PHILIPPIANS II. 12, 13 311
agents, are not from us in their motive cause. The will is wrought in us by God, and the action is wrought by us, as the instruments of the inworking agency of God.
^ Feelings are given not merely to be enjoyed, but as motives of action. Professor James advises that we should not even listen to a concert without compelling ourselves to perform also some kind and considerate act for the sake of preserving the balance between feeling and will power. The law of life is: "This do, and thou shalt live." Feelings may ebb and flow, but right doing is always possible —
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides;
But tasks, in hours of insight will'd,
May be through hours of gloom fulfiU'd.
The Excellent Exchange.
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Literature.
Bain (J. A. K.), in The Church on the Sea, 17.
Ballard (F.), Does it Matter what a Man Believes ? 106.
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 259.
Davies (T.), Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, 176.
Hare (J. C), Parish Sermons, 205.
Jordan (W. G.), The Philippian Gospel, 173.
Maggs (J. T. L.), The Spiritual Experience of St. Paul, 32.
Meyer (F. B.), Paul, 17.
Moule (H. C. G.), ChrisVs Witness to the Life to Gome, 107.
Murray (A.), Abide in Christ, 113.
Noble (F. A.), Discourses on the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, 169.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 377.
Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, 2nd Ser., 384.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxiii. (1877), No. 1357 ;
Ivi. (1910), No. 3209. Thomson (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 71. Wilson (J. M.), Truths New and Old, 10. Yorke (H. L.), The Law of the Spirit, 207. Young (D. T.), The Crimson Book, 35. Cambridge Review, xii. Supplement No. 301. Christian World Pulpit, 1. 137 (Thomas) ; liii. 389 (Webb-Peploe).
8M
The Excellent Exchange.
Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.— Phil. iii. 7-9.
1. The Apostle indulges here in spiritual paradox. He speaks of losses that were gains, and of gains that were losses. And we shall understand him only if we remember that life is to be con- sidered from two sides — from the outside and the inside, from the external and the internal, from the visible and the invisible, from the physical and the spiritual. He who comes to the Bible, more particularly the later portion of it, in order to understand it must see life as it does, must climb to its vantage ground, and breathe its bracing air. It is characteristic of the Word of God that it is always looking at life from the inside and not the outside, from the interior and not the exterior, from the invisible and not the visible, from the eternal and not the temporal, from the spiritual and not the physical. He, therefore, who would come to an adequate comprehension of the genius of the Word of God, and who would possess himself of the clues by which its spiritual paradoxes are to be rendered clear, must look at life through its eyes, and from its heights.
2. Notice, then, that this is not the utterance of youth, im- passioned, and therefore hasty ; sanguine of imagined good, and pouring out its prodigal applause. It is Paul, the man, who speaks, with ripened wisdom on his brow, and gathering around him the experience of years. It is Paul, the aged, who speaks, who is not ignorant of what he says, who has rejoiced in the
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3i6 THE EXCELLENT EXCHANGE
excellent knowledge through all the ^acissitudes of a veteran's life, alike amid the misgivings of a Church and the perils of his journeys, alike when first worshipped and then stoned at Lystra, in the prison at Philippi, and in the Areopagus at Athens ; alike when in the early council it strengthened him, " born out of due time," to withstand to the face Peter, the elder Apostle, because he was to be blamed, and when, melted into almost womanly tender- ness on the seashore at Miletus, it nerved him for the heart- breaking of that sad farewell ; alike when buffeting the wintry blasts of the Adriatic, and when standing, silver-haired and solitary, before the bar of Nero. It is he of amplest experience who has tried it under every conceivable circumstance of mortal lot, who, now that his eye has lost its early fire, and the spring and summer are gone from him, feels its genial glow in the kindly winter of his years. Where can we find testimony more con- clusive and valuable ?
L
What Paul Eenounced.
1. Paul gives a catalogue of the gains that once were his.
(1) They include, to begin with, inherited privileges. First: " circumcised the eighth day." His parents were neither heathen nor sons of Ishmael. He was not a proselyte, but a born Jew. Second: "of the stock of Israel." He was regularly descended from the founder of the race. " Are they Israelites ? so am I." Third: "of the tribe of Benjamin." This was one of the most distinguished of the tribes. It was the tribe of the first king. It was the tribe which was alone faithful to Judah in the great division. Fourth : " a Hebrew of the Hebrews." Lightfoot says : " Many of those whose descent was unimpeachable and who inherited the faith of the Mosaic law, yet, as living among heathens, adopted the language and conformed to the customs of the people around them. Not so were the forefathers of Saul of Tarsus. There had been no Hellenist among them. They were all strict Hebrews from first to last." For Paul, therefore, to say that he was a strict Hebrew, or a Hebrew of Hebrews, was more than for him to say that he was an Israelite. The Hebrew was