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never draw upon without satisfying response, cannot but command our grateful and adoring love. Through patience, then, thought and feeling are carried up to their highest, till they prostrate themselves in lowly reverence at the feet of Him " who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
(2) The Greek conception in the word translated " godliness " is loyalty.— ThViQ it was understood by the Athenians centuries before it was used by the Apostle Peter. That it is charged with a deeper and fuller significance when employed in the New Testament we admit. Nevertheless this is the fundamental idea, and it signifies the adjustment of the life to a higher order, the tuning of the purpose to a loftier strain, the ranging of the affections around a new centre, and the direction of the powers to nobler and grander, because unselfish, ends. There is, then, no higher thing than duty. To it everything must bow ; in its performance no human relationship, however binding, no, not even human life itself, must be taken into account. The supreme test of Christian discipleship is unquestioning loyalty to Jesus Christ, and it will be for ever true that he who loses his life for the sake of Christ and duty, will find it enlarged, enriched, and ennobled a hundredfold in the light beyond the veil.
(3) Godliness is simply godliheness. — There are features of character which belong exclusively to God, in which man can never become like God. For God is unique. He is the Source of all power; He is eternal. He is almighty, He is present every- where. And finite beings can never resemble Him in these respects. But the mere infinite of quantity has nothing to do with moral and spiritual attributes. We may be like God in patience, we may be like Him in love, " Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you ; that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust," We may become like God in His love to men, in His patience and forbearance with men, in His hopefulness for them, and in His toil and labour for them, as He strives to win them for Himself, and to make them make themselves fit for the Kingdom of God.
^ This new rank carries with it new and corresponding obliga- tions. St, Peter reminds us that we are the children of the Highest, in order that he may create within us the sense of
2 PETER I. 5-7 183
noUesse oblige. Our conceptions of the new life, its scope and scale, its relations and responsibilities, must necessarily react on conduct. We cannot live it nobly unless we think of it grandly. We must remember our high origin if we would not fail of our great destiny. Let us challenge with the poet any philosophy of life that would lower its dignity or degrade its rank. We are not
Cunning casts in clay : Let Science prove we are, and then What matters Science unto men. At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springs Hereafter, up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape,
But I was lorn to other things.^
VIL
Brothekly-Love.
Brotherly-love is the love of the brotherhood, " the household of faith." It is the fraternal or family affection of Christianity which unites together, or ought to unite, all those who profess to regard themselves as " heirs together of the grace of life." Christians are represented as the " sons and daughters of God Almighty " ; as " members one of another " ; — as, " in the Lord," " brothers " and " sisters " ; — as united in Him from whom " the whole family in heaven and in earth is named " ; — as constituting His " Body," and as so pervaded by a common consciousness and a common sentiment, that " whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." The feeling that comes next to the love of God is, or ought to be, the love of godlike men.
1. In love of the brethren there are no distinctions. — This love is without partiality. In Christ, so far as thorough interest and sympathy are concerned, natural and artificial distinctions are superseded ; " there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free : but Christ is
^ H. Howard, The Summits of the Soul, 59.
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all, and in all." He makes each like the others by making all like Himself. He requires, therefore, mutual recognition and love — -family-love, where there is family-likeness. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." " We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." " He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." " If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " " Let him that saith he loves God, see to it that he love his brother also."