Things that Abide, 72. Gibson (J. M.), A Strong City, 53. Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 261. Gwatkin (H. M.), The Eye for Spiritual Things, 81. Henson (H. H.), Christ and the Nation, 296. Hughes (H. P.), The Philanthropy of God, 29. Inge (W. R.), All Saints' Sermons, 20. Ingram (A. F. W.), Banners of the Christian Faith, 32. Jerdan (C), For the Lambs of the Flock, 221. Lockyer (T. F.), Inspirations of the Christian Life, 35. Lorimer (G. C), The Modern Crisis in Pteligion, 230. Maclaren (A), Creed and Conduct, 26. Matheson (G.), TJioughtsfor Life's Journey, 19. Parkhurst (C. H.), A Little Lower than the Angels, 146.
„ „ The Sunny Side of Cliristianity, 1.
Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 243. Reynolds (H. R.), Light and Peace, 116. Robinson (J. A.), Unity in Christ, 181. Rowland (A.), The Exchanged Crowns, 29. Salmon (G.), Gnosticism, and Agnosticism, 205. Sanderson (T.), Unfulfilled Designs, 100. Simpson (A. R.), These Three, 39, 53. Skrine (J. H.), The Heart's Counsel, 115. Smith (D.), Man's Need of God, 13. Thorn (J. H.), A Spiritual Faith, 124. Wilson (J. M.), Clifton College Sermons, ii. 111.
These Three.
But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; and the greatest of these is love. — i Cor. xiii. 13.
1. If St. Paul had left us nothing but this exquisite hymn in praise of heavenly love, he would have established his claim to be a great religious genius. Happily it loses nothing in the English Version. The scholars who translated the Bible for James I.'s government seldom failed to rise to a great occasion; and this chapter in the Authorized Version is one of the finest bits of prose poetry that have been written in our language. But the lyric rapture is St. Paul's own. He was not, perhaps, a poet by nature; and a Eabbinical education was enough to dry up any but a very copious spring of poetic talent. But every now and then he is carried quite out of himself, and his words glow with a white heat of fervour and emotion. To read the thirteenth chapter after the twelfth, in which he discusses the relative merits of speaking with tongues and prophesying, is almost startling. " The more excellent way " once mentioned, the tide of pure inspiration flows swift and strong.
2. But even more remarkable than the sublime poetry of this chapter is the concluding verse : " Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love." In this verse St. Paul has found an absolutely complete and satisfactory formula for the Christian character. Faith, hope, and love, with love in the place of honour — is not this Christianity in a nutshell ? Within a few years after the Ascension, St. Paul has not only penetrated to the very heart of Christ's teaching, but has given us the kernel of the whole Gospel in one of those illuminating phrases which are a necessity for every great movement. So at
least the Church has always felt. The three emblematic figures
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394 THESE THREE
of the " theological virtues," as they were called, have been favourite themes of Christian art and Christian eloquence all over the world. What the cardinal virtues, Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance were to pagan antiquity ; what Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were to the French Eevolution; what the Eights of Man were to the founders of the American Eepublic ; what the three stages in the spiritual ascent — Purification, Illumination, Union with God — have been to mystics of all ages and countries, that Faith, Hope, and Love have been and are to the Christian. The imitation of Christ means the life of Faith, the life of Hope, the life of Love.
Tf Greek philosophy had proclaimed four cardinal virtues — justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude. Christian philosophy, following St. Paul, has taught during nineteen centuries that there are three specifically Christian graces — they are more than virtues — three primary and fundamental spiritual dispositions, which must dominate and permeate all true Christian character — Faith and Hope and Love.
This is one of the greatest of the great texts of the Bible. Let us take it in six parts —
Faith.
Hope.
Love.
These Three.
These Three Abide.
The Greatest of these Three.
FAITH.
1. St. Paul has written as vigorously of faith, if not with as much seraphic eloquence, as he here writes of love. He penned the most intellectual and profound of all his Epistles — that to the Eomans — to indicate the essential excellence, the justifying and soul-saving power of faith. We who have come to receive the truth which filled and fired the soul of the Apostle Paul have learned that by faith the just live. It is a rational and necessary spiritual ingredient of the truest manhood. We regard it as the channel through which God's righteousness pours into the soul ; as our gate of access into the kingdom of grace, standing like the