Death and darkness, get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking; All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marr'd is mended;
1 Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 287.
i CORINTHIANS xv. 20 481
Graves are beds now for the weary,
Death a nap, to wake more merry;
Youth now, full of pious duty,
Seeks in thee for perfect beauty;
The weak and aged, tired with length
Of days, from Thee look for new strength;
And infants with Thy pangs contest
As pleasant as if with the breast.
Then unto Him, who thus hath thrown
Even to contempt Thy kingdom down,
And by His blood did us advance
Unto His own inheritance;
To Him be glory, power, praise,
From this unto the last of days.1
1 Henry Vaughan.
I COR. — 31
The Christian Knight.
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, iii. 97. Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, v. 215. Armitage (W. J.), The Fruit of the Spirit, 76. Bell (C. D.), The Name above Every Name, 111. Brown (H. S.), Manliness and Other Sermons, 9. Burrell (D. J.), The Religion of the Future, 154. Butler (H. M.), Public School Sermons, 173. Campbell (L.), The Christian Ideal, 148. Clarke (G.), True Manhood, Womanhood, 1.
„ (J. E.), Common-Life Sermons, 61. Creighton (M.), Claims of the Common Life, 64, 71, 78. Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 139.
„ (R. B.), College Sermons, 60. Farrar (F. W.), Bells and Pomegranates, 255. Green (W. H.), in Princeton Sermons, 235. Greenhough (J. G.), in The Ladder of Life, 123.
Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 161. Jenkins (E. E.), Addresses and Sermons, 149.
Jerdan (C), Messages to the Children, 131, 177.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Miscellaneous, 487.
Little (W. J. Knox), The Perfect Life, 48.
Lyttelton (A.), College and University Sermons, 179.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 252.
Matheson (G.), Messages of Hope, 31.
Moore (A. L.), Some Aspects of Sin, 3, 15, 28, 39.
Ryle (H. E.), On the Church of England, 92, 243.
Shore (T. T.), Some Difficulties of Belief , 271.
Thorn (J. H.), Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, i. 345.
Vaughan (C. J.), Christ and Human Instincts, 89.
„ (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xi. (1875) No. 949; xvii. (1879) No. 1091 ; xxiv. (1S84) No. 1265.
Christian Age, liii. 66 (Green).
Christian World Pulpit, v. 23 (Barfield) ; xxviii. 395 (Tyler) ; xliv. 157 (Neil), 353 (Farrar); xlvi. 65 (Farrar), 78 (Macleod); lxxiv. 79 (Hardy) ; lxxix. 124 (Hedley).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., vi. 316 (Burn).
Eomiletic Review, xx. 49 (Green) ; xxi. 433 (Ludlow).
<J The Christian Knight.
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love.— i Cor. xvi. 13, 14.
1. This passage occurs at the end of St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Church, in which he has been reproving them for their divisions, and for the irregularities that have grown up among them. At the end of the Epistle, the Apostle has finished his hortatory remarks, and is adding a few personal messages, and giving directions about some practical points of Church administra- tion, when, having occasion to mention the name of Apollos, he seems to have been reminded afresh of the irregularities he has been writing to censure. He thinks of the Corinthians and their errors; he thinks of their unstable minds, of their wandering imaginations; he thinks sadly how little impression his advice will produce ; he doubts if he fcas spoken clearly enough, forcibly enough, if he has said all that can be said ; then, as if to make sure, as if to clench his other precepts, as if to sum up in a few words all he has to say, as if to give the Corinthians some plain advice that they may easily keep in their memory, he chooses these few incisive words to serve as mottoes to recur to his hearers' minds in vacant hours : " Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love."
2. The language is military. St. Paul had never seen an
engagement, but he was familiar with barrack life, and one can
imagine that there were aspects of that life that charmed him ; its
simple and absolute devotion, its discipline, its esprit de corps, the
two elements of its might, unity and obedience, and the heroic
qualities which were begotten of its dangers and its laurels. When
he borrows a figure from the guardroom or the battlefield, the
fidelity and spirit with which he uses it show that the allusion
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486 THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT
is not a mere grace of style; it is a vital constituent of the thought. To him Christian life was a contest, and he transfers to Christian action the nomenclature of camps.
There are five precepts. And the fifth, though it is found in a separate verse, should on no account be left out. First there is the introductory call, Be awake ! Then there are two pairs : Be godly, and be manly ; be strong, and be tender.
I. Be awake—" Watch ye."
Be godly — " Stand fast in the faith." Be manly — "Quit you like men."